Hello!

Welcome to Feeling Pune, the blog I kept during my seven-week experience in India.  The NSLI-Y program is a competitive full scholarship for high school students to learn critical languages, including Hindi.

A disclaimer: I wrote these posts in brief WiFi-connected periods on my phone with little editing. To keep the blog as genuine as possible, I have made no further edits.  In other words, please forgive my errors in language, grammar, typos, etc.  I recommend the posts "No Moped.  So I Moped" and "Darth Veda: Science Fiction, Religion or Just Plain Science?" from July 25th and 19th, if you'd like to read one or two.  Thank you so much for taking the time.  Enjoy!

Emotional Baggage

    During our daily meditation at school, one's mind is supposed to be blank.  Mine was instead enlivened with thoughts about coming back home tomorrow.  If I jumped into the air and stayed there, and the earth turned below me at a thousand miles per hour and I flew over a continent and an ocean, I'd tumble into my time zone in nine and a half hours.  And I wouldn't have had to even try, because the world would have rotated for me.

    As a young poetic genius once sang,

"the time is going, 

                            ticking on and on,

                                                       everybody's rushing".  And we don't have a choice in the matter.  (Except that it slows when one moves through space, as Einstein theorized.  This may be validated by anyone who has ever flown sleepless on a transoceanic airplane.)  To me, that lack of control is both blessing and curse.  

    The past six weeks have flown by and crawled past like a winged lobster.  I can't imagine how this experience, so lodged in the future for so many months, could nearly be over.  Although the grass is always greener on the other side of the ocean and I can't wait to eat a hamburger and pizza, I'll always miss this nearly completed opportunity that I gained.  I thought I had mainly positive feelings about returning home, but while packing my luggage, I realized that my emotions were much more mixed.  Although I could really go for a PB&J right now, was I ready to give up chapati already? Or, more importantly, a new family?

    Whatever my true feelings, my plane's departure is approaching--slowly or quickly, I'm not sure.  I can't wait to share more of my experiences with you, dear readers, friends, and family, when I come home.

    To my fellow Pune People: you transformed yourselves from 2D Facebook profiles into 3D people into 4D friends that will last throughout time in an incredibly short 6 week span.  I will miss every single one of you.  Come visit us northeasterners!

    Lastly, thank you to a lot of people and organizations for giving us, and paying for, one of the best opportunities I might ever get.  Our Hindi teachers were incredible, Lauren our Resident Director ensured that we were happy and safe, and a huge thank you (you might even call it the Indian term--a felicitation) to the iEarn-India team, NSLI-Y, and the Department of State.  And thanks to you readers as well.

फिर मिलेंगे, मेरे दोस्तों!  बहुत बहुत धन्यवाद।

एरिक फ़्लिगाफ़ 

See you later, my friends! Thank you very much.

Erik Fliegauf

Children Left Behind

    Most days I pass slums and I don't feel much.

    Maybe that means I'm a terrible person, maybe I still haven't fully realized that those slums, streaming by my car window like a roll of a film, are in no documentary, that people like you and I are living in shacks of tarp and iron sheeting.  I hoped it wasn't just me, and I asked my host sister about her emotional responses to seeing Indian poverty.  "Nothing", she said, and shrugged.

    Perhaps many people, not just us, feel guilty of this lack of feeling and fill that cavity with donations to charities or mission trips.  Although I'd like to change those living conditions and I'm planning to in my life and career, it's impossible and antipragmatic to have an emotional response to the plight of billions of humans, especially when I grow accustomed to it--shabby tents blending in with the landscape.  ("One death is a tragedy", Stalin wrote. "One million deaths is a statistic").  It's still hard to admit that I'm not feeling the feelings I feel I should. 

    Now that I've come across as an ignorant white male upper-middle class American teenager, which I am, let me clarify.  Although the poverty might not always grab me (except when it does: a small child, clutching my wrist, asking for money, bursting my bubble of removal,) what angers me is instead the disparities in opportunity.  That means poverty, of course, but especially education.

