27th B-day in India

I'm 27. Fucking shit. 27. I'm on the border of mid-late twenties!! Oy! My birthday, day, was great. When I came to McLeod Ganj, I wasn't expecting to meet anyone that I would be close with and celebrate, considering how many people just come and go within a few days. But, I feel really lucky to have met these 4 people. My time here is almost to an end and I will miss them A LOT.

Let me flash back to the past on my 22nd birthday-my first bday away from home- I was in Prague, Czech Republic. (Karl, can you believe it was 5 years ago!?) I remember not remembering anything. Just woke up on my bed with all my clothes on and oblivious to how many drinks I had consumed the night before. Here's a sample of my bday drunkness; there was a free-use computer at the hostel I stayed in Prague, and I must of had time to write an email to ALL my friends in black-out mode.

"its my birhtday... i'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo drunk that i have free intermet and i have no idea what i'm doing...but though....l i have free intenet. i fridcking miss all you guys and having the ball o fmy life."

Some of you may remember this and I'm sure it is still in your email archives, October 29, 2004. Checking my email the next morning was quite interesting, cause I couldn't figure out why I had so many replies with the same subject line. Anyways, good times.

Okay, back to present time. My birthday, day, was great. It started with breakfast on our balcony (I share a double bedroom with my co-worker Jay, we are FRIENDS, that's it. Stop laughing Przemek) with a candle next to my eggs. Jay and the guesthouse owner was singing me Happy Birthday. Spent the entire morning waiting for the internet connection from all over McLeod Ganj to come back so I could Skype my parents. After the Skype conversation with my parents I relaxed at home, enjoyed the view, and read my book. Drinking/Dinner started at 6pm, at a nice roof-top restaurant Carpe Diem. It felt nice to laugh the whole entire time, have bday hugs with people coming in and out to see me, my tattooist, and ex-neighbor.

Erica, Przemek, Jay, me.

Also, adding to the celebration, we finished the website! LOOK . After a few miserable weeks, we are finally done. We all feel good about it. Jay (England), Przemek (Poland) , and I were working on the website, and Erica (Ireland) was the assistant at the organization. We are all completely different people, but we click so well together. When we're in the same room, it is non-stop laughing, there hasn't been a day where we don't talk about balls and Bruno. I'm really going to miss them. At the end of the night, I had a few beers, a powerful flashlight as a gift from Erica and Przemek, and a paper-mache notebook gift from Jay, and a beaded bracelet from my student Pema. -sigh- good times.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone!

Some new things...

Dad...you can't be mad at me. It's done, it's pretty, and forrrrrehhhverrrrrr. I've wanted this a couple years before, so I was very well prepared. It didn't hurt, I enjoyed it. My tattooist is bad ass, his name is Tamding. If you ever come to McLeod Ganj and curious about getting a tattoo, go to Tamding's Studio. There are 3 studios here and I think he's the best.


My right arm: Follow Your Heart, my left arm: Beautiful World. In Tibetan script. Yes, it's red.

I started to do a 2.5 hour Power Yoga class. It isn't like the power yoga back in Cali, which was extremely intense and physical. The one I went to was slow yet challenging. My instructor was great, however he reminded me of someone...remember Dhalsim from Street Fighter? Yeah, my instructor was like that, instead doing crazy knotted yoga poses, he's bendy.

The past few weeks I have been working on Volunteer Tibet's (non-profit organization) website; designing the layout, filling in new information and content, which takes me all day and all week. It also seems that I'm doing other office work as well, such as finding placements for new volunteers arriving everyday. I'm still tutoring in the morning and every now and then I'll attend the conversation classes. I gave my teaching class to another volunteer because I had to spend more time on the website. Which is good, it's beneficial for me and the new volunteer. I don't know when we'll finish the website, hopefully by November.

All in all, I'm fine and loving life. Miss you all.