DEPARTMENT OF PROJECTS: Sa Vidya Marketing Materials - Pretty Things to Raise Money for Cute Kids

Chad Robertson is a great guy and he made a great film. After spending time with the wonderful people of the Ashram Paryavaran Vidyalaya, he decided to spread the good word and make a documentary about their practices in hopes of raising money to support the school. Some information on Chad's film:

Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye: Knowledge is that which Liberates explores the world of Ashram Paryavaran Vidyalaya (APV), a school and ashram at the forefront of an organic educational revolution. The film enters into classrooms and assemblies, sits in on meditation gatherings, follows the children to their villages, and visits the ashram to learn more about community living. Through candid interviews with headmaster Anand Dwivedi, APV teachers, and students, discover an enlightened form of education and way of life.

Ben and I, both huge fans of Chad/Cute Kids/India/Documentaires, were charged with the task of helping brand the documentary and the screening event.

Beginning with the end, the screening went over amazingly well. The Sa Vidya team got enough butts in the seats and enough donations to fund an entire month of costs for the APV School. Ben posted pictures from the night here.

The lead up to those smiling faces was a doozey of a project. Branding materials galore! Ben and I are super happy with the way everything turned out. Below are some pictures outlining our process. And laugh all you want at the over abundance of kraft paper choices -- when I win my award for "Most Times Using Kraft Paper in One Freelance Design Project Scope" you all won't be laughing then!

The Making of Sa Vidya Pretty Things /

Three Girls in the Ashram Meditating - Reference imagery used to create sketches for branding materials.

Three Girls Sketch - Rough sketch used to add to marketing materials.

Original Comps of DVD Packaging - Kraft cases with custom made ink stamps for printing. Finished with a red string.

Sketches from my journal during my India trip. Used for additional imagery on the posters. We were very excited to get to meld pieces of all of our trips to India in this project.

The final poster! Printed on kraft paper (of course) and posted and sent out alllll over the place.

The final DVD packaging in action at the merch table at the screening.

Butts in the seats! Mission accomplished.

Chad is currently putting the funds to good use in India and working at the APV School to see what the next steps will be for helping this great organization continue their work. You can follow his adventures on his blog.

journals of sorts

In my purse, next to my bed, underneath my coffee cup and in the back pocket of my pack you will find a journal.

I have journals of all sorts. I typically use the classic small Moleskines. I vary amongst the lined/plain/and graph paper options. The tipping point of like ---> love for me with these journals is when their kraft outsides become soft and fuzzy from rubbing in your pocket so much. It's really a beautiful thing. When I go on a big adventure, like a trip to India, I opt for the classier version of the Moleskine, bound in black and perfectly suited for heavier sketches and scuff marks from adventures. I've also acquired many miscellaneous journals in recent months. One of my favorite new items is my "FIELD NOTES" journal from Draplin Design Co. (thanks to Portland marketing collective, MilkMilk, for the goody).

I use journals for just about everything. I make sketches for my homework for classes.

I take note of important things while I'm traveling. Volunteer ID card from Mother Theresa's House, daily schedule notes and ideas:

Given the prompt to draw a monkey and a lion playing together, I sketched this in one of my journals:

All of my journals have the same last page: Current Feeling. It's a habit I picked up while traveling. I tell myself, at the least, I can simply jot down my current emotion in my journals. Long entries are infrequent for me, however the cumulative sentiment of a whole page of my feelings tracked over a period of time is surprisingly representative.

This one time, I had an idea for a blog and I wrote it down.

My journals are like a community. I feel supported, nagged at, reminded and inspired by all those darn little pages.

knowledge is that which liberates

You may remember my talk of going to visit the ashram that Chad lived and worked at in northern India and where Ben went to visit during his trip. I ultimately was not able to make it to the ashram due to, umm, typhoid, but I have vowed to go back some day very soon.

In the meantime, I watch Chad's amazing documentary he made to create awareness of both the APV school and holistic education. Jimmy did the editing, Chad did the directing and a bunch of Delhi-Bollywood-yars filmed it. It's truly beautiful. If you have any interest in India, children, holistic education, meditation, art, tabla music, great documentaries or all of the above WATCH CHAD'S FILM!

Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye: Knowledge is that which Liberates
For more information on the APV school : www.apvschool.org

(free film removed -- buy a DVD @ apvschool.org you cheap kids!)

bus tickets

Today I went through my journal from my India trip and decided to scan some of my sketches I had made while traveling. I realized one of the most amazingly striking pages in my whole journal was one that I never really intended to be art.

Every morning I would take the 202 city bus to work. For four rupees I would get a small little ticket stub--a scrap piece of paper the bus owner had stamped a ticket number on. Everyday was a different ticket. After purchasing a glue stick at the market, these little bits of paper quickly became my daily craft project. So many colors. So very India.

you could have told me

I know I've been gone for a while and I know for all intents and purposes I've been living under a rock, but you guys could have told me they made Q&A into a movie.

I read Vikas Swarup's Q&A by recommendation of Maddy while I was in India. Buying this book used and tattered from a old book vendor in a crowded Indian alleyway was the perfect set up for this story. It's about a young boy from the slums of Mumbai; an unlikely winner of a billion rupees on a Indian game show. The book is essentially a collection of short stories that all weave around the circumstances of the boy's newly found fortune. Quite clever. I loved it. In fact, I made Ben read it as soon as he got to Kolkata. And he loved. I think you'll love it too.

And now, unbeknownst to me sooner, it's a new movie called 'Slumdog Millionaire,' directed by Danny Boyle. And! MIA is on the soundtrack.

Watch the trailer, read the book, go see the movie.

In America

A few days after I got back from India I went to the grocery store with my mom. I counted 15 different kinds of orange juice. I ended up buying the pulpy one with extra calcium.

Bathrooms in America have toilet paper. They all do, even the grungy gas station ones. No more hoses or buckets of water for me.

I'm in the United States of Toilet Paper and Huge Grocery Stores.

Transitioning back into non-travel, non-India, non-volunteering, non-hospital life has been bumpy. Comfy, but bumpy. I basically live the life of my dog, Monty. I sleep, I eat, I'm not allowed to cook any food (thank you, typhoid) and I go for walks. Then I nap again. My first few days back were spent eating home cooking and going to doctors appointments. I'm still in the midst of copious doctor visits and tests. As far as I can tell, I'm well on my way to being fully recovered. No more fevers, I'm slowly gaining some of my lost weight back and my stomach/liver isn't hurting as much anymore.

My home doctors have decided it is necessary for me to be tested for typhoid once a week for the next month. This news didn't surprise me. My typical doctor appointment usually starts with a prep nurse coming in to take my temperature and such. She kindly and politely asks, "And why are you here today?" "I got typhoid fever in India." "Ohh..." She is dumbfounded and her response is more of a gasp than a word. Then they call the Kaiser Infectious Disease Specialist...

This mysterious doctor is a man I've come to imagine fully, but have never actually met. My doctors usually consult this man when they find out I had typhoid. The t-word is something of concern, to say the least, of medical people of the Western world. I like to think this specialist is a guy who is immensely talented and yet immensely bored and useless in a country far far away from deadly mosquitoes and unsanitary water. He watches reruns of Lost and reads Michael Crichton novels all day. Framed photos of spider bites and tropical rashes line the walls his office. A little red phone sits on the edge of his desk. Then, one day, the phone rings and a bewildered nurse is on the other end. "Yes, Doctor, Ms. Reardon has... typhoid." The phone drops from his shaking hands...his eyes stare dreamily off into the distance, off into a world of gi-hugeous killer bugs and poopy water. He composes himself and orders dozens of tests on the poor, jet lagged girl. "It's game time."

There has been nothing drastically new found on any of the tests so far. I eagerly await my bill of clean health and the day when Mr. Infectious Disease Specialist goes back to being bored.

I've been home for two weeks now. These two weeks, though vacant of my lonely hospital time woes, have been very unsettling. It has been really amazing to be home with my family and friends. It's just odd to be pulled away from my life in Kolkata so quick. I'm still on Kolkata time. I don't go to sleep at night until I know all the Prem Dan volunteers are on their chai break. I wake up in the morning thinking about who's hanging out on the roof Hotel Maria as the sun finally goes away after a long day in the smoggy, sweaty heat.

