Smiles words thoughts pictures emotions

Do not talk but act now

2010-06-27T06:23:00.001-04:00

A few days ago Debdip and I were as usual visiting the King Farm Dog Park with our puppy Diya. After you enter the dog park using the code, you have a small enclosed place where owners open the dog leashes and then they enter the main dog playground. We saw an adult dog alone in this enclosed place. He was given a bowl of water. We were surprised to see the dog here and wondered what was going on and why the dog wasn't being allowed inside the dog park and especially since he was so wanted to play with the other dogs. There was a lot of commotion inside with the owners and we soon figured that he was a runaway dog who probably came from a nearby house. No one wanted to take a risk and let him play with their dogs. One kind person even tried to take the dog to that house but quite could not drag him there. He left after that. Another person asked the neighborhood house if that dog was theirs and they said no. All this while the lone dog is eagerly waiting to be taken inside the dog park. I could see lots of heated discussions amongst the dog owners. Debdip and I then noticed that the dog, who was very gentle with the other owners and dogs, had no collar or tag so that we could contact his owner. I was a little worried. I could see people discussing but no one thought of what would happen to the dog after they all left. It was also going to rain. I asked Debdip to go check the lost and found dog number on the Dog Park instructions sheet hung outside the park and call them and inform them about this lost dog. Debdip quietly went and called them and they said they would be coming in 10/15 minutes to take the dog. That is all we had to do. The rescue police came and took the dog away. And I could still see these dog owners now fighting amongst themselves over the topic of this dog. But no one had the sense or courage to call up the lost and found and ensure the safety of this dog. Why talk and talk and talk when you cannot do anything about the situation?? No one is going to charge you. This dog is lost and the dog police will put this dog's picture in the lost and found section and care for the dog till the owner finds him. Why did these people not think about what will happen when everyone goes home and this dog is left all alone in the dark and in the rain?? Where will he sleep?? Who will feed him?? Almost everyone has adopted a dog here or is looking after a pet. Did their sense of responsibility not strike them?? Instead of stupid arguments anyone could have called up and helped the dog but people chose to talk and talk. Did you not think that the dog too is a sibling of their own dog and he too was lost and needed help?? I was just happy that the rescue people rescued the dog. I wonder where he is now.

An inspiring chef-Marcus Samuelsson

2010-06-10T17:01:00.003-04:00

I love watching Top Chef Masters(a food competition on Bravo TV) as it gives me a chance to observe the masters of cooking. I am not fond of cooking and am never innovative in my cooking. But I always admire those who can really create a scrumptious meal out of a few ingredients and make it look so pleasing and tasty. One of the chefs who really inspired me was Marcus. He was born in Ethiopia and was adopted at the age of 3 when he lost his mother to tuberculosis. He was then raised in Sweden. He is just 30 years old and already has won a few prestigious awards, written a few cook books, has his own restaurant in New York City and just won $100,000 for his charity in Top Chef Masters (His charity helps people in Africa get clean drinking water. ). I was fascinated by his dedication and his strength being drawn by his family and multicultural heritage. This became more clear when he was asked to cook 3 dishes representing his journey as a chef. His first dish- "Lightly Smoked Char with Sweet Horseradish Shellfish Broth and Mashed Root Vegetables" showcased his upbringing in Sweden where seafood and root vegetables was a staple meal for him as a child. His second dish- "Salt Cured Duck with Foie Gras Ganache, Sour Tomato Jam, and Aged Balsamic" told the story of when his adopted grandmother was not well and he cooked duck for his family. His final dish "Berberre Flavored Hamachi Meat Balls with Sea Urchin Froth and Wild Mushroom Couscous" embraced and brought him to his original heritage-African cuisine. This dish in its flavors, textures and presentation all encompassed a very authentic African dish. It did perplex the American judges who felt the proteins should not have been cooked in that way but later they realized that Marcus was showing a very genuine way of eating an African dish. I felt that Marcus was grateful to the Swedish family who had adopted him and given him the opportunity to become a chef and at the same time he did not forget his birth country. He aimed to bring a balance between the two different cultures. He was proud of both the cultures. He did not get swept off by Swedish culture or even American culture(where he is now based and is a chef and gets recognition) and nor was he in anyway totally sticking to his African heritage. He respects all cultures. He is one who will never be lost amidst all the cultural changes. He will always be truly multicultural in his deeds and words.

Vegetables turned to dessert

2010-06-08T19:59:00.003-04:00

I had bought this huge packet of carrots. I was tired of chewing carrots. I did not want make into a curry. What do I do I kept saying to myself? I cannot let things rot in the fridge. Something had to be done and today itself. How about making carrot halwa ( a sweet Indian dessert where carrots are cooked with cashews and milk and sugar)? I do not have to grate the carrots painstakingly one by one as my food processor grates carrots in minutes. I just grated the carrots and put them in the pan with milk and sugar on slow flame. I went about doing my work. After an hour my carrots were moist and cooked and had soaked up all the milk. I added cashews and cooked them for about 15 minutes and also added some badam milk mix to give it an aroma of almonds and pistachios. And now I am enjoying a bowl of carrot halwa and not feeling guilty as all it consists of are healthy ingredients like milk and carrots. Simple and yet nutritious.

Bengali chorchori/tarkari

2010-06-08T18:49:00.004-04:00

Bengali cooking is not about adding too many spices. It consists on adding only one spice and salt and green chillies. This makes it more arduous as you just have that one spice which has to bring out the flavors from the meat or vegetables. It cannot be bland. It cannot be too bitter which happens if you put in too much of the spice. It is an art which requires practice.
This led to try out the bengali chorchori which I so love when my moms would make it. Vegetables cooked with that one spice and yet being so juicy, chewy, spicy and succulent. I was nervous as this time there was no hubby to fix it. I just had the panch phoron and the green chilli to bring out the natural flavors of the vegetables combined with the unique taste of the panch phoron. Panch phoron composes of nigella seeds, black mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds, fennel seeds and cumin seeds. This spice has a truly Bengali spice taste which non-bengalis cannot devour. It is difficult for me to explain how the spiciness, excitement, richness, and has a powerful aroma and flavor of this spice leads to the most delicious dish being made.
I was hesitant but I slowly added the spices and cooked the vegetables on slow flame. After 45 minutes, I tasted and saw that my vegetables were perfectly cooked and the spices had gone inside each vegetable morsel. It was just like eating Ma's chorchori. I am so so happy. But I can assure you that everytime I will cook chorchori I will be very cautious and careful as a bit too much of the spices can lead to a messy inedible mess.

Our first carousel cake

2010-06-08T09:38:00.003-04:00

I always love making cakes for my dear friends. I was looking at the Wilton Cake designs when I came across the carousel cake. My friend is expecting and she is very sweet and dear to me. I thought that this cake would be colorful and fun for her. I did not want to put too much fondant decorations as then the cake would be too sweet. I know you get carousel kits but I thought of making it without the kit. My hubby and I formulated and calculated each cake size. We realized that the cake does not look as easy to make as the picture shows. The cakes would have to be of the right size to be able to stack one on top of the other and they should also balance. All glass bowls were taken out and measured before the cake baking started. We needed to balance the cake and create a gap in the middle so that the animals would be hung. For this we bought 4 plastic pillars. Covering 4 cakes with fondant was daunting but this cake was a challenge for us and so we motivation and energy seemed to exhume in us. Colors were also discussed as we did not want to repeat colors and the decorations and base color would have to coordinate to create something beautiful and yet stand out. The animals were tricky. We tried using chocolate but the chocolate hardened inside the cookie moulds and that idea after a few hours of trying was dumped. Then we used the thick fondant to cut out animals. But still something was missing to make the cake look real. Again we researched on the internet and found animal decorations. Decorating these tiny animals, creating their tails etc was daunting and I wished I had thinner fingers. My fingers looked fat. The top tier of the cake had to be decorated to look like a cap. Frills had to be placed on the layer below that. Still the closer we looked we did not seem happy. I do not know what happened to us. All those days and endless hours of carousel cake searching on the internet seemed to disappoint us in the final product. Then we realized that if we look at the cake from a distance, the cake resembled a carousel. I think the final realization for us when our friends all complimented on our cake and could not believe that we had made this cake. Everyone thought it was store bought and looked like a designer cake. We were ecstatic and thrilled. Our hard work had paid off. Thank you friends.

I can never as brave as the grandmom or the young girl who lost...

2010-06-08T09:30:00.004-04:00

I feel sad for the lost and helpless ones. The recent Air India crash left a grand-mom without her daughter and grandchild. The Maoist train attack in West Midnapore caused a young girl(she was coming back from attending her cousin's wedding) to get her right hand amputate. Mine and my to-be born child's prayers are with the young girl and the grandmother. I don't know what to say. I am just lost. I feel we are so helpless in the hands of fate. Danger lurks everywhere and can make our worst nightmares come true. We did no harm in boarding a train or a plane to see a loved one. Then why did this happen?? We were not showing off. We had no evil wishes against anyone. I look at the grandmother crying and think that in one wink her whole old age life turned topsy turvy. She just has those pictures and thoughts of those she lost. She can never have a mother-daughter secret talk or whisk up a delicious meal for her daughter. She can never play with her grandchild or console her when she is crying. The daughter she so lovingly brought up has just disappeared in seconds from her life to the unknown world. The grandchild's clothes and toys which she so lovingly had bought are of no use now. Tears and prayers can never bring them back. I look at the young girl and feel a anger at her pain. I feel remorse cause she cannot stop the doctors from moving her hand on which she wore bangles, cooked, wrote, combed her hair and did everything to enjoy her life fully. She is an architecture student who loved using her hands to sketch and never used the computer to draw. She is just 22 years old. When her hand was stuck under the wheels of the train, she selflessly asked her mother and brother to go to the hospital and not wait for her. Now all she will get is pity from people but can she ever be totally independent?? It is sad.

Handbag Cake

2010-05-27T08:28:00.004-04:00

I love to watch Food Network Cake Challenges. I feel that decorating a cake and making it look like something real is the most difficult work. Cake decorating requires hours of patience and very nimble fingers. Two of my hubby's work mates(ladies) were having their birthday and I thought of making a cake as a special way of wishing them. I know ladies love handbags just like I love them. I also knew that they are very difficult to make and especially difficult to make them like they are real handbags. The chains on the bag are something professional cake artists can create. But Betty Crocker's website showed me an easy way of making a handbag. It was a matter of getting your cake size and proportion right to form the standing cake structure. A flat bag would look dull and not have the same wow effect like a standing bag. I spent hours with my hubby just looking at the video repeatedly. The cakes were made and then cut out into two semi circular shapes with one end being flattened to be able to stand. Then they were joined together standing. Bag was done!!! It was a big relief. I could imagine the real bag by looking at this raw structure. This is always the tricky part. Once the cake was standing, it was my artistic and fun time. I could now use my fondant, which I so love as it can be molded into various shapes and structures and colors, to cover the cake. But as luck would have it, I was out of fondant and had already crossed my monthly artistic venture expenses. I then used icing to cover the cake. This looks easier said than done as everytime you covered the cake you would have to wait for a few hours and then again go back and smoothen it out. I did not want a kiddish cake so used two colors of fondant to decorate the cake. The handle of the cake of again something to think of as you had to use something edible to create a flexible and dangling structure. The fondant(my best friend) twisted and plaited to form a chain. Then the simple bag opening was created with its button to open the bag as without that it would look like a box standing with a chain. Every tiny detail is important and you have to keep thinking of what comes to people's mind when they imagine a handbag. The end result was a simple handbag and you did not have to tell people what it was. The ladies could obvious figure out it was a handbag. Everything does not have to be complicated. There are people like me who love to create an facile version of something difficult.

2010-05-26T09:33:00.001-04:00

I have enjoyed a blissful moment yesterday by eating aloo chop and pyaaji with muri. I had been seeing pictures on Orkut of people making aloo chop. I am not too comfortable with besan. My besan and water mix is too thick or too watery. I also feel that the aloo I make does not have the right spices and seems more like aloo boiled than a aloo spiced up. I was very nervous when I attempted to make the aloo chop. I probably spent a day in just looking at the recipe. I did not want an aloo fried in thick besan. I wanted the real aloo chop taste. I did not want a mixture of non bengali chaat masala in my aloo. I think God was looking at me cause my aloo chop turned out just the way they serve in Kolkata street stalls or illegal shops. They were spicy and it did not taste at all like boiled potatoes. The besan consistency was just right to give me crispy aloo chop. I felt heavenly after taking the first bite of the aloo chop. I cannot describe in words the ecstasy I felt when the aloo chop slowly broke into yummy spicy crunchy bits in my mouth. I felt I was transported back to Netaji Nagar and the broken down stall near the 41B bus stand where the disheveled and nice man was frying aloo chops in his candle lit stall. There was such a big demand for his ambrosial aloo chops that I would have to wait patiently for over thirty minutes to get the hot crackling aloo chop in his gorom paper thonga(bags) which would later sweat from the heat of the aloo chops. I would literally be drooling all the while looking at him fry the aloo chop in his old heavy, stark, black kora(wok) which had formed its own coating of years and hours and memories of aloo chop frying. There was this smell of besan and green chillies that seemed so captivating to the nose. I remember his big candle melting away and forming a thick layer of wick outside. I do not think I minded the heat or fumes. All I wanted was the hot crispy aloo chop with the muri in the thonga in my hand. I would rush home to eat them. It was a special mirth that satiated my soul. I think I experienced the same joy yesterday when I made the aloo chop at home. I was too happy to be back in Netaji Nagar. aahhh..how happy and content I feel now.

Orange Slippers

2010-04-05T12:32:00.002-04:00

I just realized that I have an obsession for orange slippers. I bought the first one a few years ago and always wore it in summer regardless of whether it matched my outfit or looked weird with it. Now when that shoe is begging to be discarded and put to rest, I buy another orange slipper and here is summer and I am wearing it always. Why do I always buy the brightest orange slipper?? I know my mother loves the color orange and always is buying me orange clothes. But then when did I start buying orange slippers and not anything else that is orange?? It is a mystery yet to be solved. But for now my shocking realization that I love orange slippers is haunting me. I wonder what my friends think of my orange slippers. They are bright and yes you can see them from a long distance-shining as brightly as the sun. Oh God!!

Novice Cakes

2009-12-14T17:16:00.003-05:00

I feel that when one has an option of making a gift in the same price as that of buying one, then one should try the former. I was attending a friend's baby shower and I did not know what gifts she already had. I knew she did not like anything girly/pink and was a big fan of University of Michigan. The internet is always very helpful as it leads me into discovering what other people have done when in the same situation as me. I found some pictures of edible and inedible cakes. I have made a pram before and was not too happy with the way my baby face turned out. So I thought of making an onesie cake. I was extremely nervous and made sure I had back up cakes incase my one failed. I knew I had to make my look realistic. I found a picture of an onesie and drew it up on a paper. I am a novice at cake carving but nevertheless successfully carved out the cake. It gave me a shock to see how cute and realistic my cake looked. I then used fondant to cover the cake. I had a picture of a wolverine onesie and used that idea to cover my cake. I had imperfections but still it was too cute. I then decided to make a practical gift and having always wanting to make a diaper cake, I decided to try one. It was so easy and barely took an hour. It is practical and dear. Everything in the cake can be used like diapers, lotions etc. I even added some maze and blue in color. It was a first time but I am proud of my two cakes and so were the would be parents. It was just so much better than buying a gift from a store.

