This blog is shutting down

After experimenting with having multiple blogs, I've decided it's not working and I'm consolidating them all. All new content is going to blog.mikedll.com.

Writing about my 31 days here was probably a way to keep me motivated, and it gave me a place to rant and whine, but the posts here aren't really that interesting.

Today was a good day

Today was good day.

At Total Mall, I remembered to have my groceries weighed before going to the checkout aisle. At the check out station, a woman cut in front of me without even asking, having only a couple items. I didn't blink - I happily permitted it. I bought pre-cut carrots, green beans, and cauliflower for $0.20. I also bought a few small potatoes for about $0.10 and a head of broccoli for $0.60. I paid using my Gift Card. I may begin violating loyalty to Food World and go to Total Mall more often. This amounted to 4 cups of vegitables.

It was lightly raining when I walked home. My Nike Fit DRY shirts stay dry.

I feel that living in a city saves time. I bet this is one reason that they are expensive, and why only the worlds' most effective people can afford to live in cities like New York, London, Tokyo, or Paris.

Slower pace of posts

No daily posts will be coming anymore; I have two planned for August, and I plan to add some details on my departure from Redlands, including my packing list. Possibly my Doctor visits.

Day 31, Sunday, Home

Today I woke up late around 1:30pm, walked into the livingroom to where my computer is, and mentally left India (or Earth) and spent the next twelve hours on the internet or in the memory of my computer.

I took a break to go to the market within the complex. We have a market called "manos" - I don't know if that's a possessive noun or what. Where I live, most of the food markets are not much larger than convenience stores or liquor stores in the United States. They have aisles and sections like an American supermarket, but the aisles are only a third as long. The meat and freezer sections may not exist. The produce section occupies a corner of the store. The checkout aisles hold two people in line at a time.

Many of the markets, electronics stores, or clothing stores have multiple floors despite having, or perhaps due to having, so little space. I visited a Gym called Chisel India that had a "Cardiac" floor, an "Aerobic" floor, a "Free weights" floor, and the "Reception" floor. A small spiral staircase connected them.

The market in our apartment complex is in the basement. Weaving your way among the parked cars, you can find the open door in the basement wall. It isn't under my "B block" apartment building, it's under "M" block, so I have to walk by several apartment buildings, cross the park, and finally walk a ramp underground into the basement. The basement has concrete beams that are less than six feet above the ground, so I bend down as I approach the entrance.

The "Chemist/Druggist", which is normally open right beside the market, was closed today.

Ankit asked me to get him some bread, and I've learned the type he likes. It is different from the kind I like. I also needed to order a 20 liter bottle of drinking water to be delivered to our room. I took a few moments to locate the bread. A man was having a conversation with the cashier despite having already purchased his goods. I could wait behind the man, but I took position to the side of him and plopped my items on the counter top. The cashier calculated my total on a calculator. I say that I don't need a bag - or "cover" as it is sometimes called - for my bread.

All the super markets do something to avoid giving out plastic bags. In Manos, they have a sign that says "Please protect our environment and reuse covers". At the Total Mall supermarket, they charge Rs. 1 to use biodegradable plastic bags. At Foodworld, they use biodegradable plastic bags by default. You can tell when the bags are biodegradable, because they have a very organic aroma.

I then asked for an order of water, delivered to B-32, my room. "--- --- pay?", the man mumbled. I only heard the word "pay" in what he asked me, but I knew that he was asking whether I would pay for the water with him, or when it was delivered. I point up toward the buildings above our heads, and I say "Can I pay when it is delivered?", and he nods his head.

"Okay, thank you" I said on my way out. He lowered his head back to whatever it is he does when he's not attending to a customer, meaning "okay".

For some reason, I felt more confident, comfortable, and "at home" during this entire interaction. Instead of escaping from the conversation, I waited patiently for it to finish. On days like this, I feel like I am at home. I am not surrounded by any degree of poverty in this place. Most of the tenants are wealthy enough to function. It feels comfortable.

I returned to my apartment and continued work at the computer.

Day 30, Saturday, Moving into Shashi's Room

Today is India's independence day, so the streets will be crowded with a lot of random celebrations. I will avoid going out to see them.

I got up a late, but went down to the gym anyway. In honor of the Holiday, there were some parents watching their kids going through some sort of...kid show.

My roommate Ankit is housing his girlfriend for the next two weeks. She flew into Bangalore last night, so I've moved out of that room and into Shashi's room. With the girlfriend over, there is some silliness going on. It seems that they will not be coming out much, and that they will be secluded in the bedroom for most hours of the day.

