It's hard to believe, really, that four months have already passed since I got here in the ole Midwest. I haven't really been that great intrepid explorer of the new land as I thought I'd be. :) Just Indianapolis and one other city in the Midwest and that's it. Yikes. And I haven't been very adventurous in the last couple of months on the men's side either, as the complaints from my sex-hungry freaky commentors will inform you. :) Well then, what on earth have I been up to here, millions of miles away from good ole Bombay?
Ummm, well...
I've been attending my classes, and writing reams of papers for them, and the general verdict so far is that I seem to be fairly talented here. :) So, while I'm already dreaming up PhD plans (mum always did want a 'doctor' in the family!), I'm also submitting papers and articles to conferences. The good news is: I've already been accepted at a couple of them and come March, I'm going to be in Pittsburgh and then at Detroit, waxing eloquent about my sheer brilliance. Aaa, well, not really, but you do get the picture. Suddenly, I seem to have become (gasp) the academic. As a prof informed me, I'm quite the FOB PIG about town - Fresh Off the Boat Poor Indian Grad (Student). :)
So, last semester saw me calling Famous Activist Guy and asking for pointers on a project I was working on, about sensitization toward gay men and women in the corporate workplace. FAG was a great help, of course, but he did assist me in realizing that I'd turned into one of those gay NRIs (Non Resident Indians, for the uninitiated) who turn toward good ole India for research work. *sigh* To think, I actually dated one of those for some time - o, but then he was cute, so it really doesn't matter that he turned out to be a prick. Anyhow, my project happened to be a great hit here, and then I started on a second one: gay-friendly curricula in US colleges. Of course, when I broke this piece of news to SnowWhite's Stepmother, he huffed and said I was as original as Om Shanti Om, with my o-so-cliched little faggoty research topics. :)
Nevertheless, I am being quite true to my faggoty self. *giggle* In a way, it's the whole "coming out" thing. I'd always planned on being more "out" here than I was back home, and I guess that's showing more in my research projects at grad school than anywhere else. I've already declared my intention to focus on Queer Theory to my professors, and they've been quite gung-ho. I don't think they've had a fag in the department in quite some time, so they seem to be quite excited at the prospect! :)
On the man-activity front, there's a reason for not posting about brand new scintillating sex-ventures, aside from my harried nerdy grad self. And that's cuz I've been getting progressively serious about the thing with Irish Coffee. It's not completely smooth sailing etcetera over here, because there are complications involved: I'm not very sure about my future, and he's not sure about his, plus he came out of a long-term relationship two months before meeting me, so there's "rebound-baggage" involved as well... so... *phew*... it is complicated. But it's also nice. It's fun being with him, and talking with him. Spending a lot of my time with him. He's been my sounding board for all my academic (and not-so-academic) yadayadas, and it's been great finding an intelligent, funny, witty (and patient) person in the Midwest to cuddle in bed with.
And he's a funny foil for me. I'm this weird flamboyant gay guy whose scarf has to be flounced over his shoulders just right, whose leather gloves must gleam, whose hat must be tipped just perfectly, who can only wear well-fitting jackets despite the freezing weather - and he's so butch he might as well be straight. We do make a funny pair. He likes his coffee black, straight up, no sugar, no milk - but he still makes mine for me, the way I like it: plenty of sugar, plenty of milk. India ishtyle.
I'm getting used to my Irish Coffee. :)
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