Blushing Blogista

My, my, I never thought I'd join the so-dubbed bloggosphere. But here I am, leaping into the fray! Sometime between snooping on celebs via gawker.com, admiring photos at verbosecoma.com, and cribbing notes on what brilliant socio-political essay I skipped in the Economist from danrosan.org, it occurred to me that it might be fun to have my own. But this site is also practical, since I leave for India next week. It seems to be the best way to keep in touch with pals and fretting family back home during my three months overseas.

I will be volunteering for the first two months with the Veerni Project (veerni.org)--teaching English with their Creative Literacy Programme on behalf of Full Circle (fullcircle.org.uk)--so I'll also be using this forum to post my reactions to this work experience (full disclosure: Teri's postings at indyindia.blogspot.com about her adventures with Veerni in Jodhpur also inspired me to get my own space). I am currently looking out at a salt-studded, frigid Lexington Avenue, guessing the scenery will be a bit different over there. Gee whiz, I can hardly believe it's so soon.

I can also not believe the news. The latest is that the earthquake-driven tsunami has ended 44,000 lives--now 50,000 according to the newest BBC News posting (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4129371.stm)-- but this is day three. So the count will undoubtedly go up.

What a note to begin on.

ox,
Rose

(for those not reared in Calcutta--oops, Kolkata--Golap is Rose in Bengali)