Thursday, September 4, 2008

"this is indeed India...

...the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and elephants, the cobra a
nd the jungle, the country of a thousand nations and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods, cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history, grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition, whose yesterdays bear date with the mouldering antiquities of the rest of the nations-" -Mark Twain


So this is it, I'm finally off to India for the semester. I admit that I am a bit nervous but I think it's because I just want to be there already. Get it started, ya know? 
A lot of people have been asking about my program so I'm going to give a little overview of what I'm going to be doing there. 

My classes:
  1. Group Dynamics: This class is on learning to recognize and analyze the physical, social, economic, political, ethical, and spiritual elements that make up sustainable communities. 
  2. Global and Local Sustainable Living: We're going to study the role of human history, language, education, physical landscape, society, and world view on shaping human-place relations. We're going to find connections through use of ecological footprint analysis and other things. 
  3. Applications and Practices of Sustainable Living: This class is field based and I get to do an internship project in sustainable development throughout my stay in Auroville
  4. Body, Mind, and Spirit: Cultivating Personal Sustainability: Here I'll be studying the importance of world views and how they affect human behavior and the earth, and gain an understanding for the historical roleof religions and spirituality in creating culture. 
Some highlights of the semester are:
  • Visiting cultural and ecological sites like Periyar Ecological Sanctuary
  • Engage in a 40 hour wilderness solo
  • Travel to Karnataka and spend 3 weeks at the Ecodaya Santuary, and island in the Tungabhadra River-jungle ruins of ancient Hindu empires and some of the rarest ecology and geology on the planet
  • Overnight at the Sri Ramanamarashi's ashram and climb Arunchala Mountain, locally believed to be the body of the Hindu god Shiva

AUROVILLE, TAMIL NADU, INDIA
Auroville is an ecovillage in the state of Tamil Nadu. The largest city that is nearby is Chenna
i. 
Here is a visual reference to where I will be:

This is a model picture of what Auroville looks like from a birds eye view.  



Contact Information:
Love from the states will be much appreciated and will be returned graciously from India... please send by Global Priority Mail NOT economy (surface) post. The latter has been known to take four months to get to us. 
College Guest House
Crystal Lim
Auroville 605 101
Tamil Nadu India

If you need to contact me ASAP and I mean ASAP call...
413-259-0025 This is the number to the U of Amherst Living Routes Office.

I will have opportunities to do webcam/skype/ichat from time to time so get ready to set some phone dates with me.. 
I will update this blog as often as possible so stay tuned. 

3 comments:

Mamamia said...

I am so proud of you, Crystal.
I love you sooooo much.

hera! said...

yayyy! That blog was indeed helpful. Can't wait to SKYPE! and v-Chat! :D

Celeste said...

i'm sad that i didn't get to hear your voice before you jetted off to germany/india but i hope you had a great flight and i can't wait to hear about all your wonderful travels! miss you!!