Entering Ajay’s Mind

(originally titled “Action coming soon,” but Saqib thought that _I’m_ doing some new initiatives, so changed.. it’s really more of a Mass Update #1, This post mostly written weeks ago..)

So, I’ve done a couple of things now. I’ve got the contact info for the 2 YHA Hostels (one official, the other not so sure!), got in contact with a few trekking organizations (Get off Ur Ass, Ozone India, Kalypso Adventures, Kali Rafting, & Empowercamp.com), emailled a few friends, Anand Bemra and Venkatesh Murthy, who were really involved with HSS in the US, to get some ideas on what I could do in terms of service (and will no doubt be connected into Sangh ^[1] ). Possibly not surprisingly, Venkatesh has only been in Bangalore for 6 months, and has ALREADY started a new project! It’s called Youth for Seva, and its intent is to see volunteerism among India’s youth similar to what is seen in the US. I also emailled another friend (Niket Sirsi) to get some ideas of what to do in terms of adventuring.. (more…)

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This was originally titled “What to do after Graduation?”, but I changed that to that last post (re end of college career), (Then “Passage..”) and now this is here more to tell you what happens for me immediately after graduation & my trip. I hung out in Arcata for a little over a week after Commencement and the related multiple days of packing up. (Links to Goodbye pics album)
The extra week involved visiting friends+hanging out in Arcata, Eureka, and then on the way down as well (Santa Rosa, SF Bay Area, Sacramento), and then I got home, brought all my sh*t in the house, and started unpacking, so I could repack, and have more space. I didn’t finish, oops. I was supposed to be planning my trip as well, and I neither did that, nor bought a Lonely Planet guidebook (there are two, India, and South India, one of which I bought last time (where is it?)), nor checked out the LP’s Thorn Tree Forum (recommended to me by John), or did any other sort of internet research. But what do I really want to do there? (more…)

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I’ll keep this brief since I never wrote it (Yet).. There was this great philosophy that was oft witnessed during my time in the CCC, and it was embodied by the phrase: “Each one teach one.”  During our monthly banquets would be great times to share a new skill or other type of knowledge, but it happened everyday, especially when new people came to your crew.

People that I think of as amazing can generally be thought of with the term ‘activists,’ and .. wow, this semester I’ve been meeting so many amazing activists, notably ones involved with Accion Zapatista (on campus, kinda).  It’s been REALLY awesome, I’m like, in love with them or something, or at least, way enchanted.  :)  And I’d love to tell you more about them, but.. no time for that now.
When I first got to HSU, I stopped by the Arcata Co-Op and met someone tabling for the local Earth First! chapter.  I took this as kind of a sign then, and took their flyer intending to participate in one of their nonviolence training workshops, but never talked to them or otherwise involved.  I would have been interested in doing the training, and ideally supporting a treesit in some way, but, didn’t happen.  Maybe just keeping the thoughts and ideas in ones’ mind is value in and of itself though?
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(yet another entry written way after the fact and so pre-dated!)
Well, our story probably starts off during the 2005-2006 school year, when.. through luck of email? i decided that i needed to get in contact with the CRP (and also CCAT) webmaster. As always with my emails, there’s a lot of “unnecessary” or “extraneous” tidbits of information in there, so, in addition to what i intended to communicate, somehow, i ended up making my best email friend ever, KJ Coop! This isn’t quite a story of that, so I’ll make it brief by saying that, though KJ is way rad, we definitely don’t agree on all things (or see them the same), and since one of those points of difference is our opinion on school, I was sad to not see KJ continuing on at HSU this calendar year. Instead, now she’s up near Portland. Woa, that’s far! So, i think at some point she invited me to visit. (more…)

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So! I probably got ripped off on the taxi to the airport (he said meter, I asked for an approximate price, he showed me a card that said 380 RMB. I had just exchanged 40$ and gotten about 275 RMB back, so I was like.. what! Too much! Forget it.. I got him down to 250, but seriously.. that’s pretty expensive for 30km, IMHO!), but I got to the hostel, the
Near East Hostel Add: No.98 TieShuXieJie XuanWu District.
Unfortunately I had (almost) no cash to pay him or the key deposit, but he took American Express (The new card I’m trying out, has a lower foreign currency penalty/fee), so it was alright. Now I need cash so I can get breakfast though! And I didn’t pick up my next ticket when I was at the airport, I was so distracted by the taxi drivers, they worked a spell on me, methinks..
I thought it was kind of funny, when I was filling out my paperwork, I just wrote
6/6/6 for the date on everything. I mean, you know, that doesn’t really happen.. it’s like, been a whole century since anyone might have done that! We’re 15 hours ahead, if you’re curious. I’m going to visit Ryan Townsend when I get to X’ian, we were in the CCC together. Uhh.. all for now, hasta luego! -@

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