The Life of an IB 1

Dear Readers,

I'm so sorry i haven't written in awhile, but ever since school started i've been swamped with the busyness of an IB 1. What with juggling homework, hanging out with friends, spending time with the family, traveling, staying in touch with people back home, church, seminary, oh yeah and let's not forget things like eating and sleeping. I havne't had much extra free time to update so here's a little summary of what's been going on in my life lately (apart from all the chaos listed above). I've officially entered the dreadful life as a junior, and it's pretty tough. The IB program is rigorous, the homework is lengthy, the tests are tough, but despite all that i love it. I feel like i'm learning so much, and the teachers are really nice and super helpful. I've also made a lot of friends which has been great. Also, being able to travel around on Holidays has been really fun too. A few weekends ago, the family and i went to Coorg (West of Bangalore), and just this past weekend we went to Hampi. Both were super fun and i'll update you on those later! It's really nice because i feel like i finally have a general routine figured out, which makes living here feel more like home.

16 Candles

Dear Readers,

So Friday was my birthday. My big Sweet 16. It was nothing like i imagined, but definitely not in a bad way. When i was little i had always imagined my sweet 16 being a huge party with all of my friends with music and dancing and eating and all that classic fun stuff from the movies. I never thought i'd spend it on the other side of the world! And without my family at that. But i spent it with some pretty amazing people that i had gotten to know over the past few days. I made two best friends over the week, Veerle (who's from the Netherlands) and Nikita (who's from India), and they made it really nice. They wished me happy birthday that morning, and continued to wish me happy birthday throughout the day. When i got back home, i arrived to presents and a birthday "cake" (a peanut butter dessert). It was so fun and i didn't even mind that i wasn't at home in the US to celebrate it. Because how many people get to say that they celebrated their sweet 16 in India?

With all my heart, Kayla

The Best Field Trip Ever.

Dear Readers,

Last Monday was the first day of school, and on Tuesday my entire grade got to go on a retreat for the next five days. It was SO fun! The bus was scheduled to leave at 6:30am so i had to get up at 4:50am in order to be ready on time to leave by 5:50am. So i got up, bright eyed and bushy tailed and excitedly got ready to go on my trip. Sri, not as bright eyed and bushy tailed, graciously came to our house two hours early just to take me to the school. So i said my goodbyes to my mom and dad and got in the car with my duffle bag and we were off. We got to the school around 6:15/6:20am, and he wished be an early happy birthday and then he left. I waited with some kids from school for everyone to get there and when everyone was there we all piled on the bus (all 27 of us, haha). I sat by two girls that i had kind of already become friends with from the first day of school, Veerle and Nikita. The bus took us to a different bus (a tour bus, so bigger and nicer) and we all put our duffle bags in the back and climbed on. Once we headed out i wasn't feeling as bright eyed and bushy tailed anymore, and dozed off a couple times on our way to our first destination. Here's a picture of Veerle and i on the bus:

When we got to our first destination, we were all pretty awake and excited for the week. The first place was about an hour south of Bangalore, and it was a fun little campsite in the middle of nowhere. We literally stayed in tents, which was a bit of a surprise to me because i had been told we were going to be staying in a resort. And my conceptions of a resort was a little different...but then i was told that

positive speculations

Dear Readers,
So the last few of my posts have been a bit on the pessimistic side, mostly due to the fact that i hadn't had wifi for more than a week and i was stressed and frustrated with not being able to contact any of my friends. But i think it's about time you hear my positive views of India. Back in the US, my life was pretty predictable. I had my solid group of friends, school was relatively easy, i had a weekly routine that rarely ever changed. That was the main reason why i wanted to leave. I got exactly what i wanted; a place that's erratic, random, and very unpredictable. And i absolutely love it. I love the whole feel of being on an adventure..not exactly knowing what's going to happen all the time. I feel like back in the US i could practically predict what was going to happen over the next two years. But here, i don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, let alone next week or this next year. Having been born and raised in Minnesota, never living anywhere else, it's sometimes difficult to fully enjoy the unexpected moments when my deep American core is screaming at me that 'different' is wrong. It's taken a little while to start to fully appreciate differences. I can't be critical about the differences because that's exactly what they are; different. And different is exactly what i wanted. Some of the amazing things i love about India are the busyness, the weather, the people, the food, the shopping, the clothes, and just the overall feel of being in a whole different world. It really is quite amazing.

With all my heart, Kayla

blessed wifi...finally.

