December 8th, 2009

Today was a pretty good day! Going through those evaluations with our preceptors yesterday has made SUCH a big difference in their teaching styles. So, as much as we felt badly about giving them a poor evaluation, I guess it was a necessary wake up call. In any case, I really enjoy working with Ramkumar now – he explains everything that he’s doing, and now always asks us if we want to try. It’s fantastic. My treatment session today didn’t go that wonderfully, but such is life. I was working with a different PT’s patient, and he just didn’t agree with anything I wanted to do. It was frustrating, but a good learning opportunity all the same.

We ate lunch with Natalie again today! She seems like a really adventurous person – after she finishes here at SPASTN she’s heading to a remote village in the Himalayas to teach English there! Anyways, we’re still hoping that she will join us on some of our adventures – she’s a busy gal though! She’s doing online courses for university (she’s a teaching major) at the same time as volunteering here!

After work we decided to visit St. Thomas Mount, where it is said that St. Thomas (the apostle that spread “the word of God” to India) was speared to death while praying. We managed to flag down an auto driver who was willing to take us there, wait for us for an hour and then drive us back for 250 INR. Seemed like a pretty good deal! To get to St. Thomas Mount you climb up 134 steep stone steps – which made me realize exactly how out of shape I am now that I’m not running 4 days a week anymore! The view at the top was totally worth it though – we could see almost all of Chennai spread out before us. I hadn’t really realized exactly how big Chennai was until today! We were also pretty much right next to the airport – so close that we could see the runway! At the top of the hill there is St. Thomas Shrine, a pretty little church. We spent a few minutes inside and then headed back out to watch the sun set over Chennai. It was the first sunset we’ve seen since arriving in India, and very beautiful indeed.

When we got back down to the bottom of the hill we noticed another beautiful church just off to the side – St. Patrick’s. It was a very beautiful, white washed church, and the stained glass was brightly coloured, similarly to that in the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Pondicherry. It seems like this bright stained glass is a theme in Catholic churches in India!

We managed to find our auto driver again (who thankfully didn’t abandon us while we were on the mount!) and started the trip back to SPASTN. The traffic at this time was nightmarish! I guess everyone was on their way home from work etc. It was really crazy. Ultimately it didn’t take us that long to get back home though – we were chowing down on dinner by about 6:30.

The rest of the evening has been pretty relaxed so far. After dinner I talked with my parents on Skype, and have just been catching up on blogging and emails since then. Once I finish this and hopefully post some photos I’ll probably burrow my nose in my book until bed time (I’m almost at the end and its getting good!)

Hope everyone out there is doing well!