Art View

African Megaflyover pilot videographer Mike Fay for policymakers

2006-02-24T20:12:00.000-06:00

This is amazing.

Mike Fay flew over Africa at 500 feet and took 92,000 pictures. Michael, in film school and also a pilot told me about this.

He wants to convince policy makers to invest in natural resource management for the promotion of peace. Sounds odd? Perhaps not. He alleges that Dafur, Rwanda, and many other troubled areas in Africa have resource depletion as a hidden cause. Would convservation help preserve peace and prevent human rights abuses? Read the article here, or watch the really, really good and short video here.

I like to look a bit more in what he has done. And how he got here in life.

"Fay drummed up support from various sources—the Human Footprint lab at WCS, the WILD Foundation, the Bateleurs (an Africa-based organization of bush
pilots volunteering for conservation), and, as chief financial sponsor, the
National Geographic Society."

I find it interesting who he got involved... and the varied life stories of the people behind; the pilot slash optometrist and the Mario Scherer pilot slash Kosovo war crimes investegator.

"Fay arranged collaborations wherever possible with local conservationists, field
scientists, or national agencies, assisting them with their aerial-survey needs
as well as adding data to his own comprehensive trove."

I think in order to be successful anywhere, you must arrange collaborations.

Post your comments on what you think about this guy, his political ambitions, or the breathtaking pictures/videos.

Bringing India to America

2006-02-05T19:12:00.000-06:00

Currently I have a short gig as a sixth grade teacher. Since these students have been learning about ancient India in their social studies class, the teacher asked me to speak to them about my experience in India. I was thrilled to have this opportunity because one of my passions is to educate Americans about other cultures. I thought this would be of particular interest to the children because while we were in India we worked with children in hopes that we could see India through their eyes. So I felt my presentation would be a way in which I could connect American children with the lives of Indian children.

There are two sixth grade classes and I was to make my presentation to both. I've taught these kids before and I've known both groups to be quite boisterous, so I didn't really know what their response would be, but I hoped for the best and thought the use of my website, http://www.jillianlongheier.com/india/artCampIndia.htm, and its pictures would hold their attention.

I was very pleased with the first group. They immediately showed enthusiasm when they learned that I had actually traveled to India. They asked thoughtful questions, enjoyed the photographs, and were emotionally affected by what they saw. We didn't have nearly enough time for them to thoroughly appreciate what I had to offer.

The second group acted like spoiled self centered Americans. They were completely disrespectful as they constantly interrupted me with silly questions and laughed through the entire presentation. When I told them of the poverty in India, they did not express any compassion for these people. Nor did they express gratefulness for their wealth. Rather they expressed disgust, the same sort of self righteous narrowminded views that have oppressed the lower castes all along. Their reaction was an utter disappointment.

Both groups are a good indication of what Americans are like in regards to other cultures. Some just don't care. Others are unaware, but willing to learn. Hopefully in time the first group will join the second.

Advice for Schools with Art Majors

2006-02-05T17:17:00.000-06:00

If a school is going to offer Art as a major, it should have a required course taken freshman year that aquaints the students with various careers in the arts. Even if it doesn't offer the various design degrees, it could at least inform the students about them and let them know what knowledge base they need to acquire to enter those fields. Instructing the students how to conduct business would be beneficial as well, as in how to sell art and exhibit it. Most college students are too callow to seek this information on their own.

Advice for Future or Present Day Art Majors

2006-02-05T17:05:00.000-06:00

Double major in something more practical. Really figure out what you plan to do when you graduate from college. If you want to go into commercial art... learn the software, get an internship, get the necessary qualifications before you graduate. If you want to teach art... talk to your professors about graduate schools and get a clear idea of what your art is about before you get to grad school. Learn something about business. And once again, consider double majoring in something more practical.

Sometimes I find myself filled with so much regret. I wish could go back and start college all over and pick up another major. Maybe major in psychology so I could be a therapist, or education so I could teach kids. I should have taken some business/economics classes. But I wouldn't want to lose the experiences I did have. They were really wonderful. I guess I just wish I did more. I want more. I didn't want to leave academia.

What's this blog supposed to be about anyway?

2006-02-05T07:37:00.000-06:00

So Jonathan hijacked the blog for awhile to talk about technology and economics and stuff, and now it is my turn to take over and talk about things such as art and teaching and post graduate school and being a lost artist in society. After all the blog is called artview, right? It's now time to get an artist's view.

So here's a little update about me and my situation:

I graduate from Purdue with my MA in Visual Art in May.
I spend the next month in India running art camps for children.
I fly back to the US and spend a couple weeks packing up and moving out of my apartment in Indiana and back home with my parents in Ohio.

From here I get lost. What do I do? How do I find a job?

I spend the summer trying to learn computer graphics software. I do some online volunteering in graphic design. I look for jobs on the internet, and don't really see anything I am qualified for, but I still apply to some artsy ones that I think I could possibly do. I don't hear back from any of them. I'm not surprised. Jobs don't exist for artists. I have no experience in commercial art, and really I am not sure I'd like it but am willing to give it a try. I look at my resume and see that most of my experience is in teaching, so I send my resume to a local college. They acknowledge my resume but unfortunately don't need any art teachers.

After two months of living at home I feel guilty about not aquiring a job yet, so I reluctantly interview to work at the soon to open Target store. Not surprisingly they hire me, because I am way over qualified, for an amazing $6.00 an hour. The month before the store opens is gruelling. Eight hours a day of lifting heavy boxes and stocking shelves. It doesn't get much better when the store opens because now on top of restocking the shelves, we have to help customers (oops, I mean guests), answer calls, and make sure everything is perfectly zoned. After three months I quit because I come home exhausted and I am getting nowhere in my career. I think it is much better to be temporarily unemployed than to be in a deadend minimum wage self esteem sinking job.

I now decide to call local graphic design firms to see if I can find a job or at least an internship to get some experience. I meet with two of them. The one guy just hits on me, and the other place offers me an internship. Now I think this is really promising because they have this website that lists a whole bunch of positions that they are hiring for....part-time graphic designer, freelance graphic designer, etc.... and I think I'll humble myself and intern for free for awhile and they will be so impressed with my work that maybe they will hire me. Unfortunately, no luck there. They tend to ignore me most of the time. They don't give me much to do so I am bored a lot, and I never get any feedback about the work I do. It also turns out that they aren't looking to hire anybody right now. So I quit and I think they were just waiting for me to go.

The one thing I have had success with since I've been home is substitute teaching. I occasionally sub at my alma mater, St. Mary, where my mom is currently teaching first grade. It's fun going back there, seeing my former teachers, and being on the other side. It has affirmed my love and strength for teaching. It gives me a glimpse of hope for my future.

Taxi driving perspectives

2005-12-22T13:34:00.000-06:00

Monday Dec. 19, 2005: I'm in the back seat of Hassan M Osman, driver 84334
of Karma Taxi Corp. Osman seems to have learned to drive from somewhere in
Asia. I got in the car and he clearly didn't know where to take me so he's
talking on his cell phone to some dispatcher. Then before I can settle in
we're weaving all across traffic and through pink lights, oops that was red,
and around and through all forms of other vehicles. I think he just checked
his text messages and email on his phone. And there goes another big red
light.

Thursday Dec. 22, 2005: I rode in another taxi. This time, he said he was up
driving since 6am, and had to get up again tomorrow to start at 6. (It was
currently 12am.) He had to pay his rent. Money was tight he said, so much
that he had to sell his medallion to get some eye surgery. I'm really
grateful for my education and possibilities in life. And I want to keep
working hard, he's doing it and so will I.

It's Here!

2005-12-18T07:13:00.000-06:00

My $2000 website is up on the web!(it's actually free, but if I were a designer charging myself to make a website, I could charge myself about $2000. Telling myself this makes me feel a little better because $2000 is more than I have made in the past six months. It's like doubling my income.) Please visit www.JillianLongheier.com to see my artwork, listen to my music, and learn more about our trip to India.

The beauty of bygone days' chores

2005-12-16T00:02:00.000-06:00

It was not long ago, 15 months or less, that I was bemoaning to all as a pledge in a cooperative house of the many chores I had to do. The sweeping, the dishes, the memorizing of names, girlfriends names, parents' names, home-towns, ages, and personal trivia, the organized functions...

So about a month into it last fall, I left the house, kept paying them rent, and got my own apartment. Then in the spring (when I finished job interviewing and ran out of excuses to waist so much money) I stopped the massive cashflow leak, put on a grimace, and moved back. It wasn't that bad. At first I was so pissed off for geting home at 11 from group projects, homework, and student organizations--only to find a heaping pile of 5 hour old crusty dishes from 45 guys, a dirty floor, and flour, sugar, fat and meat all over the kitchen. I put in the time cleaning this two hour mess, then did homework, and thrice weekly woke up early in the morning to work out with Jillian. Surprisingly, by the end of the semester, I strangely looked forward to the chores and brainless, but productive, hours involved.

I write this after moving out of that house, trekking over India with Jillian, moving to Minneapolis to work, then relocating to Chicago, and just capping off 140.5 hours of billable work since Dec. 1st. The funny thing is today--Friday--I got home relatively early (10:30pm) and just can't sleep. I'm too wound and post-stress-y to lay down. This is my free time, I want to sleep, but by golly I should relax some too! Not just drop in the bed unconscious. So I spent the last 45min taking out trash, bundling up garbage and doing dishes for my roommate and myself. It felt good. If I wasn't going to bed in a few minutes, I'd do laundry too, as it is a very important, but quite mindless chore.

Enjoyment is found, surprisingly, in completing the not-so-glamorous tasks in life. Some people could watch TV or movies, and in fact they may have more fun than I do with my garbage, dishes, and even laundry! But I don't have a TV, don't particularly want to watch movies more than every other month, and really feel good after getting chores like this done! (Another great one is paying bills. When I'm done gosh (!) I feel like I've finished something and it's great to know I saved and invested more than I spent for the month.) I think I might start reading a novel or two that I have on my bookshelf. I do quite enjoy reading, and non-fiction 24/7 isn't the best for my creative side. (After all, this blog is called Art View for a reason.) I'll blog too, if Jillian doesn't mind me flooding Art View with so many posts... (-;

Good night and may household chores find you great contentment and relaxation, Jonathan

beep beep! .....I'm zooooooommmmming!

2005-12-15T19:31:00.000-06:00

Productivity's up!

