Hey John Lennon, show me your kickflip

Damn I ate books up when I was sick. Usually I can't sit down and read in extensive installments but I read nearly two books while I was sick.
Wanna know what my mind's like right now?
Okay, eat this, a few things that I underlined, circled, demarcated (?) for whatever reason:
"She was liberating. She taught us to be impolite in conversation not only about sexual matters, but about American history and famous heroes, about the distribution of wealth, about school, about everything."
"The things other people have put into my head, at any rate, do not fit together nicely, are often useless and ugly, are out of proportion with one another, are out of proportion with life as it really is outside my head.
I have no culture, no humane harmony in my brains. I can't live without a culture anymore."
"..Armistice Day I will keep. I don't want to throw away any sacred things.
What else is sacred? Oh, Romeo and Juliet, for instance.
And all music is."
"He saw eleven moons in the sky over the new Mildred Barry Memorial Center for the Arts one night. The next morning he saw a huge duck directing traffic at the intersection of Arsenal Avenue and Old County Road"
"..He wished to arrive in Midland City the dirtiest of all old men...'I don't know who McLuhan is, but I know what it's like to spend the night with a lot of other dirty old men in a movie theater in New York City. Could we talk about that?'"
"'I can't tell if you're serious of not," said the driver.
'I won't know myself until I find out whether life is serious or not," said Trout. "It's dangerous, I know, and it can hurt a lot. That doesn't necessarily mean it's serious, too.'"
Yes; it's Kurt.
Now to the facts, people.
Last time I wrote was after I'd returned from my first trip. Well since then various ocurrences have ocurred, and if you were to have drilled a hole straight under your feet you could've come and joined the fun! No traveling since then (funny now how 'traveling' means going outside of Hyderabad, whereas prior it was just going outside of say LA, or STL), but some highlights of Hyderabadi life include my roommate, Olga, and other kids getting sitars, which I can look at and play and live vicariously through. I'm not playing because of the money issue. It's a $300 investment that I think I would rather spend on traveling. I've saved money my whole life to travel...not necessarily play the sitar. Don't give me too much crap when I get back. In other news, we spent a day at a Children's Camp run by an organization that "crash-educates" ex-child laborers in a short amount of time so that they can eventually and quickly enroll in classes with kids their own age. It basically helps them catch up. One girl sang a song, we heard some girls speak about their experiences, which were really personal stories. These girls were phenomenally brave. I can't beleive what they've gone through, like something out of a movie, and the thing is, that's what it felt like. The way that the day went, it was like the kids were putting on a presentation for us. It was really uncomfortable and odd for me. I think Catherine will immediately get what I'm talking about. One girl was crying while telling her story. Later, Sophie and I talked about this and we learned from other people that the girls that told the stories actually volunteered to share with us, which made us feel better about the whole situation. We taught the kids some games that we knew; they taught us theirs. Then we left and a large group of us spent the evening partying with Tollywood stars and bangin' around at a fancy night club in a ritzy hotel, where we were escorted in for free, had a reserved table ON THE DANCE FLOOR, and had free drinks all night. We danced a lot. Some people drank too much. I drank a lot but not too much. Taxis took us home. Pre and Post parties happened at various "party pads" (studio-like spaces owned for partying only), but I opted to duck out on the latter and head home. I passed out after drunkenly confessing my love for Jake. on the cellular.
Talk about black and white.
Talk about India.
Talk about the way CIEE runs their programs and thinks they can "show us India".
Talk about Life.
Damn.
Other highlights include Freaks & Geeks marathons (holla), the purchase of a Cat Stevens collection, the savoring of miraculous sorbet, an art gallery, adorableness, THE FREAKIN PLANETARIUM (which 4 out of 5 of us fell asleep in, by the way), our first Indian movie theater experience (we saw Tar Zameen Par, which was great. And only in Hindi with no subtitles, but great), a lovely sunset atop a white marble temple overlooking the city, laughs, music, painting outside during another sunset, planning a good chunk of my young life: the rest of the trips during the school year, which include Goa, Kerala, and Mumbai (not including CIEE trips to Pondicherry and Chennai [which are this weekend] and Mysore) for Northern India and oozy European excursions. Davita and I also spent last night at Sophie's house (she's staying in a homestay) where her Amma made us dinner. Sophie's house is beautiful and they have this swing in the middle of their common room. Dream come true.