    Working alongside tenth grade students at a government school has been one phenomenal privilege and heart-wrenching ordeal.  Each Friday for the past five weeks, we've worked in small groups on meaningless projects about American and Indian celebrities.  Yet when we left for the last time, there were tears.

    I suspect that the crying didn't come from the knowledge that we would never again see our partners again, though that was certainly a part.  The incredible, simple fact that my partner and I are Facebook friends delays that knowledge for me.  Nor did the tears (for the record, not mine) trickle from the discovery that the fun was over--I would be having plenty more dance parties and laughing fits back in America.  Instead, my sadness, at least, came from bitterness.  The realization that I had done absolutely nothing to deserve a comfortable life in America, a school and teachers that are first-class and taken for granted all the time, the ability to choose my own career without restraints.  And the cruel fact that these kids from lower class families had likewise done nothing to be crammed into classes of 40 in a Marathi-medium school (an immediate disadvantage in the competitive workforce in which those wealthy enough have attended English language education) and to have to struggle out of their parents' economic class.

   We were with our partners for just an hour and a half each week.  Yet the connection we made rivaled the bonds with our host families.  I'll remember them for a long time: Hemlata, the girl who didn't speak too much English but had a happier smile than anyone, whose family had moved all the way from Rajasthan in search of better education.  Prakash, with an impeccable moonwalk, who wants to become an engineer but told me he will never stop dancing. I want these kids to succeed, and I know they can.

    The truth is, however, I'm never going to see them again.  The twenty-first century has made incredible progress in facilitating worldwide connections--Prakash and I can now communicate with just two computers and a sprinkle of wifi--but I still might never know what happens to them.  And if they step out of the lower class and pursue their own passions, there will still be millions of others who can't. 

    Even those with parental guidance, the resources to continue education, and the smarts to succeed do not have the same liberties I've been given.  Unless every single kid I've met here (I can think of 7) has engineering in his or her veins, just one slice of the career option pie is being set before them.  With societal pressures and economic incentives behind that push, I imagine it would be difficult to refuse.  Perhaps I simply don't know (engineering is the only safe choice in this still developing, often less-than-structured nation,) but I vastly prefer the selection of jobs displayed to me like pieces of pie in a shop window that all cost the same.

    I've never felt that I have a duty to make everyone equal.  But I do strongly feel that everyone has the duty to ensure everyone has the same opportunities, for that's the only way democracy, capitalism, and the world work.  They just don't yet.

No Moped. So I Moped.

    "Look right, then left, then right again" was the advice I repeatedly received on crossing the street before coming here.

    That turned out to be largely irrelevant as scooters, cars, oxen, and buses are liable to drive/walk in the wrong lane, directly bombarding oncoming vehicles and innocent pedestrians.  In the United States, you cross the road when no one is coming.  In India, there's someone coming, so it's more of a rough calculation of incoming vehicle speed, your adrenaline level, and number of body parts you're willing to go without.  In other words, riding on a scooter as your host mother drives would be suicide.  And since it's against the NSLI-Y rules, obviously no one does it.  I certainly haven't.  

    The first time I was invited to pick up my host sister on a motorcycle I told my host mom that, no, I can't, yet there seemed to be some communication error between the rule setters and the host parents.  We were later told by our Resident Director that if she never found out, well, there wouldn't be any issues.  But I stood strong, never gave into temptation, and never got to have one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.  I knew that if I did, I would have to write about it on my blog, and if the State Department read my blog, I'd be in trouble.  So this my blog post about definitely not riding the motorcycle.

    I never get to feel wind speeding through my helmet-less hypothetical hair, nor monsoon rains splattering my face and shirt.  I never thought, "How are we going to fit a third person onto this scooter?" halfway through the trip, rather belatedly.  Nor could I learn by watching families, speeding past us, stacked like the groceries they carried  that there is always, always room for another person on a motorcycle.  I was unable to discover my place in the puzzle of Pune traffic, which has its own hidden, calm logic that supports the lawless chaos at the surface.  (On a separate occasion in a rickshaw, my driver snuck our fragile cart between two trucks with centimeters to spare.  Lanes, you ask?  Besides the point.)

