11.11.19
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Day One of my Independent Study Project (ISP) period has been completed, and I’m currently sitting on the rooftop of my Airbnb house, basking in the morning sunshine and listening to the symphony of birds chirping and cooing and fluttering, combined with the occasional drone of a car or motorbike and a produce seller announcing the arrival of his goods.
Our last week of classes before our ISP period was a real grind. We had three exams (a written Nepali language final, a Devnagari reading final, and the OPI—the Oral Proficiency Interview) as well as two essays (a final proposal of our ISP, and a final essay relating to development, gender, and social change). I felt good about the written Nepali language final and the Devnagari reading final, but I’m a bit anxious because SIT will send my scores to IWU and I won’t really know what I got on them or what I got as my final grade until much later. The final proposal wasn’t terribly taxing and it definitely garnered more interest about my ISP topic. I will be conducting a creative project about the muscular and neurological effects that various yoga positions have on the body, hand-illustrated in a blank book that will include hand-written descriptions of the effects and tips on how to optimize performance while minimizing injury. I’m looking forward to it! Furthermore, the other final essay was also interesting to write, as it was about the incorporation of yoga in physical therapy in America.
Regarding the OPI…I definitely got a better score than I was expecting, but I was honestly quite bitter when I found out some of my classmates’ results. Due to a bit of pride in knowing that I studied a lot and that I had the feeling that I could speak better than them, I was frustrated at myself for realizing that they were placed in higher levels because they were able to effectively manipulate the conversation to where they could talk about advanced topics and demonstrate their knowledge of advanced vocabulary words. However, I treated the exam as more of like a casual conversation, just trying to genuinely talk about things that I was interested in and learn more about the grader. Unfortunately, that did not include much advanced vocabulary, and I received Intermediate High—just under Advanced Low. Although I was genuinely upset, I decided to study and practice more Nepali during the ISP period and aim for Advanced Low. This rating is really for me to have official validation that I am competent in another language other than English.
We celebrated our last day at SIT with a puja (blessing) for good luck on our ISP, and had a lunch party with all of our homestay families. The food was delicious, as always, and I had a pleasant time talking to everyone else’s parents, whom I have had little to no contact with before. We played a (competitive) game, danced, and sang for the whole afternoon. After our families left, my classmates and I went to Thamel to hang out.
Leaving my homestay family yesterday was actually quite sad…I really did enjoy my time with my Nepali family. Despite some awkward moments and temporarily annoyances—as what occurs with every relationship—I greatly appreciated there are and efforts to make me comfortable and happy. However, I felt that I needed a change of scenery and a change of routine from what I was currently used to. I guess, as people insist, I came to Nepal to be out of my comfort zone (and my classmates would jokingly say otherwise that, hey, guess what, did you know that I was actually supposed to go to China?), and I’m trying to embrace that mindset. Because I really do find value in that. It doesn’t help anyone if you stay in your comfort zone all the time. You won’t be able to experience new things, be pushed to learn more about the world and about yourself, or be able to make valuable connections with the people around you. Thus, I chose to live in an Airbnb house with one of my classmates, with each of us having a single bedroom in this massive house. It’s located in Lazimpat, close to Thamel, and it’s not too far away from Hadigau, so I definitely plan to come back and visit my homestay family.
When I first visited this Airbnb house, everything was extremely clean and there was no one living there except for the owner and his brother (who are exceptionally kind people). However, when we arrived yesterday, we were surprised to see several other people already living there. I guess that fellow Airbnb’ers really liked this house. One of the guests is actually a friend of the owner, and she ended up giving me her life story yesterday. She (I will call her Mina didi) was studying in LSU, Lousiana, but then her mother had a stroke, so she returned to take care of her. Since medical expenses took a toll on her family’s finances, Mina didi has been graciously been given a place to stay at the Airbnb house with her friends. She took me out shopping yesterday in Asan, where I experienced my first bazaar. In Hadigau and Naxal, there aren’t really bazaars—just street stalls. So it was really exciting to experience the bustling night life (which I thought was nonexistent in Nepal) at the market. There were endless fruit and vegetable stands, people pulling their carts of fried corn and other snacks, dried fruit and seasoning stalls, huge crystals of black and white Himalayan salt. clothing booths, electrical appliance stores, and much more. Although it was busy and made my head spin, it was exciting to experience this aspect of Nepali culture. Furthermore, I was able to buy such cheap and organic produce.
I’m going to spend the rest of the day relaxing because I don’t really have much else planned, but I start my research tomorrow. I’ll be meeting with a yoga guru, who is my homestay baa’s friend, and asking him about the most popular yoga poses. I’ll ask him to demonstrate the poses for me while I photograph him for references to draw later, and then I’ll ask him about the muscular and neurological benefits that the poses pose (pun intended). I have never done independent research like this before, in a new country without much guidance on what I’m really supposed to do. But I guess that’s the part about experiential learning. You won’t really know until you experience it.
