Chai Chai Chai

Yesterday I had a pretty amazing day, and one which oddly typical anymore and one that would be unrecognizable to the life I used to lead. I started the day volunteering at the South Burlington Food Shelf, then jetted downtown to meet my truly excellent student Olivia Richer for Chai Chai Chai at Dobra Tea, then circled back to the new mosque to "help" on a workday (I suspect I helped as much as I used to "help" my grandmother Alice run her grocery store in the country), then went to the gym to lift weights, and then finally met the family of one of the kids I'm taking to Jordan for an early Thanksgiving dinner ((I'm stealing their daughter for Thanksgiving so they flew up from Texas to celebrate early, and graciously invited me). I'm very blessed.

It's not uncommon for seniors to start scheduling coffee (or chai) meeting with their professors as they stare down graduation, and it's something that makes us very happy. I first had Olivia in a class when she was a sophomore and she decided that she wanted to go on the trip to India when she was a junior. She worked so hard and made it happen, and I can't imagine anyone had a richer experience than her. Olivia desperately wanted to ride elephants and look for tigers, so when the initial elephant ride was cancelled - and then we didn't see any tigers (only heard them, maddeningly close) - I felt terrible for her, which led me to pressure Inder and Santosh to somehow arrange for another elephant ride (which she dearly loved - I previously posted a picture of her canoodling with the elephant).