It's possible to bruise a bone.

This has been a rather filled week, but rather fulfilling as well. It was filled with two exams, three quizzes, two dance performances, and a bruised bone. I shall elaborate:

On Wednesday night, in a fit of rage, I accidentally kicked the brick wall in front of Thomas Building. As a result, I suffered from a swollen big toe the entire next day. An X-ray at UHS revealed that there was fortunately no fracture (though the doctor calls it a "bruised bone"). But here's the thing...I have never looked at an X-ray of myself before. Call me strange, but I genuinely experienced one of those profound oh-my-god moments when I saw the bones of my right foot. Maybe that's how a pregnant woman feels when she sees the ultrasound images of her baby. I saw my metatarsals. They were beautiful.

I am truly grateful to my body. I frequently put it through all sorts of trauma and torture: all-nighters, double shot espressos, dance practice, and the occasional stupid injury. It's always been resilient to the crap to which I subject it. But I am especially thankful to the big toe on my right foot. This is the toe that got gashed open by one of the front doors of Bedford High School right before a lacrosse game and the same toe that suffered a subungual hematoma (blood under the nail) after a particularly klutzy dance-jump for Bhavayami this past summer. Today was the Indian Grad Student event at Alumni Hall called Aghaaz, where PSU Natya performed a Thillana (the one that I choreographed =D). Instead of listening to the doctor, I swallowed two advils and danced on the bruised phalange. Yet I feel no permanent damage. I love you, toe.

Other than to exhibit the gratitude I have towards my toe, I would also like to use this post to express how much I appreciate Penn State. Having come from a graduating class of 160, I remember being really apprehensive about attending a huge school where I thought it would be impossible to feel comfortable around so many people I didn't know. But I was, of course, wrong. A big school means that there are endless opportunities to connect with your surroundings and it's pretty much guaranteed that you will find the right group of people who share your interests. I had never dreamed that I would use college as an opportunity to indulge my passions in stuff like music, history, astronomy, nature, and the performing arts. You just have to open up a little bit, take some chances, and before you know it, you will find your comfort zone and college starts to feel like home.


...And before I go, an interesting tidbit from HIST 176: Did you know that Persian was once the official language of the Indian subcontinent? It was established so by the Mughal emperor Akbar. Before Persian, the official language was Sanskrit. But today, we can clearly observe Persian influences on North Indian languages. In fact, Persian + Hindi resulted in Urdu, which is the modern day official language of Pakistan as well as that of many Muslims that live in India.

That's all. Thanks for reading!