Screwed in thoughts of Economics for Graduate School : An International Student Perspective

If your parents / scholarships are paying your graduate school escapades, stop reading, this blog this is not for your types. 

I couldn’t sleep well last night and finances of graduate school was going through my head all the time also the after effects in case of a failure to get a job. I pay for my own studies through a loan secured through a bank in India and hence the concern.

My only hope and prayer is US government should sort out the economics within and America should once again stand on its own feet, America should never ever ever ever fail, cause if it does so will I. 

So what was my concern?

1 US Dollar = 52 Indian Rupees (At current market prices)

My Tuition fees per semester  USD$11,000 x 4 Semesters = USD $44,000

1 month for living + food = USD $1000 x 24 months = USD 24,000

Income from on campus job USD $700 x 20 months = USD 14,000

Total two year expense = USD $54,000 or 2,808,000 Indian Rupees.

Average salary for a graduate in India = 500,000/Annum on a higher side – Taxes – Living Expense a maximum saving of 100,000 per annum could be achieved ( No vacations, not falling sick, minimal lifestyle)

That means it would take me 100,000 Indian Rupees x 28 years = 2,800,000 to repay my graduate loan.

Yes 28 years of my life.  

Average salary for a graduate in USA = $55,000 / Annum – Taxes – Living Expense a maximum saving of USD $20,000 per annum could be achieved (Some vacations, Insurance included, almost a good life compared to Indian standards)

That means it would take me USD $20,000 x 2.7 years = USD $54,000 to repay my graduate loan.

Hell Yeah just 2.7 years of my life.

I have 6 more months to graduate and find a job, 6 months later it would be decided if I live happily ever after or just……….

God Bless America and me.

Coming Home/Moving Away

I've been asked to blog about "coming home," which is ironic because I moved away from my real home two days ago and I'm currently crashing at a friend's house while I'm waiting to move into my apartment, which means I'm technically "homeless." But that's life.




I've been waiting to move to D.C. for 8 months. Eight months ago I moved home from Colombia, where I had been teaching fifth graders at a bilingual school in Periera. This is what I left:

Really.

This is what I came home to:












Although adjusting to the icy Midwest winter was difficult after leaving tropical Colombia, it was just as trying to adjust to living at home again. Coming home from an experience abroad shocks the senses the same way the winter cold shocks your body when you come home from the tropics. It was jarring to leave a place that had been my home for a year. To walk away from all of my furniture, my apartment, my dishes, my friends, my job, my view of the mountains, even my favorite bus driver, to come home, where no one understood what I had left, what I had built in that foreign country, or what I had experienced, was in every way more challenging than moving abroad had been. When you move to a new place, everything is exciting; everything is new. It's fun to take the metro in the morning and walk the streets to work right now. It's mind-boggling that I could walk out of the office and in just a few minutes I could stand in front of the White House. That's not how it feels to go home. Going home is comfortable, not interesting. Going home is sameness, repetition, and familiarity after days, weeks, months, or years of the exotic, the surprising, and the uncertainty of a new day.

It's called "reverse culture shock" for a reason, and it is what I believe is the hardest part of living abroad. Moving abroad can be scary, but coming home means leaving a life that you have worked hard to build that you might never be able to return to. At home, no one says "con mucho gusto mi amore" after you thank them, even if you thank them in Spanish. No one says "listo?" and no one, not even the Spanish speakers, pronounce "llama" or "yo" with that lovely "j" sound at the beginning like my Colombian students did. No one makes jugo de lulo or limonada, and no one here appreciates what it means when it doesn't rain for an entire day. They just don't get it. They also don't understand how difficult it actually was to teach and live abroad in a foreign country for a year. They don't understand how hard it was to wake up at 5:00 a.m., catch the bus, teach fifth graders who barely spoke English about prisms, talk to Spanish speaking taxi drivers or doctors or bakers or even my non-English speaking boss, walk past the homeless kids begging for money, buy weird foreign foods and learn how to cook them, plan lessons that will probably fail, fall asleep listening to the sounds of traffic and police outside, and then to wake up and do it all again. My family still thinks that I lived a fabulous life surrounded by palm trees and beautiful people in a great apartment. To a great extent, they are absolutely right.