I have a really low tolerance for caffeine and usually avoid it and sugar. Today i was really tired (not much sleep this week - busy busy working) so i made some hot coco with coffee, sugar, and fresh grounds. It was kinda nasty but really gave me a kick! That and a diet coke in the afternoon and let me tell you i got a little HHHYYYYYPPPPPEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR! I'm still buzzing, but ceased feeling dizzy--although it was a fun dizzy feeling when I walked around (or should I say zoomed around).

zoom zoom,

Jonathan
'listening to some techno by Critical Mass right now coding java and jsp at work

Coming Really Soon!

2005-12-15T14:08:00.000-06:00

I've been working on my website this afternoon. It looks like it could possibly be up as early as this evening!

Coming Soon!

2005-12-14T19:59:00.000-06:00

As Jonathan mentioned, I am creating a new improved website for my artwork, music, and our recent trip to India. Hopefully it will be up by this weekend. So this is your last chance to view the old website, www.JillianLongheier.com which was created by Jonathan.

Prediction - software developers are blue collar 2020

2005-12-14T13:56:00.000-06:00

I predict that software developers in 20 years will be the manufacturing employees of today. Jobs will be exported, it won’t be as glamorous of an occupation, and something else will rise to become the new white collar occupations. Probably nanotech or biotech or bioinformatics. I even speculate that children in 2020 may be outsourcing software development to make virtual reality add-ins, e-toys, or gifts for themselves and others. It will be easy and accessible for a child who grows up with a computer, broadband, and a mobile infrastructure to use a payment system to hire and pay designers and developers overseas to build stuff for them. On lunch money budgets.

Tight deadlines make happy creatives, and cool podcasts

2005-12-14T01:19:00.000-06:00

Ever feel pressured with tight deadlines, but too much work to do? Maybe that's a really, really good thing if you're a creative person... hmmm.. http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/constraints_breed_breakthrough_creativity.php

37signals.com is a sweet blog to follow regarding design. Design. Lots of different kinds of design. And it's really cool stuff. Also they are a web development company that's releasing really cool stuff built on a framework called "ruby on rails." I met David a few weeks back at a rapid web development talk at Depaul and it was really cool! It'll be great to get some time from work to do some playing around with these new technologies! AJAX and more.

Also I just found (from the above blog) a podcast series about great entrepreneurs of the web. http://www.venturevoice.com/ That's what I want to be in 6-8 years!

Thanks Jillian!

2005-12-11T22:42:00.000-06:00

I'm a thanker. And in 5th grade Mrs. Stoner would say I was an 'I'm sorry'-er cause I said that tri-syllabic phrase even when I was completely disinvolved in what I was sorry-ing myself to. But I posted this to thank Jillian, and I stopped my sorry-ing nonsense.

But thanking... now that's a present day priviledge I have, and exercise often.

Jillian, the self-admited spaz when learning new computer software, has actually brought alot of patience into my life. I've learned to be more patient and understanding when explaining things or trying to help her fix something that is broken--and should work, "now!" I really appreciate it. If I stay calm and confident that together we'll get things working, she ends up fixing it faster and with less pirate sounding, "arghhs." Here's to me learning more and more with you, Jillian.

-Jonathan

Negroponte's $100 laptop

2005-12-11T09:23:00.000-06:00

Have you heard about what the founder of MIT's Media Labs, Nicholas Negroponte, is now leading? A $100 laptop for children in developing countries. There are many stories on this and I won't go into detail other than saying it's lime green, hand crank powered, running FOSS, able to create a wifi mesh network with other laptops of its kind, and 100 million are planned to be distributed in a few years.

Might this technological invention have parallels to the 80's server and mainframe market? Peter Gordon from The Standard thinks so.

Good insight:

...the US$100 laptop is most definitely a computer project and it will be as
revolutionary as the original PC or the Internet, and for the same reasons.
The PC industry now exhibits many of the same problems that the mainframe
and mini-computer industry showed back about 1980: legacy designs, attempts to
maintain proprietary standards, slow-moving bureaucracies as much if not more
concerned with legal and political issues rather than innovation.
The PC brought simplicity back to computing: almost anyone could program them, almost
anyone could use them and almost anyone did. The initial versions of new
innovative software spreadsheets, operating systems, databases were often
written in a couple of weekends: many of the resulting companies or their
descendants are still with us, while many of the mini- and mainframe computer
companies have vanished.

I didn't live (with an adult brain) through the 80's enough to know the truth of that, but I do believe open source is going to be revolutionary, and education is the world's most powerful enabler for positive change.

A little too rosey:

The US$100 laptop will open the industry up once again, for three
reasons: first, there will be lots of them, perhaps as many if not more than all
other PCs put together, creating a tipping point for almost universal adoption
of the computer technology and, second, for open- source (i.e. non-commercial,
non- proprietary) software platforms.

Video Web Design Tutorials and Technical Stuff for Jillian

2005-12-10T22:15:00.000-06:00

Jillian's a whole bunch of miles away (mad props to the first person who googles and posts the distance in miles exactly from here to her home), and I've been helping her a bit to update her website. To that end, I've made a series of screencast how to videos for web technology that she can use to learn how to use stuff.

The descriptions are lite, but the content is pretty detailed. You will need a broadband connection to take full advantage of this. It covers dreamweaver, style sheets, and now embeding audio on webpages.

>> wow. Srah rocks! 382 miles.

California and Chicago

2005-12-08T23:21:00.000-06:00

Loved ones will know I've talked about the innovation and exciting startup companies in California for several years. And CA has alot going for it, last I heard it was the 5th largest economy in the world with a GDP that is 1/6th of the entire US GDP. (*see note)

Just before 10 tonight, in Chicago, I left from work a very tired and happy worker. I got some code to finally listen to me and do what I was telling it to do for 3 days, or 32 quasi-billable hours of work. This is always a good way to start the commute home. Plus I was going to get a cab, and be in bed in 30 min. Then I crunched my feet on 7 inches of fluffy, white snow that was at least 20 degrees warmer than the entire city was yesterday! This special treat appeared in the last few hours! It was 30 (deg. Farenheit), reflectively bright, crisp, fresh and downright playful outside. It was awesome!

I laughed with several other wannabe taxi passengers as none of us could hail a cab. I wandered around and found one who was stuck in the city the last 2 hours because the highway was practically closed down. He drove me to the train station, about 3 blocks and I wished him luck and gave him a big fat tip. I kept laughing about the nice, beautiful surprise outside and pretty soon a train arrived and wisked me towards home on rails above the snow. I walk and run and jump in the snow (in my dress clothes) and get home in total by quarter after 11.

California may be big and powerful, but tonight I really enjoyed snow that is definately not going to land there any time soon. The surprise weather made people so much more friendly, talking and laughing amongst each other about this unexpected dumping. The bus driver, taxi driver, and other people on the street (myself included) got a mental mindset vacation. If it's always 70 and sunny, I suspect that may be harder to come by.

Note. This article in the Onion: According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, California is an economic region with an annual gross domestic product of $1.36 trillion—an amount equal to one-sixth of the U.S.'s total gross national product. Considered internationally, California's GDP ranks fifth in the world, behind the U.S., Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

chicago's cold and I feel extra important in the evenings

2005-12-07T00:13:00.000-06:00

so monday as it was 9 degrees above zero, or 21 below freezing, or with windchill some dozen degrees under zero, or over 40 below freezing--i asked myself why in the world did i move north to chicago with lots of cold, wind and cold. And commute.

Tuesday a.m. I repeated the question for about 46 minutes.

But then each evening as I stay late at work for a push to get our project done on time -- i take a taxi home, and walk a block to my house. And get it all reimbursed. And that makes me feel special and somewhat important inside. a cheerful driver from some other country shuttling me around and keeping the cab warm.

well, i'm grinning now and need to relax to sleep. jonathan

We're back!

2005-12-06T12:03:00.000-06:00

After almost a six month haitus, Jonathan and I are back to our blog. Since India, Jonathan spent a few months in Minneapolis working at Target headquarters and then in September he moved to Chicago to start his job at TSG working on computer software and consulting. He can tell you much more about what he does. I unfortunately had to move home with my parents towards the end of June, and I have been there ever since. I recently quit my lousy low paying job at Target (the store, not headquarters), and now I am substitute teaching and doing a graphic design internship. I am also teaching myself lots of computer art software. Right now I am recreating the website Jonathan made for me.

Database market (FOSS)

2005-12-05T20:32:00.000-06:00

Computer Associates' last month decided to sell Ingres (a database company with 10,000 customers) to two venture capitalists (see this sell Ingres article). Ingres has open sourced their product.

In a FOSS related comment (free open source software), the $10 billion database industry is dominated by 4 players: Oracle, IBM, Microsoft, and Sybase. Says Terry Garnett, the acting CEO of Ingres, as well as being the managing partner of Garnett & Helfrich Capital:

The systems are proprietary and expensive and leave customers with
virtually no way to get out from under. Meanwhile, the companies supplying those database products are looking at approximately an 80% profit margin.

Open source software is here to stay, and it's definitely going to take some huge mammoth sized chomps into high profit margin commoditizing industries. A few more snippets:

Garnett plans to increase the current staff with at least 100 new hires
worldwide. Ingres now has the ability to sweeten the compensation programs with
Ingres stock, though it will be at least several years before those shares
become tradable.
What about open source database competitors, such as MySQL?
According to Garnett, MySQL does not represent a threat, for two reasons. First,
the Ingres customer is often a large transaction-oriented firm, such as those on
Wall Street, as opposed to being more query-oriented. Transactions are Ingres's
forte.
MySQL may have gotten in a bit of a bind on the transaction side.
Oracle recently bought InnoDB, the development company behind what many
developers consider to be one of the most crucial pieces of technology in
MySQL's 5.0 release. Although InnoDB is only one of several storage engines that
ship with MySQL, if you want to do transactions with MySQL, InnoDB is an
important option. Garnett was adamant that Ingres had full ownership and control
over all of its code.
In summary, Garnett's team appears to be well qualified
to take Ingres to the next level. His company has the financial resources to see
the program through over the long run. And remember, Computer Associates
converted its software to run on Ingres. While Garnett's group owns more than
50%, Garnett said that Computer Associates also owns a "substantial" piece of
the company and as such wants to see Garnett's plans come to fruition.
Source: http://software.itmanagersjournal.com/software/05/12/02/2055247.shtml?tid=28

Broadband as a driver in social progress and economic development

2005-12-04T20:28:00.000-06:00

There is an interesting videoconference on Broadband as an economic development by Steve Rosenbush, senior Writer at BusinessWeek Online engine. http://www.iian.ibeam.com/events/mcgr004/14273/index.jsp?autoLogin=false lets you log in. It should be free, although you may need to create an account.

