A Week of Events

This week has been hectic here- my life in India has always been a little overwhelming, but this week there was quite a few events that kept me pretty busy!
On tuesday evening, Rianna (the other exchange student from NY) and I went together to the Coimbatore rail station to meet up with a group of exchange students from Pune (near Mumbai) who were coming through Coimbatore from Ooty. We arrived there a bit early and just hung out for a while until, suddenly, there was a group of foreigners standing in front of us! It was so weird, and honestly VERY cool to see so many foreigners all in one place- all of them are around my age too! We all introduced ourselves to them and they introduced themselves. There were several girls from the US too! One from Montana and the other from Ohio! There were also students from Germany, Belgium, Finland, Brazil, and Colombia! Rianna and I had a lot of fun getting to talk to all of the kids, even though we only could talk for about an hour before their next train, it was worth the trip to go and meet them! I had been corresponding with a Rotarian in their district, and he was a chaperone on this trip. This Rotary district goes on quite a few trips, and so it's been great to have contacts because now Rianna and I have been invited to join in on them! We are both planning to go to Goa with this same group in December- which will be absolutely AWESOME!
On Wednesday I came home to an empty apartment. My host mother's company was having a bg meeting all day and my host father left for Germany over the weekend, so for the first time I was on my own in the kitchen! At first it didn't go so well...my first attempt at making a dosa completely failed, but learning from the mistakes that I made I was able to make the next few perfectly! Then came the microwave to heat up the dahl...I guess I wasn't thinking because I stupidly reached in and grabbed the metal dish- completely burning the skin off of my right thumb...yea not so fun! But, I think it was pretty good for my first time alone!
At school lately everything has been centered around the swine flu. Yes, it's a problem here too. A few kids from my school were diagnosed last week, and therefore the school wanted to take precautions and hired a doctor to come and check all of the students in each of the classes where a student had been sick. It's crazy! Every student is being checked, and every kid who shows any symptoms at all is sent home for a week. The entire 12th grade has three days off because over half of the class had symptoms and was under observation!
Today is Thursday and I woke up to a cool morning and dew on all of the flowers outside. It had rained hard overnight, and on the way to school in the van we drove through several puddles (that looked like small lakes!), arriving at school and then tracking in all of the mud from our shoes. The day was overcast, and for the first time (while in Coimbatore) I felt chilly in the afternoon breeze. The school seemed quiet without the 12th grade, and since the kids are taking exams this week I have been free for the first three periods every morning. Therefore today, with the cool weather and dark skies it was hard to stay awake! The halls were silent and I took advantage of the silence and studied some vocabulary from my SAT book (yea...the SAT. Might as well study when I have time right?)
I just got home about an hour ago, and after helping my host mom type and email and eating lunch, here I am blogging. We are going to be leaving in just a few minutes to go to Padma's house (where I made a teddy bear near the beginning of my stay) and we'll be discussing the details for my Delhi trip with her and a few of her friends! We'll be leaving on the 16th and we'll be gone for a week! I'm so excited!!! I can't wait to see the Taj Mahal!