What are the posts?

I'm exited! I'm heading up to Rajasthan for 5 days to see my family who has just arrived in India (this time my father and step-mother), and I am joining them up North tonight. Way too short, but I couldn’t get any more time off work and they couldn’t make it down to Chennai, so it is a lot of flying in a short period, 4 hops, but worth it to see them. They’re in Delhi now. Hope they’re liking it and are getting over any jetlag.

But in the mean time, where have my blogs gone? I've been delinquent in posting this last month. Sorry folks, I just can’t seem to get my blog entries finished and up these days. Lots of ideas, musing and stories, but it is a combination of time and energy constraints.

So while you wait, what is going on with me these days? Well, for starters I am a month in on taking daily Tamil lessons. I’ve got a lot I want to write about all that, but the short version is that this is making for happy for several reasons. First, I am simply really liking the challenge and feeling of learning a language again. I feel smart and empowered. This leads to reason 2: I have long harboured a belief that I am not good at languages and didn’t like the experience. Thirdly, and also importantly, I am excited for the window into the Tamil culture and the improved opportunity to interact with people here.

But the lessons, an extra hour and a half a day after work, are burning me out a little. By the time I get home, eat dinner and clear my head from actively thinking about Tamil, it is time for bed. With work being busier again, little time for writing.

Actually, it isn’t so much that I don’t have time at all for writing, it is more that this newer schedule is highlight weaknesses in my writing style: I write my blog entries best when I can sit down in the moment, when the idea, rant or glee at something strikes me and get it out. And I need the energy to write buoyantly. If I don’t I have trouble getting entries finished. I have more than a dozen posts partially written and a dozen more notes of ideas I wanted to write about. I’ve got trips and weekends away to share and tons of stories from Nepal I’ve got written in my journal to transcribe. But busy and tired, I never seem to get them done, polished or to my liking.

Anyway, enough on that. Suffice to say more posts in the works. You’ll just have to be patient for a bit.

What else is going on, well, as those who note my status updates on Facebook know, I’ve managed to get out trekking last weekend in a wilderness area north of the city. No great mountains scaled or anything, but it was a great exploratory foray to the area and even better the area has climbing potential if I can get a rope and a second harness for a partner. I’m excited to try that out. I’m slowly, slowly building a new social circle here, meeting new people from all sorts of random angles (even through this blog, cool enough), connections and events.

So I’m out for a bit, but promise to clean up some of my half-done entries…before I think of more things I want to share, jot down or capture… ;-)