MassRaqs was an awesome event. My commitment to MassRaqs took more time than I had anticipated, but it was genuinely rewarding to see how much people enjoyed the weekend. I still feel good about whatever part I played in bringing something like this to New England. Friday night was a history review. It turns out [...]

We have one day left for MassRaqs. If you haven’t shown up, I’d recommend it. It has been a lot of fun and educational. I’m quite tired and have schoolwork I must get accomplished tonight, but I wanted to put it out there for the interwebs. On a personal note, it feels good to have [...]

We watched a documentary called “2 Million Minutes” in one of my classes. It is about cream of the crop high school seniors in India, China, and US. I’m still digesting what I thought about it; while it was somewhat interesting, I don’t feel like I learned much that wasn’t already expressed stereotypically to me [...]

I’ve been hard at work with MassRaqs (most done remotely), so I try to get away from the computer as much as possible. However, I wanted to give a shout out to essa the name generator, an iPhone app my SO made. It makes a lot of different kind of names, based on some algorithm [...]

In one of my classes yesterday, the professor talked to us about picking a good dissertation topic, advisor, and just in general how to handle the dissertation process. In my education, I don’t think that I had ever had anyone sit down to discuss this with me. Some of the advice would’ve been helpful prior [...]

I’ve completed 1 week of school. One week isn’t really that much, in terms of going to class. I go to class twice a week. Two 3-hour lectures one day, one 3-hour lecture another day. I was supposed to have a 4th class, but it was unfortunately canceled. The professor is very kind and said [...]

At my Bharatanatyam class yesterday, our teacher mentioned that some dancers from another class would join as at the beginning of our dance. The reason was that, although there are 11 of us, we simply cannot fill one gigantic stage. What intrigued me on this is that I’ve heard the same thing about Middle Eastern [...]

Even with the holiday Monday, I feel ever so slightly behind on life. Photos and adjustments to my costume haven’t happened yet, because school, MassRaqs, and Bharatanatyam are taking up time. Yesterday, I had 6 hours back to back of lecture, which was a bit hard to sit through. Not impossible, but I was definitely [...]

In the recent months, my need for costumes has increased. I mean an actual need, not just simply a desire. Meiver’s show- I need 3 costumes (the thobe, two Egyptian-syle sets). For my Bharatanatyam class recital, I need one Bharatanatyam costume. I’ve been trying to make wise choices for what I buy. The reason I [...]

As of Thursday, I have begun what should be my final degree: my doctorate. The last week has been a crazy rush of stuff. My thesis work from my masters was riddled with issues from the school and department, making my completion long and laborious beyond what it should have been. I honestly felt like [...]