There have been very loud reminders of why it is best that I am here at home. My first week back I got news that a friend of mine from high school had died in an accident on the Oregon Coast. Sokhak is an amazingly vibrant, loud, insane friend. His memorial service was absolutely absurd--exactly as Sokhak would have liked it. A Portland bar was filled with his open mic poet and musician friends (covered in tattoos and dripping in dreadlocks) alongside Hillsboro's cleanest and sweetest suburban families. The event was very sad, but I felt like there was this feeling in the room of joy and thankfulness at the same time. Everyone was happy to have an impromptu high school reunion and the message that rang loud as people went on the stage was one of loving life aggressively and passionately just like Sokhak. Sokhak worked a lot in community development and was someone I was friends with from day 1 freshmen year of high school. His next tattoo was going to read, "Yay, life!" He was weird and crazy and I'm so sad he's gone. It was nice to be able to introduce Ben to a lot of my high school friends and I'm glad I was home to be at the service. The whole thing made for an interesting first week back.

And now it is the end of week two in America, capped off with a horribly tragic terrorist attack in India and...Thanksgiving. When I first heard about the attacks in Mumbai I was most certainly in disbelief. I sat and stared at my computer screen, more specifically at the words 'targeted at tourists.' I didn't have plans to travel anywhere near Mumbai, nor have I heard of any of my volunteer friends being near there now, but nonetheless the news shook me. I stayed up all night watching live news on the bombings. Oh, and there are protesters at the Bangkok airport I was suppose to fly out of in a couple weeks. Gosh. I am glad to be home... but, it's hard not to feel weird eating a turkey dinner when catastrophic events are unfolding elsewhere in the world. Part of me just wishes I was somewhere that cared a little bit more about these issues, somewhere that didn't put stories of the attacks on page four behind the Black Friday shopping ads and Rose Bowl predictions.

I'm thankful for family, friends (old and new), overprotective doctors, a boy we all called Silk, artistic people, stuffing, milk from cows, peaceful democratic protests, cousins to stay up late with watching bad B movies, warm socks, canned cranberry sauce, hostages that were released and my dog.

Prem Dan

this is what i did. this is where i was.

i have some stories

After years and years of playing The Oregon Trail computer game in elementary school, you'd think I'd be well equipped to avoid typhoid fever. You'd think. Kolkata had different plans for this Oregonian girl and I in fact did contract typhoid fever. And I didn't even ford the freakin river.


I have a lot of stories to share with you, dear blog readers. I don't really know where to start. As you could probably tell from my dad's previous post comment and from my two plus weeks of blog silence, something went wrong with my trip. I spent 10 fun filled nights in an Indian hospital recovering from what we now know was typhoid fever and a bad, bad parasite. All is well now. I am currently sitting on my bed in Hillsboro, Oregon at 5 in the morning, attempting to combat jet lag. I figured now was as good of time as any to start to sift through what has happened.

The whole story, obviously, wasn't being shared on the internet. Over the course of my last 5 blog posts I had been feeling increasingly sick. Being the incredibly stubborn and self sufficient person I am, I decided to work through my spiking temperatures and bouts with painful stomach cramping. For nearly three weeks I had an on and off temperature of over 103 degrees. When I hit my fifth layer of clothing and near delirium, Traci decided it was time for me to go to the hospital. Did I mention I love and am forever indebted to my amazing medicine-bound roommate? And so I went in a taxi all bundled up and found myself two hospitals and multiple dizzy spells later being admitted to Belle Vue Clinic under the care of Dr. Singh.

Despite what images you may conjure up when you think of a medical adventure in a third world country, I can assure you my time at Belle Vue Clinic was very comfortable (all things considered). By sheer luck, Dr. Singh ended up being the local physician for the American Embassy and to Traci's and my relief, we found a large sign outside the front entrance that declared a hefty donation to the hospital had been made by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Oh, Seattle.

After being admitted, I found myself under an onslaught of tests and more tests. This was a product of the combination of the fact that not only did my illness have very vague, very intense symptoms, but also that I was in India where it is very customary to fuss over your guests. The few weeks prior to my hospital stay, Kolkata had a horrible outbreak of malaria and dengue fever that had plagued the slums of the city. I had diligently been taking my malaria pills and yet I still found myself ridiculously freaked out that I might have one of those two bad boys. I was relieved (??!!!) come day 3 in the hospital when I was finally diagnosed with typhoid fever. I had taken a typhoid vaccination before I left for my trip, but I guess I got the shitty end of the deal (pun intended) of the 80% effective rate. The next 7 days were spent on the phone with people I love from home, battling my insurance company and being pumped full of copious amounts of IV antibiotics. And so it was, my India trip was irrevocably changed.