    Motorcycles are a different medium through which you communicate with the city, a completely separate approach than car, foot, or balcony view.  In a way, you open yourself up to the pollution, the full 360 degree sights, the stares of strangers.  There's no glass to roll up as a middle-class shield from the 8 year old beggar (or older but stunted) with a painted on mustache, doing a dance that would be so, so hysterical if it wasn't so sad.  But you have your own privacy curtain: speed and mobility, which means no one can see that you don't belong as you clutch your host mother's shoulders to survive.

    At least that's what I imagine, because I obviously wouldn't know.

Darth Veda: Science Fiction, Religion, or Just Plain Science?

    I've noticed that in much of western world, adhering to science while taking religious doctrine at its word is viewed as not just contradictory, but impossible.  And for a reason: how can somebody believe in both creationism and evolution?  In miracles and the eternal, unchanging laws of physics?  In contrast, it seems to me that many Indians, at least my host family, are able to have faith in science while backing their religious beliefs with evidence.

    On the rooftop of my concrete apartment building one evening, a view of the Parvati temple on one side and the most respected school in Pune on the other, my host father, brother, and I had a fascinating conversation about Hinduism and India's ancient history that explained to me the paradoxical connections between the two forces.

    At the center of the small garden on the terrace was a single, shadowed stalk of corn that my host dad pointed out to me.  "Maharashtra's major food staple is corn, and so we worship it.  We worship what makes us strong."  He then asked why Hindus worship fire.  I didn't know, but I imagined it had some religious significance.  Instead, "because what was there before the Big Bang? Fire."  I didn't know Hinduism and the Big Bang could coexist in the same sentence, especially given my limited knowledge of gods, goddesses and monsters that seemed more to fall, for me, outside of my brain's nonfiction section.

    Yet the bridges between faith and logic continued to materialize throughout the conversations I've had.  NASA has ancient Sanskrit prayers written on its walls, according to my host dad.  A passage in the Mahabharata, one of India's two national epics, includes the exact distance from the earth to sun, proving that Hanuman, the Hindu god, was able to jump from the planet to the star as according to traditional legend.  The Veda we sing every morning at school has the highest energy level of all prayers.  Water should not be drunk cold because it extinguishes the fire in one's stomach as acids and alkalines dissolve food.

    A quick note: I haven't done enough research to say whether each of these facts are true, and since I'm not Hindu and I don't practice Ayurvedic medicine, I'm unknowledgeable about a lot of these concepts.  Instead my point is that Indians seem to feel more comfortable describing religious customs in scientific terms and vice versa than many others.

    Most of the world used to enjoy that link, the mutual reinforcement of religion and science.  Ancient Mayan priests developed incredibly accurate calendars to foresee future dates.  Egyptians built the pyramids to prepare for their afterlife, and in doing so accomplished ingenious feats of engineering.  The pagans of Britain built Stonehenge as a giant solar calendar to aid in their worship.  But in the more recent western world, science began to challenge religion, rather than contribute to it.  Galileo, after championning the heliocentric theory, was sentenced to house arrest for life by the Pope.  In more recent times, Ken Hamm of the Creationism Museum and Bill Nye the Science Guy fought a proxy war of this important debate.  Of course there are many who take pieces of both, merging them into a personal and balanced belief system.  But it still seems to me the divide is wider in the United States.

    If America could incorporate both spirituality and science as effortlessly and peacefully as in India, surely both opposing groups might benefit.  Otherwise we have little chance of facing today's moral and scientific challenges: of abortions, of stemming climate change, of preventing the rise of the oceans, the Noah's flood of the future.

Always Interraceting

    My kitchen balcony is so full of character it deserves its own blog post.  Fourth floor looking down, and the strolling people below are lit by the glow of small restaurants: an ice cream shop I long to visit to buy a Cad-B, an Indian chocolate milkshake, and the samosa place (word on the street says it's the best in the city) on the ground floor.  Through the gaps in the blossoming Shirish tree reaching almost to my balcony and stretching up to the fifth floor, I can see our neighbors, our friends my host mom calls out to in Marathi in the morning, preparing dinner.  Just a block away Dnyanprabodhini rises like a multistoried cake, topped with traditional architectural icing and sugared arches like the Taj Mahal.  It's 7 o'clock and the pavement is lined with scooters, the vehicles of the young men and women who patron my street, the food hub of Pune.