Some interesting tidbits:
* The US has 94 telephone lines per 100 people.
* Developing countries may only have 5 lines per 100 people.
* A 1% increase in phone lines leads to a 3% increase in GDP
* Nov 2003: 35% of US internet users had high speed access, May 2004: 42%, Dec 2004: 50%, 2005: 53%+

Dr. John Rudledge of Rudlege Capital, LLC (Economic Advisor to Reagan and Bush) talks about what is broadband. He suggests it is a verb, not a noun. It means you're faster than everyone else. Once the "Pony Express" was broadband, now it is wireless and cable internet, for some it is optical fiber to the desktop. He continues, "I think of broadband as the Central Nervous System of the economy.... America is not competing for jobs, but capital. Capital makes you productive and allows you to earn a paycheck. We need to learn to compete for capital with other countries in the world who know the importance of telecom capital. ... China's current energy use 20 years in the future (with no conservation) uses more than total world production today. ... Because of that impending clash, they are shifting resources from oil and gas industries to IT growth [and efficiency.] ... The US is in 16th place in the world telecom speed tables.

Christina Heakart (?) is the Gen. Mgr. of Marketing for Microsoft TV. She points out that the entire broadband revolution is limited to people using PC's. It's helped businesses and homes (with PC's) into the digital age. In 5-10 years broadband will bring it to the TV. We will see the ignition of enormous new amounts of new commerce, new ways to communicate, unite community, and new content. ... Bring the TV in as a full citizen to the digital age. TV will become 2-way and no longer 1-way.

Leo Hinderly, Jr (Managing Partner of InterMedia) claims broadband is not available to all and is in fact discriminatory--favoring urban and wealthy areas; rare in rural and poor areas.

Once again, John Rudledge says there is not (or only recently) a broadband policy in the administration. Most pressure for reform has come out of congress. "5 years ago 40% of telecom equipment was made in the US, now it is down to 20%. R & D is going as well. Because the manufacturing factor is going, the intellectual aspect is getting more and more important. This year, China will make more engineers than America + Germany + Japan."

Christine advocates the free market to "wave it's invisible hand" that will allow economic models to emerge for the digital divide to reunite. Most people that are poor don't have PC's. They have TV's but not PC's. It doesn't matter if they have broadband in the home if they can't use it.

Then they go into a lengthy Q & A where I stopped watching. I'm tired and can use my sleep to arrive at work early and refreshed by 7. About Christine's point with poor not having PC's -- the open source community in Chicago has been working on creating free machines in exchange for volunteer hours building refurbished PC's out of donated hardware. I've been volunteering there, and I encourage you check out their website at www.freegeekchicago.org With some digging, you can even find some pictures of me, I suspect.

Time to blog again

2005-12-04T20:24:00.000-06:00

I'm going to start posting to this blog just for the sake of making blog entries, tracking things that I find interesting, and regurgating some information in the hope that it helps me remember and internalize more.

I'll probably make posts in international issues, technology, social trends, futurist ideas, and business. We'll all learn a whole bunch.

I invite you all to comment, and Jillian to post as well.

Sincerely, Jonathan

RTN Grant entry and List of Interviews

2005-06-18T19:33:00.000-05:00

Below you will find an entry I recently submitted to the Road Trip Nation Grant Program.

Mandy,

Below you will find our grant application. I met with Brian McAllister at Purdue about two months ago. We both are very excitable people and as Jillian and I shared our ideas Brian inspired us to shoot video and track our international roadtrip to India in a blog. We did both and returned to America last week.

In short, we spent a month in southern India living with local people, interviewing NGO leaders, business outsourcing people, community developers, slum children, middle class children, street children, volunteers, a retired Indian couple, and a software developer. We both did interviews and we gave back to the community by using Jillian's artistic skills and we put on four art camps. I was in charge of setting up all our connections (via a month and a half of cold-emailing-calling), all technical stuff, and most of the video.

You've got to check out our blog to get an idea of what we did! See pictures and our raw, unadulterated thoughts: http://artview.blogspot.com.

Each team member's: name, info, and role on trip
#1: Jillian M. Longheier, Purdue Graduated with Masters in Art May 2005, she is the artist and a writer and photographer.
#2: Jonathan A. Wolter, jawolter@gmail.com, 765-532-6876, Purdue University BSIE May 2005 (engineering), coordinator, videographer, writer and guy who carries heavy bags.

Descriptive Name for roadtrip
Art View (India)
We are both creative people, Jillian is a bona-fide artist, so we are using our Artistic interests and skills to understand India from the viewpoints of children, business professionals, NGO leaders and retired people.

Destinations (approx.)
Chennai, India (Madras) May 11-18
Bangalore, India May 19-June 3
Chennai, India (Madras) June 4-8

Interviews (all were successfully completed)
Video Interview: Dr. Nirmal, founder of Exnora International, an NGO with several hundred thousand members focusing on environmental issues in India. He also is a speaker and international trainer on effectiveness and leadership. He has founded over two dozen organizations. He talked about keys to success and how he went from living in a slum to transforming thousands of lives. (www.exnora.org)

Video Interview: Krupa, co-founder of Sukrupa Community Development which feeds and teaches 300+ slum children a day. She was formerly a very successful international businesswoman, and she discusses the transition from a life of luxury to service (www.sukrupa.com)

Video Interview: Kamla Ravikumar, an artist and interior designer who formed an art institute in Chennai to meet a need left by the schools in teaching art instruction.

Video Interview: Fr. Cyriac Adayadiel, Director of Vocational Training at Bosco Mane, a residential home for street children. He formed this organization 25 years ago and it has helped thousands of boys from the street. He shared what made him successful, why he choose this over other careers and risks in going out on your own forming an NGO.

Video Interview: Ram Sinam, graphic design consultant. He formed his own design studio after graduating from the number one design school in India and discussed the journey of running his own company. Also he gave Jillian tips on entering the design field from her background of fine art, and he shared his ideas on "what is design."

Informal Interview over breakfast: Narayan Sethuramon, Managing Director W.S. Industries (India) LTD. (www.wsinsulators.com). He shared education in India, how he gives back to the community, and his experiences as a Purdue Alumni in India.

Informal Interview about outsourcing in India: Malati et. al. of Allsec Technologies, Ltd. a Business Process Outsourcing (call center) company.

Informal Interview: Vishal Talreja, managing trustee of Dream a Dream, an NGO that collaborates with other organizations to encourage children to accomplish their dreams, no matter what hardships they may face (www.dreamadream.org)

Informal Interview: Mr. and Mrs. Ramachanadran, our first host family that let us stay with them and absorb the culture of India. They are a retired couple and they discussed what transformations India has undergone as well as gave a wiser generation's perspective of India.

Informal Interview: Krishna Chandra, our second host who is a software professional. He discussed everything from the future of India to childhood education, to village life to the influence of the west. Also he shared with us how his life went from a mining engineering degree to IT and Software.

Video Interview: with an (unnamed) child who was a (forced) child laborer, but since has moved into Bosco Mane, a street-children's residential home. He now wants to become an Engineer and performs very well in school.

Many other video interviews were taken, we shot over 12 hours of video.

We also spent two days in a Yoga Ashram learning a great deal about "real yoga," not "Americanized-get-it-at-Wal-Mart-in-the-sporting-goods-isle" Yoga.

Purpose – Why do you need to hit the road? What do you hope to get out of it?
We had 4 reasons:
#1: The world is not like America--we needed to fully experience another culture, their value structures, and take their lessons back to our friends and family.
#2: Jillian just finished an art exhibition which focused on child and women human rights abuses in developing countries (including India). She had to go to the impoverished children and experience their stories first hand.
#3: Jonathan is intrigued with the economic and political transformations India is experiencing and wanted to talk to people first hand about what this third world country is undergoing. It seems that China gets most of the press about how it's the "factory of the world" and already graduates more engineers than America. The truth is that India is an established and stable democracy which is experiencing tremendous economic growth. How is that really transforming the poor and children... I had to know.
#4: This adventure combined all of our interests: video, art, teaching, business, cross-cultural experience and more.

Our (tight) budget
Airfare: US$ 1100 for Jillian, frequent flyer miles for Jonathan.
Lodging: US$ 340 total
Food: $6 per day * 32 days = US$190
Video Equipment (camera, wireless lav mic, lav mic, shotgun mic, wide angle lens, extra batteries, tapes, 160 Gb HD) $750

Do not hesitate to contact me with ANY questions or for more details. I look forward to your response.

Jonathan and Jillian

I haven't disappeared. I've just been busy packing to move out of my apartment.

2005-06-16T10:28:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been back in the U.S. for week now. India seems very far away. I expected to feel more of a culture shock when I got home, but it is barely there. I think spending over 36 hours within the confines of airports and airplanes desensitized the impact of switching environments. Nonetheless there are a few things I have noticed about the U.S. that I overlooked before. It's extremely clean, quiet, open, and peaceful. I drove across Illinois a couple days ago, and I was just amazed by the flat open fields- the yellow green meeting up with the blue sky was serene. The natural landscape in India (witnessed from the train) is much more rugged. The colors are also a bit more jarring. The dirt is a rusty colored and it is accompanied by its complementary color, the green of grass and trees. This Indian landscape gives me an emotional reaction I can't quite desribe, but I'll just say that it is quite different from the feelings I get when I see American midwestern farmland.

In his last blog, Jonathan mentioned the difference between traffic here and in India. I feel it too. I'm amazed at how behaved the drivers are. No one feels the need to honk their horn at anyone. Everyone stays within the lanes painted on the roads. The streets are far less crowded here with no random cows or pushcarts selling vegetables. I do have to admit that when I crossed the street yesterday I got a little confused as to which way I was supposed to look. I expected the cars to be driving on the left side of the street.

An open letter to Krishna

2005-06-16T00:03:00.000-05:00

This is an open letter to my new Indian friend Krishna. He was soooo gracious to let us stay in his house for two weeks! (originally it was going to be only 2 days.)

Thanks so much for all of the time you spent with us, man I do miss India.. but it’s the most unexpected things that I miss.

Like the heat. (my apartment I’m staying in for my Target internship is quite cold, as is the 75 F temp out side). And the traffic. I keep wanting to Jwalk and cross through moving traffic because it seems so tame here. I tend to lose the other people I’m walking with, which doesn’t stop surprising me! I expect everyone to just walk through the street like in India. And the (good) food (that I liked), like yours! It was soo much fun, I’m looking for my next adventure now… so any suggestions are welcomed!

I think I’ll also look into the work experience opportunities a bit you mentioned… maybe in 4-5 years… I’ll be working in India...

Thanks Krishna!

