I'm sitting in the office, got here a little early, about to start my first full week. i lucked out in my rickshaw ride this time, usually they get lost and they always rip me off. its a good thing the exchange rate is good for the dollar, being ripped off only means a dollar or two extra.

i did a good amount of work last week, finishes a rough draft of a model, outline our business plan, and a few other small things. i meeting the director today, he has been out of town. supposedly he is a great teacher so im excited about that. im excited for the moment when this project becomes real instead of just an opportunity to learn, the moment when I realize that what I'm doing could directly raise 3 million dollars and indirectly put us in touch with a lot of venture capital. i think they are planning on giving me heavy exposure to the indian retial markets as well, not sure how they are going to do that yet.

i was wrong about all the leisure being in bangalore. it is incredible how unevenly developed it is and the reason i said that was the big malls and teech cities are the things that i focused on when driving in. when you slow down and look around there is massive underdevelopment right next to those very upscale malls. the roads are a mess because they are putting in a metro, luckily its been cool because the monsoon should be here any day.It's a very confusing city because of the underdevelopment, construction, and that the rickshaw drivers don't know where they are going so i cant use the rides with them to figure it out. I worked saturday and played basketball with some guys form the office sunday morning, it was actually pretty good ball i was surprised. sunday i did some shopping i needed to do and tried to get through more of atlas shrugged. it's a fantastic book, it kind of verbalizes stuff i (maybe everyone?) have always thought in the back of my mind, but never been able to put into a clear thought. its very deep and i think ayn rand creates extremes to get her point across, its also 1000 pages so its taking forever. it seems like it will be very worth it though. id like to finish it soon so i can read some of the other books I brought.

shoba was out of town this weekend but is back now, i assume ill be with her a lot this week. my computer skills have tripled since i got here, everyone here is so tech savy. i know have skype, lyme wire, am 'linked in', and did a rough excel model without too much trouble. there are a lot of connections to silicon valley here and everyone raves about san franciso, it's also a big financial center so i may look for jobs there, it sounds awesome.

it was kind of rough not doing much this weekend, i thnk i will ask the director if i can take the weekends off to travel. it should have been nice to just chill from all the madness of the first week and a half, but most of you know that chilling isnt one of my strengths. i want to learn about india and feel that one of the best ways to do that is to just travel around and see as much as possible. we'll see what he says and how the monsoons foil my plan. i may ask him later today and spend tonight developing a planner for the rest of the time im here. ill send it trhoguh the blog if i do.

hope everyone is good, 2 weeks down and 5 to go. sometimes i wonder why i sign up for these things but i know it pays off in the end, usually in ways i didnt expect.

much love,
matt