Friday Reflections

Well, it has officially happened...I have not kept up with my blog like I wanted to. I was hoping to write a new post everyday, or at the very least every other day. Now it's Friday & I have to catch you up on everything that has happened since Monday.

I started work on Tuesday afternoon 5:30pm India time, or 7:00am MN time, whichever you prefer. I was really excited to finally get there, meet the team, and start doing what I came here to do. I met my team lead first & I was very impressed with his knowledge & ability. He will definitely make this easier for me, and it is nice to have him there to bridge the cultural and language gap. The team all speak English but I don't think that they are used to how fast I speak or any cultural nuances/slang that I might use. The team is very nice and very sweet and I think that they have the potential to be very successful with this project.

One of the bad things about starting work is that my sleep schedule is all messed up. We leave for work at 4:15pm and get back to the hotel at about 4:15am. We are working for 10 of the 12 hours, so by the time we get home I'm fairly tired. Back home, I usually don't go right to bed after work, so I'm finding it dificult sometimes to fall asleep when I should. My goal is to go to sleep shortly after work and wake up by noon or one so that I can do something before I go to work. So far, I have been hitting snooze for 1.5-2 hours (my travel alarm clock's snooze goes off every 4 minutes)and not getting up until 2 or 2:30. That gives me enough time to go to the lunch buffet, check a couple of emails, and get ready for work. I know that work is the priority here but I feel like I should do more than just watch TV in my room and go to work.

The hotel continues to astound me. I get 3 free cookies everyday, they continues to exponentially stock my room with bottled water, and most of the front desk people and other workers know my name (even ones I've never met before). I scheduled a haircut for Monday at 1pm, as a reason to wake up earlier. I am excited to see how awesome they treat me at the spa. The food is still pretty good here, though I have run across a couple things that tasted REALLY bad. Luckily that is a rarity. I do miss cooking and eating meals with Adrienne.

For as luxurious as the hotel is, I would much rather be do my own laundry, cook my own food, drive my own car, and do my own cleaning as long as it meant that I could be with Adrienne. We are able to talk almost every night, as long as my IP phone is working, but that really doesn't cut it. We also are able to email back and forth at work since we work the same hours. We are both coping pretty well, and we are both excited that I am over here, but sometimes it gets hard.

Well, since I got up so late, I have to start getting ready for work now. I thought I would just let you all know that things are going well here and that I look forward to the experiences of the next few weeks. We are going to go out this Saturday with a couple team leads and try the local pub seen. I think we might also go out shopping on Sunday, or as our driver Yogish says, "Sir, will you do 'The Purchasing' on Sunday?" I'll take some more pictures this weekend and try to get them posted on here. Right now I'm trying to, but for some reason it isn't working.

"Please do the needful"