A Bus to Dharamsala

"A Bus to Dharamsala" was the first essay and only personal essay I began drafting while I was in India.  Because it has been around the longest, I've had lots of much needed drafting and work shopping done with it.  Major changes include changing characters, being more explicit about what I learned about myself on this journey, transitioning from past to present more clearly, adding more sensory detail, and fixing minor (but important) errors like calling Copernicus Copernicus and not CoPORNicus. 

Here are some important steps I made getting this essay to a polished state:

• My blog post talking about my first bus ride to Dharamsala which is what this is based on
• A first draft
• A third draft
• Feedback from Professor Bennion
• A blog post about my relationship with Patrick
• My Ghana blog

(Photo credit Audleyblog.com)

Third Draft of A Bus to Dharamsala

A third draft of my personal essay, "A Bus to Dharamsala"

A Bus to Dharamsala:

Me

Life happens on the way to somewhere else.  For me this tends to be quite literal—public transportation.  This is one of those times: 

It was my first time in India. The pretext?  A leadership opportunity for a small international study program offered through my university.  It was a chance to do four months of undergraduate research in Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan Government in Exile and home of the Dalai Lama.  On this particular occasion the “deluxe” night bus that was supposed to take me the horrendous twelve hour journey from Delhi to Dharamsala broke down.

 It was two in the morning.

First Draft of A Bus to Dharamsala

Here is one of the first drafts of my essay, "A Bus to Dharamsala." 

A Bus to Dharamsala:

Me

Life happens on the way to somewhere else.  For me this tends to be quite literal—public transportation.  This is one of those times: 

It was my first time in India. The pretext?  A leadership opportunity for a small international study program offered through my university—a chance to do four months of undergraduate research in Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government in exile and home of the Dalai Lama.  On this particular occasion the “deluxe” night bus that was supposed to take me the horrendous twelve hour journey from Delhi to Dharamsala broke down.

 It was two in the morning.

Things were already not going so well—including (but not limited to) having a drunk man conk out on my shoulder the entire nine hour flight from Amsterdam to India despite attendants desperate efforts to relocate him, getting a hotel door slammed in my face (reservations are apparently irrelevant) at another dead hour of night, having group members inform me last minute of their flight cancelations, and having said group members show up at the airport anyways when their flights were not in fact cancelled with zero means of contacting me.  Now this?

Two in the morning.  A twenty something year old girl with minimal leadership experience, no phone, no skill with any of the hundreds of local languages, and no university permission to be taking a night bus to start with.  Perfect.