PICTURES!! will have more up in a little while going to eat breakfast first =D

These Photos are of a baby owl we found stuck in the attic where the wolar panels are. he was

 very very beautiful and we ended up letting him go that night =] all is well with the little ulloo (owl)

THese are pics from our group tour to the biggest Buddha stupa in Aisa! the Boddanath =D

Second trip to the Monkey Temple  (Swoyambuhl)

These are pics from the Pashupatinath temple (hindi) the atmosphere is much different than the Boddanath temple... it was much more depressing.. and most of the people here were not very excited to see our white faces.....

f

~~~~PRINCESS MONONOKE!!~~~~

                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INTERNET FOR A WEEK!

Yeah so my plans are a bit different than what i had expected haha but not in a bad way!

i signed up to do the language and culture program before i left for Nepal, and so now im doing that program here at a hostel for a week and then they take me to my project in the Monastery!
While im here at the hostel i am going to be able to learn how to speak Nepali and learn about the culture and stuff. and they are also taking us sight seeing! we were supposed t ride elephants in the jungle but there is a strike at the moment and none of the rides are open haha. so we had to change our plans a bit =] but now were going to three different temples and going out to some other places. gonna be fun!!!

Bad News:
I got really really really sick last night =[ i had taken a freshly washed glass from the counter to drink out of, and forgot to dry it out and so i had gotten some bacteria from the tap water into my fresh water. luckily it was not enough to make me get harmfully ill.... i was asleep and then all of a sudden i was getting this pain in my stomach like i was being turned inside out by my belly button... gnarly ik.
so i tried to lay on my back and just massage my stomach, but that just made it hurt worse lol. i was up for three hours... from two am till 5... i took some ibeuprofin hoping the swelling in my belly would reduce, but that worked for like a few mins. and all day today it was paining =[ so after our language class i went and took a two hour nap haha. it felt sooo good. and when i woke up i was feeling a bit better, but right when i stood up, i had to run to the bathroom and threw up allll over the place =[ and then i went back to bed and at that point i woke up again feeling much better.

one of the guys here who lives at the hostel with us (and is the staff) is our chef. his name is Frigash (spelling?) but i just call him 'dai' or big brother. he is SO nice to me. he always gives me snacks and i sit with him while he is cooking in the kitchen and sometimes he will have me cut veggies or peel some stuff and throw them on the skillet or whatever. we have really cool coversations too about what foods are good for you and culture foods and stuff like that.

so this morning i was feeling pretty rough and on top of that the pain was making me miss my mommy hahah and every time i started to think about home my stomach would hurt even worse and i would start to tear up. so Dai made me some toast with home made honey and let me sit in the kitchen where it was warm with him. he didnt say anything just sat quietly with me. he's becoming my best friend here really fast and im so grateful. he calls me bahini or little sister sometimes too and it makes me feel like im closer to home. it helps to stop the loneliness =]

There are also two other girls here from maryland! Natalie and Nichole. Natalie is my age and Nichole is 22. they both are working at an orphanage and are taking the language and culture program with me. and then just a bit ago two french ppl showed up and are also teaching at an orphanage the day after tmro. THere is also one other old woman from london named Carol who is here on her own. im inspired by her because she is at least sixty or so and is in fantastic condition! she is travelling alone too which is even more cool lol.

Nat and Nichole know hindi and are teaching me to read and write in the Devanagari script =] we bought a Nepali news paper and they are having me and Carol decipher it haha.

this hostel is pretty cool too because there are like five floors and then there is a roof area where you can just do laundry or hang out in the sun. i am gonna get up really early and watch the sunset tmro morning =] you can see the mountains too from there! (i found out today actually that what i thought were the mountains are really just hills to the Nepali people.... insaneee)


(i started writing this like the day i got to the hostel, soo im a few days late lol. just bear with me! i will post more and more soon enough. )

Meditating Ravers? hahaha SWEET!

So the last dinner celebration thing for the Om Family retreat was crazy!

we started out with 15 mins of complete silence (there was only five of us).
so were doing the silence. Asha tells us to stand up with our eyes still closed.
so we do, and then you hear this on the speakers like blaring loud:

'im no DJ to F*&% with' and then crazy rave music comes on and everyone suddenly starts flailing arms and hair all over the place! at first i was not sure what the heck to do hahah so i just stood there in complete shock at what just broke out of complete and utter stillness....

and then i decided meh what the heck. so we all danced for like a half hour to crazy music! we had a raving meditation hahaha! and then literally after the last song everyone sat down and we became silent again.

it was really fun tho! because you are just still reveling in that moment of blissful dance and freedom to do what you want and be what you want with complete strangers.

then we had a classic Nepali feast =]


so tmro i leave for the monastery at 9 am! ahhhh its crazy how quickly a place can become your home if you really let it. i feel like i have known the people at this hotel for my whole life and im actually sad to leave! they are all asking me to come back and visit them just to have tea and talk. they said that they will miss me =] i love my friends!

so i am about to embark on a serious journey both physically and mentally.... i wonder what the outcome is going to be.

but then i should probably not worry about the future and just worry about the now. i don't want to worry about the finish if i haven't even started yet!


hope to post again soon keep looking out for something. not sure when ill be on next. if i dont post for a while ill be writing a journal. so maybe ill write a little memoir or autobio.

we will see =]
love you all.

OMMMMMMM

So today i went to the Om Family and got a full days worth of meditations, yoga, and massages!

we started out with Hatha yoga and then moved on to Kriya yoga. Kriya yoga is really really cool. we just sit there and Asha (my guru for the day and new friend) would speak and say really cool stuff in nepali and we would hum the OM sound. the vibrations when we would hum was so awesome. before we started the humming meditation, Asha told me to 'just be totally.' thats it. she asked me to 'be totally.' in my every day life from this moment forward, where ever i am, whatever im doing, just BE.

so we started reciting the Om sound and right away we hit the right tune together. so awesome because you can literally hear the different tones and pitches as if we were tuning our voices like guitars. and once we hit the OM, you could totally feel if you were tuned because our voices would resonate within our chests and ears! we did this for 15 mins straight.

after we did that she had me lay down and just relax completely on my back. she placed a hot water pad at the crown of my head, and then played a song bowl. (look them up on you tube. im gonna get one haha! so cool!) while she was doing this it was completely silent except for the song bowl which makes the EXACT tone of OM! so i was laying there and she was doing all kinds of crazy stuff with the bowl and after a while, i completely lost touch of my body. like i could feel it, but i was not in it... if that is at all easy to understand haha. she told me to focus on the sensation of my fingertips on the floor/mattress thingy. so i did and after a few mins of concentration they got super super hot as if on coals! and then just as quickly the feeling went away and i was completely numb all over. like i was so relaxed that i felt as if my body had died and my spirit was just floating around.... sounds weird to say but im serious!


when we had finished that part of the day i took a break ate breakfast, and lunch with her and then we started the Reiki massage. this was really stupid sounding at first: they do not touch you they just 'graze your energy'

ok so i was kinda skeptical when i was sitting in the chair (super comfy one!) and i was not opening myself up fully to it. but then she like put her hands on my head firmly and said 'your not opening your heart to me. just relax, close your eyes, and let everything BE'
 ok so i did that just to try it

she placed her hands just barely above the crown of my head, and the CRAZIEST sensation was going on. its not like magic or anything its just that it literally wakes up your whole body where ever her hands are. she would not touch me for a long time and all my senses under her hands were rapid firing. i could almost make out the shape of her hands by just feeling the amount of energy i was giving off! and then after hovering like that for a long time she would start to move them like a wave or pulsation. the craziest part about that is that my heart started beating with her movements!!! omggg it was so awesome lol. i was so utterly relaxed yet at the same time i was sweating because i was emitting so much energy or whatever you want to call it.

its like your brain actually is working out when she does this. its trying SO hard just to reach the thing that is so close to it, and yet it just cant get there. so it starts to almost create an image of in in your head.

like i was using sonar vision or something like a bat.
thats the effect i got anyways haha i loved it.

