House fever

Our lease on our little 2-bedroom apartment ends May 15, and we have to give 60 days' notice regarding whether we are going to extend it or not. For the most part, I really like the apartment and its residents. It's very convenient to Phil's office - less than a mile. However, I'm ready to have a little more space - the kitchen is small, the master bedroom is small, the bathrooms are and all the closets are small. Plus, we have some college girls living above us who have been more and more frequently having their boyfriends over for some ridiculously noisy 2 AM escapades directly above our bedroom. All of these factors have me more than ready to find a house!

I've been scouring the real estate listings in detail ever since we moved here as we tried to decide what area of town we wanted. I have looked through hundreds upon hundreds of listings. We finally found "the one" and are making an offer today! I can't believe how fast it happened, but everything seems perfect - the timing is right, the price is right, the house has all the features we want (and more!), and we're ready to lock into a contract.

We should hear back from the seller's agent by 5 pm tomorrow!

The pool

The nice thing about the Novotel is that it has a great pool and hardly anyone uses it. I packed my swimsuit, but forgot the cap and goggles. Yesterday I found those items at Hypercity so I am all set to swim daily for the next two weeks. My freckles are already back in full force... sigh...

Throwball Tournament

This morning was our throwball tournament at the Lal Bahadur sports complex. It was a lot of fun, but we did not win either of our games. I scored a couple of points in serving but was otherwise not very helpful!

End of Busy Season Party 2010

Backstage after getting all done up - me, Kabina, and Christina. The room was soooo hot and we were all sweaty. :(


The setting... a covered area at Shilparamam - Sampradaya Vedika.


Kabina, Matt, and me

After the fashion show - Manjari, me, and Bhavana

Party planning

These are the dresses that we are supposed to wear for the fashion show on Friday - ghagra choli. First of all, the midriff-baring dress thing is not going to happen. No way! Also, we are supposed to buy them before Friday. Mais c'est Mercredi, et trop cher pour moi! Hopefully we can find a place where we can just rent the dresses...

Anyway, the whole office is getting really excited about this party. We had a few visitors come through our floor early this afternoon to get everyone pumped up about it.

Too many meetings

Somehow I've gotten roped into a couple of extracurricular activities around here which seem to be almost as demanding as my real job! I joined a women's throwball team and we have a tournament on Saturday morning against a few other teams within our firm. We had practice last Friday and we are supposed to have two more practices at some point this week.

Next, I was guilted into volunteering for a fashion show to be held at our end-of-busy-season party this Friday night. Today was our first fashion show practice which took an hour. An hour. To have me awkwardly practicing runway poses. Me. This is why I am an accountant. I am no model, folks. I am not graceful. I hate being the center of attention. And I had to practice strutting down an imaginary runway with an Indian tax manager telling me, "Stop there! Turn! Hand on your left hip! Turn the other way! Pose there! Twist your body more to the front! Lean back!"

Ohh emm gee. I wish I could have taken a video of the practice. Not a video of me. A video of the manager/fashion show producer.

The Hyderabad folks have a disco theme and will be modeling disco wear. However, they wanted to have the U.S. expats and short-term rotators do a fashion show in traditional Indian dress, which I guess means that I have to go buy a sari in the next two days.

After fashion show practice I had about one whopping hour to get some of my real job done, and then it was time for a team dinner. Since there are 13 Hyderabadi team members, I split the team into two groups to enable me to get to know everyone better. Tonight, the senior consultants and experienced staff went out. On Thursday, I'll take the newer staff members out. We went to a place called 36 Chhatees where I had more Indian food than I'd ever had in my life. The team was highly amused at the foods that I deemed spicy. Baby steps.

I forgot my camera, and my iPhone doesn't take great pictures in the dim lighting - but here's our dinner group (clockwise around the table): Anupama, Manjari, Vinod, Narayana, Gouri, Srinivas, me, and Bhavani.

Hooters

Womens' dress in India is pretty conservative. For example, women do not even wear knee-length skirts to the office. So I must say I was quite surprised to notice Hooters in Hyderabad.