    Every so often as dusk falls, a single motorcycle goes weaving through people unnecessarily quickly, unabashedly  showing off.  From the ground he looks like he's going to injure a pedestrian but from up here, it's quaint.

    Exotic sights pass along from time to time.  Sounds send me running to the terrace--the steady beating of the drums carried by the young beggar women to announce their grand arrival, food plates balanced on heads.  They, like all, stop at the coffee shop for an afternoon refreshment.  Another day loud cracking noises are slapped from the ground outside.  It's the young man looking for money as he self-flagellates with a thick, 6 foot whip.  My host brother Tanmay points to his scarless back.  "It's a scam," he says.  "He's just whipping the ground".  He's right: from above, his tricks are obvious.

    But for all my love of the darkening street, the couples strolling and students chatting with Cad-B in hand, I belong looking down at the scene, not in it.  When I emerge from my van carrying my backpack each day, it's clear I don't belong.  Suddenly there's a string across two signs, seemingly meant to clothesline me.  A backhoe threatens me as it backs into the construction site adjacent to my building, where migrant workers set their toddlers to watch as they build, mainly by hand.  But most often, I get confused stares from the young customers, curious to see the American student.

    So I watch from the balcony, like a plaintive Juliette.  Oh romantic street, wherefore art though in India?  Deny my nationality and refuse my German last name, or if thou will not, at least give me a samosa.

    I come back into the kitchen and decide that samosas can wait, it's time for dinner.  After all, this is a romance of culture and taste, not a tragedy.

Of Cupcakes and Calamities

   On the front page of yesterday's online New York Times, two articles caught my attention.  The first, violence in the Middle East.  I don't remember what precisely.  The second, my favorite cupcake shop Crumbs closing all its stores.  I skipped the first and was emotionally distraught at the second, and I immediately texted my dad in America to buy some endangered desserts while he still could.  (They were gone already.)  But of course that's the kind of irrational, self-centered behavior that turns blind eyes to endless violence and poverty.   So what can you do to to make issues feel closer to home?  Make your home closer to issues, I guess.  And I did.

    A few days ago a small, low-intensity bomb went off in the parking lot of a police station just a short fifteen minute walk away from my house.  Thankfully only a few people got hurt, and don't worry, our safety isn't in jeopardy or anything like that.  But my point is that with proximity to catastrophe comes a sense of realism and awareness, the foreign becoming the domestic.  More pervasive than catastrophes are the less drastic things--frequent power cuts, a late monsoon causing drought.  We all have a bit of the "doesn't affect me" attitude until it does.

    I know I won't be the first or last to say that traveling has been an eye-opening experience, and I'm cautious of heaping cliches about how India has changed my life.  So I'll avoid platitudes and end with a piece of advice--even if you don't enjoy the food, even if you're terrified of insects, even if (especially if) you  don't want to see crushing poverty, go to India. Or Africa, or practically anywhere else.  You'll choke on chilies and squirm at the bugs and be begged at by the homeless, but you'll become a more worldly and understanding person.

    Only three more weeks--how is that even possible?

Does Ronald McDonald Feel Shame?

    While I watched the video of my host parents' wedding ceremony last night so that my cliche American desire of attending an Indian wedding might be at least partly fulfilled, my host dad told me about his German friend at the marriage who kept leaning over chairs to take pictures. Though he came across as ridiculous and stuck out like a sore foreign thumb, my host dad instead complimented him on his lack of embarrassment. I think we're all likewise accepting our foreignness as time passes, because frankly, what else can we do?  Although we get stares, I think I've gotten used to it and, if it's going to happen no matter what, might as well embrace it.

    Thus, if you happened to see fourteen loud and obnoxious American teenagers wearing matching red polo shirts entering a McDonald's on the Fourth of July, taking videos of each other doing poorly organized choreographed dances, know that there was no shame (fine, a little shame) in their actions.