My coolest addiction and this blog

2005-06-09T19:54:00.000-05:00

I developed a very intellectual, but slightly inconvenient addiction while in India. There were so many great book stores (or street hawkers) selling books from extremely-way-too-cheap to good-deal-cheap. I bought a lot of books, maybe 45 books. Jillian got a few kilos as well.

I can’t wait to read them.

In fact I’ve started several. If it’s okay with Jillian I’ll post tidbits of what I learn up here to this blog. I’m reluctant to totally change the theme—but (hello!) I’m not in India and I will have a hard time getting the Art View of India for at least the near term while I’m in the US. And we’ve got soooo many loyal readers (hi Popsicle Pete!) I feel we just have to keep posting.

This is what I propose for the blog: “Art View (India).”

Jillian’s still an artist, and I’m a creative person… so that’s kinda related to art. We both create viewpoints on life, and interesting perspectives. So…. Let’s combine this to be a blog of the two of us as we (1) read our 50 kilos of books we bought, (2) reflect on the video post production, (3) ditto for the compilation and possible integration of the children’s artwork with Jillian’s future art, and (4) keep an open mind of how to add art perspectives by children in the US or other countries.

Recap

2005-06-09T19:53:00.001-05:00

Going to India was an invaluable experience for my growth and development. I have traveled to the Amazon, Europe, out west and east in the states, Canada’s tundra, some Mexico and an Island in the Caribbean. However--I was young in those experiences, and I ended up learning more culturally than I ever expected.

The developing world has changed dramatically since last time I visited third world nations (~10 years back in South America.) When I was there, crowds would occasionally follow me because of my blonde hair and fair skin. I saw no TVs in rural villages, and a motorized boat was a rare occurrence. Even India’s slums we visited had many televisions and cable or satellite. And from what I was told, there is medium to high TV penetration in villages. People were more familiar with westerners (I suspect through TV) and no crowds followed me and touched my hair.

Most surprising to me is how India is similar to the west. Of the 100+ children we worked with, most smiled frequently, watched movies (many the same as we watch), played freely, laughed, ate enough food, and had experience with westerners before. This does not mean that there are children in India who suffer immensely. Many do, and we met a few who rose up from horrific pasts. What’s important to me is that it seems the country is moving forward and there are many NGO’s that truly care for kids and give them love, education, food, and encouragement that they may not get in traditional family structures.

Interestingly, many of the original big dreams I had of what the trip would turn into did not materialize. I wanted to film a gut wrenching documentary that would bring tears to any westerners’ eyes. I wanted to compile the artwork to publish a book to raise awareness of needs of Indian Children and sell for fundraising. I believe both of these ideas are still worthy to be done, but we did not film exclusively what was “gut wrenching.” Some shots may be touching, but in a whole this is a country with a solid democracy, free elections, a liberalizing economy, and (in my opinion) an extremely bright future.

Other dreams have materialized. I learned a lot about myself and my friend Jillian. This was hoped for. I saw many more of my own weaknesses and personal development areas I need to improve in that I ever expected. Also, I accept and appreciate more the country I live in—and cherish a common language. India has 84 different languages—not dialects but full fledged languages. I saw first hand the development in the “Silicon Valley of India,” Bangalore. Sitting down and reading the newspapers, magazines and talking to the locals we lived with gave me a huge insight into the country.

It was very good. It was very inexpensive to travel there. I encourage you to do your own travel into a third world nation, live with locals (minimize hotels), and soak it in deep.

So next time where do I want to go? Jillian accused me two weeks ago of already thinking of the next big thing—which may be either China, North India, Thailand, the Warsaw Pact nations, or a Spanish speaking country like Mexico or Costa Rica. The fact that Krishna whom we lived with is planning a budget bicycling and camping journey on the highest navigable road in the world (up in the Himalayas’ of northern India) and I’m invited is a very tempting idea.

Am I there yet?

2005-06-09T19:53:00.000-05:00

The trip to and from India is complete. Well, almost.

I’m actually sitting in an airport terminal in Toronto typing away in Word because:
a) I accidentally pulled out the inflatable life raft and inflated it in the plane, which incidentally led to a lengthy reprimand by airport security missing my flight
b) Germany changed times on my flight to Toronto for no reason
c) I enjoy the airport lifestyle of not showering for 36 hours, toting around kilos of luggage, and running through terminals pretending to talk on my phone shouting “hold the plane” only to disappear around a corner and repeat it.
d) I was so busy coming up with pretend reasons why I missed a flight that I actually missed one.
It’s b. The flight was delayed 45 minutes and there wasn’t enough time to: deplane, go through customs, make declarations, duly fill paperwork, pick up everything at baggage claim, change terminals, re-enter customs for the US, check in myself and my bags for the connecting flight, and re-plane in 50 minutes. Do you like how I used “duly?” That’s a word I picked up in India.

I’ll wait for an hour and then go to Chicago and hopefully Jillian and our ride Lindsay and John will be there to pick me up still!

In India - But Leaving...

2005-06-07T14:31:00.000-05:00

I'm in an internet cafe in the airport, almost ready to depart. It's a little sad to leave. But overwhelmingly a happy experience. I will enjoy home, my food and yes even working. It caught me by surprise as I kept noticing myself whistling as I wheeled around my baggage waiting to check in. Yes, I zoomed and played on the amazing baggage cart--like a supermarket cart but it doesn't turn on me and the bearings were great so it could glide all accross the Chennai International Terminal. It was like watching Swan Lake for the security guards as I mastered the cart. Jillian gave a try at the "ballerina toe glide."

I leave India a different person. Well, I have learned alot about myself I never knew before, so perhaps I'm the same, but I am wiser.

One thing I notice is the airport looks so modern and shiney and fresh. Well, it looks this way as I leave. But when I arrived I thought it dingy, smelly, hot, humid, incomplete, under construction, and entirely third world. Hmm. Funnny how a month in vastly unfamiliar territory will reframe our mind. Refreshing.

All our bags are packed and we're ready to go

2005-06-07T05:24:00.000-05:00

I'm leaving on a jetplane, don't know when I'll be back again. Jonathan and I are both ready to leave India and go home. It's a long flight though- about 24 hours, and since I am flying Air India again, I won't really be leaving India until I land in Chicago. Jonathan, however, will be experiencing German culture as he flies Lufthansa. He is excited about not eating Indian food anymore.

Final days in India

2005-06-06T07:39:00.000-05:00

After two days at the yoga ashram, Jonathan and I were both extremely happy to get back to the insanity of Indian city life- smog, constant beeping and honking, and negotiating with auto rickshaw drivers is much more exciting.

When we got back to Bangalore we picked up all of our tailoring. I have to say that I am now pleased with my suit. I had to have a new pair of pants made, and the jacket was altered to flatter my ever so slight curves. Going to the tailor is an interesting experience as they are all male. Here I am with all these professional tailors plus Jonathan looking at my clothing and telling me how it should fit.

Now we are back in Chennai winding down our trip. I have to say that I now prefer the auto rickshaw drivers in Bangalore. They don't seemed to know how to use their meters here.

Om shanti shanti shanti-i-i

2005-06-06T07:32:00.000-05:00

The final line to all the chants (prayers) sung at the yoga ashram has been running through my mind continuously for the past two days. I believe the meditation and everything is supposed to bring a soul to peace, however, since I can't rid my mind of it, I am getting quite annoyed. While I felt the chanting was really beautiful to listen to, it becomes very monotonous very quickly.

Ashram ... what a funny word

2005-06-04T04:13:00.000-05:00

hey, it's good to hear from you. right now i'm in an ashram in india. yea, the internet fad hit these sort of remote spiritual, yogic, mystical places too. They even have like 6 telephone lines and mobiles everywhere. The website is http://vyasa.org.

I'm not into the spiritual chanting, meditation, or religion of it. And I'm only slightly into the yoga. I'm really glad i came though to experience (deeply) another culture for two days, and to be surprised with the similarities I see in this culture to our own. Some of these similarities are:
* People (all over the world) enjoy a good time laughing. That's why they scheduled an hour long Happy Assembly every day here. I went once, and while I was confused with what was going on (some sort of skits, chanting, clapping and OM's) I laughed a bit. And everyone else laughed alot. There were shy people, outgoing people, and picked on people (hence the laughter). Just like at home.
* People (all over the world) can use bugspray (this relevation is from bug-bitten Jillian's Malarian mumblings). Just kidding, she doesn't have malaria--and she leaves a wake of dead bugs all around her with her billowing plume of DEET laden repellant.
* People (all over the world) who are effective either get up early or go to bed late in order to be highly effective. Here they wake at 4:30 and do OM meditation. I slept through the first day's OM meditation (I guess I wasn't highly effective) but today I made it. I got up at 4:30 and went to this hall and (ahem, tried to) sing Sanskrit words and chant OM. Yea, it is like it sounds, OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. This included some "waking up alertness breathing exercises." After OMMMM'ing till 5:30 I went to yoga till 6:30. This consisted of... exactly the same asnas (poses) as yesterday. Following this I promptly went to sleep until 10:30 am, of which I slept through breakfast, more chanting, another yoga, chores and something else which I already forget. (Once again, I wasn't highly effective--yet!) The point is (which I am clearly currently missing) an effective person must spend several hours uninterrupted a day in work, this may be early in the a.m. or late at night.

It's been a good experience here, and I'm througly ready to go. (Although not as eager to leave as Jillian). She's been a very good sport, incidentally. In fact she was more excited to get here than I on the trip to this place. Now we're both ready to leave and go home to the gym and eat our food with forks. (We use hands here. Or I should be correct--the Right hand.)

Yoga-ing

2005-05-31T23:11:00.000-05:00

The next several days will be spent doing yoga and related activities from 4:00 am until 10:00 pm each day. This will hopefully be a welcomed change from the chaos of the city. Next time we blog we will feel calm and peaceful.

India is not the place for western women to buy clothes

2005-05-31T13:17:00.000-05:00

Jonathan is a big fan of the tailors in India. On ever street there seems to be several men with sewing machines to alter existing clothes, mend tears, or make something from scratch. Jonathan has had all three of these services done and is for the most part very satisfied. I have not had as much luck.