Maybe that's the problem. No one knows how awful it was, and no one understands how amazing it was either. It seems impossible that everything could be so bad and so good at the same time, but it was. It seems impossible that I could be in a parent-teacher conference speaking Spanish and a week later I could be home baking pie with my family. It's shocking to realize that my family looks nothing like the Colombians I was around for months. It's shocking to see people throw away uneaten food, and it's shocking to realize how much money we have in the USA.

When I worked in a study abroad office, I always warned students who were about to leave for their own grand adventures about reverse culture shock. I told them to be prepared to feel totally out-of-place in their own homes. I also told them to remember the best parts of living abroad and to incorporate as much as they could into their normal, at home, lives. That's why I sometimes fry plantains and why I like to speak Spanish  to my dog. It's why the scent of Colombian laundry detergent on my unpacked "work" clothes means I might never again wash (or wear) the polo I wore to work. And it's why, after what seemed to be eight endless months, I was glad to leave home again. It's good to be back in the unfamiliar.

"Home"sickness

For me, homesickness is something that’s triggered. When I’m in a new place or someplace other than “home,” I’m usually not that homesick. I like exploring new places, trying new foods, and generally adapting to my environment. Maybe I’ve just never been away long enough to experience the full downward spiral of the Culture Shock U-Curve. I think it’s actually the returning, the “reverse Culture Shock,” that hits me the worst. Every now and then, something will trigger that wave of emotions that makes me long to be back in my comfort zone whether it’s here or abroad.

I have been fortunate enough to call quite a few places “home,” if even for a short period of time. In Italy, I made my home. I walked to school every day listening to an ever-growing playlist, and, now, if I hear a certain song from that list, I long to be back at the Duomo, or walking along the banks of the Arno. I have a perfume that, when I smell it, brings me back to those family moments like dinner with my host mother or sharing a bathroom with my host sister. It’s the little things, the mundane things, that really give me this longing to return.

And how do I fight this homesickness? I don’t. I take comfort in the thought that I was able to feel so “at home” in Italy. Do I get sad or lonely or long for my friends and the family I made? Certo. So what do I do? I put on my perfume and my favorite song from Italy. I close my eyes, and I let myself take a trip “home” … in my mind. For some people, this may not work. It may make them want to return even more. For me, it’s a way to keep my "home" alive in my memories. And though I can't always shake the longing and the heartache, I keep going. To stop changing and growing and adapting is to stop living.

I think my kryptonite of homesickness, however, is American football. My friends all tell me that I’m an old man because the one thing I always miss about home is dozing on the couch under my favorite blanket with a cat curled up in my lap, a dog asleep at my feet, a drink by my side, a fire in the fireplace, and a game on. Freshman year, I fought this homesickness by not watching any of the games (except the Super bowl). I knew, if I watched them in my tiny room with its white walls and florescent lighting, I would only miss home more. When I got snowed into Germany, and was driving on the bus to my third plane (which would be cancelled like all the rest), I longed, more than anything, to just be home on my couch. The snow could keep falling then, because I would be home and safely tucked away under my blanket and my cat.

What I’ve learned, however, is that we can create a new home when we find a way to make a space that gives us comfort after a long day. My tiny freshman year room brought me a lot of comfort when I came in from DC’s winter winds. My bamboo plant has traveled with me from home to home, giving my room a familiar feel no matter where I go.

The funny thing is, and please tell me if anyone else feels this way, when I’m at one home, I often get a longing to be at another. If I’m at school on a chilly fall day, I often long for my couch and football game. When I’m not at school, I often crave the comfort of a lazy Saturday spent in bed with no parents to disturb me or the freedom to walk around the city when I have nothing to do. Does this make me sad, the fact that part of me will always long for my “other home?” At times. But I also cherish the fact that I have managed to find so many places that give me the comfort and solace that we so often associate with home ...

and Puppies.

-K.M.

Jess' First Blog Post!