Old Navy Sales

2009-06-07T07:48:00.003-04:00

I love cotton clothes. I like buying t shirts from Old Navy for my husband for regular use as it is cotton and affordable(this is key for someone who shops a lot). I always look at their new arrivals and I know that after a month, the price will go down by more than 50%. I just wait for the sales and then buy the t-shirts. I am not a crazy fashion fanatic who has to buy clothes the minute they arrive in the store. I laugh and wait for the prices to go down. Again its me, another shopper, waiting for sales.

Kohls and Sales

2009-06-07T07:37:00.002-04:00

Kohls is one of my favorite stores as it sells cotton, beautiful and affordable clothes for someone like me who loves shopping. I am always intrigued by their sales. I feel that people would buy only during their night owls and early bird specials as they give heavy discounts then. I had just finished shopping yesterday when again I get a email saying they have a buy one get one free. I was just curious to see how much the prices would go down so I browsed the website. I always knew there was a catch somewhere to lure buyers. I saw that the t shirt which they were selling at $13 yesterday is now back at $30 but if you buy one you get the other one free. This makes the selling price now $15. I wonder why they just dont sell the t shirts at $15 everyday instead of making up these new sales inventions. They just make people feel stupid as usual and lure them to the sales. It is just a stupid drama to show how much they lower their prices. I guess every store does this. It is true shoppers go only for sales!!!

Dadu and Thakuma- I miss you

2009-04-23T07:40:00.003-04:00

I miss my Dadu and Thakuma. I feel empty without them. They were my back up people when I fought with my parents. They always protected me. I did not like spending days with them as they lived in a very quiet place but they were there when I needed me. They are my true friends. I remember going to Dadu's terrace to burst crackers. I only played with the phuljhori but even that Dadu was careful. My sister and brother were the ones who burst dodomas and kali patkas and rockets and scared Thakuma. I remember Dadu waking up at 4 am and then I would wake up at 6 am and go to get the milk with him. He would pick up flowers so that we could decorate the God's shinghashan. My grandparents were the first ones to wish me on my birthday. My Dadu loved the innumerous bangles I wore and he disliked me wearing western clothes unlike my Thakuma. My Thakuma loved literature and looking beautiful. I remember the dressing table she had and her body creams. Dadu on the other hand loved sitting at the table from where he could look down at people going or waving me bye or just answering the phones. Their memories are so fresh in my mind. I just dont feel like letting them go. They give me strength. My grandparents never distrusted me or questioned me. I was myself with them. I did not even have a chance to tell Thakuma about my husband(then boyfriend). I wonder what she would have said. Dadu was their for my wedding but I do not think he understood the sindoor on my head. He kept looking at it and smiling. I was my grandparents little pet. I know now they are looking from heaven and smiling at me. I am happy that they have each other again now. But what about me? I miss them. It is my grief that no one will understand. I feel something missing in me without them.

How colors come back

2009-04-11T08:16:00.003-04:00

I love colors. I feel the need to have an assortment of colors in everything I own. I feel the colors I wear on a particular day reflect my mood-sad or happy- on that day. Every color has a story to say and this story varies for person to person. I think red is the color of happiness and marriage for me while for some it is blood and horror. I feel red is also a very Bengali and Indian color. One finds red in almost every Indian design. My rental house has a lot of red colors as it is shows my fascination for indian designs. But then I decided to diverge from red to bring some variety in my life. I made my den a black and white room. This reflects my love for technology and contemporary life. But it is not just plain black as I feel that is cold. So I have traditional designs in black and white to exude the same warmth. My bedroom was very nature inspired and I brought in nature's pictures in green and blue. This is not a bright green as that is hideous to me. It the soft green of the leaves. I cannot sleep outside so thought of bringing the nature indoors. That led to me to making my rental bathroom a blueish gray in the accessories. I find this color to be soothing and yet has a freshness and newness in its color. I made my patio white to give it a romantic and airy feeling. I did not want it to impose on the lovely colors of nature. I thought I would bring a new color by getting blue plates and moving away from my Indian red plates. But alas! I picked out the same bluish grey color I have in my bathroom. It just showed that no matter how many colors you bring into your life, they will still come in the same contrastness as you like. I feel I am attached to certain hues of every color as they come with their own story and emotion so deeply attached to my mind.

Crowds

2009-04-06T19:05:00.002-04:00

The Cherry Blossoms in DC was interesting for me. I chose the busiest day, best day, perfect weather and cherry trees at their bloom to visit DC. The Metro was crowded and packed. One had to push herself to get inside the Metro. It was crazy. And everyone seemed to be at the tidal basin at the same time. I was with a jolly and fun group of friends. I do not know why I did not seem to mind the crowd. I actually enjoyed watching see so many people coming together to see the same attraction. It felt good to be amongst the crowd. I loved looking around at the diverse crowds. There were people from every corner of the world. Everyone was enjoying themselves. I did not feel lonely. It felt like I was in India during the Pujas where everyone is in a gay mood. For the first time, the crowds were not pushing/shoving and people were just have a good time in looking at something spectacular which nature offered to us. The Cherry trees were the star of the show as they just looking like heavenly trees with their light and puffy pink and white flowers. One could hardly see a brown branch. I just loved the whole cherry blossom event.

Our New Car

2009-02-17T19:35:00.002-05:00

I do not drive but my husband loves to drive. It is relaxing for him. I love to go for long drives. We have never had a new car. We have only used Honda cars as they are reliable, affordable and comfortable. Our previous cars were small cars but we still managed to fit the most impossible things in it. But then we realized that we need a bigger car for my in-laws who will visit us and also for moving purposes. We do not like huge cars as they consume too much gas. My husband was debating and researching on German cars like Volkswagen cars. He was tired of Japanese cars. I am still learning the make of cars. When I first came into to USA, I could not even understand the difference between a sports car Mercedes and a second hand ordinary car. But now I can differentiate between real good cars and the ordinary ones. Anyways, I was thinking about costs. I thought that why not buy a new car. It would be our first new car. We could not afford much. We explored many cars. We did not like the German car we saw. We had to stay within our budget as we had a pre approved loan. I was for some reason drawn towards Honda again. We have had a 1998 civic and a 2004 accord before. I liked the Honda service and especially their sales people. I persuaded my husband to drive the Crv. It just seemed right. It had a lot of space inside and it was super comfortable. But I knew my husband was disappointed to not buy a german car. I do not know why but I wanted him to finally own a new car. It would be his car. I just felt he should have the best. I was emotional and he finally fell it. It was tensed as there were so many procedures and we had not eaten anything whole day. But once my husband was with me, I knew we would get the car. I was still a bit scared. After hours, we finally got the new car. It was a black car. It looked big, imposing and curvy and yet not just a huge car. It had a certain class to it. I think I kept smiling and looking and digesting the fact that we finally owned a new car. I would keep looking at the car from my house window. The next day when the bank lady finally said congratulations did it actually give me a pride in owning this absolutely beautiful, magnificent and grand car. My landlord repeated the word beautiful three times. It was truly a trophy. I still am smiling at my car. I had always hoped for a new black car and this one perfectly fits my wish. I am too elated. I do not want to show it off as this is our first new car. It is a joy that my husband and I feel and cherish. It is not a joy of showing off and I am scared of people not understanding our happiness and pride. I just love my car. It is huge but yet not too imposing. I can clearly see outside as the car is high. It is fun sitting in the car. It feels kind of exciting. I am too elated. I love my new car. It just was the right car and I knew it from the time I saw it. That is why I had pulled my husband to consider the car. He knows that both of us just cant stop smiling. We love our decision to buy the new black Honda crv. aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Dont like anything to shop

2009-02-15T19:01:00.001-05:00

I have to find the right valentines day gift. But I cannot find anything. It has never happened before to me. I just do not like anything. I thought of buying a few clothes but I do not like any tops. Is there something wrong to this shopaholic or are the stores not just producing good clothes? My misery continues as I continue to search for beautiful and attractive tops.

Music I love

2009-02-15T18:52:00.002-05:00

I work with little three year olds. It sometimes gets stressful. Kids are very sensitive and they will understand if something bothers you. One needs to keep a calm and happy tone at all times. I had known that music revives my soul. But now it is becoming increasingly true. As soon as I get back from work, even before the coffee starts working into my body, I get hooked onto my music. My music varies from sad to vibrant depending on my ever changing mood. But as the music slowly penetrates into my mind, I feel so buoyant and relaxed. All my nerves are soothed and I am rejuvenated. I may just listen to the one song but it has to be the right one for the right emotion and right mood. The words and tune have to be have a perfect correlation to my present state of mind. As I indulge more and more into that single song, I feel a purpose and a pride in my life. I feel like my day has been worthy. I am relaxed. I do not know how but music always helps me to feel energetic and calm. I can never stay without music.

February 2nd, 2009....

2009-02-02T20:34:00.002-05:00

I am always amazed at what my 3 year old preschoolers will learn and pick up from what we teach. Today we celebrated Groundhogs Day. I have never heard of this day before and I remember watching people in Pa eagerly waiting in the cold for the ground hog to come. For my preschoolers it was a day to read about an animal. They were more interested in the ground hog's name being Gregory ( it was also one of my student's name) and his friend Shadow. I do not think we were successful in showing them what shadows were. But after repeating the Ground hog day story a few times, I realized my preschoolers were still only interested in the names and the fact that Shadow and Gregory were friends, who got tired and went to sleep in the barn. But it was worth just introducing a familiarity with a day being celebrated. I feel the more kids are exposed the more they learn to make associations.

2008-12-29T19:05:00.000-05:00

a room for a little girl

2008-07-23T13:34:00.003-04:00

I came across this painting which has a few flowers standing against a dark pink and yellow background. My eyes immediately riveted to the painting. I felt like this painting would be the starting point for a gorgeous and elegant little girl who loved pink, crystals and flowers. I could imagine a room with the wall colors green and cream. This painting would hang over her bed, and the bed's linens would be pink, green and orange and filled with tiny flower prints. I could picture a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. I could see tiny hand painted vases across the room filled with fresh fragrant flowers like jasmine and roses. I could see a bench by the window where the little girl would sit and read or play with her dolls or just sit with her grandparents. I could see the furniture being of dark cherry wood. The bed would a poster bed so that the girl can feel secure and cozy in her bed and have sweet dreams. Her loved ones could sing her a lullaby as she gradually would drift into her dreams to meet her fairy godmother and the land of elves, fairies and trees that had candies hanging on them. I could soft lights across the room. I could see a play place which had the most beautiful dolls from across the world and the cutest pink doll house. I can see a dressing table for her size where she will tie her up using the colorful and light satin strings and adorn them with tiny butterfly shaped clips. I can see her wearing her necklaces and bangles and sliding on the tiny shoes. I could see teddy bears lying at one corner of the bed. I could see two bookshelves with sides shaped like elephants, where the little girl's books like Noddy, Alice in Wonderland and all those Enid Blyton series would adorn the shelves. I could colorful beaded curtains covering her closet. I could see her tiny desk and chair, which are adorned with the same standing pink and white and orange flowers. I could see a record playing humming her favorite songs to which she would dance on this round pink rug which was again filled with green leaves. This painting's colors are not the typical light pink color one sees in girly things. The dark pink combined with the heavy cream brings a luxury to the room and certain sophistication. After all, the little girl is just not a girl but a star in her family. She brings warmth, joy, laughter, and love to everyone she comes across.

Early Mornings..I muse

2008-07-23T13:15:00.003-04:00

I am an early morning person. I love to wake up when everyone is sleeping and the sun is just starting to rise. I love the cool fresh air. I love the quietness all around. I can hear the birds chirping and singing ever so sweetly. I tiptoe around and quietly read my mother-in-law's email and wonder what to reply back. I feel a sudden burst of energy. My mood is bouyant.

It is this same vibrant energy and calm yet joyous mood that was evoked when I saw the painting (picture above). The white petals of the flowers with the orange dots reminded me of the array of flowers in my landlord's garden which I see every morning. The tinges of blue, green and yellow in this painting arouse a feeling of a new and calm day that will bring many happy experiences. It is as if I can see myself standing on the porch, in a house which has white picket fences and a white railing and I look outside to welcome the rising sun with a glee in my eyes. I feel so refreshed and enlightened as I greet a new day with a smile. It is all so calm and peaceful.

Is a girl a burden to society or is she the future of the country

2008-07-22T17:04:00.001-04:00

It is a shame that even in the 21st century, after sati having been abolished by Raja Rammohan Roy ages ago; we are still denying the young girl the right to pursue her dreams. She still plays second fiddle to the male. Young girls often don’t even know that ruthlessly being tormented with a hot rod by their masters or getting married to an old man is debasing and illicit. The girl child is still considered a burden to her parents who are often times more preoccupied in their thoughts about her marriage dowry rather than providing a solid education for her. Parents would rather pay 50 rupees for abortion than pay 50,000 rupees later as dowry. Out of 12 million girls being born, only 1/3 survives in India. The girl is a beautiful child who deserves the right to study, play and be properly fed. We forget the women leaders of our country like Indira Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu, Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi and our present president Pratibha Devisingh Patil who made a difference in India. We forget that when girls grow up, they too will make a significant contribution to society. I would like to discuss the pitfalls a girl faces today also and how we overlook how much she can contribute to our society.

Young girls are repeatedly being sexually abused by men. These men get away by paying exorbitant money and the girl is hidden away somewhere where no one knows. In schools, young girls are forced to study the arts rather than sciences. There is literally no scope for young girls in sports. The girl has to cook and sew and learn how to feed her husband. What about when her husband abandons her? She has to then sweep the floors and wash the dishes at other people’s houses as she has not been taught any other skill. In the work place she is always the nurse or the secretary and forced into sexual favors or else she will not be able to look after her parents and siblings. Girls are never taught mechanical skills like how to make a table or drive a scooter. Dolls are the girls’ only companion. If the girl ever disobeys these, she is looked down upon and mocked by the society. Girls are forced into acting and modeling and consequent displaying their naked bodies and this also coerces them into always looking beautiful at the sake of not eating their favorite food. There is always pressure to perform as per the societal rules. The girl is always a burden.

But what about giving the girl an opportunity showcase her individual talents like learning to fly a plane or becoming a manager for a corporate organization? Girls are multi-tasked today as they can not only outshine in household work but also have been performing better than boys in mathematics and sciences. The girl is more patient and strives to work hard. Proper nourishment and a chance to make mistakes and learn diverse tasks enable the girl to build her self-confidence and make a living for her and her family. She can even save the money to choose her own suitor and pay for her marriage. The girl should have the weapon to defend her rights which she will be made aware of. Girls not only produce beautiful handcrafted items but they are good orators also. Girls should learn karate so that they can fend off the unruly men. Today girls’ household work is also gaining importance in the form of millions of cookbooks being published. A girl can elevate the society and be of equal help to the society like a boy. They are independent.

I feel that girls can shine in the future if they are given an opportunity. The society needs to respect and acknowledge the girl’s unique talents and not harness them. The girl needs to feel safe and wanted in the society. Her rights need to be fought for. She is just not the future child-bearer. Everyone needs to pitch in and forget societal norms and help the girl in building a name for her.

