Indians love outings (and MJ)!

Yesterday's company "outing" to the Club Cabana resort was super super fun! We all had a great time playing games, swimming, eating lots of yummy food, and enjoying a day away from the office. I especially had a blast, because being new and part of upper management meant that I got picked first for a team during the games portion of the day, got chosen to be the girl in a ridiculously hilarious "kissing contest", and got asked (or should I say forced) to give an impromptu speech during the "heart to heart" session with our CEO. Other highlights of our team building exercises included watching our COO and the head of our tech department (both men) perform a Bollywood-style dance while wearing Sarees and makeup, and watching our CEO and one of the doc reviewers have their hair done as part of a crazy hairstyle contest! My team actually won the day's competitions, which was awesome, albeit somewhat disappointing, since we were all told that the winning team would win a trip to Malaysia, and that turned out to be a total lie!!! Only in India would shit like that fly!

After the games and lunch, we were turned loose on the resort, and I summoned up all of my courage and got changed into my bathing suit. Luckily, I was not the only girl who decided to go into the pool, but I was, as I feared, the only girl in a normal bathing suit. Everyone else had on t-shirts and long shorts, and a couple girls had on somewhat western-style bathing suits, but wore them with the aformentioned lycra cycling pants and shawls! Despite the fact that I stuck out like nobody's business, I got over my self-consciousness quickly, and hit the water slides, the wave pool, and the lazy river, impressing nearly everyone with my ability to swim! Apparently this is not a skill that most Indians possess.

All in all, the outing was a complete success, and it made me feel even luckier to be here in India working with all of these amazing people, many of whom came over to discuss their love of Michael Jackson with me during the course of the day. I was not only treated to several performances of MJ hit songs, but a few even demonstrated some impressive moonwalking skills! It was weird being out of the country when the most famous American in the world died, but interesting to see how far his influence had spread. Jagadesh only knows the names of THREE famous Americans, and Michael Jackson was one of them (Obama and Bush are the other two). People here in India seem to still love MJ the way Americans did before he went crazy and cut his face off and became a pedo. It's as though none of the negative publicity that tarnished his reputation in the States ever existed over here. So I couldn't tell any gross MJ jokes, but I had lots of people to talk to about his death, which was nice. Although I still think he faked his death so he could go out like Elvis and make money on royalties....seriously, would you be able to tell the difference between his actual corpse and a wax dummy? Hoax or not, I'm not gonna lie, I did get all teary-eyed when I heard the news. It made me miss the U.S. so much!!!

P.S. - I forgot my camera, and had to take pictures with my Blackberry, which then died, so I apologize for both the quality and quantity of these pics. I will probably update this post after I get access to the pictures that are being uploaded to the shared drive at work.

My team, The Bizarros, getting their legs tied together for a race!




Jagadesh!!! <3




Me with the coolest chick in India, my girl Stuti!




My beautiful friend Mamta



This little guy was inside the locker that I rented for my swim gear! Indian girls are TERRIFIED of frogs, I quickly found out!