Dear Readers,

We FINALLY got internet connection in our house. I seriously was about to take someone out. It felt SO weird not being able to talk to people or see what's going on in their lives. Getting only snipits of wifi once in awhile just wasn't nearly enough. There's not much you can do with only an hour of wifi once or twice a week. There's just so much catching up to do that you can barely get any of it done! But now we finally have it and i feel much better being able to talk to people again. Thank heavens for modern technology. I don't know what i would do without it.

With all my heart, Kayla

Lights Out!

Dear Readers,

Today at church we had the power go out twice. In 10 minutes. Which means the air conditioners turned off, but didn’t go back on. The power went out in sacrament meeting, which means it was really hot for the next two hours. I feel bad for the men wearing suits, because at least I had a skirt on! And poor Baryll (the person giving the talk when the power went out both times), he couldn’t read the story because it was too dark, so he improvised until the lights came back on. And the mike wasn’t working because there was no power. Mom turned to me and said “next time you have to give a talk at church, bring a flashlight so you can read the talk…” haha! But Baryll did really well nonetheless. We didn’t have our normal third hour, we were ALL combined. The branch president talked about how important church records are, and apparently they haven’t updated them in 15 years, so that’s what we did today. Our family had already done them because it was required to have them updated before we moved. So we just sat and watched the chaos. In the heat. After church was over mom got her calling and we went home. It’s been pretty normal since then, except for the annoying fact that we STILL don’t have internet. We haven’t had it for over a week now. I have to go to a little coffee shop around the corner for an hour of wifi (you have to pay for it…) but besides that things have been good. I can’t wait until we get internet at the house though so I can skype people again. Fingers crossed that it comes soon!

With all my heart, Kayla

Ants in the Tub

Dear Readers,

As you may have read earlier, we had bugs in our Penne pasta. Well now we have ants in our tub. So on Saturday night, dad was sweeping the master bathroom because there were some ants on the floor. (There’s always ants. Somewhere. When we got into our house there were ants all over my bathroom floor coming out of the corner under my sink. Most of them were dead though, which is kind of weird. There were also ants flying out of Nathan and Ben’s air conditioner, and then there were ants in the kitchen because one of the boys left a cookie out overnight. So there’s ants everywhere but this is by far the worst…) So he decides to turn on the tub to clean it out because it was all dusty. He turns on the water and when it got high enough, he turned on the jets. As soon as he did, a whole clump of ants and eggs shot out and hit him on the leg. The water was still filling up, and shooting out of all the jets were tons of ants and their eggs. The water was full of them. He turned on the shower head connected to the tub and sprayed down the sides where some of the ants were crawling up. He opened the drain and it drained out all the ants and their eggs. But we decided to do it one more time in case there were any left over. There was. We filled up the tub again (and it’s already gross because the water’s all yellow) and he turned on the jets again, and more ants came out. It was by far the grossest thing I’ve seen here. We joked about how if mom had tried to take a bath and turned the jets on, she would have screamed that she was going home. But by how many ants were coming out of the jets, anyone in their right mind would have screamed that if they were in a tub full of ants and eggs. We got some insecticide at the store for the ants in my bathroom and kitchen, and it was almost gone so we used up the rest of it on the master bathroom. I guess we need to put that on our shopping list; more insecticide. I swear it’s like we live in a jungle.

With all my heart, Kayla

Common Sense

Dear Readers,

So there’s this thing called common sense. Most people have it, some people unfortunately don’t. Some people have more of it than others. Well most people in India seem to be in the unfortunate group that lacks this wonderful thing called common sense. For example, they make their showers really tall. (At least all of the showers I’ve seen are really tall). They’re like, 8-9 feet high. So you would think that they would make shower curtains to fit these tall showers, because that would be the common sense thing to do, right? Well they don’t. They only carry your average shower curtain length, which about 6 1/2 -7 feet long. Here's a few pictures;

it's just ridiculous...i laugh every time i go in my bathroom.

 it's quite unesessary how high they put the rod above the shower head...

the curtain is like a foot and a half higher than my floor...

So every morning when I take a shower, my floor gets soaked. No matter how far I push my shower head to angle it away from the gap; my floor still gets all wet. It’s ridiculous. And that’s not the only thing. J-walking apparently isn’t illegal here. No matter how much traffic, or how fast the cars and motorcycles are going, people just waltz right into the street at random spots to cross. I swear I’m going to witness someone getting run over while here. It’s scary! They don’t even cross at corners where the traffic is a little slower, which would be the common sense thing to do, but I guess if your destination is right across the street, you might as well? I don’t know. Another thing, it makes sense to have one switch per light, or even one switch for two light that are right next to each other. But no, that’s not how things work here. There are at least two switches per light. PER LIGHT. Each individual light has its own two switches. It drives me insane. Also, all of the outlets have a switch, which is kind of cool, but if you forget to turn the switch on then you think that the outlet doesn’t work. Until you remember that, oh yeah! You’re in India and they have switches on their outlets. Another thing about the switches that gets me every time is that up is off and down is on. That is not how it is in the US. Gets me every time. There’s much much more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

With all my heart, Kayla

Delays, delays, and more delays.

