Update

It seems that every day will be as busy and intense as I decide to let it be. Today felt like a week. I got up late, almost a quarter after seven (I can't believe that's sleeping late) but compensated with a good 45 minutes of sitting before breakfast. My room smells wonderful; I got a beautiful oil lamp yesterday and some jasmine oil, so it was very pleasant to be inside despite the cold. It's a good thing I got some calm moments in before going out, because today was really packed. My lesson with Tenzing was fantastic, but super hard, because we went through all the superscribed and subjoined letters, as well as the prefixes, suffixes, and post-suffixes. Without going into the gory details, suffice it to say that there's a ton to remember. We only got about fifteen minutes of colloquial Tibetan in at the end, but plenty to remember there too: kale phep (go slowly), kale shuk (stay slowly), shu(k)ten jag (goodbye), sangni jelyong, jela jelyong, jema jelyong. Disregarding sounds and shapes, there are a lot of similarities to Hebrew in the way the Devanagari script is constructed, though it's much more complex. Silent letters, and the relation of sound to breath according to each letter...it's fascinating.

I left Tenzing's feeling very uplifted because we had done a lot of work. Instead of going home, I found myself at the stupa, where I was drawn into a thangka shop. I had intended to just browse, but got into a conversation with the guy who owns the place, who happens to also be a painter and teacher of painting. His uncle apparently is a very well-known painter; he was invited to Washington recently, and one of his paintings was sent to the Smithsonian by request. Quite impressive if it's true. Anyway, he was really excited when I displayed my (negligible) knowledge of the varying quality of the paintings, and wound up showing me about ten different kalachakra mandalas. He even gave me a little quiz to see if I could put them in order by quality (which I did correctly, woohoo). There's a gorgeous one of Manjushri that I really felt attracted to, but I'm going to wait it out. Anyway, the man--Pasang Lama Lopchan--took me up to the studio where the painters employed by the store work. I got to watch them painting and get an in-depth explanation of certain scenes, particularly the Wheel of Life and Death. It was a gorgeous environment; the room was covered in thankgas...Buddha Sakyamuni, green Tara, white Tara, kalachakra mandalas, Avalokiteshvara, Yama, all sorts.

By the time I looked at my watch it was past noon and I was late to meet Yanik, so I ran home. I barely had time to catch my breath before he arrived. We were both late to go meet Amchi Namgyal, so we didn't get a chance to eat lunch with Ama-la and the family. We went with Amchi to what I've dubbed his "headquarters"--school and home--and he gave us a tour, including the storerooms where all the raw materials are kept. As Yanik said, the smells were totally intoxicating. It was practically a healing experience just inhaling the air infused with all those herbs. We saw how they put coating on the ball pills, among other things, and the classrooms. It was a very pristine and dignified place. I look forward to visiting again at some point soon. Then we had lunch--more momos...Ama-la made them last night too...I'm going to turn into a momo if I keep eating like this.

My mom and I both thought I was going to lose more weight in Nepal...I can safely say that that was an uninformed assumption and that anyone living with a Tibetan mother will never lose weight unless they are severely ill.

Now I've been studying for two hours with Tais at the Hyatt hotel across from the house, because it's the only place around that has electricity. The hours of powerlessness (that sounds very poetic, eh?) are from 6-9 today, which is terribly inconvenient. Lucky for us the rich tourist folks' haven is right across the road and we can come squat in the lobby for a few hours!