    At the same time, we have the responsibility of representing our nation. The knowledge that we are the forefront of American grassroots diplomacy is a burden we're privileged and honored to carry at all times.  After all, we're probably the first Americans most of the kids here have ever met, and the briefest of rude gestures or unfriendliness can be the seeds of negative stereotypes.  And stereotypes here, in my brief experience, seem less discouraged than in the United States. On multiple occasions negative attitudes towards the British, Chinese, Muslims, and Africans have been blatantly expressed to me, so generalizing attitudes seem to stick around and spread here.  It's our duty to promote our own opinions, respect others', and show a positive face of America when a plurality of foreigners think of drone strikes and fast food before curious and respectful teenagers. For all the importance of language learning, I imagine this side of NSLI-Y is equally crucial. It's what the State Department is indirectly paying for, many years down the road.

    But in the meantime, we're having a good time.  When you're singing the national anthem to an assembly hall of Indian children on Independence Day before heading out for French fries and milkshakes, there's a lot of fun involved.  As I taught my host family (and they laughed for a full five minutes,) YOLO.

About Me and Food

    And now moving to my favorite topic of all.  "Food, glorious food", Oliver and friends once sang in whiny prepubescent urchin voices.  But instead of a destitute orphan boy in industrial London, I feel like the Maharaja of Maharashtra as I gorge myself through India without the shackles of parental constraint nor of self control.  While I can't stop and won't stop eating, I'll take a break now and explain what kind of nourishment is making fitting in my airplane seat a pressing concern.

    First, chapati. I thought of getting a shirt that says "chapati is life" when I come back. I mean this in a philosophical way as well as in a humorous one. As my host dad, brother, and I were on the roof one evening, my host dad indicated the lone stalk of corn that was growing as a garden centerpiece. What I had thought was an intriguing planting decision actually had a deeper meaning.  "We worship what makes us strong", he told me.  And since we have chapatis, corn tortillas one uses to scoop up sauce or vegetables or potatos, as an integral part of lunch and dinner every day, chapati indeed makes us strong.  It's made fresh in the kitchen twice a day by a cook, if that's the right term, and I'll never grow tired of it.

    Daal, or lentil soup, is the other staple of lunch and dinner.  Rice with spices and sauce, aloo (potato), gobi (a word for both cabbage and cauliflower), and chai tea (offered 3 times a day) are what I live on. Also, there's a samosa shop reputedly the best in town on the first floor of my apartment building, and the samosas, which are 17 rupees (20 cents), are phenomenal.  And then the mitthai, or sweets: laddu, pedha, orange and mango barfee the consistency of sweet fruity fudge, gulabjamun, and more I haven't yet tried.

    My friend on the program and I today proposed to our chapatis today.  This is my life.  We have an major work booklet from Hindi class called "About Me and Food". I  don't know how they pinpointed my interests so exactly. 

A Subcontinental Breakfast and Other Things

    What did the "Dha" say to the "Da" when no one in the NSLIY class could pronounce it correctly?
    "I'm exAspirated!!!"
    Jokes.
    This week has been incredible.  I haven't blogged much, and I'm really sorry about that, but I've written everything down in a notebook every day so I don't forget.  Also, I've talked to my parents several times, so if you have questions, you can ask them!
    Here's a quick run-through of this week:
    Breakfast: Strawberry frosted flakes at home (I keep telling my family to not change their diet for me, but apparently they buy it for my host brother and sister).  We come to school in vans sans seatbelt and I have my second breakfast at school in a train car.  The first, second, and third graders here are taught in converted train cars, and yes, it's adorable.  Then, instead of the national anthem and a cult-like pledge of allegiance, the entire school meditates together and sings a prayer in Sanskrit.  I know we can't pray in school and all, but I would be 100% in favor of including meditation periods in our school day.  We have several hours of Hindi class Monday through Friday, including music, dance, and yoga.  The dance is even harder than it looks.  If you want to see some traditional Indian dance like my host sister does, look up "Kathak, Bharatanatyam, or Kathakali for folk dances, Garba and Bhangra or any Bollywood badassery", in the words of Nina K (I asked her for suggestions).
   Also, I don't want to forget: we've been coming up with Hinglish slang such as "acchutney", which means awesome sauce.  Acchaa (great) + Chutney (sauce).  Get it trending.
    My host family continues to be amazing and super sweet.  My host brother and I talked yesterday about bullying and bad Indian advertisements.  Life is good.  Anyway, I have to go to lunch, so that's all for now.  Miss you all!