Dear Readers,

Sorry that it’s been awhile since I’ve written, we haven’t had wifi for more than a week. It’s incredible how disconnected one feels when one’s on the other side of the world without any ways of contacting anyone outside of the country. We’ve stopped into this little coffee shop to get wifi for a little bit to check facebook and such, which was nice. But it’s nice finally having wifi in the house. Also, it’s not just the wifi…everyone here in India is always late. And you would think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. It’s like Mormon time, but 10 times worse. We bought a ping pong (actually called Table Tennis) table and they told us they would deliver the next day. Well, they didn’t. They delivered it two days late. We’ve also had electricians and plumbers coming in and out of the house fixing all of the kinks that this house has. They have all been later than they said (by about 3-4 hours). But I guess that’s just India for you…takes some getting used to, especially coming from a place where “time is money”. Besides that though, everything has been great.

With all my heart, Kayla

A piece of cake

Dear Readers,

You would think making a cake from a cake mix would turn out the same no matter where you are in the world, right? Wrong.  So dad comes home from work and he’s talking about how he has this cake mix and frosting, and we’re all so excited. American tasting chocolate cake! Well, not only did we not have the proper thing to bake it in, but we also put water in instead of milk. Who puts milk in cake mix though?! Besides, the milk here tastes weird (probably because it comes from a box and has a shelf life of about 4 months…) so we chose water instead.  After dad baked the cake and took out of the oven, he was still pretty excited…even though it looked a little bit like a chocolate pancake. He frosted it and posed for a picture with his little cake:

We ate it anyway, because flat or not, why waste chocolate cake? And it was pretty good. It wasn’t great, but then again nothing we’ve eaten here has been GREAT. But chocolate cake is chocolate cake. Here’s a close up of dad’s flat cake:

With all my heart, Kayla



Claytopia

Dear Readers,

While here in India for the past almost month, we've been staying in a hotel. And as you can probably guess that gets a little old after a while. So mom, being the amazing and clever mom that she is, has been trying to keep us all occupied with fun and exciting things to do. Which i would say she has been very successful at, as there haven't been any emotional breakdowns or fits yet... So on one of the normal hotel days, mom decided to try out a pottery place that she read about in her book about places to go in Bangalore. We told our driver where to go, and he took us to the address, but turns out the place wasn't there anymore. Either they moved locations, or went out of business, or who knows what, but they weren't there. So we went back to the hotel to go swimming (or tanning in my case, because the water was cold). But the next day we decided to try a different pottery place...and were successful. We pulled up to this cute little shop:

when we walked in, we were told to pick out a pot, or a plate or whatever we wanted and then we were to pick 4 colors. I picked out a vase, and chose blue, green, purple, and red. Collin chose a plate, Nathan chose a frog mug, Ben chose an elephant piggy bank, and mom chose a spoon holder for the stove. When we were all finished painting, the lady told us that we would get them back in 2 weeks, because they needed to glaze them and fire them for us. It was so fun! Here's the vase i painted:

They also had all of these beautifully painted plates hanging on the walls:





Cute boys alert ..

Dear Readers,

So today while at lunch with mom and Samta, mom was taking a video of me eating my fries (i think she thought it was on picture mode but then decided to keep it on..) and all of a sudden, a group of really cute guys walk behind me so she starts filming them and then....well you'll see what happens.

With all my heart, Kayla

Kenko Fish Spa

Dear Readers,

Have you ever been in a lake or the ocean and stood completely still, and had little fish come around your legs and nibble on you? If yes, then you'll have a slight idea of what the fish spa is like. So today, mom and i went shopping with one of the ladies i met at dad's work. Her name is Samta. She took us to Garuda mall and after we were done shopping, she asked us if we wanted to try the fish spa. She and some other ladies from dad's work had done it earlier and she said we should try it. We get up to the top floor where the fish spa is and we walk in and it smelled absolutely divine. We had to decide between 20 minutes, or 30 minutes, and we decided to go with a safe 20 minutes since it was our first time. The little lady took us to the other room and we walked in and there were about 5 large fish tanks on the ground. She told us to sit down and she washed our feet, and then she led us to one of the tanks. There were seats on the side of the tank (it was all very proffessional looking). So we sit down and put our feet in. Immediately hundreds of little fish swarmed up to our feet and start nibbling on them! It was so surprising that mom yanked her feet out of the tank but i just started laughing because it tickled so much! It was quite the experience. This picture isn't actually of my feet, but it gives you a little idea of what it was like.

