One step at a time.

I was hoping to make this post at the end of the day (cuz I still have a few hours to go), but the internet has been poor at my house. I'll just update this post later if I can get it to work.

I'm doing baby steps. Slow baby steps, but definitely baby steps going toward progress. As tempted as I was to just sleep the day away and hide until the first workday arrived, I woke up today with a mission: to step outside of my house.

And I think I did a pretty good job of it.

I woke up at 7am, showered, and was determined to not fall asleep again until it was at least 10pm. This should help me to adjust my sleep schedule.

At 10am, I finally mustered up the courage to step outside. In a matter of 5 minutes, I had found a driver who took me to the office just down the street. It was my first time seeing Hyderabad during daylight.

At this point, I was already feeling a little discouraged because I had difficulty understanding several of the people I'd spoken to. I also got myself lost the first time when wandering through the office building, such that I got myself locked into a stairwell and had to use the exit door to come out of the back side of the office, and then walk to the front again to re-enter. The security guard who saw me the first time gave a smile and he tried to tell me where to go, but unfortunately I still couldn't understand. What I did make out was the word "left". So I went left, found a different staircase, and finally made my way into the office.

After making a few calls home to the States and utilizing the reliablie internet, part of me wanted to just go back to my room and hide again. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with my situation, and you always want to run and hide when you're uncomfortable right? But JC reassured me that I'm better than that, and that I chose to come to India and should be able to handle it, and he was right. So, I called the driver and went to the store and buy some toiletries.

From the trip to the store, I was really able to see more of Hyderabad than just the corporate area I'm in. Lots of people walking, crazy driving, dirt and construction with random nice buildings in between. It's easy to see that Hyderabad is under a lot of development -- there's construction everywhere, even right across the street from my house and outside the office. This place has plans to boom. I can feel it.

I went back home, only to find that the internet was down for several hours. I decided to channel-surf and, to my delight, found some American channels, but became bored soon after. With nothing to do and the internet down, I started getting sleepy and decided to head back to the office to get back on the internet and stay awake.

Which takes me to where I am now. It's still early -- only 4pm -- and I've obviously been making very long blog posts because I have nothing better to do. (I mean, I could do work but ...) I may soon head out with my housemate and another expat to either grab dinner or try out some really cheap massage place.

And then of course sleep. And prepare for the first day of work tomorrow.