It is Wednesday morning at 6:11 am and I have just woken up from sleeping for 10 and a half hours. I pretty much hit the sack right after arriving home and did not even “take dinner” as it is called here. My shirt is cold and damp from sweat, and my back feels like it is being pulled in a million different directions. It seems that all I do in my day here is try to survive work and make it till 6pm without feeling sick, and then get back home to get as much sleep as I can. I’ll be honest when I say I’m at a point where I feel bad health will plague me the rest of my trip, but hopefully that will not be the case and all I will have to do is stay positive.
So yesterday started off well. When I woke I felt a lot better than the day before when I experienced heat exhaustion, and I was very excited to give work another try now that my bosses would be in. In the three long hours in the morning between when I wake up at 6:30 and when I go to work at 9:30, I did some yoga enthusiastically, apparently too enthusiastically because I pulled my lower and mid back and am now paying for it. After another sweet bike ride, the workday started again with a prayer and a presentation, and this time it was translated to me. The summarized version of the story goes as follows:
A man gets angry all the time, so his father says every time you get angry, drive a nail into a plank. He does this and finally after the plank is full, the son does not get angry any more. He feels he is cured so he tells his father that he now knows how to divert his anger and not become so upset anymore. After hearing that his father replies that from now on, whenever he would have gotten angry and does not, he needs to go to the plank and pull out one of the nails. The son obliges and after a while, all the nails are out of the plank and all that remains is a plank littered with holes. He goes to his father again to tell him the news and his father replies, “ Son, every time you get angry, the damage will not leave you. It will create a hole in you, so do not get angry.”
After the story, everyone is supposed to provide feedback. They asked me what I thought. I said that in my life at home it is easy to get stressed over the little things, but I have to remember what’s important. Looking back, I can say that without a doubt I have had trouble with this concept and that my health is a key indicator of this. It is very obvious that right now I am littered with holes that will never go away- once you live unhealthily you cannot get that time back. What I can do is promise myself that I am going to stop drilling nails into myself, stop creating holes, and stop being unhealthy. I don’t know what it will take for me to get that balance into my life, but it will definitely start with losing my perfectionist attitude. I need to be more understanding of myself, and that a little of everything is better than having all my eggs in one basket.
Anyway, back to my day. After the presentation I was then served breakfast and chai and able to connect with people on the Internet. Around 11am I had a great meeting with Ranvir to discuss what I was going to do during my stay. His office is air-conditioned and feels really good. What doesn’t feel good is leaving it. It is only at that point that I do realize how hot the room I’m working in is. It has fans moving around the air, but it does not really cool things down much. In the afternoon when it gets hotter, they usually turn on their air conditioner, but it is not very powerful. After I left that meeting I again felt sick. I drank two liters of water and had gone to the bathroom like five times that day- I was afraid of being seen as a weirdo, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
At lunch I could not eat a lot, and my co-workers kept offering me food and I kept trying to respectfully decline. At three I had another meeting with Ranvir and I started to feel better again once in his office. I had prepared my expectations for both my professional development as well as personal, and we had a great time coming up with what I am going to do. After the meeting I began working with a co-worker, whose name is slipping my memory, on writing for their new website. They were very shocked to see I use office 1997 and thy want me to upgrade myself into the 21st century. I will have that done this morning.
As the day wounded down, I gave my home a call on Skype. My seven-year-old sister Grace, very unemotionally answered, and after taking the message that they should read my blog cut me off and said, “Thanks for calling, I’ll pass on the message, goodbye!” Ok, Miss Independent, I’m sorry your sister half way around the world is interrupting your morning cartoons! As funny as she is, I am happy that it was not an emotional conversation and that she did encourage me to feel homesick emotions that are counterproductive. Regardless, I hope when I get to work today I have an email from home.
-Your CV,
Lauren
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