With all my heart, Kayla



Hard Rock Cafe Bangaluru

Dear Readers,

When i found out there was a Hard Rock Cafe here, you wouldn't believe how excited i was. Burgers, fries, onion rings, malts...american food. So we told our driver that we wanted to go and when we got there, i was expecting the big guitar out front, but no. I was slightly disappointed. But when we got inside and smelled the delicious food, i was totally alright without the classic guitar out front. We went in the store to buy some t-shirts, because you can't go to a Hard Rock Cafe in India and not buy a t-shirt! It was so cool! Then it was time for us to be seated, and they gave us some menus. All the food sounded amazing and the music blasting in the background, it felt for a little while that i wasn't in India. We ordered burgers and waited for a bit and listened to the music and when our food came, i felt like i literally inhaled it. I hadn't realized how much i had been craving some good american food. It tasted amazing! I was quite impressed, and we'll definitely have to go back :)

With all my heart, Kayla


 

School bus of smiles

Dear Readers,

Today when mom and i were on our way back from the Leela for our Overseas Women's Club, we pulled up next to a school bus. We stopped because of the traffic and i looked over and it was a bus full of a bunch of cute little kids. So i took out my camera, and as i was taking a picture this little boy looked out his window and started staring at me (well i guess i would stare too if a stranger was taking a picture of me in a bus...). So i smiled at him, expecting to look away but he didn't! He kind of smiled a little, and then i waved at him...and he got this cute little smile on his face and he waved back. Then he turned to his little friend sitting next to him and he pointed at me. His little friend shyly looks over at me and i smiled at him. But then our car started moving, so i smiled and waved goodbye and they both got huge smiles on their faces and waved back. It was soo cute! It made my day :)

Bugs in the Penne

Dear Readers,

So the grocery stores here are NOT like the grocery stores back home. For one, the people here shop the way they drive...there's cart traffic. It also didn't help that we went on a saturday afternoon and it seemed like everyone in Bangalore was at the grocery store. So not only is it hard to get around all of the people, but the wheels on the cart are weird. You not only can push your cart forward and backward like in the US, but you can also push it from side to side...something you CANNOT do with the carts at home. Which made it twice as hard to maneuver around all of the people. After we got out of the store with all of the food we wanted (which is a miracle in itself), we went home, excited about the pasta we were going to have that night. Well, change of plans. Mom poured the Penne into a pot of water...and found bugs. Floating on the top of the water. Who had been hanging out in the Penne for who knows how long. We were all very disappointed as you can imagine. So for dinner, we had what was leftover from what we were going to have WITH the Penne. Cauliflower, mushrooms, rolls, watermelon, and oranges. At least those didn't have bugs in them (:

 Those little black things would be bugs.

CIS

Dear Readers,

I've already touched on CIS a little bit in my post "Welcome to India", but i thought i would give you a more detailed description of it in its own post. So on the first official day we were India, we got to go to the school that my brothers and i will be going to. It was last day that the teachers were going to be there until the fall, so we got to go and meet our teachers. They were all so nice! It was really good, because i got to finalize what classes i will be taking for the next two years, and got to talk to all of my teachers about what their classes are like. The campus is absolutely beautiful, and because the school doesn't have air-conditoning it's all very open and breezy. The ride getting there though was a bit interesting...the school is kind of in the middle of no where. Which is nice, because then it's really quiet, but it feels like you're traveling through the jungle. Here's a video of the drive to the school. Sorry if you get a bit nauseous...the road is especially bumpy. It's a really pretty drive though (:

With all my heart, Kayla

Traffic

Dear Readers,

If you've ever been to New York City, you can kind of imagine what it's like. Kind of. Except add people walking in the street, people on motorcycles weaving in and out of traffic, animals in the road, and a bunch of rikshaws, and then you can imagine it. The way they drive here is INSANE. It's like nothing i've ever experienced before, but then again, nothing in India is really like i've ever experienced before. Here's a video of the traffic! Sorry it's kind of shaky, the roads are really bumpy! Oh and there's some nice Indian music going on in the background too (:

