To be honest, I have been thinking in terms of what it means to innovate, and so I decided to not write a traditional essay in paragraph format; instead, I pretended that my essay was a string of facebook statuses updating my friends, family, and the public world wide web of the highlights of my adventures here thus far.

2 June

Goodbye California. Khoda-hafez fahmil-e-man. America: 2 languages spoken.
Namaste Mumbai. Vanacom Hosur. Namaskara Bangalore. India: 22 official languages, hundreds of dialects, and I only know 3 words in 3 different tongues. Time to learn.

7 June

I was asked to sing an American song to a group of Tamil students and the first song that came to mind was Justin Bieber's Baby. What did I do? Close my eyes, clear my throat, and sing the chorus using a white board marker as my mike.

10 June

Laughed, cried, and listened to the stories of four individuals who told tales of historic suppression, business development, and the growing social change instigated by everyday people. Then, I ate lunch with three CEOs and experienced the most intellectual human exchange and heart to heart dialogue with men who have dedicated two decades of their lives to empowering people from villages to the urban world.

14 June

Got mistaken as a male TWICE yesterday. Apparently, the short hair, collared- shirt- tucked- into-pants look is only for guys.

Situation A: Walking into the girl's bathroom in the corporate office only to hear the cleaning lady gasp and exclaim: "My goodness! I thought you were a boy!"

Situation B: Walking through a security checkpoint and having a male security guard about to pat me down only to take a closer look at me, pull his hands back in absolute surprise, and then kindly direct me to where the women's security station was located.

15 June

They have intermissions in the cinemas here in India. Films literally stop halfway through so that people have time to buy more caramel-drizzled popcorn and Indianized burgers. However, if you are so inclined to stay in your red velvet seat, that is comparable to a massage chair, a waiter approaches and asks if you'd like anything to eat or drink before the film begins again. All I could think of when Madagascar 3 stopped was that there was a power outage; turns out the theaters here are WAY MORE high tech than the ones back at home.

19 June

I’m officially friends with the cooks in the guest house even though they call me “Madam”. We made Roti, Indian wheat version of tortillas, together, and although mine were triangular when they were supposed to be circular, they still ate it. Next step: learn how to cook and speak Hindi.