guys, things are awesome over here. im having a great time, its been such a great experience and its not even half done. everyday is just so great, im really enjoying myself. I miss everyone terribly though and part of the reason this is so awesome is because i know what i get to go home to.
so where did we leave off, i believe it was saturday night. sunday i woke up and did some yoga. had breakfast with marielle, we are actually getting to be good friends, from my side at least. i went over to shobas house for a big family lunch. it was great, my boss was there and all there kids. shobas husbandwho is head of in all of india was there, and i got to talk with him one on one for a while. he pretty much changed my whole career plan and gave me some really good advice. him and shyam have been incrediblly helpful with career stuff and i know that i am no where near the bottom of that well said he is going to take me to mumbai on a trip with him for a few days sometime soon to 'get exposure to some macro stuff'. hes a really nice guy, i hope that gets to happen. i already feel close to that family and it was great to be with them. i ate like crazy. the grandparents were there and they were your typical old school indian grandparents. they talked a lot about their village and had just moved to bangalore to be near their grandkids. after lunch and some tea the grandparents invited me to their apartment down the street for some tea, so just the three of us headed over there. the grandma showed me their family diety and her shrine, her and i said some prayers to their family god in the worship room. it was pretty cool, she was very spritual. we talke for a bit about arranged marriage after that, i hadnt realized astrology was such a big part of it. after all that i hung out on the patio, drank chai, read, and napped for a few hours. marrielle and i went to dinner at a new place across town, she is incredibly interesting and a very good person to know. ive really enoyed staying with her.
monday came around and i had one of my typical awesome days. woke up and did yoga before breakfast. went to work and almost finished the model, he told me to send him what i have and to move on to the business plan. i thought i finished the model, the last thing i had to do was set up a macro for some sensativity analysis stuff. i had no idea what a macro was and it took me about 4 hours to get this thing done. i finally finished it and tried to key the macro code or w/e and it said the macro was to big. i was looking in to fixing it, but he came in shortly after and said to start the b plan. ill go back and finish it later, i was having fun doing that. my excel skills have multiplied infinitely, im kind of in one of those baptism by fire situations.

after work i went to a coffee shop and read fora bit before having dinner with two expats. one the walk over there a guy around my age was walking really close behind me. i was weirded out but you kind of get used to this after a bit. finally he stops me and he says "sir can i talk to you, i have a big problem". i told him of course, whats up and he proceeded to practically beg me to take him back to the US with me. he said he would work for free and for anyone, he just wanted to go to america. i wished i could have helped him but obviously i have very little to offer. he just emailed me and ill keep him in mind if theres ever anything he can do here or in the US. i met the expats at a pub called guzzlers. bangalore is the pub capital of asia and guzzlers was a decent scene. one girl was named karin, she works for london school of econ and is doing some charity work over here, the other name is lara and she is a lawyer doing some development work with some nuns outside of bangalore. after the pub we went to a ridiculosuly awesome lucknow restuarant, we got to wear indian costumes and it was magic. we had a great time, we are goingot get together again next week with some other americans. i got home round 11 and crashed, another great day.

this morning i woke up and switched it up a little with some buns and thighs pilates. had breakfats and headed to work, it was my first full business plan day. i didnt really realize how cool what i doing is until karin broguth it to my attention. usuallty companies hire whole investment banks to raise funds and im getting to do it as an undergrad. i really am pretty terrible at it but shyam kind of walks me through everything and is honestly the most patient human i have ever met. by the end of this im goin to have put together some pretty good work, hes kind of holding my hand because i have no idea what im doing right now, but ive already learned a ton and have only been here two weeks. i went to lunch with shyam and priya today, i asked priya to show me where i could get Jenny some good stuff. she took me around for about an hour, i know all the hot spots now.

my dinner tonight was at a tapas bar called zaras. i met with a guy named eric savage who used to be an i banker on wall street, then in bejing, and is now heading up an investment bank who microfinance banks here in bangalore. i think that stuff is awesome so we kind of hit it off. he went to duke and actually has spent some time with my old friend dave mcclure, so that was a random topic of discussion. big sports guy, we had a lot in common. i hope to see him again soon and he may play some hoops with us next sunday. he had some pretty awesome insights into microfinance, stuff that was aweosme to hear. im in for the night before 10 for the first time in a while. its been mega humid here so im gunna do some yoga and get all this sweat out. i leave for chennai on thursday morning, that should be a pretty awesome trip. im going to fishermans cove for saturrday night, check it out on google, its pretty awesome. im excited about all that.

thats pretty much a summary. ill write after chennai. hope everyone is good, i love you all.

love,
matt