With all my heart, Kayla

Welcome to India

Dear Readers,

Welcome to India (: we made it! Safe and sound, we are finally here. It is almost exactly how i imagined, but better. It's noisy, busy, crowded, but absolutely incredible. We are staying in the Oakwood Premium Prestige hotel, which is very high class. It's really nice, and it's close to everything, which is awesome because the traffic here is insane.
 Our flight here was really long, but because we were in business class it was pretty comfortable. We first flew to Chicago which was a two hour flight, and then from there we flew to Frankfurt, Germany, which was a nine hour flight. Then from Frankfurt we flew to Bangalore which was another nine hour flight. But like i said, it was pretty comfortable. I pretty much just watched movies and slept.
 Yesterday we got to go and see the school that me and my brothers will be going to this fall . It's called CIS (the Canadian International School). It's kind of off in the middle of no where, but it's nice because it's really quiet, which is a nice break from loud, bustling, downtown

Today's the Day

Dear Readers,
Today is the day that i have been looking forward to for the past, oh i don't know, year maybe? We're going to India! I'm actually sitting in the Chicago airport at the moment. So i guess it's really happening. There's no turning back now. Our next flight is to Frankfurt Germany and then to Bangalore. Crazy. I have to say though, i have the most amazing friends in the world. A bunch of my friends came and said goodbye to me last night at the hotel my family was staying at.

They are amazing, and i hope they know how much i'm going to miss them . They've been so supportive and understanding. I couldn't have asked for better friends. I hope they keep in contact! It'll be exciting to see what kind of friends i make over in India. It's kind of crazy how fast this is all happening. In less than 24 hours i will be in India. Is that insane? I think so.

With all my heart, Kayla

Orderly Chaos.

Dear Readers,


Today we packed. And packed. And packed some more. Because tonight we moved out of our house into the hotel. It finally feels like it's happening.

Spotlight!

Dear Readers,

So if you didn't already know, i was in a musical this fall called Aida. Let me tell you, it's one of the most amazing musicals ever. If you're looking for a comedy though, this is not necessarily the musical i would recommend...it's more dramatic and deep and emotional and all around incredible. So our musical got an award and because of that, our cast was able to go to the Spotlight awards and perform a medley of some of the songs from the musical. If you haven't heard any of the music yet, go on YouTube right now and listen to some of it. You'll be blown away. I promise. So anyways, as a cast we got back together again after about 7 long months of being apart (well, apart as in without that amazing musical bond), and we got into the music again and our incredible directors put together a medley of some of THE BEST songs in the musical and we got to do some of the most incredible dances. It was soo fun. So on

Only 6 More Weeks..

Dear Readers,

If you didn't already know, i'm moving to India. Yes, you heard (or rather, read) me right. India. Not Indiana, but India. Other side of the world India. Slumdog Millionaire, Bollywood, Curry, Henna, Elephants, India. It's pretty exciting in my opinion. Especially considering that i hope to travel the world one day. I'm just starting a little early...
To give you a little bit more information on the where, when and why that i'm sure you're asking, i'll fill you in on the basics. My parents went over for a week to pick out a school, and a  house, and all that good stuff. The school that they picked out is a school called CIS. The Canadian International School.

It isn't a Canadian school necessarily, it's just approved by the Ministry of Education, Ontario, Ca
 nada and the International Baccalaureate Organizaton, Geneva Switzerland. So i will be doing

It's All Happening!

Well, the date is set, so i guess you could say it's finally official. We leave on june 20th, which i have a feeling is going to come faster than i can imagine. But even though i don't know what to expect, i'm pretty excited. Especially since we have a house and a school picked out. One of the reasons why i am so excited is because we will be living in real India. Yes, we'll have a really nice house in a really nice neighborhood, but right outside of the neighborhood are little market places and small shacks on the side of the road. And lots and lots of garbage. Here's a view of Bangalore from the penthouse my parents looked at. It's pretty incredible.

Like Penny Lot says in the movie "Almost Famous", it's all happening.

"Pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere." -Owl City

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."- Albert Einstein

Photography

 I love photography. Not just taking pictures, but looking at cool pictures people have taken, or cool quotes to go with pictures. These are a few from a website i really like called weheartit.com (:

My Family!

So this is my family! Even though they can be pretty obnoxious at times, I absolutely love them! They're fun and quirky, but suppportive and understanding. From left to right, is Collin (my younger brother who is currently 13), Dad, Ben (in the front, my youngest brother who is currently 6), Mom, Nathan (my younger brother who is currently 11), and Me. Who is currently 15.