Allyn Wong is in panic mode right now.
Allyn Wong has far too much to do in too little amount of time, for a person in "we believe in reincarnation so we have all the time in the world" India.
Currently, she knows 2 out of her 4 minute dance solo that she must know by the Thursday night performance. She does not get to have tech week, or a dress rehearsal. She will be wearing clothes that are incredibly heavy, an enormous amount of gold jewelry, and have makeup on that took a special makeup artist 2 1/2 hours to do.
Did I mention that Allyn Wong does not even know the complete dance that she is dancing in front of the entire HCU campus in costume she has never worn or seen and on a stage she has never touched?
Allyn Wong also has exams coming up.
Allyn Wong has one 10 page paper due on Saturday, and a 7 page paper due on Monday. She also has a final on Monday, a final on Tuesday, a final on Wednesday and a final that could possibly be on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. Or maybe the 24th. Nobody knows for sure. She has to read an entire 771 page book for the particular exam that isn't set yet. So she has no clue how much time she has to actually read it.
Then Allyn Wong is headed, somehow, to the Calcutta, Darjeeling, Sikkim and Nepal with Riane for the last week and a half of their time in India. This means Allyn Wong needs to get all of her other work done before she can sit down at a computer and type in possible airplanes, trains, buses, etc and places and make it all work in the time frame and finances she has set aside.
Then, Allyn Wong must decide what she is doing with her time, life, and money for the month of May.
Leave on May 5th for the US, stay there for 3 weeks, and then set off to Thailand for a month? Or stay with her dance teacher and practice dance? Or travel around, say to Sri Lanka, or the Maldives? Will she do this by herself, or will she have a traveling partner? What should she do about her visa(s)? Or vaccinations? Or subletting her apt. in Charleston? Or destinations she needs to hit? Or how to get her gifts home? Should she ship them, or pack another suitcase? What about that much needed haircut? Who is going to do it? When? How much cheaper would it be here than in the US - about $29 less. Should she get it here in India anyways?
Or maybe she would choose to volunteer in a remote orphanage in Nepal? Hike around the Himalayas?
She would choose to go to Tibet, but to work with a volunteer project in Tibet, she has to be specially approved by the Chinese government. She hopes that if she decides to go to Tibet, she could use, not her good old fashioned Southern charm (which strangely enough, is not lost on Indians but could be futile if she attempted the Southern charm with the Chinese) but her heritage. Nobody can deny someone a glimpse into their history.
But besides the panic mode that is setting in, Allyn Wong had a very good last week.
She might tell you about it when she has more time.
It consists of two rounds of Around the World - 5 continents represented at a rooftop party for a guy from Chad, and then the India version of It's a Small World After All at an Indian theme park.
Her last week also consisted of paparazzi time, Telugu actors and interior decorators and hot fudge brownie sundaes. It consisted of hiking in the woods at night, and riding a train by her self to her dance teacher's house where she got a glimpse of the Indian household life... for the family of a famous Kuchipudi dancer and her famous Telugu film director husband who is shooting in Australia currently.
And finally, from the last time Allyn Wong wrote until today, she saw a street play on women and violence, discrimination, etc. by a set of her Indian friends.
She even got an Indian ball cap.
Nevertheless, Allyn Wong is smacking her forehead on the table for writing a blog instead of starting that 771 page book that she may or may not have to read by next Thursday. While doing everything else.
