I was going to write about thanksgiving break in DC and the end of this semester. But I got to know of two very close friends who lost their fathers today. Very sudden and unexpected. And a third friend who faced a similar loss a few weeks back. It's scary, such news, especially when you're so far away. It can change people's lives in a second. I'm just so upset right now. My heart goes out to them. We've been through years and years of knowing each others' families and some part of me wants to cry. And question what has happened. It tires me that I'll never get a satisfactory answer.

Fall break in the City was good. It surprises me how every time I visit, I find new places to go and see! But even if I didn't, I'd just walk all day long in the streets of new york and never get bored. Well, almost never :) We managed to catch the last bus out of NYC before Sandy hit. The brother had stories of Sandy. In Ithaca however even a hurricane can't hurt you. Imagine the collective disappointment of students here when we got that email saying the university would be open! Haha! Looking back, I am not one bit surprised :p 

Third year here and I am fed up. Honestly. All this while I was thinking it was because of the 8.40 TA class every morning, but it's not just that. It's just the small-town-ishness, it's finally getting to me. Yes, go ahead and laugh. I have been grumpy almost every single day. There's no new place to get coffee, to get food or to go shopping. . I have begun using my yoga as an escape from the university and university-related-people more often than before. I even looked forward to going back to the church here that partly funded my summer fieldwork, just so I could see regular people. Not people from the department or research group or library. So yes, I've been pretty annoyed this semester. I'll probably be spending the Spring in India setting up a survey. That, at the moment, has been a source of un-ending anxiety. . It is going to be so much work, at so many levels, that  thinking about it makes me want to hold my head in my hands and just cry a bit. . So if they do let me take the semester off, I also need to find a sublet for this house. . Pack up again. Find a place to dump everything. . I also don't like my new house that much. I mean, I like it's big and roomy with lots of windows and sunlight (half the year?!) but it's too noisy. Especially on the weekends. Annoying undergrads exchanging their life stories in a state of drunkenness right under my window. . 

Anyway enough cribbing. Diwali was good. I got the annual diwali hamper :) Plue RG was in Delhi so we had a 1.5 hour family skype session (just like every other Indian I know here). I saw the flowers and lights and diyas and heard the crackers going off .... even the latter annoyed me :p   . 

Some nice things have happened though. I went to a beautiful Odissi performance on campus. Happiness also came in the form of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli thanks to cornell cinema - some re-runs don't get old. That and the fact that we do have a special place for his films :D Thanksgiving break is coming up next week and then a wedding in Chicago the week after that, so....there's still some hope I guess.