Since I just graduated I've been thinking about getting a job. As Jonathan is more knowledgeable about interviews and what I would need to wear, he has encouraged me to get a suit while we are in India because it is less expensive here. He was buying some suits, so he thought it would be a good idea if I look for one too. So I found one store with women's suits. It is a very expensive store, much more than either one of us wanted to spend. I tried the smallest jacket on just to see how it fit, but it was huge. Jonathan decided to get his suits tailored so I decided to go ahead and do the same. As I am very tiny, I figured that would look better than trying to make an already existing suit much smaller. I don't think the tailors had ever made a suit for a woman before because for $50 I now have a suit almost identical to Jonathan's, a small man's suit. If there is a 5 foot boy with a 24 inch waist looking for a suit, I would be happy to give it to him. Otherwise, I will be taking it back tomorrow to see if they can womanize it for me.

Aqua Alta in India

2005-05-31T13:06:00.000-05:00

Bangalore has had several rain storms recently causing the streets to flood. Tonight we had to go out in the rain. The auto had to let us out before we got to our destination because the streets had turned to canals. As we waded through several blocks of knee high water, we saw cars and motorbikes being pushed down the street. It all made me feel very nostalgic for Venice.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

2005-05-31T12:57:00.000-05:00

We have worked with three groups of children during our time in India- the upper middle class, slum children, and street children. With each group we asked them to draw a picture of what they want to be when they grow up. The upper middle class children had dreams similar to the middle class in the United States- astronaut, doctor, fashion designer, cartoonist, engineer, or soccer player. I was surprised to find that the slum children had similar aspirations. Many of them want to be doctors, teachers, and pilots (this was popular amongst the small boys who tend to copy off of each other). Other occupations listed were dancer, actress, banker, electrician, computer engineer, and hockey player. None of them said they wanted to be construction workers, truck drivers, or domestic workers like their parents. These children are given much love and encouragement at Sukrupa. I wonder how much their dreams have been influenced this.

The street boys at Bosco had more modest dreams. Many of them drew themselves as bus or auto drivers. A vegetable store owner, Police, Carpenter, and Cricket or Hockey Player were other occupations that the street boys dream of. Several of them want to be doctors which seems to be a popular dream amongst children of all economic levels, but it certainly is not as easily attained for them all. One of the boys at Bosco drew that he wanted to be a doctor, but crossed it out after he was told it was impossible because he has never gone to school.

Yesterday at Bosco we met a boy who spoke English well enough to tell us his story and how he ended up on the street and at Bosco. He ran away from home after working as a weaver for a year and a half never having one day off. He said he had to wake up every day at 4:00 am and work until night with only one break for lunch. He didn't want to work because he wanted to go to school and study to become an engineer. He spent three days on the street before being taken to Bosco to live. Now he is in the eighth standard and doing very well in school.

So what do you want to be when you grow up? Jonathan and I were hoping we could encourage the children to dream higher than they may be encouraged to do so. We were surprised to find that many of the children already dreamt much higher than their parents' jobs.

As we have asked all of these children what they want to be, Jonathan and I are realizing that it is a relevant question for ourselves as we both have recently graduated. We have our degrees and we are asking ourselves if that is really what we want to do and what else we are capable of. Just like the children, I think I need to dream bigger than I expect of myself.

2005-05-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

Sukrupa video

2005-05-29T16:01:00.000-05:00

I think this has something to do with a wedding...

And the plastic bag on the head actually DOES work pretty well in the rain. Hat's off to this guy!

2005-05-29T16:00:00.000-05:00

ti bosco

2005-05-29T15:59:00.000-05:00

We worked with street children which still live on the streets. They didn't know english.

A group working in the shelter learning tailoring.

The walk to the center was interesting as well.

This was the walk to the street children Bosco center.

wink

Tailoring classroom.

2005-05-29T15:49:00.000-05:00

We had a celebration today with all of the children from last week's Sukrupa group. The students are really amazing... well behaved, polite, clean, and all from the slums. There is so much love from the family that runs the center.

Jillian helped with some video.

And then we got a garland to wear on our necks as a present from Sukrupa.

Many of the children danced and sung for us. Of course I captured that on video.

2005-05-29T15:43:00.000-05:00

After Cubon park we walked to MG Road. MG Road is a popular tourist attraction in Bangalore. It is highly commercialized and the traffic (and smog) is thick. Yet I keep seeing people selling wares from simple push carts like this fruit seller.

2005-05-29T15:42:00.000-05:00

We went to this wierd park in Bangalore the 18th of May. It's called Cubon park, and was designed in the 1800's by the British. I think it looks like a cross between a wild amusement park and the "Secret Garden."

Created not with Autostitch, but the Canon stitch assist software bundled with new cameras

The park has an erie feeling that somehow all the parents are gone. Trash is everywhere and behind Jillian kids are shooting a gun at a canvas target for prizes. (I found it out as I walked right behind the target only to dive away before finding a pellet where I didn't want it).

Jillian by rooftop via autostitch

2005-05-29T11:23:00.000-05:00

I really like the program that combines multiple pictures into a panorama (and it's free from www.autostitch.net). Here's another picture of a roof panorama sample, this time it's where we're staying in Bangalore. You can see the solar water heater on the left. Click it for a bigger image.

And a stone throw's away, you can find goats grazing on the roof. Yes, I said goats on the roof. No cows yet, but I wouldn't be surprised.

If you would look down from Jillian's view, you would see lots of workers constructing the house next door.

We're going back to the runaway boys

2005-05-29T10:40:00.000-05:00

Jillian and I planned to take a bit of time off from art camps, volunteering, and meeting organizations starting tomorrow. Problem is we kinda like what we're doing and don't want to quit. So now we're going back to Bosco Mane (the runaway boys home) on Monday and shoot some video. We'll work with two centers: one a residential program for street children who have moved from the street (s0me very recently, as in a few weeks back) and the other a program for current street children (the kids live on their own, but can come and go to the shelter).

The plan then is to go for 3-5 days to a resort of some sort and refresh ourselves before returning to the states. There is one in particular we've heard good things about that is a yoga training center. I don't know much about yoga, but since we're in India and there is this center (at US$20 a day) we think it will be a good cultural experience. They focus more on the scientific side of yoga and are affiliated with universities and have a slew of M.D.'s on staff.

Bosco Mane- shelter for runaway street boys

2005-05-27T23:13:00.000-05:00

We have spent two days now at the shelter for the street boys. The first day was quite an adventure. We were under the impression that we would be getting an interpretor, however, they left us alone in a room of about 20 boys that don't speak English except for a few words. They were quite a rowdy bunch. They were loud, always jumping up from their seats, calling, "Auntie, Auntie, Uncle, Uncle." They run up to me demanding paper and crayons. Jonathan got them to sit down and communicated that we would not talk or respond to them unless they were quiet and raised their hand.Once they got the crayons they just drew whatever they wanted. When they were done they ran up, showed me their drawings, and ran out the room. Soon we had only about 6 boys left. Jonathan found himself doing math with a deaf boy up at the chalkboard, teaching him division, square roots, and calculus. I had one small boy that wasn't happy unless I was sitting right by his side. I couldn't really speak to him, so I drew a quick sketch of him. The other boys saw me do that and wanted their portraits drawn too. Just a few 2 minute crayon drawings of he boys seemed to make them really happy.

This is one of the street children who is living at Bosco Mane.

Yesterday they gave us an interpretor and we had a bit more success. Overall it was quite a challenge, and we liked the boys enough to come back an extra day.

Last day at Sukrupa

2005-05-27T11:20:00.000-05:00

Here's some of the 200+ amazing and wonderful children from the Sukrupa Community Development NGO we worked with.

This is where we werehelping the students' create greeting cards from cut paper. The cards will later be sold in a fundraiser to help support sukrupa (www.sukrupa.com)

I shot alot of video and the children really really enjoyed it when I turned the LCD viewfinder around to face them and they got to watch themselves in it. Of course they tended to crowd around me and back me into corners--which Jillian elegantly captured in this photo.

Spitting Orange Seeds

2005-05-26T12:50:00.000-05:00

We went on a nice little walk today around a commercial area close to where we are staying. Jillian got a few shirts and I got a few long pants. Then we found ourselves a juice station. As sirens call to Homer, these cleverly positioned stations frequently call out to me and I succomb to drinking their sweet nectar.

Gosh I think the juice is good. For orange juice, a man freshly peels 3 to 4 oranges and blends them in a blender, sifts out some pulp and seeds, and adds a little water to make a delicious slurry. The water is probably not safe to drink, but I drink it anyways--and they are ooooh soooo good!

Today we were conservative on our stomachs. I ordered no water in the juice (safer that way.) Instead we got 6 oranges blended together. We also asked for no straining out the pulp (and seeds.) To our delight this ended up in two brimming cups of AWESOME pre-chewed juice that we chewed, drank and spat seeds with for a half an hour. It was really delicious. Oh, and that was all for 15 Rupees. Remember 42 Rs. = 1 US$? Good deal.

But for us two health-food-junkees, that wasn't enough. We went for the carrot milk shake without milk or sugar. They used SOOOOOOO much carrots. I think it was at least half a kilo. This resulted in two heaping glasses of carrot juice (and i mean heaping, even if you didn't think glasses could heap). It was really good.

We then walked around some and made dinner here at our friend's house we're staying at. He lets us use his kitchen, and we had an amazing pasta and vegatable medley. His brother was here to watch us cook, and we all had a good time as Jillian and I cooked our version of "Americian Food."

My stomach's feeling much better. I even got a cold a few days back too, but that has since left me.

India illness

2005-05-26T01:52:00.000-05:00

As you can see Jonathan is starting to feel better and is finally back to blogging. It's now my turn to not feel well as I have acquired a cold leaving me very achy and tired. I could expect to get malaria or diarrhea in India, but didn't think that I would be struck down with a cold.

It's just a bruise

2005-05-26T01:43:00.000-05:00

I have a blue/green bruise on my arm. The last day I was at Sukrupa a couple of the kids noticed it and started touching it. I don't think they knew what it was, or maybe it's coloration was just interesting to them because of my fair skin. I do think that one boy thought it was ink or marker of some sort because it seemed like he was trying to wipe it off of me.

Bean Dish Extremely Delicious

2005-05-26T01:17:00.000-05:00

Krishna made a very delicious batch of beans yesterday.

Instructions:

Mix 3 parts water with 1 part beans in pressure cooker. Cook for 7-8 whistles. (Rice cooks 3-4 whistles).

On skillet heat up a little bit of oil, then add mustard seeds until they splatter. This cooks them.

Then add fresh tomatoes, onion slices, tumeric and chili powder. (optionally garlic, maybe ginger, i forget). Cook this a few minutes. I'll call this a currie.

Mix the currie with the beans and enjoy!

Entertaining Transportation

2005-05-25T22:12:00.000-05:00

We rode the rickshaw's again. And let me tell you it only gets more and more novel as we go deeper into our trip.