I tried to stay positive about the situation--I even named my parasite, Perry the Parasite. Regardless, my experience of being in the hospital was a terrible blow to my self esteem. I felt entirely defeated. Those first few days in the hospital were riddled with anger and tears and disbelief. The best way I can think to describe it all is comparing it to a bad break up.

I'm pissed.

India and I are not on good speaking terms right now.

I feel like I got dumped by India, this place I had fallen so madly in love with. What did I do wrong? I loved and loved and gave so much of myself and you hurt me. "It's not you, it's me," I could hear India say as I lay lonely in my hospital bed with only my IV line to hold my hand. I most certainly hit what can only be described as the lowest of lows.

Above all else, I was overwhelmed by the thought of never getting to see my patients at Prem Dan again. I gradually came to terms with the fact that my travel plans post-Kolkata would be replaced with an early return ticket home, but still I was terrified I wasn't going to be allowed back to work. I was devastated and worried my intense experiences volunteering would never have even a hint of closure. All I could really think about while in the hospital was how guilty I felt leaving everyone uncared for at Prem Dan. Here I was with a disease that a lot of the women at my work have, coping with the guilt that while they lay sock-less and blanket-less with their fevers, I was carted off to the most posh hospital in Kolkata at a moment's notice. I had the money to make my typhoid go away and the help to make every OK in the end. I came here to help others with illnesses like this. The full weight of the dichotomy of our world I was beginning to see through India was punching me in the gut and not easing up. I urgently wanted out and to get back to Prem Dan.

Going back to work wasn't going to be an easy feat, however. My doctor gave me a further diagnosis; the good news, my typhoid was the non-contagious strand. The bad news, I had fluid on my bladder and in my intestines and there was a possibility I had liver damage. On top of that, my veins are apparently pretty weak and my wrists had swollen under the stress of all my IVs. My discharge date was pushed out another couple days. I major consolation with this extension came when I found out my travel insurance I had purchased through my school had a Bedside Companion claim--if I was in a foreign hospital for longer than seven days they would pay for a person of my choice to come be with me. The thought being, a person from home will be good at holding your hand and comforting you and they can help you navigate your flight home. Good thing for me my boyfriend, Ben, is the best hand holder I know and he's a veteran India traveler. Day seven came and went, I was still hooked up to IVs and a plane ticket was purchased for Ben. After the amazing help of my University advisor, Fr. Cobb and my study abroad director, Robin Craggs, Ben had an expedited Indian visa, malaria pills and a one way flight to India. PDX to Kolkata with only a few days notice. He's a pretty cool guy.

I was so thankful for Ben taking this crazy trip to come be with me. I can only begin to imagine what it felt like for him to not only process having a girlfriend in the hospital, but to take in Kolkata in only 5 days time. Ben is truly an amazing person and pro world traveler. He arrived safe and sound the morning of my day-10 discharge, just in time to carry my bag and force me to sit down when I got dizzy. There's so much to say about the five days that followed my discharge. I did make it back to Prem Dan where I even had Ben volunteer in the men's ward, Ben and I lived with an incredibly kind and generous Indian family (Dhruv's family I mentioned before), I got to show Ben all the amazing places I called home for the last month and I attempted to cram as many of my undone Kolkata agenda items as I could before I had to fly home. It was an insane couple of days made only that much more absurd by the fact that I was functioning on a post-typhoid level of energy. This wasn't the way Ben and I had hoped our first trip abroad together would be, but so much of it felt like a very cleverly disguised blessing that I am now so very thankful for. We've officially dubbed his time with me in Kolkata as "Rescue 9-1-fun." I'll write about more stories from my final Prem Dan visit and Ben's and my Indian adventures in another blog post. So much to say.