I've been out of the states for a little over a year now and I am home sick like CRAZY for Mexican food. It's ridiculous. I'm currently living with a bunch of Cali kids, specifically San Diego. and together once a week we find ourselves talking about how much we miss the deliciousness. And since they obvi have a much broader menu in their heads than I do I just sit, listen and drool. basically. 

 After two months of being abroad is when my first cravings hit. I was in China and Mexican food was hard to come by. there was one Mexican place around us and they didn’t even put beans in my burrito. There was no sour cream (which destroyed me. sometimes I have a hard time deciding if it’s the Mexican food or the sour cream I miss). and there was an innocent and sweet attempt at guacamole but let’s just say it was complete and utter failure. I'm now in turkey and had fajitas the other night... alllright.... I mighta given it to them but again no sour cream what I had instead was yohgurt (the Turks love that stuff here they put it on everything and I mean everything) and then the wrap was flaky and broke when I tried to role it... sighhh.

I don’t get mad anymore. I just wait in full anticipation for when I touchdown stateside on Aug 14th. 1st home, 2nd best friend’s house, 3rd froyo, 4th Mexican. Done.

Is it weird that what makes me homesick isn’t something traditionally from my home...? It's just one of those things I can't find good stuff of it anywhere but the Americas. 

Having said all that... anyone wanna grab any kind of Mexican food for the next few months I'll be more than down. In fact you can call me and I’ll prob already be sitting there for breakfast waiting for someone to join me.

xoxo
Jess

Saturday, Sunday

Oh, you are going to US to do your masters, how lucky you are? That’s the immediate response you get from friends and families when you break the news about your admission and visa being approved.

Yes, lucky I am while like 100 million others don’t get this privilege to move out or afford a quality education in a respectable and well recognized institution. Hell Yeah!! President Obama stays 10 blocks away, World Bank (It’s a big deal in the developing world like India to talk about the World Bank) is like 6 blocks away. Lucky indeed !!

An empty mind is a devils workshop, a proverb that I learnt during high school. Dad said, being young you should always think act constantly work for your own development. I mean seriously, can a human brain endure the same thing continuously for a sustained period of time. The answer is No, unless you are a scientist with no life except for the love of his/her life being the four corners of the lab. Well I am writing this blog cause my mind is empty, but hey I am still a nice guy not the devil.

Well, in India children don’t move out, like in US where they move out say after 18 (well that’s what I have heard through movies blah blah) but well mostly I have seen friends moving out for studies which is kind of natural. The girls in India get married and move out to stay with her husband and her in laws while the boy stays home gets married and brings in his wife to stay with his family.

Why I named this blog Saturday, Sunday?

What as a student, what would you do on a Saturday or Sunday? Go out party, drink, party and drink again and then what. Go to church do your laundry clean your room and then the day ends. Well honestly it sucks to do this for a whole year; you need someone close by. Someone means that which means everything for you, your parents, brothers and sisters. You can’t argue with your room mates but you can fight with your siblings and still eat dinner together as if nothing happened. You need a motivation for to look forward for those long weekends and those big Christmas break. You need your relatives (well even if you hate them, they still pay for your food and drinks and give you a homely feeling). Friends are awesome, companionship is awesome but you need your parents to cook for you, do that smelly laundry for you while you relax as a king/queen in your house. You really want to wake up that “One Day” where you don’t have to worry about making your breakfast and think about lunch or dinner.

Well honestly, I love America and I really never want to go back again, my city is too crowded for me but then the other part really scares the hell out of you. Like yesterday when a guy in the metro said, “Hey you have an accent, where do you come from” This accent is going to stick with me forever no matter how I roll my tongue to pronounce that perfect R’s. Will you be accepted in the society, a brown kid will always be brown and I will still be good at cricket than baseball (well I pulled up this cricket line because I don’t want the blog to be too serious).

But yes family plays a big part in your life decision, money is really really really important but family is more important in this like 50 or 60 years that we are in this planet earth. No matter how magnificent the Shenandoah’s mountain stands, it can never over shadow the love your parents shower on you. A big hug is all that is required to melt down the anger or even loneliness of a Saturday, Sunday

Blahhh I need my drink !!!