Mum, bye!

     Right now I'm sitting in the lobby of our hotel. On my right is a cricket pitch, and it's sunny and in the 70's. Typing a blog post on my phone isn't easy so I'll keep this short.

     Before I came here, I imagined Pune to be like Boston, westernized, only with more traffic and Indian culture. Instead, it's hard to compare them. First difference: the traffic is everything you've heard about India and worse. The issue isn't bumper-to-bumper jams, instead, the only bumpers meeting bumpers is when a car hits a motorcycle or rickshaw. Crosswalks are merely decorative; people run across the road when they can get across without (definitely) getting hit. 

     But there's no reason to dwell on the negatives, because India is incredible. The streets are so busy: stray dogs, fruit vendors, women wearing scarves around their mouths to keep out the pollution while they speed by on motorcycles, men talking in alley-way shadows at night, et cetera.

I met my host family yesterday during a wonderful ceremony. After our host siblings put Tilak (the red powder traditionally used in welcoming guests) on our foreheads and we received necklaces with orange and white flowers, we spoke for some time. My whole family speaks English and seems very sweet. I won't say too much about them because internet safety and privacy are important, but trust me, I'm in very good hands. 

     Breakfast is soon, so I'll tell you all that the food here is amazing. Except for the onion and lemon juice and hot sauce, which I learned are meant as garnishes.  Don't eat them together.  For your own sake.
     Picture of moment of impact forthcoming.  

Time of Departure

     This is my last night at home before I leave for New York City in the morning.  Flight at 9am, arrives at 10am.  (Not the 15 hour flight to Mumbai quite yet).  Given the fact that I'm still in an advanced state of denial over this whole thing, I'm not sure how to describe my emotions.  When you talk about something and explain it in the same words day after day, you start thinking of it in a limited way: 

"I'm going to India this summer!"

"That's so cool!  For how long?"

"I'm going for 6 1/2 weeks."

"Wow!  How come?"

"It's a State Department program for American high school students to learn languages that aren't commonly taught in schools..."

et cetera.  I have it memorized.  So it feels like I say that "yes, I'm really excited" and "no, I'm not that nervous" more than I think about being excited or nervous.  Frankly, I just don't know what to expect.

     I plan on looking back at this blog in the future so I can see how I was before my trip.  So, future me, this is for you.

     I believe that India will be extremely loud and chaotic with a ton of people, all the time.  My family so far seems very kind and I look forward to meeting them.  I don't know anyone on the program too well yet but I am really, really pumped to meet people tomorrow!  Lauren, my Resident Director, seems like she knows what she's doing and will be a great resource.

     I'm anxious to entering an India that's entering a new phase like I am--an India under a new leader.  I can't wait to look down on North Africa and the Atlantic as I fly over the globe FOR 15 HOURS.  Most of all, I look forward to getting enough rest tonight, since I have to get up at 5am tomorrow.  Therefore, good night all.
     (Here I am, cleaning up my blog, looking back at my old writing.  And so, past Erik: It is.  They are.  You should be.   You will.  She does.  She was.  Don't worry.  We flew over Iceland and Russia, idiot.  Good night.)

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (Also, the Application Process)

     I just took my AP Art History exam this morning, so that's where my brain is.  And so I felt the need to include a famous Gauguin painting in this post's title.  Alright, that's my lead in.

     As promised in my first post, (I suggest reading this blog from the beginning,) here's a brief introduction to me and why I chose to study in India out of all those exotic places listed down below.  Mera naam Erik hai (one of about three Hindi sentences I know so far), and I'm a current Junior from Massachusetts.  My life at the moment is studying for the four AP exams I'm taking but I promise I do more than that.  I do tons of theater at my high school and a local theater company, I have some really awesome friends and family that I'm going to miss a lot, and I'm an outgoing introvert.