It all feels surreal now, sitting here in my parents house. I always told myself that the best trait for a traveler to have is flexibility. Always be ready to change your plans. Regardless, I am still in disbelief at the level to which my trip was thrown to the wind. According to my unfinished travel schedule, today I was suppose to be in Rishikesh about to head out for the ashram. Thinking of the ashram or Nepal or my last week in Thailand is still really hard. I get hot in the face and close to tears when I remember how certain I was a few weeks ago that I was a good traveler. I felt so confident I was making people proud back home, I was justifying my award of the Sullivan scholarship and I was reassuring everyone who worried back home that the world is a generally safe place outside of Hillsboro, Oregon. All that feels like lie now...I'm really uncertain what is genuine and what is false in all I felt before I went into the hospital. It's overwhelming.

I'm trying to deal right now with these feelings of failure--by my standards a far harsher ailment than typhoid. I know I'll come to terms with this all at some point. There will be a time when the consolations outweigh the desolations and I can comprehend a purpose to this whole ordeal. Right now, though, I don't feel like I belong in my bed at home and I'm missing India in a really heavy way.

I think Fr. Cobb consoled me best during one of our overseas phone calls in my hospital room. He said, "India needs you in the long run, not the short run. You need to be healthy." This has been my personal mantra the last two weeks. I have a little calendar tucked away in my travel journal that is covered in scribbled train times, hostel addresses and what was my tentative travel plans for the next two months. I can't tell you how long it'll take me to feel better about what has happened or when I will feel completely healthy again. I can, however, tell you that I have every intention of unfolding that calendar sometime in my life and finishing my trip.

pokes and pills

Today was a big big day for my preparations for the trip. Today I went to the Travel Doctor. Rest assured, dear blog readers, I have been poked with an amazing amount of neon colored liquids and stocked to capacity with pretty little malaria pills. I am--in regards to my health and body--ready for India.
The last few days have been busy as all get up. I finished work at Turnstyle Friday. My last day at work was equal parts exciting and sad. It felt amazing to know that I was moving away from Seattle--the first step in the most immediate marks in my exit to India. It was very sad though. My coworkers are all so sweet. The day was filled with hugs and a pork sandwich picnic to Golden Gardens. Turnstylers, I know you are reading this blog...you are all very good at keeping an eye on me at all times. Thank you for an amazing summer (again) and I expect hilarious comments on my blog posts from all of you!

After my goodbyes at work I had an amazing weekend in Yakima with Ben. We went with Tyler to their mom's surprise birthday party. Mary, mary, mary HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

And now...now I'm in Portland, kicking it with Monty waiting for my parents and Ben to get off work to go have dinner at the Hedgehouse.

Tomorrow Ben and I leave for Boston to hang out with our good buddy Jim BB and the BB girls--Ingrid, Harper and Ellis. This trip has been a long time in the making and I couldn't be more excited. The idea of spending a week with Ben and some of my favorite people in the world is absolutely a.maz.ing. I think it'll be just perfect for mentally preparing me for my trip to India. So, pokes and pills done, Boston up next. Chowdahh, here I come!!

Puddles vs. Packing

31 days until India, three more days in Seattle and it's raining.

This means I might not get distracted and actually do (/start) some packing tonight.

Or I might just go jump in some puddles and ride my bike in the rain.

Über Nostalgic

I think I'm starting to get a wee bit nervous about leaving all of my friends and family for India. This is my last week in Seattle. To cope with this parting period, I've begun to compile my stash of "Home" photos to take with me on my trip to look at when I'm lonely. I'm going to miss a lot of things.

I'm going to miss work and all my super rad coworkers in Ballard:



I'm going to miss Portland--that is my parents and my friends and the brew pubs that all make up what I consider to be Portland:



I'm going to miss Annie and Hollis:


I'm going to miss Ben and pigeons (...no, no, no, scratch that, not pigeons):



And most of all, I'm going to miss Shakeface:


Ohh wait, there's Shakeface in India. I can totally do Shakeface in India!! Yes!! Homesickness cure discovered!

Stay tuned, blog readers. Loads of Indian Shakeface photos to come...

mad spittin

Camels camels camels camels camels CAMELS!

After an email chat with Marcelle (mentioned in a previous post), she reminded me of the most amazing thing that I left out of my itinerary post. A few other friends had suggested I attend the Pushkar Camel Fair. CAMELS! Lots of them. There are camel rides and camel souvenirs and camel races and even camel beauty contests!