Breakfast

'Doing' a good breakfast is tough when you start college, and most adults still don't 'do' breakfast well into their 30s and 40s. After I moved out of Thurston, though (and into Ivory), I finally made it a point to eat breakfast every morning. Breakfast really gets your brain up in the morning and you really shouldn't do without it.

This might be a little strange, but growing up, I always looked forward to breakfast. It's the one meal my family would sit down for before going to work or school. Usually we'd come home too late for dinner together.

I'm not much of a picky eater, so I didn't mind having the same thing every morning (cereal, oatmeal, tofu), but sometimes when my mom was feeling generous, she would make me a cup of traditional Filipino (Spanish?) hot chocolate.


This stuff is not for the faint of heart. It's pure chocolate tablets mixed in boiling water. The chocolate isn't even sweet. Tough stuff that really got me awake in the morning (no joe for me) and kept my sweet tooth in line all day.

Coming to college really made me miss my cereal and hot chocolate, so I make it a point to always have some chocolate tablets and evaporated milk in my pantry.

Carol Says ,,,

Washington DC is an amazing city. I am touched by so many museums around. I am so immersing into the environment of culture and politics. Here, I had many first experience, like eating cupcakes, kayaking in Potomac river, watching fireworks, and visiting White House. For anyone who comes here soon, you never lose interests to the city.

Howtogetmarried.com

Well the title of the blog itself gives me goose bumps, as you read through it probably you feel those goose & geese bumps as well.

Let me start with a small story.
Jeet grew up with four friends, they woke up together, ate together, studied together and to end it all played cricket together and they are:
1) Vibhav Natu : Married ( Love Marriage) : Initially was opposed by the family but they relented and accepted it.
2) Kapil Panchal (Arranged Marriage) : I couldn't believe that any girl would say yes to this bugger(British slang), but he is getting married this November ( It will be live on skype for me to witness)
3) Kedar Nivate (Arranged Marriage): We decided to get married on the same stage, but social pressure is driving him nuts and he can't wait for me. ( I am writing this blog mainly because of this guy)
4) Jeet : ......................

Story End :) Happy Ending, except for the fact that the ending is blank with out me jumping into the so called matrimonial phase.

Well i remember my first days in US, my friends concern about my love life (guys do talk about love life) decided to hook me up with some females. Michelle & Jerry being my love gurus started doing my so called counselling. Disappointed by my speed they gave up, but i had to tell them that my wishes of marrying a girl of my choice would never be approved at all.

At this stage they were heartbroken like literally heartbroken. The super woman Michelle then asked me "Jeet, will you ever get married" and then i took my laptop out and smiled.

This is what i told them, and you can try doing it in your laptop as well, follow the steps listed so that this is interactive. This is the way literally thousands of Indians are getting married now a days and this thing really works. There are a whole lot of services and money being made by these sites by bringing together the working class Indians who don't have time for dating or who can not date due to family pressures.

Stage 1
The example today we are going to discuss is about your friend Jeet and this is how you are going to help him find a bride. Feel free to browse through other options if you like

1) Go to http://www.tamilmatrimony.com/
Notice the words TAMIL in the website, it is a language spoken in southern India, since there are 30 other languages there are 30 other sites. We are not going to bother about it. Being specific helps to narrow down the search results.

2) The second tab, is the search tab (home tab is on the left and register tab is on the right of it). Move your mouse over to search and select regular search.

3) Fill in the following information in the search page
     Select gender : Female
    Age : 23 to 27 ( acceptable age difference)
    Height: 5ft  to 5ft 9
    Martial Status: Unmarried
    Religion : Hindu
    Mother Tongue : By default it would be "Tamil" other wise chose the Tamil
    Caste: Add
    Country : For now lets keep it USA and then we can change to India later.
    Education : Bachelors Engineering / Computers & Masters Engineering /Computers
    Show Profile : With photos

Now click on Search, the result will show one female i guess ( that is what it showed me, and remember we clicked the country as united states if we would have changed the country to india there would have been more search results). Click on her and go through her profile. Everything about her is listed here, what she likes and what she dislikes and also what kind of person they are expecting for her. (Notice that the profile is being created by her parents and not her, screws me up even more because i don't know if my parents have created my profile)

All parents in India would spend some time of their busy life online on sites like this ( and not facebook).