Sometimes we hit an exceptionally agressive driver, who will cut off motorcycles, pedestrians and four tonne busses. Then again sometimes it turns out anti climatic-- like when he runs out of gas and slams to an abrupt stop. He told us it would only be half a kilometer to our house. Two hours later and 2 liters of water and 1 glass of freshly made orange juice, we arrive. Walking all the way home actually came in handy last night as we then knew how to give better directions when auto's get lost.

I'll note that never have I seen a female auto rickshaw driver.

My apologies to the autorickshaw drivers in Bangalore

2005-05-24T08:04:00.000-05:00

Today we went across town to a home for runaway boys where we will be working tomorrow, and then we went to Bull Temple and M.G. Road. We had little problems with the autorickshaws today. I think only one refused to take us somewhere, and we even had some ask us for a ride when we didn't want one. We did end up walking about a kilometer extra home though because the autorickshaw ran out of gas. M.G. Road is also much more pleasant during the daytime.

cameras

2005-05-24T07:53:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was our last day at Sukrupa. Over five days we did several drawings with both groups of children, made collaged greeting cards, and gave the older children cameras to take home overnight. We felt the cameras were a good way for us to see not only what was important to the children but also places we don't have access to such as their homes. They were very excited about the cameras. Especially because Jonathan and I had been video taping and using our digital cameras all week. Whenever we get our cameras out, they all crowd around us because they like to see their friends in the viewfinder. I don't think cameras are something that these children see very often. They are fascinated by them, and I am fascinated by their behavior.

Where's an autorickshaw when we need one?

2005-05-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

Autorickshaws in Bangalore are not as friendly as Chennai. They don't stop and ask if they can give us a ride. In fact it can be quite difficult to get an autorickshaw. Our first night in Bangalore, Jonathan and I wanted to go home from MG Road. We had about 5 autorickshaw drivers actually refuse to take us.

streets of Bangalore

2005-05-21T23:09:00.000-05:00

I really hated Bangalore when I first got here. There is so much traffic. The smog smells sickening. At night it just puts a haze over the whole city. Our first night we went to MG Road, which is the big place to hang out and shop. I think it is an awful place to be. It is crowded and dark. Everybody is trying to sell us stuff on the street. Tiny girls no older than 5 years were trying to sell me flowers. The beggars are much more aggressive there. We were in an autorickshaw stopped at a stoplight and a beggar girl started hanging on the auto. She was relentless until the traffic started moving again.

It is difficult for me to see the poverty in the streets, but I don't know what to do about it. Just in our drive to the train station in Chennai at five a.m. a few days ago I probably saw at least 2 dozen people sleeping on the side of the road, just feet away from the traffic.

Start of Sukrupa

2005-05-21T22:52:00.000-05:00

During the school year, Sukrupa hosts 250 children everyday after school. They are fed, taught, and loved there. Five children are full time residents living with Sathya who is the son and brother of the two women who started Sukrupa. They are an amazing family. Long before Sukrupa ever started they would bring about a hundred children in to their home every day and teach them. They brought lepers home on holidays to feed them, and they also regularly fed some beggars. I find this family very inspiring. They are filled with generosity, love, and incredible joy.

Lessons in politeness

2005-05-21T22:40:00.000-05:00

Spending time at Sukrupa makes me a more polite person. These children have wonderful manners. At soon as we walk in the door in the morning, each individual child says good morning to us. Before they enter a room, they ask if they can come in. We constantly are hearing, "Thank you Auntie, thank you Uncle." or "Excuse me Uncle, excuse me Auntie." They call us and any other adults Auntie and Uncle. It is very endearing.

children of Sukrupa

2005-05-21T22:34:00.000-05:00

The children we are working with at Sukrupa are very different than the children we worked with last week in Chennai. When asked to draw a picture of their family, these children drew considerably larger families- usually all of them had at least four children in their family compared to the one or two children per family that the last group had. Sukrupa's children have fathers who drive autorickshaws or trucks, sell vegetables on a pushcart, or work in construction. Most of their mothers do domestic work. These are the children from the slum, but you wouldn't excpect that when first meeting them. They are cheerful and clean and modestly dressed. We are told they were not always clean when they first started coming to Sukrupa. Their parents are not clean still. Many of their parents are alcoholics and the men beat their wives. Once again, I find it surprising to hear this because these children are so sweet. These children are so vulnerable if left in the atmosphere they come from, but Sukrupa has given them an opportunity to escape the cycle they live in.

Bangalore brief update

2005-05-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

We haven't had much access to internet or the time to use it since we have been in Bangalore, so I am going to make this quick. I've got a lot to say about our experiences over the last three days so hopefully I will get the chance to sit down and blog it all soon. What I can say now is that everything about our experience here is so different from Chennai, especially the children. These kids are not at all like American kids. I'll write more about them later, but for now just know that we are having a great time with them.

Bangalore day 1

2005-05-19T21:58:00.000-05:00

We're doing okay dokie. Yesterday we had our first full day in Bangalore, which is considerably cooler than Chennai. Yesterday was also our first day of the art camp with a group of about 40 children from poorer families. They are so amazingly well behaved, quiet, respectful--it was and is still surprising.

My stomach's on the mend.

What I learned from our first art camp

2005-05-17T10:17:00.000-05:00

Running this art camp has been a good experience for me as a teacher. This is the first time I have had to come up with my own curriculum. In my two years teaching at Purdue, I only had to come up with bits and pieces of the course work, but here, with the help of Jonathan, I was responsible for all of the activities we did with the children. We decided to have the children make marionettes, write stories, and then perform the stories with the puppets. I was hoping this would be a good indication of what their daily life was like.

The children seemed to enjoy the week, but I was a bit disappointed. The classes seemed a bit chaotic. I think the problem was the age difference in the children. We had children as young as 6 and as old as 13. While the older children seriously worked on the puppets, the younger children got bored. They have a shorter attention span and sometimes had trouble understanding what we were doing. I think this workshop would have been more successful if the children were closer in age, but that is always a challenge of the teacher- different levels of ability.

Don't worry

2005-05-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

I'm not doing too bad with my stomach. I'll be fine. So don't call the "paratroopers-emergency-medical-evacuator-company." I had a pair of cups of soup. They were delicious, and I figured out the first one was a powdered soup product. Delightful, I tell you. And my dear mother, you know how good those go down. yumm..

I just thought. Hmm. If it was powdered soup, I hope it wasn't made from tap water that wasn't boiled. Enough of that, i'll stop thinking like a sick person. I'll be great!

night. Tomorrow we freight over to Bangalore. I say freight because it seems my luggage is growing by leaps and bounds. I got 4 pairs of nice shoes for the price of half of one in the states. And half a dozen or more dress shirts for the price of one. And, well I'll not reveal the number of paperback books I got. But many of you know how I like to read... and can't pass up awesome books for under $2 or $1 each.

Malaise

2005-05-17T02:30:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling an a-rumbling in my tummy. And it's peculiarly persistent. Tomorrow morning at 6am we head to Bangalore, which is a welcome change--as the weather there will be much cooler... well somewhat cooler at least. Perhaps 90F instead of 110F.

Nothing happened yet with my stomach, so I'll hopefully be back to my cheerful, energetic self in no time!

2005-05-16T02:48:00.000-05:00

We can find influences of the west everywhere. It's remarkable how powerful commerce can be--and how unifying. Accross every cultural barrier, it seems anybody can enjoy a Baskin Robbins 31 flavors.

Jillian by rooftop

2005-05-16T02:42:00.000-05:00

Jillian on the roof of the host family's house we're staying in. It was a great view, and the breeze was nice.

Camp #1

2005-05-16T02:20:00.000-05:00

So far the children in our first art camp have been very delightful. There are nine of them- ranging from about age 6-13. These children are about the most affluent children in India. They go to private schools, use computers and watch a lot of television. Because of that they are very much influenced by the western world. For the most part they don't seem very different than the average American child. Things that do differ are religion, local customs, food, climate, and the world around them. These are the children that may one day have the opportunity to study in the U.S. It is interesting for me to see this atmosphere that they are growing up in since I have had several friends from India in college.

2005-05-16T02:12:00.000-05:00

This car is an Ambassador. They are the most common cars in India.

Steadycam morning encounter with fisher-folk

2005-05-16T02:11:00.001-05:00

I took my camera outside today and filmed a walk to the beach. As I expected (and feared), we created a bit of a scene. Two fair skinned foreigners walking around creates enough of a sight as it is, but when one of them is carrying a camcorder and filming--it's a bit more exciting.

On the other hand, it wasn't as bad as I expected it would be. A throng did not follow us, although when we were on the beach a boy started talking to us. He was first excited to be on camera, then he said, "You RICH!" I said, "No, not actually--we are not." He said, "I live simple life... I'm sorry for you." "I sorry." He said it was sorrowful to be "rich," which we are in a relative sense.

Then another fisher-folk, this time an adult, started talking to us. He invited us to see his house. After a bit of discussion we trekked to his house, number 37. I was under the impression that he was a very poor fisherman. Yet, I was surprised when I saw a television, modern cooking stoves and brand name plastic wrapped cookies for the grandchildren. He wanted to take us on a boat ride in the Bay of Bengal, but we declined. After finally extricating ourselves from his house (his family was talkative), we hurried back for breakfast at our host family.

Upon reviewing the video, I am less than satisfied. I'll have to return to the street again today for another shot. Because of our excitement, we walked too fast, I didn't hold the camera level, and there wasn't cohesion in what I filmed. Take two, here I come.

Trying to not create a big scene. While I am getting better at being bold shooting video, I still feel ackward using this expensive western technology when some poor people on the street must feel jealous or contemptful l towards me.

The fuzzy thing is a "dead cat" (or so it's called) that reduces wind noise on the microphone. I had to give it a haircut today, as it kept getting a bit of fuzz into the video recording scene.

Myself, with host family "grandma and grampa"

Dinner and a drive

2005-05-16T02:04:00.000-05:00

Last night we had dinner with a family we know from our art camp. Afterwards, I rode back to our house on the back of a scooter. It was quite exciting, bumping around about at night on my seat behind the trusty Indian driver.

Servants

2005-05-15T06:02:00.000-05:00

The family we live with has a live in maid. I'm unsure of all her duties, but I know that she cooks for us. She sleeps on a mat on the living room floor and wakes up around 5:00 am to start working. She can be seen during the day sitting in a tiny room off the kitchen. Sometimes I see her eating by herself in there. Jonathan and I both wish she would eat with us. Although we can't converse with her because she doesn't speak English, she seems very nice and I try to smile at her to show my appreciation. I feel a bit uncomfortable having servants. There is also a girl that cleans our room. It seems like it is cleaned every time we leave, even up to 3 times a day.