Also, the other night a few of us hung out with some Indian friends at his factory. Whateva'; we're sketchy. We know. It was really fun and there were exotic birds involved, and lambs, and peacocks, moonlit walks, rum, Indian techno-pop (aka year old US dance club remixes), danceparty car rides.
So now it's 2 days later. I have some time to kill before I meet with some people to chat about a trip to Goa, so here we are. I had a really frustrating class today which I would rather not talk about, but just so as not to keep you guessing, I will just say that I have a professor with an ENORMOUS stick UPP HIS ASS, who is intelligent, but can not TEACH, basically bullies the class by indimidation and shooting us down whenever we speak at all; And then he calls us all imbeciles when we don't respond to his questions (questions which are really confusing and really vague, but for which he expects a very pointed answer...you know...the one that HE thinks is correct which is usually a total shot in left field) but no one wants to speak in class because he will ALWAYS shoot you down in a really direct obvious respect-less way. It's total shit. Also, his lectures are unorganized; he jumps around; he uses terms in odd ways (language barrier? i dont think so..it's not just the non-indians that are confused...it's the whole world). Any way, so class hits 4--actually 4:03 to be precise--, he brings his lecture to a close, stops talking and I get up to go head out to my other class which starts at 4 and he says "excuse me; sit down!"...but I have trouble understanding him because he is middle eastern with british-accented english, so i was like.."sorry?" And then he gets all mad and repeats it, and i say "i just have to go to class". i sat down. Then he proceeded to interrogate the SIP (american foreign exchange) students about where we were on Friday (an extra class that he just added for last week---class is actually wed/thur 2-4...NOT FRIDAY). Then he went through his SIP attendance sheet and asked us each what classes we've attended. He did not do this for the other students. He doesn't even take attendance for the other students. Isn't that great? Oh, and also he went around the class today and had each student sum up the philosopher we're currently studying in one sentence. Awesome.
Anyway, then my class afterwards never happened b/c the prof never showed up. SO I had an academically frustrating day. And also my Indian Philos class earlier was like eating mushed up baby peaches. it's the driest way philos has ever been presented to me. just straight up terms and definitions. and this guy is also crazy. an empiricist and such...says religion is bogus and hocus pocus and it's straight superstition, has no value, and is unsophisticated, etc etc etc.
little mallory is frustrated.
Positives are we're going out of town this weekend. Yay for paid trips!, even though I hear CIEE trips are stupid--like traveling with your 2nd grade class or something. Anyway, I'm stoked about possibly going to Goa soon, we have a 7-day plan for Kerala which I think will be utopic, and then Mumbai lays in the distance. Mr. Das (SIP Guest House Manager) says that it might be too hot to travel to agra and kolkata after the program's over (our original plan), but that the himilayas will be alright cuz their elevated. We're considering this situation. The Taj Mahal must be seen; the Himilayas must be conquered; I must reconnect with the Indian roots (Kolkata). So somehow, it will happen.
Pockets empty.
Hey, I finished the Hyd Times today..turned it in! That's pretty exciting. It should be out by friday, so I hope it is a hit.
You're a star.
I'll probably be in SF this summer.
I'm going to look @ internships now.
Holla at yo girl.
X, Mal
John Lennon's been in my head all day. Like literally, I think he's been trying to learn to skateboard....on my cerebral cortex.
.......
.wtf?.

Oh, and also a secret is this:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jordan.keenan
http://picasaweb.google.com/sophie.lubin
theivery. Jordan and Sophie's photo albums.....
I tend to roll with them and they have been documenting digitally, which I have not been doing. Curious? Click.