You look like a duck and walk like a duck, but don't TALK like a duck?

Wow, I haven't posted in almost a month!! As many of you know, I'm in India! WOO HOOO! I love India. It's so much fun being here and already in the past 2 weeks I've had life altering experiences. (One of them being the fact that my cousin actually has DSL in his house... who woulda thunk?!!)

Anyhoo, I was inspired by everyone's favorite psychiatrist (and mine) to post today. Of course, G-lo has no idea that he was my inspiration. Well maybe he has some idea as soon as he realizes that someone in Gurgaon, India looked at his blog.

So the funny thing about being in India is that I've turned into the FOB! And I have plenty of little kids around me to make fun of me for it. My cousin's daughter (i call her my niece since we consider our cousins to also be our brothers and sisters) - her name is Aarti - she 7 and she has many friends who come visit her. One of her friends is name Avanika (yes it rhymes with my name). Here's what Avanika decided she thought of me when she met me, "You have an Indian name and you look like an Indian, but you sound like a foreigner. How is that?" So this type of jabber kept going on for awhile, and I began to get really annoyed and decided to mess with her a little bit (I know, I'm going to be a GREAT pediatrician someday HA HA HA HA).

"Actually, Avanika, I'm from the moon," I told her.

"How are you from the moon? People can't live on the moon," she says.

"Ahhh yes, but I have a special spacesuit and so I can live there."

"Show me your spacesuit!!" she says with a huge pout on her face.

"I can't show you, " I say.

"WHYYYY NOT??!!!" she says, still pouting.

"Because you don't believe that I'm from the moon... why should I show you?"

This went on for awhile. Somehow in the middle of me explaining to her that I was from the moon, I threw in that I had an alien husband, and that French people also lived on the moon (i had a friend named Franc.) I think I also starting talking about the two-headed people that live in America. I had successfully captivated my audience.

After awhile, Avanika's little friend, Arushi, decided she believed I was from the moon. She's only 6. Her reasoning: "She is having all these big big bags! (Referring to my luggage) Of course she is from the moon!" Bless Arushi's little soul!

So this went on all evening, even when we all went out to eat. My cousin and his wife joined in on the fun. My cousin Prakash added that I can't show them my spacesuit because the weather is too hot and it'll melt if I remove it from its special covering (and yes, I acknowledge that this theory actually makes no sense). My cousin's wife Aparna added that if I show them my spacesuit, they'll touch it, and that'll cause them to blast off to the moon (this comment drew wide-eyes!!).

Finally, the next day I decided I was going to have to manufacture a make shift spacesuit or else I'll make my little niece cry from not being able to show her my space costume. This was quite difficult considering the lack of materials I hadto work with. So I decided instead to "send the spacesuit to my collegue who needs it immediately." This has seemed to satisfy Aarti, Avanika and Arushi.

Finally yesterday evening, Avanika came up to me and said, "Devika Didi (didi = sister), ok, I believe that you are from moon!" Good girl!

Although... I got a very tempting suggestion from a friend today: maybe I should end the story by telling the kids that "the mothership has landed" and it's time for me to leave. This of course would occur around the time that I leave for Bangalore.

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Another "not a med student, not yet a physician moment": Aparna Akka (akka also = sister) told me the other day that the maid has worms. Prakash Dada (dada = brother in kannada, but yes, I know in oher languages it means grandfather) asks me, "What should we do for her?" I say, "Take her to the doctor?" Well it was either saying that or the word "ivermectin," which for some reason popped into my brain!

Another "You know you've been studying too hard for the Step 2" moment: I swear to God, that I saw a Prometric center in the marketplace the other day. It almost made me cry to see this. For you non-medical anomalies, Prometric is the place where we take our Step exams. They offer various other liscensing exams at Prometric also.

Ok, that's all for now. Hope everyone is well! I hope people still check my blog!! :)