Top 10 Things in 2005

Let's just say that since the Great Anthropological Experiment of 2006 (GAE 2006) failed miserably, I've branched out into other venues. I've had a lot of downtime as I waited for my throat to quit oozing pus and barking at me. Now, since that reference to GAE 2006 was cryptic enough, onto the show.

1) Passing my qualifying exams. It's all a blur, I swear. A hot muggy September day in a typical stale air Harvard room and lots of cold sweat.

2) Getting my dissertation proposal approved. Thank you, Fulbright-Hays for making do this already pretty much. I've have to lump receiving the Fulbright under this heading since it completely slipped my mind while composing this at home, although that other grant I received made me reconsider coming to KTM. Praise Allah I came to my senses and took less money but did the 'Du.

3) Seeing Gang of Four at tha Avalon with my friend Yammo sometime in the spring. Old-school post-punk at its finest. Eat that, the Liars and Bloc Party. I've never seen so many old hipsters in years. Damn, that describes me.

4) Tihar in Nepal. I love Tihar, hopefully my birth mom, Pamela, will visit next fall during it. A five day festival with kukkaripuja, which is the worship of dogs who receive tikas and marigold malas, and ends with bhaipuja in which sisters garland and tika their brothers who give them money in return. Somewhere in the middle is Lakshmipuja, when people draw red lines leading into doorways to invite the goddess of wealth into their homes and businesses. Much less gruesome and tense than Dasain and Kalipuja, which involves copious animal sacrifices, blaring music on those distorted developing country sound systems to all hours of the night, and an undercurrent of violence itching to explode.

5) Christmas 2004 with my birth mother in Berkeley. Close enough to 2005 for government business. We ate tons of Alaskan crab, divine cookies from the Cheeseboard, went for a long walk at Point Reyes on Christmas Day, and generally just got to spend our first major holiday together.

6) Narrowly avoiding Hurricane Rita in Beaumont by two days. If I hadn’t left when I did, I wouldn’t gotten out for months. Thanks for the great visit, Dad and Kathy, but whew.

7) Thanksgiving dinner with the US Ambassador, his equally accomplished and gracious wife, cornbread dressing(!), and a surgical strike team of servants who got me tipsy through no apparent effort on my part. This rolled on into a night of pub crawling through Thamel with T.J. to an ungodly hour of the morning. Male bonding at its best. Many Cuba Librés consumed.

8) Dinner after passing my exams with Yammo at the best Middle Eastern restaurant I’ve ever eaten out somewhere in Cambridge, Argana. It was spectacular, all the usual dishes you might expect, but what a difference due to I don’t know what (and it couldn’t have been the mojitos). It might have been the best meal I’ve ever had. This wasn't just due to my relief, right, Amzig?

9) A two day rafting trip s on the Bhote Kosi near the Tibetan border. Set after long set of insane Class V+ rapids just post-monsoon straight off the glacier in Tibet. Day one is pleasant and fun, below the first dam on Bhote Kosi with tons of Class III and IV rapids. Day two begins approximately 5 klicks from Tibet with beautiful scenery, but terrifying rafting. I suspect it was because the guide, Som, probably weighed all of 120 lbs soaking wet and due to his limited mass, couldn’t steer the raft. When I belatedly realized that he too was terrified by the hysterical tone of his voice, it added that special frisson of sheer cold animal fear to freezing milky green glacial water, massive rocks, and substandard equipment. The best part was when the guide fell out of the boat (and stayed out) at the beginning of a set of class V+ rapids, thus leaving us to go down the wrong chute without anyone to steer the raft. All in all one of the most exhilarating experiences that I’ll never repeat in my life, especially since I have subsequently heard about the rafting fatalities (notice the plural) in a Nepali friend’s family.

10) Summertime in Knoxville TN. I didn’t get to enjoy it as much as I could’ve due to the massive anxiety concomitant with my impending exams, but I sure did enjoy being back in the South for a summer. Lovely moderate weather, especially compared to Texas, mountains, rafting, sweet Southern drawls, an excellent coffeehouse with free wi-fi, slit-eyed groundhogs in the kudzu, a decent university library, and a satisfying chunk of time with my sister and mother. Didn’t make it to Dollywood though, more’s the pity.