Bangalore<\/a>, India. His family moved there \u00a0from Kerala where they speak Malayalam. But in Bangalore, they speak Kannada, which is loosely related to Malayalam, but Srijit said he can only somewhat understand it and cannot make himself understood. This just underscores stories and experiences of the amazing diversity of India.<\/p>\nAnd I met Jose. Judging from his accent and football (soccer) jersey I was guessing he was from Spain, so when I asked and he answered \u201cCatalunya\u201d I responded, \u201cAh, yes, in northern Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. Not Spain;\u00a0Catalunya!\u201d He shot back with a big smile, and then explained the\u00a0tyranny\u00a0and conquest of\u00a0Catalunya by the Spanish and the fact that one day\u00a0Catalunya would be it\u2019s own nation again, he hopes.<\/p>\n
Wow. Having several Spanish friends, having traveled there, and remembering the E.T.A. bombing\u00a0campaign\u00a0of not so long ago, I was well-aware of the Basque separatist sentiments, but this was the first I had heard of Catalunyian separatism.<\/p>\n
I stumbled across our kitchen cleaner, a nice and very chatty Thai woman who I have always gotten along with. I had thought she was gone for some reason, but no. Long story short, she\u2019s widowed now, has plenty of money, loves her job and the \u2018family\u2019 of the house staff and students, and takes groups of students out to a great Thai restaurant from time to time. A student just happened to cancel the day I ran into her, so I was whisked off to a huge, 2-hour, 4-course Thai lunch (\/dinner as I didn\u2019t eat again that day).<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve met a few others as well, and no doubt will meet countless more. The house can hold around 50 students, and, being summer, there\u2019s a fair amount of shuffle and short-term people coming and going. Plus there are old friends to see, professors, classmates, and more (and if that means you<\/i>, you know who you are, come visit!). They\u2019re doing a \u2018big dinner\u2019, sending off a Belgian girl, in about an hour. But it\u2019s 7:30 now and I\u2019m already well beyond my jet-lagged average of crashing out in the mid-afternoon for a \u2018nap\u2019 only to wake up 7 or 8 hours later. So I\u2019ll play it low-key tonight, hoping to sleep from about 8 until\u2026 We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n
But the real reason I\u2019m here is to finish up my PhD, which I\u2019m already happily cranking away on again.<\/p>\n
Good health. Good people. Good work. I foresee a very<\/i>\u00a0good year.<\/b>
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PS. any typos or nonsensical drivel in the above: jet-lag.<\/p><\/div>\n
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