Moving in with Shashi was strange at first because the two of us had had very little rapport. One thing he and I both have in common is that we are very quiet. It is effortless to "be myself" in the sense that I can be quiet around him. We don't exchange many words. I feel comfortable sleeping in his room, though - more comfortable than I did in Ankit's room. I'm not sure why that is. When I get into my mosquito net, I often have a blanket thrown over the top, so I can't see or hear much. It's like sleeping in a coffin; it strongly promotes sleep.

Most of today, tomorrow, and likely Monday, will be consumed with attempts to rush as many updates as I can to my website(s). I am bitter, but I "don't have time" to work on studying. This is a violation to the rule in my philosophy about working on a diverse set of activities, and I will likely regret it very soon.

Day 29, Friday, Visiting ThoughtWorks' Bangalore Office; Meeting People

Yesterday before going into the city, I visited ThoughtWorks. This is a company that I've applied to twice in the past - once in 2006, and once in 2007. In 2006, I was not in a good mood, and I quit my interview process early when I found out I had a waiting offer at Advatech Pacific. By 2007, ThoughtWorks was looking for Rails developers and they rejected my lack of experience with it. My intention was to come to Bangalore with a job through them, but obviously that didn't happen. By coincidence, their sole office in Bangalore is also located within my complex. I didn't plan it this way, this just happened to be where I found Ankit. I introduced myself at the front desk and was told to have a seat. Phani Kumar, the recruiter, came to meet me. He chatted with me in an office that was separate from the main work area. It was very pleasant to meet him, and to see the ThoughtWorks open-plan office. I subscribe to the belief that an open-plan office is hard on concentration, but besides that, this is probably one of the best companies for me to work for in all of India. I need to generate income.

Today I sent my resume. This is the second resume that I have sent out since being here.

While working on the resume in the morning, the power went out twice. The first time it was out for about thirty minutes, and the second time I was too angry to wait to see when it would come back on. I went to run errands instead.

I went back to Nokia and returned the GSM cell phone that I bought last week. I will continue to live without a cell phone.

According to Ankit and according to my receipt, returning the phone was not really acceptable. When I took the phone back, they only gave me Rs. 700, while I paid Rs. 1990 for it. They also did this "off the record" - what they actually (told me that they) do is call a vendor who sells used cell phones, and ask him what he is charging for that type of phone. They pay me cash for it and then give it to him to sell. For all I know, this will be a street vendor in the middle of the city. They explained this to me in a friendly and patient manner.

For having an Indian phone number (to give to Pizza delivery people and what not), I will depend on a landline. Shashi has one. I had completely forgotten about landlines for awhile, but now that I remembered them, it is a relief.

I accept the loss as a careless purchase. I am not sure why I was so insistent on having a cell in the first place. I think I went out and bought one just so I could feel like I was "getting something done" - as if spending money on something counts as getting something done.

In the evening, I went to meet some people from the IndiaMike website. IndiaMike is a huge forum devoted to travelers around India. Two others showed up to the "meetup" - Anita and Sidhart.

Sidhart grew up in Dehli and now works in Hydrabad, but he had done tons of traveling throughout Northern India. He had also visited Europe for a little while. He had a knack for languages, and was familiar with about a dozen of them.

Anita grew up and lived in Bangalore. She had recently taken a year off of work to spend time traveling. She comes and goes every few weeks and organizes her schedule around spending time with her family. She also works with an NGO and had good ideas about how I could get involved.

If I do spend time volunteering, it will be a terrific opportunity for me to spend some time around kids. I will regard it as my first opportunity. She also said that it would be a great way to meet other people.

The three of us chatted for about an hour and a half. Midway through our conversation, we got some drinks. I ordered a hot chocolate. Ganesh, the barista, knew me by name. I had come in the day before to ask about the place, and before I left he asked "What is your good name?"

My good name...

Day 28, Thursday, Second Exploration of the City

Near lunchtime outside of the shopping complex, Lifestyle, on the corner of Victoria Road and Richmond Road. A larger version is available here. I used Photoshop's Photomerge tool to do this; you can see some of the merging defects in the photo.

Today I spent four and a half hours walking 12 miles (19km) near the center of the city. I've expanded the area of Bangalore that I know about. It is not that large of a city; half or maybe even less than half of the area of Los Angeles. This was the longest journey away from home that I've taken by myself so far; indeed it was the farthest I've ventured from home so far.

View Mike's Early India Locales in a larger map

I left at 10:30am and was desperately running out of energy until I fortunately found a market that sold dry, packaged food.

I visited a place that would repair pressure cookers, a Fedex dispatch office, a very large shopping center, a small mall, a small gym, the very busy Brigade road, Richmond Town, and MG road.

After getting home, I went to the gym and did some stretching for forty five minutes. I ordered a pizza, and spent time catching up on a few emails.

I took a lot of pictures, and I hope to share more of them soon.