The heat is on

2005-05-15T05:55:00.000-05:00

44 degrees Celsius = 111 degrees Fahrenheit.

The heat makes everything move slowly here. People walk slowly on the street. We have to be careful not to step on the dogs that are too hot and tired to move. They look dead. We're lethargic. Jonathan has about half the energy he normally has. He has taken up the routine of the couple we are living with- get up in the morning, eat breakfast, and then lay on the bed under the fan.

We're getting used to being sweaty and sticky. The air conditioning at the internet cafe hasn't been working. It is in a basement where there are no windows for ventilation. By the time we left yesterday, Jonathan was soaked. He was as wet as I was when the giant wave hit me.

I never thought I would enjoy cold showers, but now they have become my favorite part of the day.

Every story needs to be about something

2005-05-15T05:35:00.000-05:00

I want people to not cling so tightly to security and the status quo. I want young people to seek adventure not at Myrtle Beach, Panama City, or Cancun, but in helping other people and drinking deep from the diversity of the world. I have a dream that alcohol and caffeine are not the descriptors of college, but it is service and cross cultural experience. Most importantly, I dream that the word’s “can’t,” “too hard,” and “more than I can handle” be banished from our mouths.

Two month’s ago I was close friends with a sum total of less than half a dozen people of Indian descent. Now I have dozens, and Jillian and I are scheduled to bring her Art Camp to over three dozen more children in four separate organizations. We didn’t have contacts in India to visit and volunteer, nor did we have the budge to pay and volunteer with an organized group—but I emailed, searched online, and talked to as many Indian people as I could—and they welcomed us to their country. We now live with a fantastic host family, and have another planned in our next city. We have met with and discussed in depth about the country with half a dozen adults.

The point is: never think something is out of the realm of possibility. Never doubt your own potential. If Jillian and I started thinking that it would be too hard to create a summer camp in under 6 weeks for children half way around the world, we would still be sitting in West Lafayette. Uncertainty is a fact of life, and people can become more effective when they understand how to thrive in it. If the uncertainty of landing in a country and not knowing where we would stay the night of our arrival was too burdensome—we would not be here now.

I want other people to see something they want—and tenaciously run after it. To capture the prize through intensely hard work. I just graduated in Industrial Engineering from the number four IE school in the country – and had school work a-plenty to in the last month while we planned this trip. Going here meant much sacrificed sleep, missed exercise and less time with friends. Nothing worth having comes without giving up something valuable.

Every one of us is writing the story of our life. No matter what we choose we are scribing on the pages of our life in indelible ink with every action and inaction. I do not plan on relishing in the ending years of my life that I avoided this adventure, or saved myself from that inconvenience—but that I drank deep and sucked out every last drop of the marrow of life.

Problem with me telling the story

2005-05-15T05:32:00.000-05:00

The focus of the story need be the children. My prose is insufficient to adequately inspire people. I don’t even want to sit and tell a story that gets people all fired up. I want the children’s lives we experience to become the story.

I believe the journey Jillian and I make as we dive deep into India combined with the voices of the children we work with will become a story worth telling. I anticipate the children fabricating a message that everyone can relate to, and can learn from.

We’ll ask the children to draw themselves as they dream they’ll be when they grow up. We’ll have them create self portraits. We'll ask about earliest childhood memories, family life, favorite activities and for lessons they can teach us. This will be repeated accross many other groups in India. Next week I can't wait to start working with street boys in a shelter. Oh how different of a life experience they will bring!

I want to tell a story

2005-05-15T05:31:00.000-05:00

I want to tell a story through creating a book or DVD of our experience with the children here. Why?

One word: influence.

I believe influence occurs through two methods:

1) personal interaction

2) stories

I cannot personally interact with as many people as I wish to influence. I must learn the art of storytelling. Leadership is influence, and influence is social change, and social change (in my goals) is positive betterment for the human race.

Stories have been a tool of instruction from the beginning of time. Fables, parables, nursery rhymes, songs, dances and the like all have shaped the way millions have carried out their lives.

I love to read, and some of my deepest held beliefs and goals have come through messages an author put to paper, and made available through publishing. Dale Carnegie, Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon Hill, Robert Kiyosaki, Benjamin Franklin, Brian Tracey, Patch Adams, the authors of the Bible, the list goes on and on.

I want Americans to read the story of Art View (India) and say to themselves, “Hey, the world’s a bit different from what I thought!” and “Gee-golly, I think I’m going to care a bit more about other people.”

Our neighborhood and there-abouts

2005-05-15T04:59:00.000-05:00

a street near where we are staying. I stitched the images together with this amazingly awesome software called, "autostitch." It takes a bunch of pictures and automatically connects them together for a large image. It is free as well.

This is the beach five minutes away from our house. It's a beautiful place, but there is a rip tide. So we didn't swim, just walk by the shore.

2005-05-14T08:44:00.000-05:00

The traffic is busy

autorickshaws

2005-05-14T08:41:00.000-05:00

We took our first autorickshaw ride this morning to and from breakfast. Of course it was not our first opportunity to ride in an autorickshaw. We can't walk past one without the driver asking to take us for a ride. They practically stalk us as it is very obviousm that we are tourists. Just now on our walk to the internet cafe in the timespan of about 30 seconds, 5 autorickshaw drivers asked us if we wanted a ride. Imagine the joy of the autorickshaw driver this morning when we approached him to drive us home. He grinned and did a little jig.

How many times can I say autorickshaw?

wealth is relative

2005-05-14T08:24:00.000-05:00

In the U.S. I am a member of the middle class. I try not to live an exorbant life. Here in India I feel so rich. Of course there are Indians whose standard of living is the same as mine. But here the poverty is so much more obvious.

Everything is so much cheaper here in India(except electronics). We have been doing some shopping, mostly buying books and clothing. Yesterday we went to a Fashion store where we had about 6 people waiting on us. It seemed like they pulled out about half of the clothes in the store wanting us to try them on. They gave us excellent service. Jonathan bought about 6 dress shirts for less than U.S $50.

This is where we live

2005-05-14T06:12:00.000-05:00

This is the house we live in with a host family. The we've in the bottom level. It's an apartment building that was built when our host family sold their house to some developers who in turn built them this and gave them some flats.

Newspapers cover us

2005-05-14T05:42:00.000-05:00

The Hindu interviewed Jillian and myself yesterday. They are a national paper, "read by 80% of Indians," says the leader of the organization we are working with. We also were in a local paper a few days back advertising about the camp.

Video project: Narayan the Purdue Alum

2005-05-14T02:52:00.000-05:00

I looked up an alumni from Purdue in the Alumni association business directory I got back at Purdue and found Narayan Sethuramon the Managing Director of W.S. Industries (India) LTD. They manufactures porcelean high-voltage insulators in Chennai. He was from Krannert's 1 year MBA program in '94.

We auto-rickshaw'ed over to the Park Sheraton 5-star hotel for breakfast today. And what a great breakfast it was. Narayan and Jillian and I chatted for an hour about India's economy, social issues, strengths and children. Because the resturant (called a 'hotel' in India) was busy, we didn't film the interview.

Then I realized I don't have to go to India to meet and converse with interesting people about society, economics, business, children, and life. I can look up people I read about or admire when I'm back at home and arrange meetings to exchange ideas.

traffic

2005-05-14T02:40:00.001-05:00

Traffic in Chennai is crazy. On the streets you will see buses, cars, taxis, autorickshaws (little 3 wheeler taxis that remind me of the antique cars at an amusement park), motorbikes, bicycles, tricycles with carts carrying various merchandise, and pedestrians. All of these different forms of transportation travel at different paces passing each other. There are lanes painted on the roads, but no one seems to stay in them, often even crossing the middle and driving on the wrong side of the street. A common site is seeing several people on a motorbike (even a whole family), not wearing helmets, the women sitting on the back sidesaddle. Luckily traffic doesn't move too fast.

Day 1 of art camp very good

2005-05-14T02:40:00.000-05:00

The first day of the art camp went very well.

Nine children arrived, and we may receive a few more for day 2. In the first drawing exercises, "draw your family," and "draw what you want to be when you grow up." The children typically drew small families, some fathers were in business-dress clothing and many girls mentioned they liked wearing pants. Two children wanted to be an astronaut, others wanted to be doctors, engineers, scientists, a fashion designer, cartoonist, houseboat owner, tennis or soccer player and more.

Here is a picture where they were working on painting their Marionettes (puppets) they will use to tell stories to us with at the last day.

I shot video on the tripod and steadycam I built earlier. At first I was really not satisfied with how the video composition was going: the room is dark and echo-y, my camera doesn't have a white balance to fix the fluorescent lights erie glow, fans were windy on the microphone, and Jillian's voice was hard to pick up. Soon it got better though.

Content made the video shooting much better. I started moving around with the steadycam (see www.steadycam.org for what this cool thing is), and I was able to focus in on each child when they shared their first drawings with the class.

It got much better than that and you'll just have to wait and see the pictures and DVD when we get it out.

We're planning to put up pictures soon, as soon as I can get my laptop plugged into a network port to send them to hello.com (the great picture hosting service affiliated with blogger).

Purdue Alumni

2005-05-14T02:36:00.000-05:00

We're sitting in an internet cafe in Chennai with a poster advertising various digital services such as personalized t-shirts, mugs, caps, and stationary. Ironically the logo on the example stationary says Purdue Alumni. Today is my graduation back at Purdue. I am obviously not attending.

Today comes the first art camp (must read)

2005-05-13T01:36:00.000-05:00

Our experience in India has two foci:
1) Putting on 3-5 art camps for children to learn about their perception of the world and themselves.
2) Meeting lots of people and learning about India, it's challenges, strengths and lessons we can take back to America.
In both halves of the project, we will be videotaping our journey in order to document what we learn and share it back in America.

The first child art camp starts today. We'll be working with 7-12 children from 8-14 years old teaching printmaking, creating marionettes and making self portraits. Jillian and I are interested in the perception of children on themselves, their family, India and America. When we have this art camp at several locations in Chennai and Bangalore, we will observe how the art is different from different socio-economic, cultural, or educational groups of children.

One strategy we are using to understand children's perceptions is self portraits. Upon the first 15 minutes of the start of our multi day art camp, children will be given a standardized set of crayons and paper and asked through an identical script to "create a self portrait of (1) themselves with their family, and (2) what they hope to become when they grow up, according to their greatest dream." This will be repeated on the last day as well and we will compare perceptions from begining to end of the camp, as well as accross different camps (demographics of children).

