In which Lalita turns errmmm well anyway :-)

Yes it was my birthday on Halloween! Halloween here is probably the biggest festival after Christmas, and people really go to town decorating their gardens and houses. I made one feeble attempt at carving a Jack-o-Lantern - a small pumpkin that Lucas brought home from a school visit to the pumpkin patch. Some people in the neighbourhood really turned their homes into haunted houses with paper bats and ghosts and scary lights. And pumpkins everywhere! It is really fun. Trick-or-treating is always done on Halloween itself and so it will now always coincide with my birthday celebration. As it was a Sunday this year I decided to make it a birthday weekend, and I started celebrating Friday night with dinner at Lucas' grandma's, with the whole family. I had arranged for Lucas to sleep over at a friend's house afterwards so I could go dancing with some friends. That was a big milestone - me going out after 9pm, and Lucas having a sleep-over. It all went very smoothly. Saturday morning I took Lucas to his gym class (the only remaining activity after the flurry of classes at the start of the semester) and we just hung out in the afternoon - I had planned to go get myself some gifts but I never got round to that. It was much nicer just having a quiet relaxing day with my boy. In the evening Lucas and his friend Isiah stayed home with a friend of mine, and I went out for my single moms' birthday dinner - 4 girls out for dinner! It was loads of fun, we went to an upmarket Mexican restaurant where I inevitably got serenaded by the mariachis. It's always a toss-up between the margueritas and the mariachis whether Mexican food is worth it, but usually the tequila wins out. I also met Russ Feingold who was that evening still a senator for Wisconsin, but who sadly lost the election 2 days later. I told him I would vote for him if I could - I was quite starstruck as well. A really sad loss to the Senate, he is a remarkable politician. The elections have been horribly depressing, and everyone at the University is holding their breath to see what paycuts and budget cuts are upon us. It could be miserable and I will keep you informed!
Everything else is going well - I am still planning to move to a bigger house in February - still in the University Housing complex but a proper house with an upstairs. The garden flows into a playground area so it will be great for Lucas to be able to run out of the door to go and play, and I guess it will be nice for me to be able to see him from the house without having to chase after him. I am nervous to take on the extra rent especially after the election results, but I think I am going to go for it and keep my fingers crossed.
The last week of October a colleague and I drove down to a community college in Illinois whom we are helping set up their South Asian Studies program. We took the scenic route so it took forever, but we went through some remarkably-named places along the way. (We also went through London, Wisconsin but I forgot to take a photo - duh). My colleague stayed over and I took the bus back in the evening - a lot of travelling for a 2-hour meeting but it was good day out of the office.
My courses are going well too, I have 4 more weeks left of teaching the freshmen class on Musical Cultures and so far the feedback has been good. I am ridiculously reasonable (if there is such a thing), we have discussed at length what format they would like their exam to be in, and when at the last essay assignment some kids didn't do so well I offered everyone the chance to rewrite it. Which means more marking ("grading") for me at the weekend! Next semester I will be teaching a much smaller group, mainly grad students, and we will be reading pre-modern Hindi texts so I am very excited about that and it will be a very different teaching style. The freshmen group often feels like the Lalita show, though I try to elicit as much input from them as I can. We are going to spend the final weeks looking at contemporary dance and popsongs so I think they will find that more interesting than philosophising on the meaning of "modernity".
The weather here has been incredible, we had a couple of very cold wind days but apart from those I often go out in short sleeves and a jacket. It is quite amazing. I have heard no scary predictions for winter yet but for sure there will be a lot of snow - it is just a question of when...

 

Lucas in his preschool

Time for the dentist again