Shoes I love but would never wear

2008-07-12T09:19:00.006-04:00

I used to love to see my mother wear high heeled shoes and go for work. I remember the brown shiny shoe I would try on when she was not around. I just have a fascination for high heeled round toe pump shoes but would never wear them as am not comfortable. But I love seeing people like Heidi Klum wear those very high heeled shoes. I like more of a printed shoe for summer which brings with it a certain glamour and elegance to the shoe. The shoe should be an art by itself with the heel defining a certain demureness, coldness and yet grandeur to the shoe. The shoe should be friendly, feminine, bewitching, and enticing with its colors and not something boring like a black or brown shoe. They should be flirtatious. I get a certain delight in seeing these shoes and dont mind that I cant wear them. It is a pleasure to the eye that craves for many a thing. Maybe I will wear them one day.

Butterfly and Me

2008-07-12T08:07:00.005-04:00

I love to catch a glimpse of the butterfly
Cause they are rare to see
And remind me
That I am happily married.
It's an age old saying
That a butterfly brings
Marriage to the home.
Beautiful are the butterflies
Delicate are their bodies
Immense energy they have
To fly and fly
Flapping their wings
And never pause for a moment.
No one would believe
They came for ugly wiggly caterpillars.
Artistic are their wings
Which they flutter in delight.
One wonders in amazement
At who painted their wings
With the perfect harmony of colors
A dash of vibrancy in their wings
Designs so rare and exquisite
One has never seen,
When for a split second
The butterfly sits.
But when she closes her wings
It's a whole new butterfly
One sees
With totally different colors.
I love to see the butterfly
Gorge on the red juicy sweet
Watermelons.
I too love eating a watermelon
Oh! wont I share one
With a beautiful butterfly
And talk about
How happy and delighted I am
About my marriage
Which a butterfly granted me.

Pillowmania

2008-07-12T07:18:00.009-04:00

I must be going through a phase of pillowmania. I keep seeing beautiful pillows everywhere- Pottery Barn, World Market etc. I notice only the square pillows- so may be just bored of seeing so many pillows in my living room. But the pillows I saw in Pottery Barn were of vibrant colors, luscious designs, pastel prints, bringing the nature with its earth tone colors, leafy and not flowery designs embossed on them, and yet some have a contemporary quality to them with square patterns entwined with the semi circular and leafy patterns. Some had a type of embroidery semi arched patterns to them. They were all made from printed cotton materials making them light and easy for use. I liked how light and clean they appeared to the eye. They would just light up a light brown or beige room and add a pleasing charm to the room. It was a new designer's touch to the pillows. I liked more how they could be randomly arranged or placed in a mismatch of designs to bring out a flair to the room. Some also had the black and white pattern which was so classic and sophisticated and demure.But I was disappointed at their prices. Twenty nine dollars for one pillow!!! I seriously need to stop looking at pillows.

Cushions piled up

2008-07-10T08:25:00.003-04:00

I love cushions, tons of them, piled up one on top of the other, with exquisite embroidery on them. You can have a cushion fight, get tired and rest on your head on it. Cushions are comfy to hold and snuggle up to. Now imagine a cake which draws this same picture? Delicous! Unbelievable! I just found two gorgeous pictures of beautiful cushions piled up on one on top of the other. The colors are fresh and vibrant- perfect for a summer outdoors on the patio. They have delicate carved embroidery on them and it is almost as if one has sewed on the cakes using a thread. The cake is huge and one wonders how much calculation went into it to balance the smaller cakes or cushions one on top of the other. There are flowers strewn over to make it more inviting and decorous. It is just simply gorgeous, bright and crisp.

Handbags made from cake

2008-07-09T12:36:00.005-04:00

We are slowly becoming aware of the complexities and detailed work in cakes. There is now a stress on making the cake look like it is a real object.

I was browsing through cake profiles and came across few beautiful cakes which looked like real handbags. I am fond of handbags and feel one can never have enough. I was amazed by the curves on the cakes which made them seem like made from leather and not from cake. The coloring was done to perfection to make it seem like a designer bag. The chains and straps of the bags looked so real. It is just beautiful. I can only imagine how much time and energy the cake decorators must have put in to make the cake look like an elegant bag which a lady would use in delight. The cakes look so tempting.

Something different something classy not just another sectional!!

2008-07-08T12:02:00.003-04:00

I always like to explore and find a unique furniture, something that one will not find in every furniture store. I recently came across this beautiful sectional that is classy, funky and unique. It looks like a bean or a peanut. It is so comfortable and the table cum ottoman attached with it looks a perfect match with it. It is something refreshing. One can easily lounge out on it or seat people. It looks like an art piece in the room. It's just gorgeous and looks like a designer made furniture. It has the curvy smooth lines I always crave for. This gives the sectional a warm and inviting feeling. It tempts one to sit on it. The pillows don't look too overpowering. I also like the wooden arms which again takes away the casual college type feel away from it. It is not the same old sectional. I wish I had the room to buy this sectional.

Shocking discoveries after a slow read

2008-07-05T06:50:00.001-04:00

Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth" is a good book to read as long as one gets totally immersed into it. I found the reading to be very slow. The short stories described events happening over a few weeks. It was all about Indians, born and brought up in USA and what happens in their lives. One needs to comprehend the fact that these Indians are facing a struggle between their age-old customs and the fast paced new customs of USA. It is never easy, I believe, to completely mix and mingle with another culture. This book was about families, relationships, finding a suitable suitor etc. Like I remember the story about an Indian lady coming back to USA again with her family and staying with a friend. This lady would spend lavishly and would not like any house she saw. She would not do any work in the house. She even flew First Class. But then in the end the little girl, through whose eyes the story is being said, discovers the lady was dying and her family did not want anyone to know and she was just having a good time.It was painful and appalling as this while I was thinking that this must be a lady who just spends money and does no work. It is this girl who again years later meets the son of this lady who died and they speak and love each other. But the guy does not want to commit. The girl goes away and later hears that the lonely guy died in the Tsunami. It hurt. I liked this book as it gave my mind a few hours to think about life through Lahiri's stories. It was nice to be absorbed in life and at times I was mad at the sister who did not help her alcoholic brother. But I could also be furious at this brother who left the sister's child in the bathtub and fell asleep while drinking. But again he did not want to touch alcohol but just fell to temptations. It's all about turmoil and conflicts and you wonder whether to pity or to be furious. It is also about whether we can forget someone we love but know can never be ours. I like how Lahiri forms real-like stories about life. I like the use of emotions and simple actions. In a matter of weeks life changes. Life is not giving you any options but wanting you to decide for yourself how to deal with your emotions. The title is apt as it shows all the characters in the story are truly unaccustomed to the world.

addicted to word challenge games on a saturday morning in the wee hours

2008-06-21T08:41:00.003-04:00

Its a beautiful saturday morning and the perfect time to sleep and rest. I have nothing else to do. Do I sleep? No!! I am addicted to word challenge games on facebook. I am playing play fish and text twirl. I am desperately trying to beat my previous scores. I get disappointed when I lose but I am keep trying and trying. Its like my brain is continously making new words, twisting words, jumbling up words, cursing myself as to why I don't know more four letter words and hoping that time never runs out. I forget my coffee and the birds chirping and the fact that I have to call my mom. I forget my life and only think about achieving that high score. My eyes are just fixated on the word games. I cannot stop myself. Before I realize I have spent the last two hours on word games. My mom's call brings me back to life and now I no longer want to play word games. It's like my brain and mind have stopped. I was hypnotized to that game. I think it happens to me when I get so hooked up to something that I forget everything else. But it was fun and challenging. I guess it was the determination to not give up which gave me so much zeal and energy.I had to figure out all the words. Nothing is impossible for me.

Cinderella: Is it just another Fairy Tale?

2008-06-21T07:50:00.001-04:00

Description: Everyone knows the story of Cinderella. I decided to devise a method of making my students read different versions of the Cinderella story, and appreciate and concur why those differences are effective. I also wanted to adhere to the standard which stated “Compare different versions of the same story from different cultures” and make my students bring out these differences. I wanted to tap into their social, personal and intellectual development through one week of reading the different versions of the story of Cinderella. “Researchers have found that readers who become personally involved in the story also obtain a higher level of understanding than students, who read efferently, or primarily to recall, paraphrase, or analyze (Cox & Many, 1992; Rosenblatt, 1976).”
I put up a chart depicting different versions of the story about Cinderella that we were going to read. I told my students that they would be filling out this chart and deciphering the differences. In doing thus, I thrust a responsibility upon my students. I asked them to recap and think about what makes a story, who are the characters and what the plot signifies, the rising action, climax and resolution. My students used this concept to recall and think about the basic elements of the original Cinderella story. Some argued over whether the father had died in the story or not. Then we started reading “Aschenputtel,” and my students by looking at the chart they had made, could clearly decipher the differences. They started arguing and analyzing whether the differences were legitimate and were they as effectual as the original story. My students were fascinated with elements like the twig and the birds bringing in the dress. They even brought their own emotions into the story by stating how they felt the wicked step sisters should not have been punished by piercing out their eyes. My students even did a visual representation of the story by drawing a picture from the story. I asked my students to think; if they could read the story from another person’s point of view, who would that person be and why. My students felt they would like to read from the step sisters or step mother’s point of view as they wanted to know why they were so cruel and did they think Cinderella was pompous. Then we read “The Interview”, where the stepmother describes the story of Cinderella. My students again excitedly filled out the differences chart. Then we read “Dinorella”, where Cinderella is described as a dinosaur. My students said they were bored of having Cinderella being portrayed as initially being ugly and then becoming pretty as the story progresses. They laughed and exclaimed that in the last story, Cinderella would not be wearing the glass or gold shoes. I was pleasantly surprised to see that my students were actually noticing the color and texture of the shoes. My students showed another point of view in their critical thinking, when they acclaimed how brave Dinorella was to save the prince and not just a regular princess. “To put it as directly, and perhaps as brutally, as possible, we must stop "teaching literature" and start "studying texts." Robert Scholes, Textual Power (1985)” My students were experiencing the text and not just accepting a fairy tale. They were now mature to understand that a woman should also be given powers. My students’ final and personal assessment was to write their own Cinderella spoof where Cinderella could be any creature they wished and they could creatively design their story.

Reflection: I always embark on the critical thinking of texts, even the commonly accepted fairy tales. I feel that there is so much to learn and analyze from children’s picture books also. For my seventh graders, now is the age to go back and look at the picture books and think about the common assumptions and stereotypes that have been made in those books. “To direct students' attention to that experience and activity is to draw attention to meaning-making, and specifically to its embeddedness in contexts. We have, then, two principles: (a) a "text" is not a simple pipeline to reality, but a constructed representation of reality; and (b) the construction works "intertextually," by pulling and twisting on threads that reach out to a wide range of textual experiences.” (Pirie, Chap 3). I feel that my students effectively, cooperatively and individually analyzed and learnt critically a common story and understood how cultural differences play an important role in shaping a story. I also agree with Smagorinsky who says “Teachers might teach a topic because they feel that it will prepare students to help construct a better society in the future.” “Through critiques of advertising, cartoons, literature, legislative decisions, foreign policy choices, job structures, newspapers, movies, consumer culture, agricultural practices, and/or school life itself, students should have options to question social reality” (Pirie Chap 5).

Vocabulary elucidates Literature into your students' lives

2008-06-21T07:47:00.001-04:00

Description: I was teaching my 7th graders “The Highwayman” by Alfred Noyes. I first explained the context of the poem, and how in earlier days when we had no automobiles, people would ride on horses and how the highwaymen would rob travelers. One interesting incident occurred when my students all agreed that a "maiden" is someone who works as a maid and lives in a castle. I felt my students were randomly memorizing words without realizing their significance.
I then decided to divide my students into groups and start looking up unfamiliar words and explain it by epitomizing how that particular word could be used in their lives. I also asked them to think why that word was used in that poem and also in that context. I let some students even draw up images conjuring that word. I found that the students became more active in their vocabulary tasks and they even would question, “How would your eyes look if they were hollows of madness” or even imitate the sounds of a galloping horse. Some of my students were scared of some of the images they were forming, especially of Bess using the trigger. At the end of this task, as my students were providing a rationale for their words, they were also questioning the poem and relating it to their lives. I felt that my students not only learned new words but they added a sparkle and vigor to their vocabulary lesson. Furthermore, in their assessments they could easily write stirring sentences using the new words and also be pertinent in deciphering meanings of lines from the poem.

Reflection: I love to read and as a Secondary English teacher, I hope to implant this same ardor in my students. But I often wonder what if my students don’t understand the words? How will they comprehend the context and most importantly, how will they then relate it to their personal lives for longer retention and more interest? I feel vocabulary is something that cannot be mastered only by reading words from the dictionary. Application of words is more decisive. My classroom is filled with students who are learning to read and write in English, and for a few of them, it’s not the language which is spoken at home. How will I be able to hold the interest and attention of my students if they don’t understand the language? I feel before starting any story, it is important to first let the students understand the meaning of the words. I recently came across the concept of “vocabulary self-collection” and I found it to suit my purpose and theory of teaching vocabulary. I feel that the concept of vocabulary self-collection is very helpful for teachers like me who want to make learning meaningful in each student’s lives as well as beneficial for tests. It also gives me, as a teacher, an insight into where as a whole class, my students are in their English learning levels and what might further elicit their curiosity.

Peer Mediation in Middle Schools

2008-06-21T07:45:00.002-04:00

Description: The two images are samples of the peer mediation workshop I had the oppurtunity to attend. This workshop was conducted with a school counselor and my students who are 7th graders. I was present merely as an observer. I had very little idea about what to expect in the workshop. Some of my students had been peer mediators previously and hence had some idea. I randomly picked out 3 girls and one boy for acting out a play written by the counselor. This play demonstrated how two 8th graders helps two 7 graders, Susan and Linda, resolve a conflict. This conflict was about Susan feeling that Linda has been making prank calls to her house and calling her names while Linda felt that Susan was making jokes about her and spreading rumors about her involvement with the Hollywood club. The girls talk about their negative feelings towards each other and ultimately both resolve their differences and apologize to each other. My students did a good job in acting out their parts though it took them a while to understand what was happening. They were then explained the terms intra and inter conflicts. My students talked about which parts of the play they felt were real and what they would have done if that situation ever arose. Then my students also got a chance to discuss an assorted type of conflicts that they have faced or could face in their classrooms. Examples included bumping into someone in the hallway and fighting over it; arguments leading to physical violence etc. Students talked about how in their school the fight is resolved by going from the teacher to the various administrators and then leading to in-school suspension. Some students opened up and spoke about their personal experiences. The counselor demonstrated how peer mediators help to keep peace and stop physical abuse. One student felt he wanted to be a mediator and then be a cop when he grows up as he likes to solve problems. At one point the students start laughing over some of the examples, and the counselor stepped in and articulated in a serious tone about how in a certain school, an argument over a misunderstanding led to fighting and some students were actually killed. Students realized the importance of this workshop and said that fights and suspensions showed up on their resumes and can bar students from getting admitted to good schools. The counselor ended by saying that mediation helps students who can’t solve conflicts on their own and also fights outside the school can affect their resumes.
Reflection: As a reflective teacher, I feel that my students should be consciously and actively aware that certain negative consequences and actions can affect their careers. The school is a sample of reality and it’s not only about learning. Behavior and learning to cooperate and mix with everyone is equally imperative. I feel workshops like these allow students to become responsible members of the society and be accountable for their actions. I also got a chance to see another aspect of my students’ minds, especially when they were reflecting on their previous conflicts and also conflicts that they hear about. I could see some of my students being scared of the penalties. I also believe my students were very sentient of discipline.

