Weariness

One of the most striking things to me since I've returned from India is the speed at which the world rotates here. I know that we (Americans) are on the same planet as India, but it feels as if the sun rises later and sets earlier here, and that there isn't enough time during the daylight hours to get everything accomplished that needs to be. In India I'd wake up at 5:30am after the sun had been up for a little while and I could hear others rustling in their tents. After a day of wandering among spectacular rocks and watching herds of sheep and goats pass by, we'd have dinner. I was in my sleeping bag by 7 or 7:30 every night and almost always asleep by eight (it was dark and everyone else was sleeping too - except the kids that played trump all night). Here I get up at 5am, am at work by 6am and the sun is definitely not up. It rises sometime before 10am, when I get to leave, and then I get to run around trying to make up for the time I spent in India. I don't even know when the sun sets here, although I have driven home in the dark after class, work or errands many times. I know this country cannot slow down because it has been speeding along for too many generations now. Maybe I just wish I'd have to stop in the road as a herd of goats and sheep walked by.

At odds with the clouds

This blog was actually started for library school and so some library posts will be made (like this one). I read an article Wednesday in "The Cincinnati Enquirer" about the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County (PLCH) loaning e-books. In many of my classes we have been discussing the effect of technology and the internet competing with books to fill people's information needs. People have been suggesting ways for libraries to "draw in customers" and I think this e-book endeavour is good. If print media fades into our distant memory (not that I think it will, but if) then libraries need to keep up with their patrons changing desires. I know that many of us love the tangibility of a book with paper pages, but maybe our grandchildren's children will be too busy, too mobile, too "technologically-advanced" to understand that. Maybe our society is moving towards an online all the time way of life. Hell, here I am typing away my thoughts so that I can publish them on the vast plain of obscurity that is the internet.

Sentient ephemeral mists

This is one of the clouds creeping over the top of the mountain and sliding down the hillside. Just driving by and watching these things move is so amazing. The mist descends down the slope blanketing the little plants with moisture. so very, very cool.

Fossils at 15,000'

India is incredibly exotic to me. Getting into the hills around the Indo-Gangetic Plain was like entering a rainforest (I say this having never been to an actual rainforest). The monsoons and generally tropical climate here produce lush vegetation. Placid cows wandered the street snacking from various vegetable stands as petite old women shouted at them in Hindi. Monkeys sat on the side of the road picking insects off each others' backs. Hillsides were steep and covered with trees. The rivers were deep and either a rich dark blue or a muddy brown (if they were glacially fed). We crossed over the Rohtang pass (Rohtangla) and the wind was instantly whipping around us and snapping the prayer flags that surrounded the stupa. The clouds came up from the hills and all crossed right through this narrow pass. The clouds parted for a moment and through the mist the sky was startlingly blue (we'd been driving through wet clouds for two hours) and there were snow capped peaks. We started down the road on the other side and we watched in wonder as the clouds moved through the pass almost as sentient beings. They crept down the hillside until they finally evaporated into nothingness. Their ethereal nature was spectacular and it struck me. The hillside below the pass was covered with grasses and small flowers and herds of "sheep y goats" wandered about. The rest of the valley was barren rock and debris with occasional little plants clinging to existence. If that's not exotic, what is?
As for your question about writing, no I don't. I'm a scientist by nature and by training. Something about the beauty of India affected me and changed me in some small way. I can't draw myself away from that landscape and the people and the animals.
As for the snail, I'd never seen fossils at 15,000' before. If I didn't love geology before, how could I not now seeing a bit of ocean floor pushed up into the tallest mountain range on Earth?

Returning to the world of haste

I just returned from India Sunday night and everything here seems to be crazy and mad. Everyone is rushing from one thing to the next and yet nobody is honking. In India everyone honks continuously, but it almost seems to become the melodic background, the accompaniment to life lived at a much slower pace. There are no monkeys or sheep or goats or cows wandering the streets here. No one is saying hello as I wander past. Riding my bicycle here I am greeted with bizarre looks by every SUV driver who isn't already to distracted with his monster stereo and his cell phone. Sometimes I just think it would be nice if people here, if life here, could slow down just a teensy, little bit.