GSC Connect.

I’ve taken a quick break from documenting my own experience to write a quick message for those who are visiting this site for the first time.  If you’re looking for a completely unique internship experience, no matter what your field of study, I strongly encourage you to take advantage of what GSC has to offer.  With connections across India, GSC can be the link between your resume and an institution or position that allows you to build your own skills in an international environment.

With a bit of initiative, internships can be found almost anywhere…here are a few examples:

• Researching at the Himalayan Bioresource Institute
• Learning firsthand from doctors at the Palampur Civil Hospital
• Developing extra-curricular programs and enriching the educational experience at KLBDAV College for Girls
• Experiencing new perspectives on food and nutrition through Himachal Pradesh University’s home sciences program

I’m here as a resource for you during your search.  Feel free to add comments with your questions!

Landour in the Early Morning

Namaste.  Yesterday was my first series of lessons at the Landour Language School.  The school has been teaching Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani and Sanskrit to foreigners for over 100 years and has developed its own curriculum based on immediate use of the Devangari script and one-on-one intensive instruction.  I will be taking a week-long survey of Hindustani, with four hours of instruction and two hours of home study for seven days.  My first lesson was with Kumud-ji, who taught me the basic sentence structures for “what is this?” and “this is a ____.”  In Hindi, the subject comes first, followed by the object, followed by the verb.  So the phrase “what is this?” translates literally to “this what is?”  I don’t know enough symbols yet to type that question in Devanagari, so here’s the approximation in Roman characters: “Ye kyā hai?”  The second lesson was with Principal Datt-ji, who decided that I needed to be challenged with grammar rules.  I have never been good at ascertaining the grammatical nuances of language systems other than English, so I was a bit apprehensive about having such a lesson with the principal of the school.  We went through three chapters of the textbook in a series of lessons that was supposed to last from 16:00-17:30p but ended up going until 18:00.  We covered adjective placement, basic masculine/feminine rules, and I learned a more complex sentence structure than “ye…hai” (this is).  In Hindi, the placement of prepositions is after the word to which it refers (so they’re called postpositions).  Instead of saying “the pen is in the pocket,” one would say “pen pocket in is,” or “qalām jēb mēn hai.”

On a different note, the power has been extremely sporadic at the guesthouse, so it’s lucky that I have batteries and have been fortunate enough to charge them when necessary.  Further, the water heater requires 30 minutes of sustained power to get the water anywhere above 18 degrees Celsius.  That is making bucket baths quite the experience, considering that the air temperature has not exceeded 20 degrees C since I arrived in Landour.  The altitude has been surprisingly easy to handle, except for the time yesterday that I decided it would be a good idea to walk 700 feet down the mountain and then walk back up again (of course it started raining heavily as soon as I started the return journey).  I haven’t had anaerobic exercise like that since cross country days.

After morning lessons concluded, we had loose-leaf tea made with raw sugar and milk that had barely left the cow.  Yē acchhi chai hāi.