Teaching for the First time in a New Country

2008-06-21T07:43:00.001-04:00

Description: The above image is of me with my first students in Wilson High School, Washington DC. My first teaching experience in a new country, USA, was a very exciting one. I had no idea what to expect from my students. I had extensively read all the theories and made quite a few lesson plans. I would observe my teacher teach and thought of modeling her. My first lesson plan consisted of a zillion things to be taught to an intensive class, which would seem pretty conceivable to an experienced teacher. I wanted my students to identify the Short Story Plot and the Literary Terms through an analysis and discussion of the story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. They would learn to see and accept how their peers’ views differ from theirs and why. They will also revise the Subject-Predicate and learn about their final assessment of a Short Story Literary Analysis Essay. It was to be done in one and half hours with about 27 students. I had too much on my plate. I had failed to realise that my students would take more time to understand the nuances of a new teacher. I had thoroughly planned my lesson but failed to set the pacing. I also had assumed that my students would respond more, when I should have given them a pre-assessment to test their understanding.

Reflection: Upon successful and detailed reflection on my lesson plan, I felt that I had thoroughly prepared my lesson plan, having sufficient information on the textual knowledge and was prepared to answer any question my students would ask. I had sometimes used participation points as an incentive when I saw that my students were not sufficiently motivated. But I still needed to give them more time to comprehend the text better. However, as I felt a compulsion to rush through the lesson, this led to some major ideas not being discussed properly. I also did not often check for comprehension, which as an English teacher I ought to. I also was standing at one place and not quite moving around the class. I needed to mingle and mix with my students more and know them more personally. I needed to build a personal connection with my students. I also needed to be more confident in my response to get back to my students, when they would ask me a question that I didn’t know the answer to. It is all about building that faith and trust with your students. I also did not have much post-assessment which would test how many of my students actually learnt on that particular day. But I have felt, after discussion with my supervisor and my teacher that I am a very reflective and hard working teacher, who always goes backs and reviews her weaknesses and tries to overcome them.

RATE your answers Students

2008-06-21T07:42:00.001-04:00

Description: As a new student teacher, and having minimal interaction with other teachers in the school, or not being able to observe all my students in every class, I felt the English Teacher’s Meeting I attended gave me valuable insight into what was happening with my students and the school. The English teachers were trying to better prepare their students for writing a good constructive response in the DC-BAS test. Teachers came up with the idea of RATE (reinstate the question with the topic sentence, answer the question, give textual evidence and expand your answer). Teachers felt that this would give the students who felt tensed, a crystal clear step-by-step procedure to effectively produce constructed responses. The teachers seemed to all be in consensus about the exact nature of struggles that the students encountered. Another interesting advice I took from this meeting was to use a highlighter to write “KEY” on my answer copy so that it does not get mixed up with my students’ copies.

Reflection: This meeting was very satisfying for me as it showed me that all teachers encounter similar nature of problems and there is no harm in asking for help as a teacher. It brought forth a lot of good advice and also gave me new ideas to some tried and tested methods. It also brought the teachers together and close to improving student learning.

Parents and Teachers Putting Assembling the Jigsaw Pieces of their Students’ Lives

2008-06-21T07:38:00.002-04:00

Description: I had the chance to observe some key elements of why parent-teacher conferences are vital. One example was of a father being asked by the teacher as to why he thought his daughter was failing. This question was responded by an incredolous look by the father and his refuting that he was under the impression that she had actually completed all her work. The teacher displayed the poor grades obtained by the child and also showed that the child had also never turned in her assignments. The teacher also felt that the child lacked motivation to study. The student, during this conversation, was trying to wield her father away from the situation, but the truth was at last exposed. The teacher had the notion that the student was saddened by the fact that her family squabbled all the time and was thus feeling lonely. This interation between the various individuals demonstrated how teachers and parents can work together to restore an oppurtunity to learn to a student.

Another student was getting very low grades and most of his assignments were being turned in late or not being turned in at all. The student did not seemed disturbed but was quieter that usual. When his father came, after being telephoned by the teacher, he said that since the divorce, the child was being forced to commute between both his parents houses. His father resided in Washington DC while his mother did so in Maryland. This explained why the student was absent on the day when there was sleet in Maryland and could not give a scheduled test. The father also felt it was not possible for him to check his son’s agenda everyday as he toured around the country. The father made the student sit in front of him and the teacher, and explained compassionately that the student needed to take responsibility for his actions and see that his school work got completed. The teacher and father also agreed that more love, time and attention would be bestowed on the student from his parents and the teacher. Again an environment for effective learning was established for the student.

Reflection: I had thought of parent-teacher meetings as an oppurtunity for teachers to merely complaina to parents about their wards. But, fortunately I was wrong. Students need to feel a connection between school and home, and feel secure and wanted in both environments. If a student has family problems, then the teacher should make sure that the school is conducive for his/her learning and also give/makeup for that extra share of love and attention. On the other hand, parents often may not be aware of the exact truth from their children or may not even know when their child has a problem in communicating with the teacher about his/her problems or needs. Every lack of communication, misunderstanding and negative relationships often gets cleared through the parent-teacher conference.

Why are Kolkatans accused of not buying many books

2008-06-20T11:20:00.004-04:00

I love reading articles and commenting on them. I try to not summarize the article but focus on something that caught my eye or sounded irritating. This article (http://www.ilovekolkata.in/content/view/1171/1288) was talking about how Kolkata, India has so few book stores and equally less purchases of books. I myself dont know why this is happening. I agree that people have the money and that's why so many Malls have opened in the last few years and also the music sales has reached a record. Kolkatans love reading books by Bengali writers like Jhumpa Lahiri who were born in Kolkata but reside outside. I wonder if Kolkatans don't like to know about the rest of the world? But then every brand of clothes etc is found in Kolkata. Kolkata embraces people from all over the world.Kolkatans react to news from all over the world. They are more aware and helpful about the world. Kolkata has also faced more cultural diversity. But then why dont we( I am also from Kolkata)buy books written by authors who are not from Kolkata? I think maybe Kolkatans are encouraging and being proud of their home writers. I am not sure from this article whether Kolkatans read books in Bengali? Maybe they love heralding their native language. But what about the people who dont understand Bengali? It's shocking to hear that your home town does not buy/read many books. I would defend this by saying that maybe our readers borrow books from the libraries. I know I read more and more books from the library than the occasional ones I buy. I know Kolkata has always had a very rich literature and very famous authors like Rabindranath Tagore, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Vivekananda,and Michael Madhusudan Dutt. I loved reading books by these authors and thought they were more touching and fascinating than other writers. It is still a mystery as to why there are so few bookstores in Kolkata. I think since I am far away from my city I cant answer the questions and dont want to hear anything bad about my city.I agree that Kolkatans love reading books where they feel a personal connection. I still love reading about old memories of old Kolkata. Maybe Kolkatans want more personal stories and books written in Bengali.

Its and It's

2008-06-20T10:31:00.002-04:00

I used to often get confused with its and it's. It was irritating but a solution was needed to this error. My research on the internet and a few exercises helped me solve my problem. "Its" means belonging to someone and "it's" stands for it is. These two words have so very different meanings and yet because of the spelling I would make silly mistakes. Comparing and contrast often makes it easier to differentiate between two things. It sounds so minute and petty now but it is because I had the determination to solve my problem.

It's a beautiful sunny day.
Its my dog's frisbee.

Niagara Falls..truly a wonder of the world..I wish I did not have to come back..I was lost in the beauty, strength, mystery of the Falls

2008-06-19T13:18:00.004-04:00

At Night when I first saw the Falls- I could hear the voice of the Falls as I was approaching it. There were so many zillions of waves forming, colliding against each other in the river as we were approaching the Falls. And then there was the huge, gigantic, beautiful Falls. The Falls is breathtaking, spectacular and stupendous. The water was rapidly falling. It was a total contrast to the calm waters that were flowing before this. The Falls were forming a huge ball of mist. It was like a ball of disorganized mess amidst the organized and continuous fall of the Falls. The water was continuously falling in an organized way and never did its energy cease. It was like the water was slowly coming to the steep bend and then all of a sudden it took a curve and came rushing and gushing down and cascading down. I was wondering how hard the Falls were hitting the rocks below and how the rocks were being tormented and crushed by the mammoth power and force of the Falls. I felt that the Falls could not just be observed at one go. One had to stand and take it all in using one’s six senses. I just stood still and slowly felt being allured by the Falls through the gushing sound of the water falling, the beauty of the Falls, the spray wetting and cooling your body, the thought of how many people have come here and experienced this with you, the thought of how many people died here as they thought they would experience Heaven, the thought of how this Falls has never stopped. I felt as if I was hypnotized by the Falls. It’s like I forgot the whole world for a minute and was completely absorbed by the Falls. When I steered my eye away from the Falls, further down the river I saw that it was again all very quiet and still.

I wish the commercial lights from the casinos and surrounding buildings were not there as it was marring the natural beauty of the Falls. It was just too distracting and irritating.

It was a bit scary especially when you look closely the force with which the water is falling or look down at where the forceful water is falling. I was so hard trying to not be mesmerized by it as the Falls truly seems to beckon you.

The next Morning:

I just loved looking at the greenish/blusing/grey flowing water which was so serene and pure and just beautiful. The green trees in front of the river added a beauty to the river. It was so relaxing. As I approached the Falls, I was again greeted by the force of the Falls. It was just fun and exciting. We stood close to one of the Falls, and I could feel the water bursting out on my face and my back. The water was literally banging on your back. It was too powerful and just fun. The force of the water is just too strong and I was simply enjoying. I think it was the best time of my life. When we again approached the American Falls in a boat, I saw that the Niagara Falls is just gorgeous. It was this huge gigantic enormous Falls falling down so heavily and creating a white cloud. I could again find myself being mesmerized by the Falls. I was again lost in the beauty of the Falls which is again not just a sight but something to be experienced using all of your senses. The water was cool and so refreshing. I just cannot express in words the joy I experienced in watching the Niagara Falls. I wish I did not have to come back home. It’s a sheer pleasure to watch the water fall down so heavily and never stopping to pause. There is so much energy and life in the Falls. It makes one feel so buoyant, energetic and light. The Falls is so strong and yet it seems to make one joyous. I could prance around in the ball of mist that the Falls were forming as water was falling. I wished that both sets of my parents could experience this burst of energy and beauty with me and my husband.

I was again not interested so much in the extra amenities like watching a movie or visiting the aquarium.

Interesting facts about the Niagara Falls

Francis Trollope said "is it so exquisite a pleasure to stand for hours drenched in spray, stunned by the ceaseless roar, trembling from the concussion that shakes the very rock you cling to, and breathing painfully the moist atmosphere that seems to have less of air than water in it? Yet pleasure it is, and I almost think the greatest I ever enjoyed."

In October 1829, Sam Patch, who called himself "a total idiot" jumped from a high tower into the gorge below the falls and survived; this began a long tradition of daredevils trying to go over the Falls.

In 1901, 63-year-old school teacher Annie Edson Taylor was the first person to go over the Falls in a barrel as a publicity stunt; she survived, bleeding, but virtually unharmed.

Nathaniel Hawthorne reactions to the Falls-

“NEVER DID a pilgrim approach Niagara with deeper enthusiasm, than mine.” He at first seemed disappointed with Falls. He had come to the Niagara “haunted with a vision of foam and fury, and dizzy cliffs, and an ocean tumbling down out of the sky- a scene, in short, which Nature had too much good taste and calm simplicity to realize.” But he cast aside all these premonitions. He stood alone and experienced the Falls again and was this time fixing his eyes and soul on the Falls- then he said “his whole soul seemed to go forth and be transported thither”- and “The solitude of the old wilderness now reigned over the whole vicinity of the falls. My enjoyment became the more rapturous, because no poet shared it--nor wretch, devoid of poetry, profaned it: but the spot, so famous through the world, was all my own!”

Others too felt that one should slowly absorb the Falls. As Anna Jameson said “a kind of dreamy fascination came over me.”

Charles Dickens said “"two great white clouds rising up from the depths of the earth."

“There was a bright rainbow at my feet and from that I looked up to - great Heaven! to what a "fall of the bright green water." Before him "was Beauty unmixed with any sense of Terror." The stimulation of the sight and sound caused him to perspire freely.”

To many the Falls was a shrine- or “a pledge of God to mankind that the destruction from the waters shall not again visit the earth.”

Food Styling

2008-06-19T09:38:00.005-04:00

I love watching Food Network Challenges. I marvel and be amazed at how much effort and time goes behind creating one cake in such a short time like 6 hours or how critical the judges the can be. Every challenge shows something new like how to make sugar figurines or how to style your food. This last one was something totally new. I knew that food network always like others would have one dish which would be photographed in a very classic way which showcases the food. Many food magazines like Bon Appetit (www.bonappetit.com) spend hours in trying to figure out which dish would shine through showing the food’s real components and colors in their magazine. Food Network Star also had a show where they had contestants creating dishes which would look good on the magazine. It is all about displaying your food in an alluring, attractive, enticing, palatable, tantalizing, rich and luscious way. You have to charm your viewers to taste your food. It is all about showcasing your food. As they say a garnish or a food decorated attractively heaves people more into savoring your food. No matter how tasty your food can be it has to look attractive and appealing.
But coming back to the real point of this blog (I always tend to move away from what I am saying) I was more focused on how uncooked, artificial, inedible food products were being used to stylize a food product. They did not use real ice cream for an ice cream picture as ice cream will melt. They used a mixture of cornflour, shortening and sugar and carved out lines which made it look like ice cream. Every detail like the chocolate dripping or how the ice cream sits was made to come to life and one would never believe that it was not real food. The next challenge was to create a creamy pasta dish. The pasta was cooked but most of the other food was half cooked so that the vegetables etc don’t loose their color. The challengers focused on how and where the sausages would be placed so that they don’t overshadow the pasta. The cream sauce was not made from real cream. Again here the contestants had to focus on the thickness of the cream and not make it too watery. You cannot make the dish too complex with too many ingredients as then photographing it becomes difficult. The final dish was to make a beach wedding table. Here I saw how sea foods like lobsters were cut in a way that would want viewers to immediately grab it and start eating it. It was all about bringing forward and displaying the food. Colors, textures, design were all important. They would even spray some chemicals on food to make it seem fresh or cold or hot.
It’s very fascinating and again shows us how visual appeal is so much more prevalent today. It’s all about design and drama. It also makes us wonder how much effort goes into details and how meticulous we are about what we do. I was thoroughly engaged during this show and hope to learn more about it than merely watch one show.

