To India

So, a few days ago I flew to the other side of the world. I am now living in Hyderabad, India, where I will spend the next 6 weeks attending classes. 

I've only been here for two full days, and it's been quite an adventure. So, let's start with an overview.

A lot of people, when they think of India, have visions of spiritual gurus and tropical paradises. They think of yoga and Buddhism, of incense and henna. 

That's not really the case, at least at first. 

India is a beautiful place, but it is also polarized in a lot of ways. We have seen pictures back home of improvised shacks next to modern complexes, gated to keep out the poverty--but the reality, at least where I am, is that the gates usually keep the modern in, and that the majority of places are lower on the economic scale. There's a lot of litter, a lot of "low tech." It's a very interesting duality--the university I'm staying at appears rather run down, and it's surprising when you look at the building and see "Center for Nanotechnology." And there are many very intelligent people around.

In many ways, India is not concerned with appearances. 

But, that's fine with me.

Here's some photos I've taken:

 

The people are polite, but it's interesting being one of the only blue-eyed blonde-haired women around. A lot of staring. 

And the food is very good--so far, I haven't even had any stomach issues. Bonus points for that!

The dorms where I am staying would probably drive a lot of people I know up a wall. There's air conditioning in the rooms, but we don't use it, since the moment you step outside it's hot and humid. Might as well just get used to it, right? Besides, there are frequent and unpredictable power outages, so it doesn't make much difference (last night, I woke up to use the bathroom at 1am, and the power went out just as I was about to flush. I managed to feel my way back to my room in the blackness). 

There is a lot of rain, and some areas collect puddles inside the building. 

The bathrooms are interesting--so far, the hot water hasn't really been working, and we ran out of toilet paper this morning. Now, it's not unusual to not have toilet paper--there are these little spray hoses near the toilets that Indians use. I have yet to quite figure out the logistics of that, so I've been using wet wipes. 

Here's a quick tour of the area around my room:

The internet comes and goes, which is fine, since I don't really want to spend all my time on it anyway. But there is a lot of free time, so I'm hoping to do some reading.

My schedule so far is as such:

8-9am: breakfast

9:45-10:45 (M-Th): Basic Hindi

11-1 (M and W): Contemporary India

12:30-2: lunch

2-4 (W): Contemp. India (extra session)

4-5: tea time

7-8: dinner

So, in short, most days of the week I'm free by 1, and there's no class on Friday. Since we get out at 11 on Thursday, that means there's a lot of opportunities for travel. Also, we have quite a lot of free time.

So, that's pretty much where we're at. If anything interesting happens, I'll check back in. We have a city tour on Saturday, so maybe Sunday I'll write some more. 

The House Chronicles, Part III: Living and Dining

So, right beyond the kitchen is the living and dining room. 

Needless to say, seeing how it's been months since that last post about the kitchen, we've done a lot of work. Both of those rooms are now pretty much complete (which is a plus, seeing how a bunch of stuff has been moved in--it'd kind of suck if is wasn't)!

So, let's do a quick refresh:

This is what we started with. We got old carpet, lace curtains (with lovely shades beneath), a couch, a fireplace, and big, blocky, wooden cover things over the tops of the windows (which I promptly removed, as can be seen in the second photo). There's also a branch painted on the wall, which would've been nice except someone repainted the wall around the branch...which made the edges look rather...not too good. 

So, we got to work. 

First thing we did was paint, starting with the ceiling. Why paint the ceiling? Well, even though we painted it essentially the same color (white), it would have looked dirty and grungy had we painted the walls and left the ceiling alone. Painting the ceiling helps make the entire paint job look better, as well as making the room look brighter. 

Then, we painted the living room area. Now, I wasn't exactly expecting the colors. We had originally planned on some light brown and dusty red, with a slightly off-white color for the trim (a little yellowish, to help bring out the warm tones in the other colors).

What ended up happening was this:

It's quite yellow. At first I was a little "@___@," but it's actually quite nice once you get used to it. 

Then, before we painted the next room...we determined that the carpet has to go. It's old and matted and a little smelly. 

So, to pull up carpet, you go around the edges and just yank it up (a crowbar helps). Watch for little nails and other pointy things. 

Up it was pulled! That brown stuff is a sort of under-layer--we left it for our next step, which was...

Putting down laminate flooring! That involves a lot of cutting, piecing together, and pounding. 

(Jessica did most of this part)

Once we got the flooring down, we continued painting the dining room. 

Only part of it is red; both walls adjacent have been painted off-white, and only half of the opposite wall is red. The branch was also painted over. 

We then painted the trim, and we cut and painted quarter-rounds to go along the trim to hide the seams between it and the laminate floors.

And we did all of this very quickly (within two-three days), because coming up was time to move out of the dorms, which also meant moving some stuff into the house.

Did I say some? I meant a lot. Because we didn't couldn't put things in the rooms or the basement (they were being worked on), all the stuff had to go in the living room...and there was quite a bit. 

