Intro: Welcome to my blog!

After finishing high school in June 2012, I chose to spend a year abroad in India volunteering, working, traveling, and "finding myself". The experience was unbelievable, surreal, humbling and all the other cliched adjectives that usually come with spending time abroad. Family and culture are a big part of who I am and spending time in India only strengthened my bond with the motherland.  

During my trip to India:

- I volunteered for an organization called Sikshana as a school mentor for 5-7th graders in a small town called Kanakapura, outside the city of Bangalore. I also adopted a new family during my 4 month stay. <3

- I visited Delhi, Jaipur and Agra during my "winter break" with my cousin. During this time, a horrible gang-rape incident happened in Delhi in December and everyone was rioting on the streets in protest. Scary, yes. I know. My parents were having panic attacks back home.

- I volunteered for another organization called The Banyan as a caretaker at a Day Care Center for the mentally disabled. I taught computer skills to a handful of mentally disabled women and befriended a hemiplegic patient whom I came to love and helped her though difficult times in her life.

- I spent a month with my mom's friend in Sri Lanka. They took me on safaris where I had the opportunity to spend time with an incredible wildlife photographer and his beautiful DSLR cameras. I also fell in love with the local elephants.

- And of course, spent quality time with family! <3 A majority of my family lives in India, which is my birthplace and motherland. I gloriously basked in my grandmas' love and affection who both stuffed me silly and watched me become a whale. (Hooray!)

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So now I'm back home. I actually got back at the end of April, and boy was that a weird feeling... being home that is. First and foremost, my sister was almost my height. When I left her in August 2012, she was an entire head shorter than me. I expected her to remain the same height, same age, same person. But alas, that cannot be. The little bub shot up like a rocket and I can no longer pretend she's a baby. This was the greatest sorrow in my life when I got back.

Okay, not really...

But I did fear everything would be different with my family and friends. However, I found that things were the same for the most part but I was the one who had changed dramatically. India gave me a perspective on life that I had only learned theoretically. I've always believed that books can only take you so far and my trip only empowered my belief as I learned so much more in my 9 months than I could have in a year in school.

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So now what? Well... now I'm a student again! I wanted to write this blog as I step into college as a person of two different cultures. I am a first generation immigrant of the United States and I've experienced the best of both worlds. A lot of my thinking now relates back to my experiences in India which I hope to carry with me during my years in college.

Enjoy and thanks for reading! :)