"The Bucket List"- a Good Movie

2008-06-14T08:52:00.002-04:00

I was hoping I dont see a movie where someone is lecturing about life as he/she is dying? "The Bucket List" was a good entertaining movie and full of life. Its not a movie that is exaggerated. It shows two old men dying of cancer. They share the same room in the hospital and are told they will live for 6 months only. I thought what does a person do when he is told he will live only for 6 months? This movie is all about simple expressions and a slow suffering. We see the pain these two men bravely face. But it does not make them stop caring for their family (Morgan Freeman) or looking after the business (Jack Nicholson). Morgan is a died hard quiz addict and a person who stopped pursuing his career in history to support his family. He makes this bucket list( a bucket list is a list of things one does before he dies) and amongst them are to help a stranger, see something exquistive, and so on. Jack being the alone wealthy man decides to also pursue this list. They dont want to live life by being smothered in pity as they are dying. They start their exciting and daring expedition by skydiving. Skydiving is dangerous, exciting, life-threatening but at this point of their lives there is nothing that can scare them or stop them. They get a Tattoo. I dont know what good it is to get a tattoo other than the pain being inflicted and a permanent mark on your body. Maybe it was a tabboo for them before. They drive a 57 Chevy which is total power and speed (no cops can stop you on the race track) and a freedom of ecstacy. They roam in Italy, Johannesburg, Egypt etc. The movie reminds at points that these men are dying as they keep vomitting blood. But for these men its their time to live life like they have never done before.
"In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight
In the jungle, the mighty jungle
The lion sleeps tonight"
they sing as they see the lions. Its like all of world's fears have escaped from them as they are embracing death. I did get nostalgic and proud when I saw them visiting The Taj Mahal. Its a sense of pride that my country is also being represented. Jack's words "what if I feel the flames" when being burnt echoed the same words I felt when my grandmother was being burnt when she died. I liked how Morgan would keep talking about the coffee Jack was having and how he felt it was first being eaten by goats, who would run around like crazy, and then discovered by men. This movie made me think about my great grandmother who is 99 and still happily thinking about her life and has good memories. There are no regrets in life and its difficult to accept death but it needs to be done by being courageous. I did think that why should a dying man think about his family only and not pursue his last wishes. I really liked the movie as it was all about doing something for yourself and yet providing someone else a joy(like here the two men gave each other company and happiness in their last stages of life). They were travelling the world and not doing anything absurd. It was all about two strangers and their simple thoughts and not anything philosphical. It was their courage to dare to live life to its fullest.

"27 Dresses"-the Movie--its all about marriage and not dresses

2008-06-14T08:22:00.002-04:00

I love wearing dresses. I find them to be sophisticated, elegant, lady-like, flexible and charming. I can wear a dress with heavy accessories and it becomes an evening gown. I wanted to see the movie "27 Dresses" to see some bridesmaid dresses (which I never have worn) but I knew the movie would be about the girl who was always a bridesmaid and never a bride. But who would have thought the movie was to be only about the girl being like God and only caring for others. Who can do that? No one, its so being selfish to yourself and only trying to do as others say. Its all about this girl, or elder sister, or mother to her sister while her dad is alone, and a secretary to her boss whom she loves, and a bridesmaid. I knew the prince charming would discover at some wedding and irritate her and ultimately show her who she should be. Well isnt that done in every chick flick? This chick flick could have been different. But again, it was like being copied from different movies. The guy is overpowering and realizes the girl's mistakes. He starts to make her say no which leads her to breaking up her sister's wedding( as she shows everyone how fake her sister was). But was she not obligingly the mother of her sister? This guy hates weddings yet is the best writer about weddings. Yes the girl discovers herself but then what? The guy takes pictures of her with her hidden closet full of 27 brides maid dresses and publishes her name and picture and story in the newspaper. It is so embarrassing but every in movie it happens. Luckily here it was not given much importance and the girl runs after the guy after she realizes she is in love. The movie was terrible. I watch chick flicks but here there was no fun and games between the guy and girl. It was all about the girl being depressed about her boss falling in love with her sister, and yet she is organizing their wedding and breaks it up also. I feel the girl was totally confused and so was the movie. I just saw the dresses for 5 minutes. It was a bad movie and a waste of money and time for me. Oh look the girl is so so weak.

Platinum Wedding

2008-05-30T17:17:00.009-04:00

It’s every girl’s dream to have the perfect wedding and be married to the perfect man. But what every girl does not realize is that a lot of effort needs to be put in by the girl and she has to have realistic expectations. I have gone through a lot of trail and tribulations before realizing and finding my life partner. I was patient and did not rush. I wanted it to be a truly family affair. I wanted a traditional wedding. I have been brought up with a lot of freedom and slowly have come to appreciate small details of life more than anything else. It’s this aspect which makes me feel my wedding was truly a platinum wedding. It was a fairy tale wedding.
As I look back and see my wedding pictures, after 5 months, I realize I have no regrets and am totally fortunate to have had such a glorious and breathtaking wedding. Never in a million years would I have dreamt of such an exorbitant wedding.
My wedding was planned in 45 days and all credit goes to both the parents. I had specifically told both the mothers that it was their day and they could do what they wanted. Both the moms knew how much we cared for tradition and how proud we were of our heritage. We did not care for any modern customs and wanted it to be a Bengali wedding rather than a Bollywood wedding. We wanted to bring back memories from our parents wedding. My mom knew I loved the Ganesha and the palki and she brought those in the wedding card, which was orange and golden with touches of red. Indian weddings have the red and golden color spread everywhere. There is no white or black. My in-laws had another unique card which had the bride and groom image. I guess I will be using the word unique and grand every time as my wedding was truly unique and grand. I had no idea what was going on as I was busy giving examinations. I was lucky that the parents found two beautiful historic houses where the wedding ceremonies would take place. The wedding house belonged to my father’s friend and had the grand wooden staircases and huge rooms. The reception house was Khalil Manzil which had the stained glass windows.
My mom and my mom’s friend Gopa Mashi spent hours roaming with me to find the uncommon wedding saree. I was going to wear red and golden. But unfortunately all looked the same till we came across this breathtaking red and golden saree with hints of white. It was heavy, comfortable and spectacular. I immediately fell in love with it. My reception saree was my childhood favorite color- pink with delicate zaree work all over it. I loved all the sarees I wore for all the days of the marriage.
My gold jewelry was ravishing. Both the families showered me with the most beautiful jewelry one could find. Each piece was beautiful and splendid. I was fortunate to wear jewelry left by both grandmothers. I can never stop falling in love with gold jewelry. It’s priceless. It was dream come true to be covered in beautiful gold jewelry. I had received a plethora of gold jewelry. My husband gave me the most sweet ring which was the nakshatra or lunar mansion style diamond and gold ring. It was elegant and small and just suitable for my thin finger. I have never seen such an eye-catching ring. My mom-in-law gave me a simple nora which is elegant and yet will also go with my western clothes.I felt like a bride wearing her jewelry, especially the bangles. I felt like a doll. It was a dream come true.
I was dressed on all days by the best wedding make-up people. On my wedding day, I looked simple and yet ravishing. My natural beauty was brought out with the red and golden colors of my sari and the plethora of gold jewelry. On my reception, my make-up lady made sure I was relaxed and she did a very glamorous make up where I would shine only on that day in front of all the lights and guests. I looked like a star.
I was specific about the wedding décor and wanted to have the wedding ceremony amidst flowers and the whole place would be in red and golden. My wedding decorators listened to me and I could not believe that I was sitting amidst flowers which were hanging in long strands. The gate at the wedding place was totally covered with white and colorful flowers which were so traditional. It was majestic. My wedding room was also beautifully decorated with exquisite bouquets and looked sophisticated.
I was blessed to have all my family come to the wedding. My grandfather also came to bless me. We were lucky. Debdip especially has a huge family and tons of friends and family. Everyone came and had the best time of their lives. In the reception, organized by my in-laws, people were served by men wearing dhotis and instead of plates, they had kola pata(leaves) and bhar (glasses made from mud), which were served in older times.
Both our families put in their whole heart and efforts into making the wedding a platinum affair and something which people will remember for ages. We had live shanai and there was also a paan wala. The food was just delicious every day of the wedding ceremony.
Even today when I look at everyone’s wedding and I look at mine, I feel mine was truly grand, elegant, warm, traditional, Bengali and unique. I would attribute it to the efforts and smile on both parents. They had their dreams fulfilled as well as making it so very special for us. I feel that I had no expectations and was just thrilled to be married and have the union of two families. So everything done in the wedding was an added bonus or icing in the cake. Every small detail was appreciated by us. I think it was this realization and all the patiently waiting that made me be grateful, thankful, and appreciative for my wedding so much more. I had the best time in my life as I was showered with love from both families and got a huge amount of attention. It was as if everyone was doing something just for our wedding. I don’t think I can ever find any flaws in our wedding. I was smiling and enjoying and it showed in all the pictures. I wanted to enjoy this once in a life time opportunity and so always had this genuine smile on my face. I am thankful to God and my family and well wishers for making my wedding a platinum ( not by money but by love and efforts and enjoyment) wedding. I was the Cinderella marrying the prince in a truly heavenly wedding.

The Daring Book for Girls- A must read for all girls

2008-05-30T11:46:00.003-04:00

“The Daring Book for Girls” by Andrea J Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz is just amazing. Girls just don’t chit chat or play with dolls. Girls can perform many intelligent, creative and skillful activities like padding a canoe or changing a tire. This book was recommended by my friend. She has given it to her young daughter. This book does not ignore girly behavior like girls reading about queens or making friendship bracelets or pressing flowers. It also embodies functions like playing basketball, being a spy, and hiking. This book is multicultural as it talks about how to wear a sari (mainly women in India wear a sari), explore Africa, learning French and Spanish words. I liked how the book talks about famous historical figures who were women like Joan of Arc and their brave deeds and the women who served in war. The book appreciates a girl for her dainty qualities and need to keep her pretty, as it demonstrates how to tie up your hair with a pencil or make daisy chains. But it also requests girls to be brave and learn to defend themselves by learning yoga and karate and making their own tool kit. The topics are so diverse. They tap on the all round development of the girl. One finds activities that encourage inventiveness and creativeness like writing letters or math tricks or using impressive words; and it also talks about how to make a willow whistle, building a campfire, riding a scooter, using cart wheels and making an airplane. The book teaches girls basic activities that will help her when she grows like how to negotiate a salary or how to speak in public. I think the girl can do twice as many activities as a boy can do as she can play outdoors and do housework at home. I just find this book to be so innovative and not at all prejudiced. It’s got activities that would enhance the all-round development of the girl to be sensible and independent and enjoy life. This book also explains in details and simple language the history or meaning of terms and the procedures. It motivates the girls to not give up and keep trying. I would recommend this light hearted and fun book to all girls.

Airport Runways and cryptic tablets

2008-03-20T23:04:00.001-04:00

As I was sitting on the orange seat on the metro, drained out from working in school, and getting goaded at the loud noise of the I-pod being used a young lad, who had large black and white dominoes hanging from his pocket, I thought of flipping over the metro express metro. I know it’s a sad fate of affairs where you are so busy and too languid to wake up a bit early to read the morning newspaper, and I guess the afternoon and fear of not falling asleep on the metro, forces you to at least read some news once daily.
Anyways, coming back to the riveting news, I read about Charles Cohan and how he has an exhibition of artistic symbols representing the different airports around the world. It looked to me like tablets used by the Pharaohs to write and I thought they were more like symbols. I was very irresolute of what he wanted to articulate and how were the world’s airports involved. Further research, on the ever updated and helpful internet, lead to some very alluring facts. Cohan wanted his audience to see “non-places” in relation to ourselves, as he terms it. These places distort our views of space and location and we are quite unable to see where we are placed. In this exhibition, Cohan with the use of the airports shows us how we get lost in the airport with its huge structure which seems daunting to us. Cohan feels there is clear grid of the airport and the runway. Have you wondered where was it where you landed, stood in the long security line, and bought an overpriced souvenir, and then rushed to board another flight and be back at some unknown (don’t know if its north, south of where you initially landed) spot on the same runway? (I think maybe they have airport maps?) I seem to agree as I feel I just blindly follow arrows and can never decide where I was a few hours ago. Cohan also exemplifies how much pain and effort has gone into each airport’s structure and planning and how novel each one is. I liked how Cohen shows airports from all around the world. I find the pictures mystical and kind of decrypted symbols which we can sit and unravel the meanings.
Why don’t we understand the structure of the airports or even the runaways? It’s something to think about. I don’t have the answers but I do know next time when I go to the airport, this will be on my mind. I just get attracted to something which is out of the ordinary and could be something miniscule. Its like a mystery (airport structure) which is depicted through another mystery (Cohan’s symbols).

http://www.curatorsoffice.com/gallery/cohen/cohen1.htm

http://www.curatorsoffice.com/gallery/cohen/cohen11.htm

Lollypops that everyone can eat without a worry

2008-03-15T07:44:00.002-04:00

I always get attracted to that minute news which one would not pay much notice to. I feel that I will remember something only when it’s related to my life. I love gorging on candies and my tooth suffers as a result of that. But just yesterday I read about Dr Wenyuan Shi and his lollypop that would not affect your cavities and was stunned. This researcher in UCLA had conducted over 50,000 experiments, used over 2000 Chinese herbs and combined Eastern age-old remedies with new technology to come up with this scrumptious and yet unharmful product. I am no scientist but still feel the need to know some basics before blurting out this news. My limited knowledge led me to understand that licorice root is soaked and its liquid is led to being evaporated, and then what we have left is a cavity blasting powder component. It’s this which is present in this new orange flavored lollypop and which helps in fighting cavities. I thought it was more appealing to the visual learner when Shi showed its viewers how the bacteria is not present when this dry licorice is there unlike in other candies. I felt that this researcher thought about children and all those people who love candies, and used his precious time to come up with a product which people can enjoy. It’s truly something worthwhile.

South Indian Food

2008-03-14T16:16:00.004-04:00

I usually just delete forwarding as some of the pictures are unrealistic like seeing a child bathe a snake. But recently someone forwarded me pictures of South Indian food. South Indian food is just simply different. My readers can ask me what is different. Different is such a vague word. From my own beliefs and my limited love for cooking, I feel South Indian food uses a lot of coconut and a few spices which make their food not just spicy (chilli chicken- chinese style) or sweet(like American chicken) or heavy (like Butter Chicken-north indian style); but its a mixture of being a bit bland and yet tasty. One cannot clearly decode what's in the food but yet one gorges on it. I also feel that South Indian food tends to have a lot of rice in it. The pictures I saw reminded me of how I would crave to have dosas, especially the paper dosa with the coconut chutney. It's a love which not every enjoys. One will also notice that South Indians still stick to their traditional methods of serving on a leaf and has small steel or clay bowls where they serve the accompaniments. I also find that South Indian food has to be eaten fresh and cannot be reheated. It will just lose its taste and authentic flavor. I am yet to try a dish at home as I feel its something to be learned from the experts. Its just something very genuine. This forwarding just has me craving again for dosas. I am hungry.

STOP USING YOUR CELL PHONE WHILE DRIVING

2008-02-24T08:54:00.005-05:00

I get really annoyed with people who are conversing on their cell phones while driving. There is an incredible amount of traffic on the roads; so why would you risk the lives of other people while being distracted by that cell phone of yours? You can use your cell phone at home or just sit somewhere and blabber away all you can. Yesterday while I was on I-270, I noticed that every other driver was using his/her cellphone. This is really frustrating, especially when you consider that most of these people were not driving properly. It scares me! At least think of what impression you are making on young children. I just dont understand why people are so impatient and why cant they just drive and not do 100 chores at the same time? 73 percent of drivers use their cellphones in USA while driving according to National Surveys. 6 percent of accidents every year are caused only by these insensible and selfless drivers who use their cell phones while driving. Please stop. Please think about other people on the road. Your personal conversations can be done later. 87 percent of people agree that using a cell phone while driving impairs a person's ability to drive but then why are so many people still doing it?? Did you know that in accidents involving people using their cell phones, it was found that "5 of the drivers struck something stopped in front of them, the remaining 3 left their lane of travel and struck a vehicle or object" and "These drivers were not presented with changing situations which required emergency maneuvers, they simply failed to control their vehicles during routine driving conditions". It also leads to the driver in overlooking significant highway conditions as per research and also drivers tend to fail signals twice as more. Drivers have tougher time in keeping their cars in a single lane as the cell phone coversation distracts them. Some drivers drive more slow than the other cars on the road as they are engaged in the cellphone usage. This causes fatal accidents. And it has been proven that even if you just listening to the other person on the other end of the cellphone speak, it will still equally affect your concentration in driving. Please dont think you are too smart a driver that you can drive and use that cell phone at the same time. Please stop!!!