and then imediately after the Reiki i had to lay face down on the mattress thing on the floor. a guy came in and just started like massaging my head and neck in the best feeling head massage haha i started to fall asleep!

and then.... he moved my my shoulders and back. then it was not fun any more. he was literally destroying any traces of muscle tension in all major joints of my body. it hurt soooo bad.... but a the same time when he would move from one joint to the next my muscles felt like jelly haha

and at the last part he had me roll onto my back and he put my head on a pillow in his lap, and then he started to gently massage my entire head. like all over. my eyelids, temples, nose, eyebrows. EVERYTHING.
he started to do my ears next....
hahahaha i was supposed to be in a meditative state (which i was until this point) and it was like silent in the room except for the sound of him crushing my body lol
so he starts massaging my ears and im trying so hard to keep from smiling... it was tickling sooo badly! lol but the more i kept from smiling, the harder it got and eventually i just busted out laughing! he literally stopped dead as if i had just died or something and his eyes were so wide... i think i scared the crap out of the poor guy hahahaha!!! that just made me laugh even harder lol so he kinda just waited for me to stop and then asked if he did something wrong lmao and when i explained what happened we both got a pretty good laugh out of it.

and now i go back at seven tonight to have our celebration dinner and there is gonna be dancing and singing! and were gonna just hang out =] i love nepali people.... they are so fun!!

i have a great life. thank you friends and loved onessss =D
i am grateful for your very existence.

Test Results in!!!!!

I got an 83 percent on both Phonology and Grammar!!! woooo! =D the pass rate was 60 percent!

lol Harimaya got a 93 on phonology hahaha she is sooooo flippin smart! and she got a 99 percent on grammar!!! thats the highest in the history of this school.....

oh and news update on the creeper guy...

i heard from the reception guy at the hotel that he came in three days in a row looking for me! and each time he went to a new person so he could catch them in the act of lying. what a creep!

they all had said that i checked out of the hotel =D i love them!

I got my packages!!! =D

YAY!!! they were all christmasy and everything!! =D thank you familyyyy i love you!!!

oh and Harimaya said that the hemp bracelet Kaegan made her is actually a symbol of the brother and sister bond in India! so she was very very happy with it =]

so thats the awesome news and i shared all my goodies with my friends at the school and some with my friends here at the hotel!

the bad news is that the process of getting the packages cost me 400 rupees... almost six dollars but thats hella expensive in nepali terms.

they sent me to this person to sign this and then that person to sign thaat and so on which took like ten to fifteen mins.
after i got all the things signed, one lady tells me that i need to not only have my passport, but a photocopied print of it as well. awesome so i have to find a photocopy center near the post office, while there is a power cut. so alll the copiers were off. I finally found one that had something called an inverter? not too sure what it was but it was like ten rupees more expensive than a regular copy.

annnd now photocopy successful, back to the post office.
when i get there they make me go to the head mans office to get the passport copy signed. what a surprise.... hes not there.

i asked the lady where to find him and she tells me he is in the back SUNBATHING. they had completely moved everything of his outside just so he could catch his rays. at this point i am soooo frustrated it hurts lol.

i bring the signed papers back to the package room and they finally bring out my package right? so im ready to leave when this guy comes in wearing fancy sunglasses, finely trimmed handle-bar facial hair and Goatee, with gold and diamond rings on every finger. he is fully equipped with a giant calculator, and an excessively large knife. He takes my packages from me and literally hacks them open! i had to stop him and ask him what the heck he was doing!

he said to me that they have to 'make sure there is nothing illegal in them' so he sorts through all my stuff and then sticks it all sloppily back in the box. as he takes them out he looks at each thing and types numbers on his calculator. basically he was RE-SELLING me all my items from the box.

 when he was finished and told me the price was 350rupees i asked him:

'where exactly is this money going? to your fancy glasses and brass knuckles or to the POST OFFICE?'

hahah which i regretted shortly after because he said nothing and then typed in more numbers and told me my new price was 400....

lesson learned: hold my temper and watch my mouth no matter how much they deserve it lol.


but my mood was better after i got to relax and enjoy my yummies with my friends!!

thank you so much!!