Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Do you ever watch Bollywood films? Bollywood, Bollywood, Bollywood. What can I say about Bollywood? If you are unaware of what I’m talking about, let me clue you in. Bollywood is the entertainment center if Indian past-time. Also known as Hindi films, it churns out up to a thousand movies a year, like soccer is immensely popular in every country but the USA (though like soccer, it is becoming increasingly well-known), and is the most extravagant, melancholic, over-romanticized, unrealistic cinema you could ever watch. And it’s wonderfully fantastic…so long as you’re willing to read subtitles.

Generally a good three hours long and including at least six musical dance numbers, Bollywood creates the best of the best and the worst of the worst and everything in between. On the better side, I would describe it as Shakespeare meets Rogers & Hammerstein meets India. On the bad side, I might just describe it as unbelievable, in every meaning. I love Bollywood movies. And I watched one tonight. It was sappy, colorful, full of tears (from the characters), and entirely over the top. Just as it should be. The best part was the dream sequence it started out with, wherein the two main characters were running around in mountainous fields of flowers. This is what Bollywood is known for. But it was one of the better ones, and I enjoyed it. It was a wonderful escape from life and a bittersweet reminder that one of these days, I really need to make it to India. When I have the money.

Ah, money. And that brings me back to reality. A strange thing has occurred. Aside from the fact that I have just begun four sentences in a row with the letter A, I have also discovered that my credit card payment is listing my minimum payment not as its usual amount, but as $0 (and trust me, the balance is not low enough for that to be normal in any way). Technically this means I do not have only ten dollars for the month of June. But I don’t know why it says this. I, of course, am going to say nothing at all about it to the company, but I will hold my sense of the miraculous until the June 14th due date has passed. Tune back in then to see the results. For the time being, I have enough instant oatmeal, suddenly, to last me the entire month, possibly for all three meals a day. Apparently, when people move out, instant oatmeal is not something they want to take with them, and people are moving out these days. I am sad to report that none of the flavors I have acquired are my favorite—peaches & cream. I would, of course, be more than surprised and wonderfully grateful if some showed up at my door or in my mail box…which happens to be ATS-SPO #148, 204 N Lexington Ave., Wilmore, KY 40390. In case you’re thinking of sending me a letter or a picture of yourself…or something else….

Today was not so sunny as the past few days. Just after waking up, a storm rolled through and despite the fact that I really wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep more, I couldn’t help but sit up on my bed and stare out my window as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared. That is, until lightning struck directly over the seminary and was so startling that I jumped. Thunder, I’m learning, can sound like all sorts of things. It can rumble like the sound of a thousand bouncy balls let loose on a stairway (which I happened to witness the other night), roar like a sheet of metal being shaken like a madman, and clap like…well, like thunder. What I learned today is that when you hear thunder clap, you only hear that sound when it is as close as it can be, and it’s not like the clapping of an auditorium full of people. It’s like the unexpected sound of your annoying younger sibling suddenly clapping their hands together loudly right next to your ear. It didn’t stop me from watching the storm, but it did make me move back from the window a bit, considering I was sitting on the bed with my feet on the windowsill.

All in all, today was not the kind of productivity I had planned. The remaining pictures left to be put up are still on my bed and the bathroom has still not been cleaned in longer than I think I’ll let you know. But I did participate in a small photo project (took photos of our Dean of the Chapel because he doesn’t like the seminary’s pictures of him), which got me out of the dorm for a few minutes and into the hot, muggy Kentucky outdoors.

Tomorrow, I have only one thing planned (well, except for watching So You Think You Can Dance). I get to spend some time with the wonderful Peg Hutchins. Peg, first introduced to me via-email by my friend Sarah, is amazing. An ordained United Methodist preacher, she works for the chapel office and Community Life and might be described by some as a spiritual beacon of Asbury Theological Seminary. Peg is spunky, feisty, and has a smile and laugh that would light up a room. Just to see her face makes my day feel a little lighter. I got to chat with Peg a few times in the Fall semester, but Spring proved to be an impossible few months and so I look forward to getting to have the first real conversation with her in a very long time. I am excited for the time. I love Peg’s honesty—she is a native New Yorker, after all—and I love her sense of the Spirit.

But for now, it’s late, too late, as the pattern seems to be forming. So I’m off to bed for some sweet dreams and maybe a storm or two. Tomorrow, maybe I’ll get around to the bathroom. Maybe not. But for certain, I will look forward to a great chat in the afternoon and then a good dance show when 8pm comes around.

This entry brought to you by the letter A and the number 786—and apparently Allah, so Bollywood taught me today. ☺