Special Education

2007-11-17T07:19:00.002-05:00

Special Education has been an exigent and entrancing class for me. I had never realized how blind I was to these venerable, pioneering and lambent talents of special needs people. Special Education has taught me to be more open-minded, never lose hope, experience before commenting and never under estimate people. But I would like to say that don’t call our special people ‘handicapped’ as they are not beggars and are not begging for anything. They need some help to adjust to our world, which hardly makes accommodations for them, but they too have traits which outshine ours. Teaching special education students requires all these qualities for life as well as humor, dedication, keen scrutiny and knowledge and above all a love for everything artsy.
Sarah Belson, our professor, had asked us if we would be blind or deaf. I had chosen blindness as I could not bear to not see. I was blinded for 15 minutes and I remember it was the worst moments of my life. I remember how I felt the world was closing on me. I realized how little faith I had on others. It was just heinous.
My mind was now vulnerable. I did not know what to expect or do. I then met Ed Walker, a blind radio jockey. Ed showed me how he trusted people. He had humor in his life. He talked about how one of his friends had put cheese instead of sugar in his coffee and how he had expressed amusement over it. Ed didn’t know he was blind till he was five and was not able to see the flowers that his sister could see. These incidents showed me how we place over value on some things and forget that there are innumerous other things to enjoy in life. Ed never expected sympathy from anyone but he has accepted that in some areas he needs help.
Tara Downing gave me another shock. I could not believe that a deaf person was making music and dancing. Dance was not learnt through vibrations but through hand and body coordination. I saw what the value of a teacher modeling has on students. I also saw how much effort Tara was putting to show her unfathomable emotions and I could understand her with just hearing the interpreters and not seeing them.
Brenda, a tennis player on wheel chairs, told me never to stop learning and never to give up hope. Brenda had become disabled at the age of 27. She did not waste a moment with pain and misery and started to explore sports. She learnt a totally new skill at 27. Brenda showed me how I will never stop hoping that my special needs students will realize their talents and that nothing is impossible. Brenda also showed me that disabled people do have choices and that sometimes the most obvious help we make, like making a pathway for people in wheel chairs does not necessarily help if the pathway stops mid way at a steep curve. Look and experience and learn from special education people before trying to just be sympathetic.
Laureen Summers, a person diagnosed with cerebral palsy, showed me courage. I initially saw that her hands and body were trembling a lot as she moved about. She had climbed the lighthouse at age 24 as she wanted to get over her fear of closed spaces. She doesn’t know what her limitations are. She hates how people tend to put her in a box and make general assumptions about her. She has made me observe special education people more and discover their talents.
That brought me to John Kemp, a person who wears metal hands which are like a fork. I could not help observing John turn the pages of his files so very deftly and not be bothered about paper cuts as we so often complain. John showed me how we as teachers need to have high expectations from our students. John showed me that everyone has a culture which is similar to others in innumerous ways and yet it is exclusive. John was right when he said that we don’t listen to these students and we need to give more time for the person to speak and express. I disliked with him also how people keep asking about his disabilities day in and day out. Aristotle said “it is a rare skill to be angry in all the right ways (at the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, with the right purpose)” (quoted by John Kemp). We need to be tolerant and need to work out with our special education in helping them realize their aptitudes through arts. I saw humor in John when he said that he lets some people help him, even though he does not need it, to make their day satisfying to them.
Puppetry, music therapy, arts and technologies all are now the tools to help teachers teach special education students. I have learnt through Sally Smith’s Lab School that the arts can do wonders for special education students. A simple task of organizing can be learnt through drama. Every work is exceptional and needs a lot of time and patience. Our special needs children need the training to discover themselves. I don’t want to impose on them what I think they should do. I should first teach them about whom they are and show what they like doing. Then I will be helping them expose and make these skills an art to show to their loved ones and increase their self confidence and worth in their own eyes and others also. I won’t be putting my hand over my student’s hand to show how to beat the drum, as Lacy Kidwell, a music therapist said, but I will put my hand under their hand to make the student eventually beat the drum as he/she wishes. Lacy talked about the isoprinciple where she would play the music harder if the child was screaming and let the child recognize it and then would lessen it as the child quieted.
Special education does not have closed mindsets. People here can do anything. They accept their weaknesses, to not deter themselves, but to know what they can and cannot do. They then use the positives to propel forward with a new passion for life. But ignorance can be harmful for teachers. Teachers should always have a keen sense of what the student is doing. Every step monitored correctly will lead to the goal.

2007-11-17T07:19:00.001-05:00

Sally Smith’s book “No Easy Answers” is a real life guide into the mind of a learning disabled child and their teachers. Before I talk about the book, I would like to say that the term “learning disabled” irritates me. I feel that every child learns something. Its upon us to recognize and foster it. This book has affirmed this belief of mine. It has made me more aware of the problems a learning disabled child might face in the learning process and what I should do as a teacher and how the arts will help this child. I was also more interested in reading about Tom and how he learnt through the arts.
I am a strong believer that things must be presented and learnt in an organized manner. “Establishing a time, a space, and a place for all things is the key” (Smith, 2005, pg. 33). Students with LD often find everything to be out on control. Hours of repeating the same task about math and reading wont attract their attention unless every step is motivating and has a relation to their experience. “Understanding sequences is vital for the child who can talk to you about Homer or gravity but cannot tell you the order of the days of the week or the seasons, count to 20, or say the alphabet in proper sequence” (Smith, 2005, pg. 33). Every step needs to be explained and made sense before proceeding. “The overload of unrestrained stimuli on their senses calls for just the opposite of free choice and unrestricted opportunity; their world must be limited to allow them to learn and create. The artist and the art must do the work of the faulty ‘filtering mechanism’ of the brain to allow focus, discrimination, and organization to take place” (Smith, 1995, pg. 172). Its like giving a novice painter boxes of every possible type of paint and paint brushes and papers when the painter does not even know that a brush is used to paint on the paper. The painter would be lost in thinking where to apply what and how.
Tom, the student Sally talks about, had come to the Lab School as the age of seven. He had above par intelligence in verbal but he would overturn the progression of syllables. He would say “I gather this decision is umanious” or “The emenies are encroaching upon us” (Smith, 1995, pg. 172). Tom had a very short attention span. He could not understand symbols like commas and exclamation marks. He was unable to write or spell as he could not combine letters. You could see Tom running around the classroom in a frantic rush to grab something but in the process of running, he would forget what his main task for the rush was. Other than these, he was an average intelligent student.
Sally’s Lab School made reading attention-grabbing and challenging. At one instance he would be learning about the Renaissance and American history and listening to tapes. At the other end, he would listen to a Tale of Two Cities by Dickens and differentiate between b and d. “He was building a desk, a chair, a sylophone, a go-cart, and a six-foot boat in the woodwork shop- planning, measuring, and proceeding step-by-step to completion” (Smith, 1995, pg. 174). Woodwork teaches students like Tom the hands on activity of real life as well as ways to follow orders. The woodwork teacher will have steps written out which the student has to follow. “For many students, it is very important that their completed projects get taken home immediately following completion” (Smith, 2005, pg. 91). This creates a boost of confidence in them to show their loved ones what they can do. It also gives them an opportunity to be proud of something they made with their hands. It’s the increasing of self-confidence and worth that it is also fabricated here. But there is no pressure or competition as it can be harmful to the student’s will to work. “The result of a student’s work is judged solely on the individual’s effort and progress” (Smith, 2005, pg. 91). This is what makes it different from regular school as more emphasis is placed on recognizing what the student has learnt and not based on a criteria. Also individual talents are unearthed.
Readiness skills were taught to Tom through music. He learnt to differentiate between high pitched and low pitched sounds and also symbols through the game of music. If he beat a drum loud, he would show a red poker chip. Tom was connecting the familiar beat of a drum which he played to his will to a symbol. He was being shown how symbols relate to what he does. As Susan Mebane Carter says “singing a simple song such as Row, Row, Row your Boat provides an effective vehicle for connecting sound to symbol while developing phrasing in language with the song’s ascending and descending melody” (Smith, 2005, pg. 121).
Tom also had no sense of directions. He would keep crashing into people and things. He lacked space judgment. “Like a child of two or three on unfamiliar turf, seven year old Tom had no sense of what was in front of him, behind him, or above him or below him, nor could he tell left from right” (Smith, 2005, pg. 174). Tom learnt space through dance. His dance teacher would keep a fixed place where the exercise would begin and it was against the wall. This and masking tape on the floor to show where Tom was in relation to objects in the room, made Tom understand space.
Tom could not coordinate his body parts like his arms and legs. He would behave like he was a puppet and slowly learn to move his arm as he wished. His mind was learning to control the functions of his body parts. “In front of a silhouette screen, he had great fun stylizing his movements and guessing what the movements of his classmates represented. [] he moved as a part of the gang in West Side Story, isolating body parts and unifying them with a dramatic and exciting framework” (Smith, 1995, pg. 175). Tom now looked at this task of learning space coordination as a challenge where he would organize and plan how far he was from an object or how he could move his leg. Stephen Johnson says “students have to have the muscle tone and development to maintain their posture and attend without being tired out, and students have to learn how to balance and be connected with gravity and the earth so they can move in the space without falling or tripping” (Smith, 2005, pg. 117).
Its sad that some of our schools are eliminating dance. It helped Tom organize his mind in a fun and exciting manner. Johnson in Sally’s book says how students learn step by step how to move one body part at a time. Then they learn how to memorize the order in which the body parts need to be moved. “To get them to do sequences and transitions smoothly is my most difficult task” (Smith, 2005, pg. 117). Its also a task that took Tom 5 years to accomplish. It has to be practiced regularly before the student can comfortably do it without orders. It has to be embedded into their kinesthetic memory. Humor is vital as the student will often fail and then try again. Praise and humor go side by side.
Tom learnt to follow directions. He could write his name on a side of the page. Printing repetitive designs also helped him learn left from right. “Collage helped him to organize visual experiences and to separate foreground from background” (Smith, 1995, pg. 175). Tom learnt to act through puppets. His drama teacher would show him, guide him step by step how to walk, talk etc. It was an organized process that required practice. Tom did not understand human emotions. He was taught to concentrate on human’s “faces, walks, and gestures and matching them to an emotion” (Smith, 2005, pg. 176). Tom had to be constantly reminded what his task was and where he should focus. “An effective actor is organized; she structures the various aspects of her performance (e.g., physical characterization, vocal modulation) to most clearly present her interpretation of the material at hand” (Smith, 2005, pg. 113).
Tom effectively made a movie about a hero and a villain for his class. His focus was crystal clear, the villain has to be overpowered. Tom was reminded to concentrate on the focus and the frame and keep his camera moving with the actions. “The purpose of such constant attention to visual focus in filmmaking was to build more attention to visual detail in the reading program, to see the difference between stick, stock and stuck” (Smith, 1995, pg. 176). Tom also developed his reasoning skills through similar projects in the Lab School.
Tom further was learning patterns and sequences. It would be like him asked what comes after that or what should you do next. It was making his mind think and be focused. He was being shown meaning in his actions. When he was learning to make a chair, his teacher made him see pictures of chairs to show representation and then gave him a choice of what type of chair would he make. Every phase, like sawing, hammering, nailing, etc was worked with him step by step and making sure he understood the order. This was done till Tom could make a chair by himself. It was like helping master the steps before he could put his individual artistic designs into the piece. Its like “with spelling, we need to notice the child’s body in relation to the paper, his posture, how he holds a pencil, how quickly he writes, how he forms the letters, whether he scratches out or erases continually, sounds out every letter, closes his eyes and tries to erase the letters and write in the air first” (Smith, 2005, pg. 178).
Tom showed me how organization and repetition with a keen eye on making something artistic can make a LD child learn and make himself/herself proud. It made me realize how as a teacher I need to keep an eye on whether the child’s mind is working on the same pace as mine and whether the child is interested. I liked this remark “An analysis of the art form in which he excels gives clues to the components needed for the child to learn most effectively” (Smith, 1995, pg. 180). Art helps the child and the teacher realize the undiscovered talents. Tom discovered himself through art and his learning disability was now no longer a barrier to his learning.