Stage 2 : 
Once they think, that the girl satisfies their requirements, they would contact her parents and get her Horoscope. ( Horoscope are really really really important). The horoscope of the girl and the boy is read at the same time by a savant and he/she determines if they stars and the planets will protect the holy matrimonial.

Stage 3: 
The parents will break the news that they have found a girl and vice versa with her family. They will exchange pictures and ask for their advice ( since now a days everyone is educated). During the initial days in India the girl and boy never use to see each other before marriage, right at the moment when they are getting married they will see each other on the podium. Then it progressed to speed dating when the boy will go the girl house to meet her and get like 10 mins to decide if they want to get married or not. But thanks to Gtalk, Skype & Facebook the girl and the boy chat before they decide to meet up.

Step 4:
A background check is done on the family on both sides, its like the FBI thingy in depth information is collected on the side lines of the chat. This is a very important stage as well

Step 5: 
The boy's family will  ask for dowry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowry). The boy literally becomes a millionaire right after marriage. Assuming that i am in US my dowry rates would be high as well. ( This is like bullsh%$ which i don't believe in but i say "I don't want it", they will think that "May be the boy is impotent, which is why out of desperation his family wants to marry him off"

Step 6: 
Get married, have kids in the first year(again social pressure) and have a happy life ahead.



The purpose of this blog was to show the complications involved in a marriage and yet the system which kind of works. Kapil's marriage is arranged and so is Kedar, he met his girl through a similar website.

I fear that if i go back to India they will start fixing me up with someone. ( One of the reasons to do my graduation was to escape home and avoid falling in the trap of marriage). The typical age for a guy to get married is 25 and for a girl is 23.

Well now that you know how to do it, find me someone. :) :) :) (blondes accepted)

P.S: While majority marriages are still arranged in India many do get married outside their caste, against their family wishes and are being accepted in the society. ( ray of hope for me :) )

    

Cuppa Joe

I'm one of those who "don't do" breakfast, at least not until I have been awake for a while. I'm just not ready to eat first thing in the morning and nothing is particularly appetizing. As a child I struggled in my family of breakfast eaters. I never liked traditional breakfast foods. Eggs, sausage and bacon are right out. I don't like really sweet things. Donuts, even plain cake donuts, and sweet pastries make my stomach cringe. I don't know how people can eat those things. I can't even stand the overly sweet smell. I shied away from pancakes, waffles and frech toast, because they were always served with syrup. It took a while before I realized I didn't have to have the syrup. Yes, I guess I was a little slow on the draw.

This of course distressed my mother, so she tried to feed me leftovers for breakfast


or make things like cheese toast. I really hated cheese toast, which perplexed her, because I love cheese and bread, but the slice of white bread with a slice of American cheese broiled for minute until the "cheese" melted was, quite frankly, icky.

When we moved to Germany I was introduced to a different tradition of breakfast. At home we still had a lot of the same things, although we had the benefit of having a bakery around the corner from us, which had the best breads.

We traveled a lot and I came to like the breakfasts that we were served in the hotels, except the eggs.

My preferred mornings now involve coffee

followed by some yogurt, fruit and nuts, but not until I've been up for a few hours, thank you!

~Kelly

My breakfast story

I never understood those people who say that they don’t “do” breakfast. After reading Kelly’s post, you wonder how it would be possible to pass up on those delicious American dishes. If you can’t tell, I LOVE breakfast. In fact, I love breakfast so much that I often have “breakfast-dinner,” which is the opposite of “dinner-breakfast.” While some people may heat up leftover pizza from the night before to start their day, I prolong breakfast into the evening. Pancakes at 7 am? Yes! Omelets or French toast at 7 pm? Of course! I’m a breakfast-food girl.