The Pushkar Fair, or Pushkar ka Mela, is the world's largest camel fair held in the holy town of Pushkar in the state of Rajasthan, India. The Pushkar fair is indubitably the world's largest camel fair (and indeed, world's largest cattle fair in general). Competitions such as the "matka phod", "moustache", and "bridal competition" are the main draws for this fair which attracts thousands of tourists. In recent years the fair has also included an exhibition cricket match between the local Pushkar club and a team of random foreign tourists.

And we can stay in tents!

During the special occasion of the Pushkar Fair, accommodation is arranged in special tents in a tourist village, which is self-sufficient and specially designed to complement the natural beauty of the site. The village has a coffee shop and dining hall that can cater to 1,500 guests at a time. The village is arranged on blocks of tents, each with its own identity, named after the famous dances of Rajasthan. The village also has huts with attached western style toilets and running water.

Dude, so many camels. It's going to be awesome...and smelly...and AWESOME

BIG project

For those of you who don't know, I'm going to India in 39 days.

Yes, I'm counting.

I like to think of myself as a project-addict. This trip, however, is slightly bigger than my average project and is most certainly consuming my thoughts, time and emotional energy these days. The major purpose of my trip is to go and volunteer in Calcutta with Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity. Seattle University has been supporting students who wish to go volunteer with the MC's for over 23 years through their Calcutta Club. Many of my fellow Sullivan Scholars have made the trip. Volunteers work in one of the MC homes in Calcutta and have the option to choose a site preference. I haven't decided yet what type of work I want to do with the MC's. It'll likely be hospice type care in the elderly women's home, Perm Dan, or childcare center work in Shishu Bhavan, home to children with mental disabilities. I doubt I'll decide which volunteer site I want to be at until I'm actually there for orientation. It's not really a hard decision. I know any choice would be equally rewarding and overwhelming. Right now I'm leaning towards Shishu Bhavan primarily because I know how happy I am when I work with children. And in a place as exceedingly challenging as Calcutta I'm going to need laughing little kiddos to get me through the day. If my volunteer work a few months ago in Belize at the Dorthy Menzie Childcare Center is any indication, I'll be in love with the children within days of arriving and angry at myself when I leave them.

I will be leaving the states on September 21st to fly to Bangkok, Thailand. From there I will be meeting up with two other Calcutta Club members, Joe and Traci (frequent characters in my upcoming blog stories, for sure). We hope to spend a week or so exploring and acclimating in Bangkok. From there we will fly together to Calcutta. I hope to make time to make short trips to Darjeeling and Agra (at least). The last month of my trip will be spent (hopefully...this is all tentative) heading north to Nepal to do a two week trek in Nepal to Base Camp at Mt. Everest. Whoa. From there I will part ways with my traveling buddies to head over to Dehra Dun to visit the Ashram that my boyfriend, Ben spent time in with our good friend Chad who was volunteering there for a year. And then it's homeward bound... But, not before an awesomely long layover in South Korea. I'll be in Seoul for 12 hours. Just enough time to see a few markets or temples and eat some fish head soup, according to this dude's blog.

If my itinerary sounds ambitious, blame my damn worldly friends.

It's funny how many of my friends have traveled to India. Perhaps there's a bit of romanticism fueling this whole shebang... I've been hearing stories of backpacking in India since I was in 5th grade in Marcelle's class at Mooberry Elementary School. So, Mom and Dad, if you still feel some anxiety about me going abroad, blame Marcelle. She planted the travel seed. Living in Seattle and going to travel-happy-SU only further perpetuated my craving for India-ness. A whole slew of my friends have made the trek. Let me show you:

Sarah in Calcutta working at Perm Dan.

Zach in Calcutta, being a dork.

Brig with the Sisters in Calcutta.

John and Sophie at the Guest House I'll be living in. FYI: Sophie is a bad ass and shaved her head in Calcutta. Big inspiration for my chopping-off-of-hair incident.

Megan (middle) in Darjeeling. She's not normally purple. This photo was taken during Holi festival.

Maddy, Maddy, Maddy looking adorable with her henna on a train in India.

Last, and hairest, Ben and Chad singing with the kids in the Ashram.

Thank you, numerous friends who have traveled to India, thank you for making me excited to leave and thank you for not laughing at my stupid questions about travel underwear and thank you for giving me tips on where to eat and what to see and how to avoid the double dragon. Thank you.

I'm thinking

I should go to India. Also, I would like to go to India. Hopefully this is the first of convenient occurrences on this adventure.