Pearl Buck's book about her child

2007-11-17T07:18:00.000-05:00

As I meet and hear about people with disorders, and see how they overcome challenges and never talk about depression, I feel delighted and embrace a new passion for this world. I believe that everyone in this world can achieve their dreams. But I also remember the unfortunate who don’t have an opportunity to realize their dreams and are often left to die. “The Child Who Never Grew” by Pearl S. Buck is a very short story told from the mouth of a famous writer as well as a mother, to a mentally retarded daughter. This story is quite interesting as it gives an honest account of a mother who never told the world about her daughter. It took a lot of courage for the mother to write this book but she did as she wanted to help and be a part of other mothers who too face similar situations like her. This story ties in with Sally Smith’s story of how she too started the Lab School, as she says “I was not prepared when friends of my friends in Washington D.C, began to drop off their children at my home, claiming that the kids had something wrong with them and asking that I please figure out what it was and fix it” (Smith, pg xii). Sally too like Buck had a son who had ADHD and she herself started teaching her son. So it was normal for other parents with similar problems come to Sally for help.
Buck in the beginning of the book talks about how “Parents have been bewildered and ashamed when their child is backward, when he cannot learn in school, when perhaps he cannot even learn to talk” (pg. 28). This leads to a gloominess in the child and the family and makes us wonder why does everyone have to fit into the “normal” range. The line “His shadow falls before him, wherever he goes”(pg. 28) is very depressing and marks a honest truth. But hope prevails as Sally remarks “The very same passion that I had felt for the unmet needs of my own son 20 years before was the same passion we heard from all corners of the country” (Smith, pg. xvii).
Every child is special and so was Buck’s child as the nurse said “she is beautiful too. There is a special purpose for this child” (pg. 32). Buck was proud of people praising her child but then “why then did speech delay!” (pg 34) asks Buck. Buck had a tough time confronting the notion that her child had stopped growing. I feel that she had missed so much more of what her child was doing in comparing her to other kids and what they were learning or doing. As Sally says “Have you ever met a nonreader who really does not want to read? Of course not.[] When they find they cannot read, they many claim they do want to read because they are afraid of failure and of looking dumb to their friends” (Smith, pg. 4). Its appalling to read “I did not see even my own child as she really was” (pg. 35). I feel the “terror” (pg. 37) that Buck mentions is a fear of her not accepting her child who is happily playing in the sand and water. Its that expectation of being ‘normal’ from the child which mars the situation. It saddens my heart to read “Her eyes, so pure in their blue, were blank when one gazed into their depths” (pg 36-37). Why were they blank? Maybe they did respond but we were too busy in human emotions to not notice them. As I read Sally’s book side by side, I think that these children respond but through the arts.
Sally makes a very motivating statement about how “art promote a deeper understanding of other civilizations, religions and cultures. [] Children with learning disabilities must learn that “different is not bad” and that their differences often make them interesting and talented” (Smith, pg. 7). I am not a Chinese, but in Buck’s book I recognize and identify with how “the Chinese believed that since Heaven ordains, it was a person’s fate to be whatever he was and it was neither his fault nor his family’s. They believed too, with a sort of human tenderness, that if a person were handicapped in one way, there were compensations, also provided by Heaven” (pg. 39). These words ring so true. I have a problem with some of Buck’s wording especially the use of the word “handicapped” as a person who is not “normal” by our standards is no way a beggar. The person has a reason to be proud of oneself. It is hurtful in the same way Buck got hurt when someone said “The kid is nuts” (pg. 40) to her child.
Buck’s positive nature comes across when she appreciates her child being a child always and not having to say “I can’t never git married because I’m queer” (pg. 48). Sally says “ We are losing sight of children. They are not miniature adults or puppets but young humans who need time to develop and become their unique selves” (Smith, pg. 130). We need to let our children ascertain themselves and not just start learning what adults do.
Her child is very musical and through music she is able to do something she enjoys and cherishes. “She finds her calm and resource in listening, hour after hour, to her records. The gift that is hidden in her shows itself in the still ecstasy with which she listens to great symphonies, her lips smiling, her eyes gazing off into what distance I do not know” (pg. 48). Sally says that her children at the Lab School “listen to music that sounds like the sea to encourage visualization of the scene” (Smith, pg. 66). Susan Mebane Carter in Sally’s book talks about how music makes one recognize one’s true self. Music makes a student learn about being patient and sitting still, like Buck’s daughter who would sit still while listening to Beethoven. I agree with Sean Rozsics in Sally’s book where he says that students do eventually recognize the scales and rhythm of different music. This could be a reason why Buck’s daughter never wanted to hear some types of music. She had developed her own love for particular types of music. Its just fascinating how Buck’s daughter like other children have this ardent sense of music and how much they feel at ease with it. Its like being an appreciator or a critic of music. That’s a profession for her.
Buck took to another way of making her child learn to read, and that was through music. The child could sing and read. The child also put in the effort as Buck says “I took both her hands and opened them and saw they were wet. I realized then that the child was under intense strain, that she was trying her very best for my sake” (pg. 62). The child comprehended and valued that her mother would let her foster her love for music. She in return wanted to do something for her mother too. Its this moment in the book which made this book so special and dear to me.
Buck rightfully recognizes how each child like any artist loves art, be it playing with colored rags or painting. She, like Sally, wants parents to recognize their child’s talents through the arts. Why kill your child when your child could someday become a puppeteer or a dancer. Give your child the opportunity to grow and provide him/her learning devices through art/music/drama etc.
Its painful to read how some children in institutions are just left to die. But its again nice to read that people like Sally take the efforts to build a Lab School where there are different rooms like the Industrialists Club for children to learn about the Civil War. In Buck’s book, Buck finds a similar place like this, where children can make baskets and mats, and where the motto is “Happiness first and all else follows” (pg. 71). But here also like Sally, children have rules to follow and they need clear guidelines. “When a structure is provided from the outside, children who experience disorganization are set free and given the safety to learn” (Smith, pg. 33). In Buck’s book also this same theory is reemphasized. The child has to be taught to enjoy companionship and be loved by all. The child makes the adjustment also and does not want to be away from the institution for long as that’s where she discovered her self and has a sense of security there. Its this which makes Buck say now “I have a sense of pride that she will be dependent on no one as long as she lives” (pg. 77).
Buck like Sally has shown us how she too now understands how every mentally challenged child needs to build the self-esteem to do something worthwhile for himself/herself. “The best thing in the world for each of us is that which we can best do, because it gives us the feeling of being useful” (pg. 85). If the child is happy in dancing, let him/her learn the skills and techniques of dancing rather than solving math problems. Even dancing is a problem by itself as steps have to be figured out and coordinated with the rhythm of beats. Buck’s daughter too found her love of life of music and sports and she outshined in the Special Olympics. She would participate in group events like field trips, cooking etc. Buck’s daughter was very observant as she knew which records she did not like and would hide them. She would also observe who came to visit her and what the person did. She liked some regularity and uniformity in her life.

Skin Game--beyond the obvious

2007-11-17T07:17:00.000-05:00

Skin Game by Caroline Kettlewell is not just a book about Caroline cutting her hand repeatedly but its about what prompted her to do so and how the arts could have helped her. “Is there nothing more fascinating than our own blood? The scarlet beauty of it. The pulsing immediacy. The way it courses through its endless circuit of comings and goings, slipping and rushing and seeping down to the cells of us” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 4) says Caroline about her experience with cutting her hand. I am horrified. Its shocking. But as Caroline talks about her life, it makes me wonder about her pain and emotions and whether she was unable to control them. This makes me think about Dr. Wilson who said “the movements of the hand lead to the redesign of the brain’s circuitry. He states that it has been proven that the influence of manual play and object manipulation facilitate the acquisition of language and cognitive skills” (Smith, 2005, pg. 6). Would Caroline have benefited then from doing some work like woodwork to prevent herself from cutting her hand?
Caroline had a short attention span but coming from a gifted family, always had a pressure on her to perform. “Through no fault of her own my sister, two years older, had served as the measure by which my inadequacies were perpetually thrown into relief. She was better as sports, better at board games, better at drawing and painting and projects, more musical, more popular, and of course, smarter” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 7). Her demotion to a lower grade led her to become more disruptive and disappointed with herself. But then again I see Caroline talking about how she loved reading books especially about how brave and continuing some characters would be in their ventures. Caroline feels a sense of dejectedness at not having achieved or fought for something. It looks like she wanted some care and attention from her family and friends.
Caroline could perform a part in a drama. Sally feels children who have on and on been considered a failure need to perform activities where mistakes are allowed. “Many great works of art have emanated from mistakes” (Smith, 2005, pg. 14). If Caroline had taken an interest in drama or maybe woodwork, she would have loved to see herself performing or making something. It would have increased the self-confidence in her and not made her want pity and sympathy from others. Caroline’s family was very active and worked hard. Maybe Caroline felt she was not doing that. Maybe regular classrooms bored her. Also her own family life was monotonous, “in my family, we had so profoundly lost the language for anger or unhappiness or despair, for the awkward and the uncomfortable and the unpleasant, that we didn’t even know something was missing” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 20). I wish she could have been a part of Sally’s club where she could explore new horizons, and where classes would come alive. You would not just be in a forest staged place but would be wearing costumes and imagining yourself to be a fierce lion who is scaring the other animals by roaring out aloud. Caroline’s imagination, emotions and learning could so well have been utilized. She would get an opportunity to learn about the forest and animals also. I know Caroline had a dearth of books at her home and she could have read books about animals also. Caroline should feel “empowered in an arts setting that will generalize to some of [] (her) work in academic settings” (Smith, 2005, pg. 15).
Caroline did enjoy being out in the nature, canoeing, ice skating, climbing trees, camping and so on. “In the thick stillness of summer evenings, the steady thrum of the bullfrogs in the lake mixed in strange harmony with the whir of cicadas and the soprano chirrup of tree peppers, until the air was textured with the sound” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 32). I believe that Caroline would have happy to be a part of a Nature club, like one I in my school, where she could go out and plant trees, or learn about trees and plants. It would bring out her immense passion for the outdoors. Outdoor activities like skiing seem to again bring out all unrest emotions in Caroline and gives her a chance to be delighted.
Caroline’s love for drama is shown again when she says “I’d long had a habit- no doubt from the influence of so much reading- of imagining myself in the third person. When I was a little kid, this narrative tendency had applied itself mostly to my games:
….her breath ragged in her throat, she pressed herself deeper into the shadow of the trees, hoping to avoid her pursuers. []
.. .dragging her shattered leg behind her, she inched her way painfully through the mud, knowing everyone’s survival depended on her” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 54).
Caroline would have so fitted into Sally’s drama club. I can picture herself doing a Lady Macbeth, with her voice all high pitched. “ An effective actor is analytical; she strives to identify and anticipate both behavioral and narrative patterns, and she is eager to perceive the cause-and-effect relationship between the actions of a character and the subsequent course of a story. She seeks to understand” (Smith, 2005, pg. 110). I see her analyzing relationships like her family and how they behave. I see how she looks at her sister with her boyfriend and so easily forms a story about how her sister chose a glamorous life, and she never realized when her sister had become so different than her.
Then Caroline breaks down. She just cannot bear the disentanglement anymore with real life. “Or was it just my mind itself, coming undone of its own accord, on its own preordained schedule, drowning all my thoughts in a sea of static like the background cackle of an overseas telephone call, where a thousand frantic conversations are carried on just beyond the edge of intelligibility” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 55). Caroline takes our her frustration by breaking things. The sound of shattered glass is melodious to her ears. But life again does not satisfy her and she takes a razor and mercilessly cuts herself. Now she feels satiated. “Here is the incredible self” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 57). Life is again under her control. Its like life has stopped reasoning out itself and this seems an easy solution to maneuver oneself out of it.
Sally talks about how students have low self esteem in school as they feel more pressure as a being coined as a failure when they cant answer questions correctly in class. “As 9-year-old Troy lamented, “I try and try and try, and still it’s not right” (Smith, 2005, pg. 42). Caroline would have helped if her family and her school had given her specific good praise like commenting on how well she played outdoor games. The teachers should always find those talents that make every student unique and special and encourage them to nurture those skills. They should find life meaningful and harmonious with their lives. “I want my students to look at a broken table leg and see how it can be made into a tower” (Smith, 2005, pg 46). I completely agree with this notion. Life always has a purpose and that is different from everyone. As teachers, we need to help our students find what that raison d'être is and not just coerce them into doing something we want. Its also about letting out those unwanted and stored up emotions by doing something worthwhile. Our students’ minds should be light and free. “Frustration, humiliation, insecurity, guilt, remorse, loneliness- I cut ‘em all out” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 63).
I agree with Sally who says “Critical, high-level analytical thinking is required by teacher to unlock the deep puzzles that block effective practice and thinking in students with special needs” (Smith, 2005, pg. 52). Its Caroline’s positive experience in middle school and her enjoyment of being loved by friends that made her write
“ Set upon
by life’s
joys,
sorrows,
and perfections,
that find
their way
to paper” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 92-93)
Its here we see what a great poet Caroline is. Its another unused talent that is finally published. Caroline still struggled with her emotional problems but liked her teacher’s concerned and sweet nature. Caroline loved to imitate others. This brought a humor in her life. Sally explains how humor can eliminate tension and “can be an effective tool for discipline, for teaching, and for testing” (Smith, 2005, pg. 14). In Caroline’s case, her sense of humor let her control her anxiety and enjoy life.
Caroline’s ability to analyze life always would let her scrutinize her life. She would write out her feelings and later when she was contented, she would see how ludicrous some of her thoughts were. As she started enjoying her life, with positive encouragement from her school and friends, her GPA increased. “ My GPA was magical to me. It had the power to confirm or refute my worth” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 118). Her parents now appreciated her as her grades were up. But where were they all this while? Why had they not observed the brilliant yet hidden talents of their child, or seen how she would injure herself and make a bracelet with her cuts or how she had once started skipping meals? Its her friends who help her when she is shivering and feeling again that sense of loss in life. The biofeedback machine helped her relax. Finally she had something other than a razor to help her. Dr Sarah Belson also has shown us so many of these devices that help special children to cope with their problems. Life can be beneficial for everyone.
Caroline’s life again took a toil with her innumerous boyfriends, not finding the right job and cutting herself again regularly. Then she found someone, an optimistic guy, who said “Don’t let life get in the way” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 165). This guy had a ardor and gusto unmatched to anyone Caroline had known. His positive influence made Caroline go back and pursue her dreams of language and literature, “one who has been wandering the desert plunges bodily into the welcome, cooling waters of an oasis” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 165). This guy truly had a concern for Caroline as he said “ It might not be my fault, but I just cant sit there and say its no big deal to me if you’re cutting yourself up with razor blades” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 167). It dawned on Caroline that someone she loved was getting affected by her actions, even though it directly did not harm that person.
Caroline learnt to accept that life came its problems. But there were countless enthralling things to do that she had to learn. Its like life opened up with choices for Caroline also. She no longer has to conform or be bothered about life’s daily humdrums. Life can always be driven by oneself. I feel Sally’s book so simply puts all the possible solutions for children like Caroline. “The negative behaviors that often are seen in children with severe learning disabilities and/or ADHD frequently turn into positive attributes in adulthood. [] Teachers should carefully list the negative behaviors displayed by their students and imagine which of those behaviors might eventually contribute to the students’ success” (Smith, 2005, pg. 21). Caroline’s “very forceful in her opinions; very independent and reluctant to take advice; strong-minded; strong-willed; and not afraid to raise conflicting opinions” (Kettlewell, 1999, pg. 39) could have so easily been turned into making her something valuable for herself and her life. Her plethora of talents like loving nature, writing, skiing, camping, analyzing characters and relationships, drama-acting, reading etc could have diverted her attention from her life’s inability to adjust and cope with problems and cut herself, to something so much greater. She is a star in my eyes. She is one who her people, her family, her teachers never recognized as a child and let her think life was dull and conforming. Teaching arts would have helped her so much. It’s a shame that they did not see the truly endowed child.