My fondest breakfast memories trace back to both of my grandfathers. My Mom’s dad would take my sister and me out for breakfast on Sunday mornings when we were little. Being a good Pennsylvania man, he always ordered 2 sides of scrapple. For an official description of what exactly constitutes scrapple, you can read Kelly’s post below. I for one prefer my Papa’s description. He told me that scrapple is made by the butcher, who takes all of the leftover bits that have fallen out of various animals, mashes them together, and then sells it to a restaurant, which fries it up in butter and oil and serves it to old men with few tastebuds. He would then do a little dance while he popped the scrapple in his mouth.

Needless to say, I never once sampled the scrapple off of his plate, although I loved our morning breakfast tradition.

Breakfast with my other grandfather was a completely different experience. He makes the best pancakes in the world. It’s a family recipe, and is so involved that step one of the pancake batter has to be started the night before. Now, my Dad makes the “Grandad Pancakes” on holidays, but the smell of them still reminds me of waking up at my grandparents house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I would tell you the secret ingredients, but I was only recently entrusted with them, and I’m just not sure how secure this internet connection is J

I would like to close with a (breakfast) song. I take no credit for this…it was one of the tracks on our Raffi “kids sing-a-long” tape that played on repeat when I was a wee thing:

“Breakfast is great, it’s yummy in my tummy I can’t wait. There’s cereal, french toast, eggs and ham, pancakes and bacon, bagels and jam! I wish it were morning so I could seeeeeeeeeeeee breakfast for me!” (sung in a round) 

 --Sarah

America's Breakfast Buffet

Good Morning ISA's!

Since no one has touched on the American breakfast yet, I thought I'd give a brief overview. That way, if anyone wants to go into further detail about a specific breakfast option (hint hint, nudge nudge), that wonderful ISA is free to do so.

So, I come from Pennsylvania, the home of scrapple, which Wikipedia describes as "traditionally a mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour, often buckwheat flour, and spices. The mush is formed into a semi-solid congealed loaf, and slices of the scrapple are then panfried before serving."

But that's not what I want to talk about today.

In America, there are a lot of “classic” breakfast foods. If you go to any diner, you can probably find these “hearty” breakfast options:

French Toast

Belgian Waffles

Pancakes (or flapjacks, as some places call them)

Eggs (omelets, scrambled, over-easy, boiled, etc), usually with some sort of bacon or sausage, and starch/carbohydrate on the side.

Muffins / donuts / breakfast pastries

With most of these options, Maple syrup is a must. That sweet, sugary glaze can be used to top the fluffy dough of the pancakes or add sweetness to the salty crunch of bacon.

Pancakes or Waffles also often come with a dollop of whipped cream and maybe some sliced fruit.

To be honest, my family usually only made big breakfasts on special occasions. Sundays we'd often buy donuts or make cinnabons.

Christmas would be sausage-gravy and biscuits, French-toast casserole, lemon poppy seed bread, mini blueberry muffins, and fruit. Easter was often omelets my dad made to order. When we were younger, we’d often do "breakfast for dinner," and kids don’t complain about chocolate chip pancakes, no matter what time they’re eaten.Otherwise, on a normal morning, a “sit-down” breakfast was cereal, granola, oatmeal or a cup of Greek yogurt.The mornings of my eight-hour soccer practices, it was a bagel with peanut butter. My senior year of high school, I started my day with a chunk of Challah bread that I would dip into some Aztec Hot Chocolate (Spicy hot chocolate).

When I don’t have time to sit and eat, I usually take a breakfast bar or an instant smoothie to go. Even in college, freshman year breakfasts were often Starbucks Vivanno’s or Freshens Acai smoothies that I could take to class.

What I’m trying to say is, American breakfasts are quite varied, as I am sure breakfasts in most other countries are. We have the traditional breakfasts, and the fast food breakfasts (I recall the days of Sausage, egg, and cheese McMuffins), the on-the-go breakfasts, and the leftover dinner breakfasts (cold pizza, anyone?).

And, despite all the options and variations, there are certain foods that, no matter what time you eat them or how you prepare them, will always be considered “Breakfast.”

-Kelly M.