A long time ago in a blog not so far away....

I am so amazed that there are actually people (all of one) who read my blog regularly and poke and prod to see if it's still alive or not.

Since I haven't blogged in ages, here's an update on what's happening in our lives.

Arun's got a new job as Assistant Professor at Keio University. So we're all moving bag and baggage to Tsuruoka, Japan, sometime in late March.

We took a 3 week holiday and went to India. Mysore being the totally hip place that it is, there was a Japanese teacher who lives on the same street as we do. So there was this total crash course in basic Japanese. Now I can confidently point out cars, buses, trains, tell someone whether a book is on, under or in a table, count apples, eggs and fish, but not people (not yet thanks to the complicated numbering systems) and go to a store and ask for the price of this or that! Once the two of us catch up on our assignments, we could of course say more!

There was the unexpected (condolence) trip to Chennai, which put an effective damper on high spirits for the rest of the holiday. Ah well, c'est la vie.

Worse things were still to come after we returned to Singy. Turns out there were heavy incessant thunder storms. And wiring in this apartment block being not all that new, power tends to trip frequently. And since no one was home to turn it on again, each individual thing in the freezer started growing its own ecosystem. All my sambar and rasam powders were a total write-off. So were the other assorted masalas and any other thing that was there. There was even a grey film of something on my salt! I still don't remember why I stuck the salt and sugar in the freezer, but there you go. The sugar had turned an interesting greenish gray. Revolting I know.... but a pretty shade all the same. Imagine going to Nalli and asking for a saree in the shade of fungus-coated sugar... hehehe

Our dear friend D, who is doing some research on some weird types of fungus whose names I can't pronounce, wished that I'd told him before I cleaned the freezer. So next time this happens, I'll just call some research Institute and ask them whether they need any of the life forms growing in my freezer.