Shoshanablank’s Weblog

Hello Friends and Family!

My first blog post…ever. As almost everyone reading this blog knows, I am flying to Taiwan this Sunday, August 17th, and I’m not coming back to the states until December 21! I’m not going to be in Taiwan the entire four months, really only four days. After Taiwan, I’ll be heading to Malaysia for another four days, and after that I’ll be in India for four months. I’ll be studying abroad there with nine other students from St. Olaf College in a school program called “Biology in South India”.

On this trip I will not be staying in one place in India for the entire time. For the first few weeks the whole group will stay at a guest house in Chennai (big city). This guest house is called ICSA (Inter-Church Service Association). During this month we will take a class on Indian culture and also get settled into the Indian way of life, such as learning how to shop and getting around. My address during this time (August 28th – September 18th) is below. Just in case you want to write me (I’ll write you back!) it might take a while for your letter to get there, so start writing now please.

Attn: Shoshana Blank

Dr. Moses P. Manohar

Inter-Church Service Association (ICSA)

Post Box No. 771

107 (old #93) Pantheon Road,

Egmore, Chennai 600 008

INDIA

After Chennai, the group will be splitting up into smaller groups in order to start our first research project at our respective sites. I will be at the Kodaikanal International School from September 25th through October 30th with Rebecca Rand. We are so pumped to live in Kodai, where the hiking and natural beauty are plentiful. I will be studying water quality there, so I will get a lot of outdoors time!

Next, we all go on our travel break around India for two weeks. The Taj Mahal is for sure on our list of places to go and there’s been talk of the Himalayas.

For my second research project, I will be in Auroville, an international community just outside of Pondicherry. I’ll be staying there with Kate Sullivan, Kayli Henry, and Rebecca Dyer and studying air quality. I have all my air pumps and filter packed away already! This will last until Dec. 16. Then we will probably all go to the beach for a few days and head out of India on Dec. 20th.

If you haven’t already noticed, I use commas a lot when I type. Sorry, it’s a habit. I like complex sentences and I have a hard time inserting semi-colons.

Anyways, I am VERY EXCITED! Right now I am packing, pretty much done. My backpack is loaded with everything imaginable: rain coat, sleeping bag, anti-diarrheal meds (for all the Indian food). I just tried to put the backpack on and almost broke myself in the process. I actually just got in a bike accident last week and have a hematoma in my ab muscle, so I probably shouldn’t do that again without help!

Of course there’s the last minute errands that I have been running for the past few days and still have a bunch to do tomorrow including buying some presents from my home state of Colorado to give to the nice Indian people that will take care of us over there. But I also am going to see “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2″ tomorrow!!!

So this blog will probably really start to get interesting once I actually leave the country. I will post pictures and write about all of the amazing experiences that I am going to have. So please stay tuned for Taiwan!

LOVE LOVE LOVE

Shoshana