Great and Terrible day

Yesterday might have been the worst day here so far. I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first - I dropped my camera. It still works but I can't get it to turn off unless I take the battery out, and the flash won't work. I'm sort of devestated, and really mad at myself for doing it. I am trying to bounce back to make it through the last week here, but so far that has proved challenging. It doesn't help that I am completely exhausted and really fed up with the teaching crew here.
The good news is I saw some neat some stuff yesterday, and the better news is that I saw most of it before the camera dropping incident (which I can't really cover in any more detail because I don't want to cry in the internet cafe. As it is I have to stop every couple of minutes and look at the pictures of Sawyer again to make me smile). The bad news is it colored the rest of the day for me, and I don't know if I'll be able to think back on everything happily. Maybe after the camera is fixed. But I'll try to tell you about it anway.
This Friday was the trip to Kanyakumari that got cancelled last time. We got up at the usual time, 5:30, and left by six in two little vans. I was in a van with two american women who are in the TTC course with me, Adrienne who is from Missouri, I think, and is in my teaching group, and Ashley who lives in Kenya doing development but is moving back to the US after this trip and ultimately would like to design furniture, Anna who is from Brisbane Australia, Linda from Germany, Ann-Sophie (I don't know where she is from but I think she is French-Canadian), and several Japanese girls.
We drove for about an hour and then visited a temple that has a natural waterfall out front - you bathe in the waterfall before going into the temple. It was still early in the day and chilly, but the water was actually really warm. Then we went back in the van to another temple, this one in the process of being restored. Then back on the bus and to a restaurant for breakfast - real doscha masala (not the either over-or undercooked pancake things we get in the ashram) and curry and chutney with actual flavour, and milky chai tea to finish it off. Delicious. Then back on the bus and on to KanyaKumari which is at the southern most tip of india. First we went to a beach and swam for about an hour in the Arrabian Sea - beautiful! It was hot and the water was perfect. I floated and chatted with a German girl named Laiya who did her TTC in the Bahamas under militant Israeli teachers and thinks our program is more relaxed, and Linda, from Utrecht, NL, who quit her job and is just traveling until her money runs out. Then we got back on the bus to go to the two temples on an island off the coast - one built on a rock where a swami acheived enlightenemnt which is reminiscent of the dome of the rock. This will all be more meaningful when I can share the photos with you. And then finally to the point where the three oceans meat, where we dipped our feet in the water and watched the sun set.
The day went downhill from there, and in fact because it takes so long to go anywhere in India we didn't get back to the ashram until after 11 pm. And up again this morning at 5:30. So I am struggling today. We did however get to watch Bollywood music videos in the van on the way back which was quite a treat - not having seen a TV in 3 weeks. And they were wildly entertaining.
I'll try to bounce back today and be more cheery tomorrow. Only 6 days left, after all. One frustration we are having at the moment is no one wants to tell us anything about the exam - every time we ask a question about what we need to know or study, they say, oh, Swamiji will tell you on Thursday. Okay, but the exams on Saturday and some of us would like more than 24 hours to prepare! It's really getting obnoxious the way they dodge the questions. Jo, any advice?
Okay, all for now. Hopefully more cheerful tomorrow or the day after...