Tomorrow my first report is due to my advisor in Seattle. I have been trying to fill my time with thinking about what I have done and what I am planning to do. I've been fairly successful at focusing on this, but there are moments of loneliness and some fear that creep up. When I look at my proposed schedule for the next four months, I see week long stretches of time in south Rajasthan and in northern Gujarat, with a few other trips here and there (assuming that my visitors will still come despite the attacks), and a few days here and there that I will be writing and planning here at IIM in Ahmedabad.

If this schedule really does work then the longest stretch of time in Ahmedabad is ending in this next week. I am relieved by this. There is only so much I can do from here, and soon the two main friends I have here on campus go back to the US. There are about five Indian students that I am acquainted with, and hopefully I will be able to get to know them a bit better over time, otherwise I will be desperately lonely. I have been volunteering some time at a local NGO in which I have met a lot of great people, so that is a big help. And tonight I am having dinner with three other foreign researchers living in Ahmedabad at the house of the one from Italy. Hopefully that will also be a nice network for me.

The week after the next I will make my first trip to several towns in Gujarat, ending with a short trip for my birthday to the old Portuguese colony - Diu. That part of the trip will be with a friend who is living in the south of Gujarat, from Harvard, who is doing archival work on a Fulbright, although I haven't heard from him since the attacks and I don't know for sure whether he will still be up for it. I really hope so.