Tuesday, June 7, 2016

India Trip 2016!

I am very excited to be returning to India to teach in the ETSI program again!  Interestingly, a few things have changed.  This year, other instructors that I know are going!  I'm excited to be able to share a few meals with friends and spend time with them on the plane.  Sadly, they are all teaching at Gaden.  I won't be working (directly) with Tsondue this year, but will have a translator and be co-teaching with a recent graduate from Emory.  I will also be spending some personal time in India after, spending some days in Goa and Mumbai.

One of the biggest differences this year is the time in which we are teaching.  Last year at this time, I was about to leave London - my trip was over.  Now I am only getting on a plane to begin my journey.  It has been nice to have more time between graduation and departure, but the biggest effect is going to be the climate.  I spent a lot of time last year getting excited about storms and exclaiming that Monsoon had begun.  It hadn't.  Now I will actually get to witness Monsoon and it will likely rain almost every day.  I do not actually know whether it will rain all of the time or how heavy the rain will be, but there shall be rain.

While many things will be different this year, one constant is the teaching.  I am again teaching the 2nd year curriculum (Mechanics) and Drepung Loseling.  I had wanted to stay at Drepung, but had originally asked to teach the 3rd year curriculum.  I'm glad that I have been kept on the same class, as it means that I am modifying my work from last year, rather than creating a whole new class.  Sadly, I haven't made as much progress on my modifications as I had hoped.

I plan to maintain this blog again this year during my trip.  Hopefully the internet access will be as good as it was last year (despite Monsoon) and I will have more time to write and reflect.  I am especially looking forward to documenting my attempts at integrating Tibetan into my slides!

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