people are amazing

today was a good day.

i finally took my first ride in an autorickshaw, which is as pretty essential experience for living in delhi. the ride was more than a little shaky and noisy, but really pretty interesting, and the drivers i had weren't sketchy even though one of them wouldn't take me to the place i needed to go so i had to pay another one extra to finish the job.

i've officially been accepted into JNU, and officially decided that at this point actually taking classes there is not the best things i could be doing right now. the classes at IES are pretty kickass and with transfer without problem, and at this point i don't want to overload myself too much academically and with travel time.

the big news however is the internship.

we visited this amazing organization called 'manzil' (not sure of the spelling, i'll check at some point) which works on teaching, among other things, english to underprivileged people. the language/education issues in india are immensely complicated with tons of history, and the one reliably true thing about india is that in some part of it history is still a present way of life. english was introduced by the british empire as a means of controlling those who would control the populace; now it's one of the few languages that indians from different provinces might have in common. it's not only a necessity in international business, it's a necessity within india, particularly in any job requiring anything above a college degree (university courses are only taught in english). even hindi, the most widely spoken indian language, is only understood by 30-35% of the population. LANGUAGE. gods, it's complicated.

in any case, this amazing man runs this organization, which basically consists of very passionate people helping each other and children learn what they want to learn and experience what they want to experience. it might not be the most practical organization, but it seems effective and the man's optimism and charisma and intelligence are simply breathtaking. anyway, i'm hoping that i'll be able to intern with this organization.

not everything through IES delhi is awesome. the director is a very intelligent lady, but at some points in time she needs to remember her social skills. at times she seems to be showing off her knowledge at the expense of the students obtaining information from various speakers. so not stellar. still, the staff as a whole here is pretty amazing and very helpful.

more later. sleepy now.