Photo Updates and Sports Day

It's been awfully busy at work and my little red camera wasn't holding a charge, but now I've got some free time and the camera made it through.  Here's an update on the construction of the campus, and the first monthly athletics fest we had yesterday.

Here's a view from the Centre for Writing and Communication back about a month ago.  The view looks out on what a now completed sand track, volleyball/badminton and basketball courts, and Faculty housing.

A view from the 3rd floor (which is really the 4th) down onto the courtyard.

Same 3rd floor level, just looking north towards the mess and hostels.

A view of the outside walkway from the Admin Block where the CWC is located to the lecture rooms.

Down in the courtyard.

A westward view of the front of Ashoka.

A north-facing shot of the courtyard so you can see the beautiful lattice work.  The building was originally designed by one firm that wanted all glass--not thinking about how expensive it would be to cool those rooms during most of the year...it's still about 90 degrees in October.  Another firm was brought in to fix this issue and they proposed the lattice.  A third firm was brought in when the second one failed to do anything about building the lattice work.  Needless to say, it makes sense that even with three architectural firms, the campus is still under construction.

We have to take cabs from our apartments to campus and back everyday.  Photo credit goes to the wonderful Nina Sud.

Nina and Lauren in the cab, being their normal selves.

A lot of men bike around, but there aren't that many side roads, just the highway.  It's pretty scary.

 This is Parker Residency where I live.  My apartment is on the 8th floor of Tower 1--the one on the left.

This is the entrance to our society. There's usually a handful of stray dogs that hang out in the driveway.

And here starts photos from Ashoka's Sports day.  We're hanging out, waiting for the football (soccer) game to start.

Alana, Lauren, and Gabe on the sidelines.

Lauren's game face.

Chimi's game hair.

Gabe's spectator face.

My newly coined term, ladies selfie.

 Lauren and Aman.

I got roped into the game because we needed another girl.  I mostly stood around, outside of the times I used my body to stop the football player trying to score.  I fell a lot.

Lauren at halftime.  She's the main reason we won, until we were disqualified. 

Getting the star loose for the second half.

There were lots of weird faces in between games.  I was frankly sun burnt and done but had to stick around for the numbers.

Chimi stretching at the half.  She ran around a bunch towards the ball when I was happily standing near the goal, avoiding the ball.

More of Lauren's game face.

Lauren after she scored the first penalty kick!

I don't remember what this was from, sometime before we were disqualified because we were the staff team with two son's of a staff member.  Supposedly, everyone else was taking the game more seriously than us.

Me scheming how to acquire pizza and beer for the post-game party.  It worked out, but involved hiring a cab and paying the cab driver to buy beer for us.  We live in a state that isn't too interested in making it easy for a late-20s woman to buy herself a drink.

Another good shot of Chimi. 

Our team winning!

Me happy to be done!  I'm not very good at all at soccer.

This is right after Lauren scored the penalty kick that won us the game.

Catching Cori and Chimi laughing.

The happy star player.

Ramya very pleased with Lauren.  We all went back after this to celebrate and watch Bridesmaids which is actually really funny.

That's it for now.  I head to see my dad in Bangkok next Friday and can't wait to see him.  We're all pretty homesick right now, but the semester is keeping us busy enough.  

A special good luck to all the marathoners running in Chicago today.  Have fun and kick butt!