     Where Are We Going? To Pune, India!  My reasons for choosing India/studying abroad in general are a bit complex, but I'll try to explain.  Here's why, in a semi-order:

1. I love traveling.  Obsessed.  Don't know why.  I love maps, learning languages, and going on airplanes.  I went to the state Geography Bee in sixth grade (nerd).  I plan on majoring in geography and/or urban studies.
2. India has a ton of people in cities and a lot of problems.  I figured that's a good place for someone interested in geography/urban studies to start.
3. I love my home--this is not a trip to get away from family.  At the same time, I want to meet new people and visit new places.  There is more to life than Whitepeopletown, MA.
4. Learning Hindi is going to be hopefully very useful.  At the moment I speak English, a limited amount of French, and I took one year of Latin (and hated it). But Hindi, unlike Latin, is useful!  And I just think it's so neat to speak another language, and was always fascinated when my family members would.  Also, I don't want to be the typical monolingual American.
5. I've always been interested in Indian culture, although by no means would I say I know a lot.  But I'm learning.  I STILL have never seen a Bollywood movie.  If you have a favorite, leave it in comments below so I can watch it!
6. The food is rather scrumptious.
7. I want to study abroad in college again.  Also, this is to test the waters a bit--do I definitely want to travel for a living and study geography?
8. It's going to look awesome on a college resume.
9. I'm extremely excited to meet my other American buddies as well as Indians.  New friends.  Yipee!
10. This is a dumb reason but I'm looking forward to the New York City pre-departure orientation and looking out the window of the airplane and seeing the entire world below me.  I think because I can actually imagine myself doing that, and I know what it will be like, unlike India.
11. Where else could I go?  I have no legitimate reason to go to Tajikistan.  I'm mad at Russia.  I don't speak Chinese and other people are already learning Mandarin, so they can have that one.  The Middle East was off limits because I have worried parents and I'm sort of Jewish.  South Korea was definitely cool and acceptable, as was Turkey.  But India seemed like the best bet.

     I'm also going to explain a bit about the application process.  I filled out my initial application in the fall.  If you think you might just apply but don't care too much about it, don't.  The application is long, you need to write essays and get teacher recommendations and fill in a whole lot of information about yourself.  I would recommend a teacher that can not only speak to your abilities, but also to your personality.  So that initial step takes place during the fall and was due on November 5.  I found out that I was a Semi-Finalist on December 11, which was one of the best days of my life.  I found out I was a Finalist (in other words, I got the scholarship) on February 28, which probably was the actual best day of my life.  The order in which news comes out varies from year to year--for mine Hindi was one of the first, and Chinese the last.  Also, sometimes news comes out by state.  Or region.  But sometimes not.  So don't worry about that, you'll find out when you find out.  However, it is true that good news comes sooner than bad news.

     Application Tip #1: Make sure you want to do this.  Really stop to think about what your life might be like if you get it and go.  Are you ready?  (pause for moment of introspection.)  If so, continue on.

     Application Tip #2: Don't procrastinate!  I actually did, if I remember correctly, and barely got it in on time because of too many people on the website at once.  Don't let that be you.  Read over all of your application carefully.  If you do a rush job, they'll notice, and besides, you can't.  It's too long.

     Application Tip #3: Don't think that you'll get it the first time.  That gets rid of the disappointment and only leads to a happy surprise if you get it.  Trust me.  The first time I applied, I thought I had a very good chance and was devastated when I found out I didn't get to be even a semi-finalist.  The second time, I tried (and somewhat succeeded) at not even thinking about it.  And it worked!

     Application Tip #4: I'm not going to say exactly what I wrote in my essays or talked about, but I'll give some advice since you're taking the time to read this, so you're probably dedicated.  Show them that you want to go to learn the language.  If you imply that you just want to go to the country because you're interested in its culture or whatever, my limited experience has shown that you won't get it.  And I'm telling you this because if you aren't interested in the language aspect as much, I wouldn't recommend going: language classes are going to be four to five hours everyday, five days per week.