BUT! We were done, and that's what matters. So, here's how things have changed so far:

Living/dining:

And kitchen:

Oh! Also, Jessica painted the door to the orange-tree-hallway, and we got a lawn mower!

Revival

So after a hectic semester, I'm going to start posting in here again (at least a little bit). I have a lot more on the house to go over, and to top it off, I'll be going to India next Friday. 

So there will be a little on that. 

But, this is to get the ball rolling. Hopefully I'll be updating soon on the progress we made in the living/dining/bed rooms. 

As for this last semester, there's a lot of stuff I need to take from my hard drive and dump on my computer to show and tell. 

Here's a link to our videogame, though! All of the art in it was kind of done within about two to three weeks, including all of the planning for items and drafts and reiterations: https://sites.google.com/site/designanexhibit/

Anyway, Imma head to bed. More on life later. 

The House Chronicles, Part II

We now have the house. It's official. 

(Well, actually, it was official about three weeks ago, but I've been very busy).

So, now begins the fun part: renovation! 

We've done several things so far. First, we had to replace the toilet.

New toilet (water saving): 

Old toilet: 

From there, we worked some on the walls in the basement, checking electrical, cleaning the gutters, replacing this-and-that. But we'll get to all that in detail later, because I'm going to focus on the room we got mostly finished, which is...

The Kitchen!

As you will recall, the kitchen looked like this: 

Not bad, but a little older, and it needed some good cleaning. We had to replace the spray nozzle, and there was no appliances, save an old dishwasher, which is now in the garage. Sorry dishwasher. 

So, first thing first: cleaning. 

It was hard to get good pictures of it, but we scrubbed the floor two or three times--once with a cleaning solution, once with baking sode (which is an awesome cleaner), and once with vinegar. I can't quite recall, but I think Mom also did a once-over with bleach. 

This house was built in 1929 and occupied by its last residence since 1959. The floor needed a thorough clean. 

So we went from this: 

 to this: 

Not perfect--there will always be discoloration. But it's a noticeable change, and that shows we got a lot of the deep-seated dirt. 

Then, we moved in the fridge and oven, and I spent a day deep-cleaning the cabinets:

Oven fit perfectly, too--it was my grandma's, and we didn't measure, so that was a pleasant surprise. 

And after much anticipation, we were ready to paint! This was the only room we were able to get ready enough for that--all of the other rooms were either too low-priority or had too many larger projects. It is one of the most exciting parts, though, so we were eager to get at least one place done. 

We picked out our colors: 

And began preparing everything to be painted. 

Now, being an art major, I'm a little particular about a few things. For instance, I don't really want to have paint all over our handles and hinges because that ends up looking sloppy and obvious. So, we took them off.

That was a pain and a half, but I stand by my choice. Those things were nasty. Washed them all today, actually. 

Now, while we were working on that, we had a pipe come through the wall a little bit. Dad was trying to remove and replace a random, useless pipe (which he will later use as a vent in the bathroom we're putting in downstairs):

So we plastered it.  

PROBLEM SOLVED. 

Next step: cover with drop cloths and paint everything. 

Which is exactly what we did. Ceiling, insides and outsides of cupboards--everything. 

And oh, did it pay off. Everything looks cleaner and newer--a fresh coat of paint can transform a space. Once again, I'm not sure the camera really caught enough, but here it is (sans cupboard doors--still need to put those back on):

Final comparison:

That's encouraging. 

Keep posted for more (and more interesting) projects!

The House Chronicles, Part 1

Among the variety of interesting things happening this semester, we are buying a house. 

Yes, we are buying a house. And by we, I mean my parents, since it's very cheap at the moment and makes a fairly good investment. It's important to note, however, that the house is located near our university, and Jessica and I (along with our friends Morgan, Talley, and Matt) will be the ones living in it. 

Therefore, I thought it would be a great idea to document this. After all, there is much to be learned in the process, and while I might not really be involved much in the "buying" part of it, I will help with the cleaning up and building and fixing and all that.

Here's where we're at now: we found a bunch of nearby houses that were posted in our price range. We visited said houses, and then visited them again with my parents. They then contacted the people about the houses we wanted. The first guy didn't respond to our offer. The second did, and that is currently the house we're looking at. 

This last weekend we did a full inspection. Mom and Dad showed us a few things, such as checking all the plugs, looking for water damage, checking the roof, etc. While that was going on, I took some pictures.

Here's what we have so far:

^ Jessica in front of the house, with its porch and little gas lamp :) 

^Brick road ftw 

^Porch, with little hooks for a swing. Bringin' back the front porch culture! 

^The front room. 

^It's an old house, with old light switches. And by switches, I mean buttons. 

^There's a branch painted on the wall in the dining room. Still not sure how I feel about it 

^Bathroom 

^One of the two bedrooms 

^Kitchen 

^Super ugly wallpaper in the little hallway on the way to the basement. I love it. 

^basement

^more basement. Probably will become a bedroom. 

^still more basement 

^lots o' basement

More updates to come over the course of the semester!