friday

Woke up in a decent mood (wore that neat camo and lace dress I like, which I had been balking on because India and white clothing do not always play nice together.) Went off to work. Discovered upon checking my email that I did not get into UC Santa Cruz. Uh oh.

This sunk me into a very exciting sort of depression for the rest of the day, mainly because I am so not looking forward to making calls and writing my plea-bargain letter all the hell the way from India. But it must be done. I did go for a head clearing sort of work, which can be a dangerous affair here in India, since walking indeterminately generally means dodging rickshaws, motorbikes, school children and bullock carts. I did however manage to survive.

In other news...okay, not much happened this day. We went to a nice new coffee place near work, which oddly enough played American pop music. (It's bizarre but curiously comforting to hear pop tunes from home - I recall in Beijing the cab drivers would always nod at me and flip the station to the American pop channel, which I rather enjoyed....)I toyed with a nice iced coffee while the others had sandwiches. I have this fun habit of forgetting to eat when I'm worried about something. I suppose it's a good thing for staying slim instead of being one of those people who prefer to bury themselves in fifty pints of Ben and Jerry's when things go to shit (but I just get hungry later.) It's certainly odd for someone who loves food like I do. Maybe I love food so much that I can't appreciate it unless I'm in a reasonably good mood?

I could be overthinking this.

In any case, I managed to pull my head out of my ass enough to get on home, where I had the usual not so satisfying Katary Villa dinner then waited for the others to convene so we could go to Mocha.

Mocha is the Indian interpretation of a coffee/desserts place. I have no sweet tooth whatsoever due to being messed up in the head, though the place is pretty nice: spread out with lots of cushions and chairs to sit on, although the music choice can be maddeningly awful. (Godammit, I'm in India, Bryan Adams followed by Michael Jackson is not my idea of fun.) Still, they also do shisha (or hookah, or whatever), which is fun and makes you giggly, although admittedly it is not so much fun for one's lungs. For some reason we always get green apple flavor. The cappucino and champagne flavors terrify me slightly.

The others ordered a variety of obscene looking desserts, such as a tremendous slab of dark and white chocolate cake, some sort of oozy brownie thing served in a giant coffee cup and tremendous, thick milkshakes. I sat there wishing they had some sort of dessert that featured key lime pie. Unfortunately no such luck.

In any case, we hung out and talked until the usual 11:30 kick out time. Lorraine, Claire, Pipa and Jimmy invited me out to a "local" bar they'd found on Church street rumored to stay open til' the magically late hour of 1 in the morning, but I declined: the rain was beginning to come down and the idea of standing outside a locked bar in the rain was too depressing to contemplate. (Turned out they really were open that late. Damn!)