     Application Tip #5: I know you always hear this, but at the interview and in your essays, BE YOURSELF.  Don't try to be the person you think they want to see.  If you're relaxed and friendly, they'll know that you can handle being alone in a foreign country.

     Application Tip #6: Thank your interviewers if you're a semi-finalist.  They are volunteers.  As in, they aren't paid.  Meaning, they're doing it because they are wonderful people.  I had two lovely elderly ladies interviewing me.

     Application Tip #7: Prepare answers for questions they might ask.  One that I had trouble with was describing a struggle I had gone through.

     Application Tip #8: Start learning Hindi/whatever language before your interview!  I had learned the Devanagari alphabet so I could say that I had begun learning.

     Application Tip #9: Don't apply to a certain country because you think you are more likely to get in.  I've heard multiple times that a proportionate number of people apply to each program, so the programs with the most students (China and South Korea) have a larger number of applicants than the smaller programs (Turkey and Tajikistan).  If I remember correctly from my year, you have an approximately 15% chance if you apply, and a 50% chance if you get to be a semi-finalist.

     Application Tip #10: Join the Facebook group!  For some reason, the "NSLI-Y applicants 2012-2013" page has over 1000 members, while the "NSLI-Y applicants 2013-2014" page has just 200.  I would recommend joining the 2012-2013 one as well as the current one for you, because that seems to be where a lot of the action takes place.
Thanks for reading, and best of luck!

An Introduction

March 30, 2014

     Namaste! Welcome to "Feeling Pune", my travel blog that I will try my best to keep up with in a country with unreliable internet access.  The title is just the beginning--expect many more bad puns as I prepare to travel to Pune, India this summer in 2014 to learn the beautiful, important, really difficult Hindi language. For prospective student travelers, anxious family members,  friends back in the U.S., and for myself, I've decided to keep a blog about my trip to Pune.  So here we go!

     This is my approximate understanding of the program--for more information, I would definitely check out <www.nsliforyouth.org>.  The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y for short, which I pronounce Nestle-Why,) is a program sponsored by the U.S. State Department to send about 650 American high school students to foreign countries to learn languages that are less commonly taught in the United States, for either a summer or a school year.  Those languages are: Arabic (Jordan, Morocco, Oman), Mandarin Chinese (China), Korean (South Korea), Russian (Russia), Tajik (Tajikistan), Turkish (Turkey), and Hindi (India).  The purpose of NSLI-Y is, according to the website, to prepare
"American citizens to be leaders in a global world.  Now more than ever, it is important that Americans have the necessary linguistic skills and cultural knowledge to promote international dialogue and support American engagement abroad.  NSLI-Y aims to provide opportunities to American youth that will spark a lifetime interest in language learning."

     To begin with, NSLI-Y is absolutely 100% sponsored by the government.  I know you're skeptical, but I promise there's no catch. NSLI-Y pays for your your schooling (we learn Hindi for four to five hours per day at a school in Pune), your airplane tickets (for your flight to the pre-departure orientation in New York City, to the country and back), they reimburse you for your visa, and give you a phone for the country, as well as 750 emergency rupees per week!  The only thing not covered is extra spending money and the cost of a passport.  Trust me, I'm going to college soon--I would not be going if it wasn't so cheap.

     It's sort of confusing, but my understanding is that NSLI-Y is the scholarship funded by the government, while other outside organizations actually are in charge of each program.  For example, the group of fifteen students who are going to Pune are with the organization iEarn India, while AFS covers those going to Indore.  This summer is the first, as far as I know, that students have gone to Indore--before it was only Pune.  One more thing to note is that NSLI-Y gives scholarships for both summer programs (approximately six weeks, mine is from a three-day pre-departure orientation beginning June 18th until I return August 6th, and the dates always change) and year programs (for which there are far fewer scholarships). 

     That basically sums up NSLI-Y, but as I said, check out the official website for more information.  My next posts are probably going to be about me/why I chose India and Hindi, and then about the application process, so stay tuned!  Please feel free to comment or ask any questions!