Speedy lil post

hey all,
so i wanted to use this forum to inform you of my new life plans. By life i just mean next semester. i am going to go to the art institute of chicago and take poetry classes there and will probably be living with moira/goni/lizi. i am so excited about it. i am sad that i wont be staying in madurai for longer, because there is still a ton of stuff i want to do here that i have a feeling i just wont get to do in a month and a half, but i think it is the best thing for me. since my program is so ethnographically focused and ethnography is cool and all but not really my thing, and since writing is really my thing, i figured i should be doing that during my precious college years instead of something that i am only semi-jazzed about. so theres that. it was a really really difficult decision, but i think it makes the most sense for me right now. i feel like i would have a tinge of regret whether i stayed here or not, because the grass is always greener right?
there are two good parts about not staying for the year:
1. everything is much more immediate now, like every day is a possibility to do something great, and i would hate to waste these potentially great days, especially because i may never get to experience this place again.
2. now i get to travel after the program is over! im fairly certain i will be coming home on december 22nd instead of november 30th, and a bunch of my frends here are leaving on the 21st, so we are going to take a whirlwind tour around the country! the potential itinerary is as follows: chennai, andaman islands, calcutta, darjheeling, varanassi, agra, jaipur, udaipur, mumbai, chennai, home. its gonna be nuts, and involve taking a lot of trains, which i am very pleased about.
other than that i have been very well, getting stuff organized with slc and the art institute is stressful, and this week is my midterms, for which i have to write three papers and take two tests. ugh. we also started learning tamil script in the last week, and it is kicking my butt. it is really complicated, and i am slowly figuring out which letters make which sounds, but it is not an easy path. not impossible, but not easy. i had an interview two days ago with a guy named Krishnun, who started an organization called the Akshaya Trust, and he feeds homeless mentally ill people. he was really really cool and nice, and i am thinking of doing my independent study project about perceptions of the mentally ill in tamil nadu. so we will see what happens with that. overall i am really happy, the other day i biked a couple miles into downtown madurai, and i felt really accomplished, like i actually knew my way around a little bit, and i could even bike through downtown rush hour indian traffic. no small task.
i am really happy about getting all of these decisions made and work being done, i feel like a new woman. also we are going on tour to Mysore in a week, which is the home of my favorite indian sweet called "mysorepak" which is delicious. so if you are in a south indian bakery, get some. hopefully ill be able to post again soon about my new tour.
i love you.
Emma

ps- my yom kippur was a little lonely, but overall really refreshing. i just thought about things (mostly things involving fancy cheeses that are only accesible via Sam's Club) and wrote a lot about the past year and life in general. I felt really isolated from my surroundings in a deep way for the first time, which is interesting because i am in INDIA where i should feel really different from everything around me. But last night was my first real bout of homesickness, when i really wanted to be surrounded by the people i love. I guess that's what the holidays do to you. THEY ARE CREATED TO CONTROL US. i am hoping to make matza ball soup sometime in the near future, providing that my host mom ever lets me into the kitchen again after i almost burned the house down. but thats a story for another day. I have to go do some real work, ugh. Wrote a poem the other day that i liked, kinda. Here it is:

Before you fall asleep

I just wanted to tell you about

a bird I saw yesterday. It was yellow,

the color of cornsilk, so pale,

it had a body shaped like a bell,

and if it was a bell it would be

in the top of an ancient tower in Venice,

that’s how stunning it was. I think

it was supposed to be a butterfly but someone

fucked with it’s DNA and now

it’s hovering somewhere with a hammer

singing in it’s chest, building a nest,

and maybe one day ill catch it

and squeeze it so tight the little heart will pop,

red balloon all over my hands,

and ill walk back home in silence

and turn on the porch light

just to watch the moths for a while,

slamming their bodies against

the white fluorescent tube.