Vijnana Kala Vedi is heaven. I feel so at home here among fellow travelers and artists in the tiny town of Aranmula. It's nice to be staying in one place for a while. There are about 15 of us here right now, from all over the world: France, New Zeland, Brazil, Mexico, Australia, the US, from ages 11-40. The center is spread out in eight different houses around the village, centered around the main office and guest house where we all eat together four times a day. The food is so delicious.

They gave me a bike. At first I was quite terrified, but I only have to go down one scary road full of buses to get to my house, the rest is just little neighborhood roads full of cute kids and dogs. I also live near the Pampa river, and like to take morning strolls down to it to welcome in the day.

My days look like this:

I wake up around 6 or so, go to yoga at 7:30, go to breakfast, go to Kathakali class from 9-11, take a shower, go to violin from 12-1, go to lunch, read for a few hours on my porch, go to tea, go into town/study/practice/socialize depending on the day, go to dinner at 7:30, go home and practice, go to bed around 10.

OK, Kathakali is the hardest thing I have ever done. I had no idea I could sweat this much. To start, you have to basically stand in a squat the whole time, on the sides of your feet, and with your toes curled up. It's hard to describe but it's extremely painful. So I do about an hour of footwork and body exercises like that, and then I have to exercise every muscle in my face and hands, including my eyeballs, without blinking. Eventually tears start streaming down my face (out of necessity not sadness). My teacher is SO strict, and SO good at Kathakali. He yells at me a lot, "Eeeemmeeeleee, don't lose, don't lose this one!!" When I do something right he just grunts. Occasionally I get the treasured, "yess." He also pulls lots of "when I was in school we had to..."s. But so much crazier than getting hit on the hand with a ruler when you misbehave.

Violin is really fun, I am learning to read karnatic music. It's hard because no matter how much I detach myself from my western ear, I can't convince myself that my scales are correct. I walk around with variations of "sa ri ga ma pa da ni sa" stuck in my head. My teacher thinks it's a good idea to wake up at 4 to start practicing. We'll see how I do with that.

Ok, off to some backwaters for the weekend. Love to all.