Throughout the camp, we have the theme of setting goals higher than what other people "say" you are capable of. We believe that children have more potential than they, their family, or teachers initially see. This talent may be latent within a child and never uncovered--but through inspiration, hard work, role models and creativity we feel any child can become someone fantastic.

Frequently there is a struggle between the environment (and circumstances) a child grows up in and their latent potential. The environment is a very powerful force, which we recognize cannot be changed over our 28 days in India. However, we do hope to share the results of this with the children and caregivers--in hopes to inspire some to strive for a better environment to grow up in. Also it will be instructive to Americans in recognizing our great opportunities we have been lucky to have, as well as urge us to have a greater social conscious.

2005-05-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

This is the founder of Exnora after our wonderful interview in his home.

Beach

2005-05-12T05:14:00.000-05:00

We went to the beach this morning for a walk. They say it is very dangerous to swim in the Indian Ocean because of riptides. Wading is okay though and very refreshing especially when an unexpected wave splashes you up to your waist. That's what happened to me this morning. Jonathan and I were walking next to the water when a huge wave somehow bypassed him and soaked my pants. This seemed to give a lot of pleasure to a woman who witnessed it. We all had a good laugh.

We rode all over town today

2005-05-11T03:18:00.000-05:00

I waited for Jillian at the airport. When we reunited from our split airplane travels, she and I rode to a hotel to stay until we had the host family arranged. We felt really out of place. Really wierd and as if we didn't belong at all. No other westerns were about, and people were oozing out of the pavement to ask us if we wanted a ride or to buy something. I felt very ackward and excited at the same time.

So we hid in the hotel for a bit. Went up and down the stairs. Took our first picture together (it didn't turn out so well, so we took another--this time with a flash.) Then off to next door at the internet cafe.

And what to our wonderous surprise should we discover? Why there's an email saying the host family we will be staying with has been waiting to see us since six in the morning! So after 1 and a half hours at the hotel, we check out and taxi to the family. Total cost: Rs. 700 (hotel) + Rs. 300 (taxi), where US$1 = 42 Rs. (Rupes)

Taxi rides are always very fun in Indian traffic. Unless you're one with a weak stomach.

Progress! two interviews tomorrow and a great host family

2005-05-10T10:41:00.000-05:00

Today was our first full day in India. I will soon be able to upload pictures, so do not fear--you will all get to see what we are seeing soon. And may I add--there is a LOT to see!

The dates for our first art camp have been finalized as May 12-17. Also tomorrow the 11th, we have two interviews scheduled: one with a leader from an amazing NGO (www.exnora.org) and the other from an BPO (business process outsourcing) firm who will remain unnamed.

We are staying with a wonderful Indian host family that remindes me of my grandparents in Florida. When we first arrived, she had freshly squeezed lime juice for us (instead of the O.J. Grammy makes). The gentleman was as friendly as Grampy and even took the time to show me how to eat with my fingers--and thumb. I'll show you all sometime. It's really quite an exciting way to fill your face.

Air India

2005-05-10T10:25:00.000-05:00

If anyone is going to India, I would highly suggest flying Air India. Most of the people you will fly with will be Indian, including all of the staff, and the food. I felt as though I was in India before I even left Chicago. The only drawback is that I had no idea what I was eating, yet I was adventurous and tried bites of everything in all four meals.

Frankfurt alreadz

2005-05-09T02:18:00.000-05:00

Please forgive me using this German kezboard, which has a different kezboard lazout. So trz to read this with a german accent.

I slept much of the waz from Chicago to here. It´s wonderful to finallz be on the waz to Indiä.

Jillian is stzill flzing straight to bombaz.

Lindsaz and John thanks for the food, trip to the airport and everzthing(exclamatin point, i can´t make one in this internet kiosk)

As we meet cool people we will mentin them here-- so hi Mark from Cedarville College in (Iowa?) I hope zour trip zou mentined on the flight is fantasticallz delightful.
bze

Jaw

Germany Pictures

2005-05-08T20:29:00.000-05:00

I found an elevator that looked very sci-fi-ish. So I propped my camera in the corner and took a bunch of pictures of myself. :-) This one looked like I'm a cosmic voyager.

This was the beautiful sunrise I took through the terman's glass window. If you look closely you can see the reflection of my camera in the glass.

Germany by morning

My Camcorder Rig

2005-05-08T00:28:00.000-05:00

This is my first big camcorder adventure (other than www.TenThousandSmiles.com's adventure, see here for it's wikipedia article). Hopefully we'll get some very interested people reading this blog wondering about the equipment we're using. I hope this post (which i will update with additional pictures) answers these questions.

I bought on ebay an older Sony DVR-9 camcorder. I only got it because of a pretty darn good price as it was bundled with several desired accessories: 0.7x wide angle lens, 3 batteries, camera case, ND (neutral density) filter, and clear protective filter.

Audio recorded in the integrated microphone will not be very good. Ever.

For interviews, I bought a wireless Audio-Technica PRO88W lavaliere microphone ($110), as well as a wired ATR35 lav ($35). The wireless one isn't that great, as there is not consistent static, but you hear "sssspts" or "vhwwwwtsss" sounds occassionally. We'll see if I can remove it in post production (which will be Adobe Premiere Pro or Sony Vegas 5 + Sound Forge). Range on the wireless is reasonable (dozens of feet at about the same quality), but the aforementioned "ssspts" sounds occur unless it is inches away.

For shooting when I can't mic the speaker, or there is more than one (as I didn't buy a mixer for several mics used at once), I purchased an Audio-Technica ATR55 shotgun microphone ($70). It uses a standard AA battery which lasts many hours and has cardiod and super-cardiod response patterns. This means it is directional, or ultra narrow angle directional. It is mono, but that is fine for me now.

One problem with this microphone is it doesn't have a shock mount that comes with it. So I had to make one. This was not hard, but I was really tired so I tried ridiculous stuff that delayed my success (like cut up rubber tupperware standoffs--don't ask!) I made this one all from parts I found nearby the day before I left for India. I worked all night long and got it to finally work (see the picture at my co-op house where I spread out all over the dining hall).

The key with shock mounts is to isolate all vibration, shocks and scratching from the camera from going into the microphone. If a shock gets to the mic, there will be a very loud noise recorded that you don't want. I isolate the mic through packing foam and rubber bands (mostly it's rubber bands that does it, the foam is just a shim).

I found a square PVC fence post in the shed and cut it up, then I got some metal and bent it with vice grips to fit around the PVC. I painted it all black. I glued foam with some type of bathroom caulk found in said shed. Also, I cut slots in the ends to string up rubber bands through. I made two, one long and one short, but now I only use the short one. I drilled holes in the metal and hooked it the half of the camera mount that came with the mic.

It works great!

camera with shotgun (without "dead cat" wind reducer)

components of the microphone shock reducer

As you can see, we have a name

2005-05-03T04:45:00.000-05:00

We're caling our trip: "Jillian-Jonathan-travel-to-india-in-a-really-exciting-trip-so-come-and-read-our-blog-dot-com!"

But seriously we considered many names, probably 2 or 4 dozen. The 2nd place runner up was "Arterview" cause we're going to create an art camp and interview lots of people. It's pretty witty I thought, except it's terribly ackward to say, read, or think of. I really liked, "I have a dream of a child with a blank canvas," but that was a tad too long.

The whiteboard was a flurry of activity. I love whiteboarding.

Then my mom suggested ArtView. And that stuck. Thanks mom.

So now we're calling this Art View (India). India is in paranthesis because Jillian has considered repeating this project accross various countries--like back in the states.

Other people's 'opportunities'

2005-04-13T02:02:00.000-05:00

Jillian's insight:

"When Brian was talking about us here [in America] 'discovering' what we want and our dreams in life... I kept thinking, what about people in these other countries that don't have a chance and have horrible jobs." (Like day-laborers who crush rocks by hand 10 hours a day).

(reference the previous Road Trip Nation post for background info).

Road Trip Nation

2005-04-12T03:52:00.000-05:00

I'm on again, off again with the whole filming a video deal. It's way too easy to make a really really bad video--so I hate to make that part of our trip, but I just met a really cool guy who did video very wel.

Brian Mcallister and the "Road Trip Nation." They traveled around after graduation and talked to lots of different people about what they found in life. People like Michael Dell, lots of CEO's and a fisherman in Maine. Madonna's fashion designer and the man who cracked the human genome too.

I'm going to India. Talking to Brian and watching their (very good) DVD has helped me to learn of more ways to "suck the marrow out of life." This is a good thing.

My goal is to travel, to experience the people. To live with a host family and to help children. I want to work with Jillian to create art with the children. I wan to publish their work in American and I want to meet software companies in India to discus how they see India changing.

I want people back at home to know what another country is like and to be inspired to do cool, fantastic, and difficult adventures.

My new ideas about my trip after taling to Brian are:
* journal lots of thoughts, experiences, etc. Starting now. (hence the blog)
* possibly do this through film. It worked for them. I'll need to get a camcorder
* I need to meet and interview people

Okay, camcorder here I come. Carl my video buddy, I'm going to use your help.

Welcome to the blog of our journey

2005-04-01T05:09:00.000-06:00

One month and a few weeks ago I thought it would be appropriate to travel to India after graduating and before an internship and then full time work in software consulting.

To try and answer the question "why did you decided to do this?" Perhaps it's that I enjoy seeing what I can learn from other cultures, I yearn for adventure, I read stories about suffering in other countries--and I want to be more grateful for what I have. I've got to thank two friends as well for pushing me over the edge to actually do this: Eryn Leach and Jillian Longheier. Eryn for talking about how she was going to go to Thailand (and then I started searching online for a place to visit) and Jillian for creating art that's about issues the world finds unpleasant (illegal child trafficking, forced labor, genocide, dirt stuff "surburbanites" don't enjoy hearing). I've also got to thank my grandfather Poppy for taking me down the Amazon river swimming, fishing and photo-snapping when I was in 4th grade. Let the adventures continue!

I'm also lucky enough to have Jillian the artist and amazing girlfriend (http://www.jillianlongheier.com/) join me on this adventure. First I was going to go with an organization and work in orphanages, etc. However when Jillian teamed up with me, we had to find something that was less expensive than $1000 for 3 weeks of volunteering. Our brainstorming led us to this idea:
* create art with children focusing on how they view themselves
* meet people from all walks of life to see what we can learn from them
So I've been contacting lots of non for profits in Chennai and Bangalore so we can work with various socioeconomic groups of children--from the poorest to middle class students who will one day to go places like my university (and soon to be alma matter) Purdue.