The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime-Review

2007-11-17T07:16:00.000-05:00

Christopher, in The Curious Incident of the Dog who died at Nighttime, is an autistic child who does not understand human emotions but is mathematically genius. After reading Sally Smith’s book, The Power of the Arts, I feel that children with special needs are never truly recognized for their talents. We tend to look at how they are communicating with the rest of the world, or if the world understands them, and not listen or see what they are capable of doing. Christopher was extremely agitated and annoyed with the policemen questioning him about the dead dog he found, as he cannot socialize. Also he doesn’t like people touching him. But on the other hand, when Christopher scientifically analyses how the stars cannot provide us light at night as they are moving as fast as the speed of light, it left me in awe. I am still trying to grasp the concept but for Christopher “it is something you can work out in your own mind just by looking at the sky above your head at night and thinking without having to ask anyone” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 10). Christopher uses his mathematical to configure things. But he will not let anyone touch him or will mix with anyone. I agree with Sally when she writes “The power of the arts could have been used to work on their readiness skills, their organization skills, their oral and written language and core courses” (Smith, 2005, pg. 29).
Christopher’s life is full of contrasts on what he can and cannot do. He cannot figure out people’s expression like what does someone mean when they raise their eyebrows? He finds it confusing. He also has a tough time understanding what people say. He feels people talk in metaphors. He cannot understand the double meaning like “He was the apple of her eye” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 15) as Christopher would think it meant someone having an apple in their eye but when it means being the star of someone’s life. Christopher can take things for its literal meaning.
This is seen repeating again when Christopher reads the sign “Keep off the grass”( Haddon, 2005, pg. 29). He feels this is confusing as some parts of the grass in the park are used for walking. He also does not understand why people break rules. His father drives over the speed limit and is often driving under the influence of alcohol. Christopher thinks it might cause his father to kill someone and he relates it to what he has read about “And in the Bible it says Thou shalt not kill but there were the Crusades and two world wars and the Gulf War and there were Christians killing people in all of them” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 29). At times, I feel confused but then logically thinking, I can see the connections Christopher makes. The Bible is like a law to him and he connects all incidents where people break laws.
Christopher says “I don’t know what Father means when he says “Stay out of other people’s business” because [] his job is going into other people’s houses and fixing their boilers” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 29). Here again Christopher is relating his father as a businessman to the work he does to the phrase his father uses.
I see Christopher constantly analyzing concepts and meanings he heard from other people. His mother said that he was a nice person as he did not lie. Christopher uses this to connect to a simple thing of how miserable he would feel if he lied about what he had for breakfast. It’s the same reason which makes him repeatedly tell the truth, even though people don’t believe him.
Christopher is always finding connections and meanings between things happening. He is like a walking talking dictionary and thesaurus. I can so clearly see him sitting in a club called Dictionary Stop where he would be helping out people understand the meanings of words they don’t know. This book is so simple to read as Christopher is forever explaining and reconnecting things. He is clever to figure out that his mother cannot die of heart attack as it happens to older people. We see Christopher deftly explaining like a doctor, what heart attack is. He draws an analogy with Eskimos who eat fish and so don’t get heart attacks. But again Christopher explains “But an aneurysm is when a blood vessel breaks and the blood doesn’t get to the heart muscles because it is leaking” (HaHHH Haddon, 2005, pg. 28). This is a clue that makes Christopher later so searching for his mother even though his father said she had died. It makes us think how he refuses to believe what others say without his logical mind reasoning. It’s a quality to cherish.
The way Christopher solves the mystery of the dog is fascinating as it gives an insight to the qualities I have been talking about. He first can easily identify the fork which was used to kill the dog and it shows his photographic memory. He is afraid of talk to strangers and new people and takes a while to know and see what they are doing before he can feel comfortable in their presence. But he still ventures out as a detective. He used his “Chain of Reasoning” (Haddon, 2005, pg 42) as usual to map out connections.
He is well read as he relates to how he will write his book to Heart of Darkness by Conrad and how he will use it to figure out who killed the dog. He also later uses the book The Hound of the Baskervilles to analyze and compare and contrast every incident and relate it to his present mystery. “His mind …was busy in endeavoring to frame some scheme into which all these strange and apparently disconnected episodes could be fitted” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 74). I also keep seeing these lists Christopher is making about the pros and cons of every situation. “The arts can help build organizational skills” (Smith, 2005, pg. 33) shows how Christopher’s mind has worked itself and help build his mathematical mind. Christopher’s simple analogy for “why 4 red cars in a row made it a Good Day, [] and why 4 yellow cars in a row made it a Black Day” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 24) goes back to this organization that his mind always strives for.
I keep seeing Christopher repeating things. It also shows again what a good memory he has. “My memory is like a film. [] my memory has a smelltrack which is like a soundtrack” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 76). He talked to his teacher about how he wanted to be an astronaut and since he could not take orders, it would be a daunting task. He again repeats to himself later which shows he is thinking and analyzing still. He adds hope to this dream by stating that he can work well with machines. “ But I said that you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 25) which shows the hope our special needs children have. It’s the arts as Sally mentions that makes them dream about the impossible. But we see another side of his dual character of not him building an aircraft where only he can fit as he does not like being with people.
I see his brilliant mathematical skills being displayed again when he solves a problem which 92 percent of the people had not solved. Its about a problem where people have to guess which out of the three doors have a car and not a goat behind it. People disputed over Marilyn’s solution of the chances of people choosing the right door. The problem seemed complex to me, but what struck me was how Christopher drew a diagram with arrows and boxes and also using variables solved it. He explains himself by saying “logic can help you work out the right answer” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 65). I wonder again if this will help him solve the mystery?
Christopher loves science as he writes “there is always something new that science can discover, and all the facts that you take for granted can be completely wrong” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 80). I am reminded of how he would love Sally’s science club where “the science classes hold a Science Museum Convention in February, during which time students are given the opportunity to identify a problem they are interested in solving” (Smith, 2005, pg. 73). I keep thinking how Christopher’s problem solving skills would be displayed here. But he would have a problem as he cant work in groups and Sally’s school has students working in teams. He would have to adjust and learn to work with everyone. Christopher’s love for science also resonated again how he believes that nothing is impossible.
Its Christopher’s love for math that makes him cool his nerves. “I doubled 2’s in my head because it made me feel calmer. I got to 33554432, which is 2(to the power of 25)” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 120). He used to count his breaths till 50 and make their cubes to lessen his hurt. He again solves some quadratic equations like “0= 437x(pg. 163-check) When his mind can’t read too much of things or signs written together signs all blur up inside his mind like when he stepped out of the train station. He again starts counting till 50. His clever mind “made my hand into a little tube with my fingers [] and I looked through the tube so that I was only looking at one sign at a time” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 170).
Christopher again uses boxes and arrows in his head to figure out his decision when he discovers that his mother is still alive. His fear coverts to “Fear (pg. 136-check)” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 136). He has some difficulty traveling as he is used to some relation. When he doesn’t notice a sign on the street anymore which was so far guiding him, he gets lost. But he says “if something is nearby you can find it by moving spiral, walking clockwise and taking every right turn until you come back to a road you’ve already walked on, then taking the next left, then taking every right turn” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 139). And next thing you realize, is that Christopher is back on track.
Christopher’s mind is so sharp that even the policeman does not realize that he has run away from home. His brilliant memory remembers his father’s card numbers and his mother’s new address. His mind always works like a machine. He is forever drawing out maps, making analogies between things, solving math equations. His mind never stops working. He sees a sign mentioning about a holiday in Malaysia and he connects it to orangutans and what that word means and where Malaysia is and how it reminded him of the three blind mice song and “you can put different amounts of water in different glasses and they make different notes because they have what are called different resonant frequencies” (Haddon, 2005, pg. 178). I am flabbergasted and in awe at how Christopher’s mind constantly works and related everything to math. Even being at his mother’s house, he makes her flat like a map to help him organize his mind and know where things are.
He finally solves the mystery of who killed the dog and finds his mother back. His mathematical and organized mind and a lot of patience and courage helps him keep himself true. He is no longer again a liar. He did not kill the dog. He could still give the math examination and explore his love for math. He also slowly learnt to travel in the train with people. His love for math as an art, love for reading, love for science and knowledge helped him solve the mystery.
I loved this book as I love math and organizing. This book was a puzzle for me to understand Christopher’s mind. I feel the arts played a vital role in his life. Even though he struggles to meet new people, and lacks social skills, he can still pursue his love for science and math and above all a keen sight for finding relations between things. Math is not only about solving problems for examinations but also for solving real life problems for Christopher.

A book I read called Train Go Sorry by Cohen

2007-10-01T22:37:00.000-04:00

I have read about the whole concept of using multiple intelligences for effective learners and knew that it would be applicable for students with learning disabilities. But I wanted to learn about how specifically it helps. Sally Smith’s book “Live it Learn it” gave me, a beginner in the field of special education, an opportunity to analyze and learn how do students with learning disabilities learn in a natural and realistic situation. I say realistic as it’s the real life that students need to learn more, as its their concrete experiences and one which ties in what they are doing at home to school. Sally talks about how “By experiencing the past through playing roles, making decisions, and debating consequences, children naturally begin to relate the past to the present. They consolidate and internalize their understanding of history through selective play in an Academic Club. Studying the past prepares these students to understand the present and plan for the future” (Smith, pg. 8). The book I was faced as a challenge to read and scrutinize using these principles was “Train Go Sorry” by Leah Hager Cohen. I was stuck and felt ignorant as I did not understand the title. Further reading led me to understand that it means “you missed the boat” (pg. 188) in the deaf sign language or you loose connections with a loved one. In this book, James, a deaf boy, has lost the opportunity to meet his brother, who is in jail. It’s the feeling of dejectedness, after waiting for hours, to meet someone you love, someone who is bound by locks, someone whom James grew up with.
Leah, a young child, grew up in the deaf community, and wanted to learn and be with the deaf children. She had once put a couple of pebbles in her ear to act as hearing aids. Leah wanted to be like the other deaf children as it was a fascination for her and in some ways, her world. Leah had noticed how “mirrors and flash cards, balloons and balls, feathers and tongue depressors” (pg. 11) were used in speech lessons for deaf students. For me, it’s a lively way of engaging and encouraging students to read, accept and avoid the “disappointment [that] leads them to create defense mechanisms to keep others from seeing their inadequacies” (Smith, pg. 15). The deaf students don’t just read books in the book but listen with the help of their earphones and hearing aids and this bonds them together or “all joined to the same circuit” (pg. 11).
Sally talks about having a multicultural classroom and I see this echoing in Sofia in the book. I realize that most students don’t even get a chance to learn their own sign language properly, and there is also a difference between sign languages across the countries. Sofia was initially frustrated at not being able to communicate with other students, especially outside class, but then with the help of the “foreign language transition class” (pg. 19), she managed to master another language. Sofia is also the mediator between her other deaf sister Irina and her family. In Sofia’s class, one sees the excitement and curiosity in students to know how words are said in other languages. This small activity leads to students learning the word lollipop in native languages spoken by their classmates, as the “Maria Joya, the Spanish-speaking aide, writes Paleta,” “Russian –speaking aide adds Ledenets,” and Jerry, the student from Haiti writes “sucette” (pg. 27) on the board.
Sally talks about how teachers should increase confidence in students with disabilities. Interestingly, Sofia’s favorite sentence was “Deaf can do it except hear” (pg. 31) showing how she too is recognizing and building back her confidence in the world and herself in relation to it. Her family finds it difficult to accept her deaf community but Sofia boldly strives ahead in with the help of her school. Sofia faces a challenge when she ventures out in the streets to selling yearbook ads, and faces a woman who speaks with her head down and doesn’t give Sofia due respect. Sofia is aware of “deaf people stereotypically being pot-bangers and silverware crashers” (pg. 173) and puts in an effort to wash the dishes as slowly as possible in her house. Sofia comes across to me as a strong student who is proud of her deaf culture and knows another reality fact that “Having no children is better than having deal children” (pg. 181). I am looking and assessing Sofia’s progress in terms of how well she is adapting herself to her two worlds and how she is not afraid of doing any kind of work.
Sally’s Renaissance Club is highly mesmerizing for me, an English major. Students here assume the roles of certain Renaissance artists like Leonardo da Vinci and they analyze and learn about a character. “It is all personalized and becomes a part of their being. Being an important, productive character with an incredible legacy helps students feel good about themselves” (Smith, pg. 66). In Leah’s book, this transforms into deaf students acting out in plays like Cinderella, where “a girl trying out for Red Riding Hood cups a hand to her hearing aid, pretending to listen for a “Come in!” before entering Grandmother’s house” (pg. 38). Here again I see students forgetting their disabilities and being completely engrossed in bringing out the true character of the story. It’s a mark to their passion for learning. In the “Rapunzel-finds-her-blinded-prince scene” (pg. 38), I found James, a deaf student, who never attended classes regularly and came from an emotionally disturbed family, who was lying down and pretending to ask for help, a true scene as James felt he needed everyone to see that even though he is big and strong, he too needs love and care. It was James’ way of bringing out his feelings.
Sally stresses how its important to get every disabled students’ attention as their minds do wander. In Leah’s book, the teacher also struggles to get everyone’s attention and says “Can you see? Tap your neighbor, get everyone’s attention. All right? Get him, is he looking?” (pg. 41). I wish the deaf school in Leah’s book had made a club called Courtroom as it would help deaf students learn the proceedings in a real courtroom and would give them a chance to fight for their rights when needed. I felt bad that the people in the court room did not realize or know how to speak or provide special and useful facilities for deaf people to communicate. It felt like a person not from the deaf community, and who spoke, was needed to fight for the cause of not mainstreaming deaf students. I was shocked to read that “The State Ed. People do not look at Melissa while she presents. It is as if they are unable to connect the deaf student standing beside them with the spoken message they hear over the microphone. One watches the interpreter, the other the tape recorder” (pg. 58). I feel its so degrading and humiliating. These deaf people who have their own Olympics and own culture, are fighting for their rights to a group of people who don’t understand the first basic essence of communicating with deaf people.

Sally’s clubs are also being seen manifested in reality in Leah’s book, when we read about how Leah’s grandfather “played basketball for the Union League, the Lexington Boys, the Hebrew Association of the Deaf” (pg. 76) and in some places was the only deaf player in professional teams. Its again a love of basketball, which I know as I follow the game rigorously, which Leah’s grandfather took pride in and yet never expected a reward or fame. Its again the rising up from the notion of having a disability and doing things one cherishes.
Sally explains how visual learning provides an added benefit for learning for disability students, and this rings true in Leah’s grandmother, who enjoys watching a TV show called “That’s My Dog” where dogs aim at getting a prize through obstacle course and so on. “ Very little language is necessary to follow the program; in fact, my grandmother’s viewing is probably enhanced by being deprived of the host’s platter” (pg. 144). Leah’s grandmother has happily embraced her life with activities like bus rides and Tuesday card games that let her realize her happiness in things she likes and never regret being deaf. It’s the uniqueness of each individual that has also made Sally have various clubs to promote various learning skills and interests and not everyone gets a membership to every club. It’s the recognition of one’s talents that leads to membership in a club.
Deaf students can dance too. They too enjoy dance as an art form. When James is at the prison waiting for his imprisoned brother to come, he recalls how “he penned a rap song for his English class and staged it, complete with dance posse, in the auditorium for the entire school. The audience adored it, demanding encore after encore. “Deaf can do it/ Have no fear/ Deaf can do it/ Except hear! [..] flowed beautifully in sign” (pg. 191). This past memory not only provides a temporary relief to James’ situation of meeting his brother, with whom once he had played; but also lets James confidence build and make him think that he too will be recognized as an intelligent person by the world. I too, as a reader, get a relief and laugh to myself when I hear about his magnificent and enthralling dance performance. After all, who likes to hear about jails all the time.
Deaf students too face racial discrimination. In Leah’s book, the students become critically aware of the race, through reading the book Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold. This book teaches students about unions and how if you were a black you could not join a union. Its not just reading a book but being aware of what’s happening around us. Students learn about Martin Luther King and his famous speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial’s steps, by visiting the actual place. Its so much easier to visualize why someone would stand here and give a speech rather than just reading the speech. The deaf students don’t need to hear the speech as they can just feel the strong presence of Dr King and form their own reasons and make a bond with him. The Vietnam Memorial’s significance is taught to the students when they see someone “making a rubbing of someone’s name- a brother or a father or perhaps a friend who died in the war” (pg. 246). Sally’s clubs too aim at making the real world come alive in classrooms. It shows how more students learn when they experience and feel something rather than just reading facts.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development stated that 85 percent of learning disabled students cant read. How will they explore the writings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Florence Nightingale, I ask myself with Sally. Its this Academic Club Methodology that “provides children with a rich curiosity, a passionate interest in the past and present, and the information they would glean from books if they could read. They learn and retain a behemoth amount of information [..] Their critical thinking is sparkled” (Smith, pg. 194) quotes Sally. For me, and through my rendering of the book Train Go Sorry, I have learnt that children need to accept and happily live with their disabilities, never stopping a deaf student from learning sign language; and at the same time learning to incorporate their lives and make it more connected with the rest of the world to love and live in greater harmony through arts. Deaf students like James forget their troubled childhood through drama, and felt special about themselves. Sophia too dreams of going to college and also at the same time being a key help in her family. She too uses the arts to keep herself alive in the vast realm of learning.

Deaf Dancers

2007-10-01T22:11:00.000-04:00

I love dancing. I feel dance is a way of articulating oneself. I was ecstatic to meet Tara Downing, a deaf dancer. The exhilaration stemmed from the fact that everyone can dance. Tara Downing was a very animated person. There was a merriment in her face and she seemed like she would make a difference in our lives. She had the interpreters not face the class so that everyone would just look at Tara. Its a rule that interpreters should not make any comments in the class. Tara was putting in so much effort to express what she was saying, but more so with her facial expressions and hand expressions. Her face shimmered a unadulterated concern and a true sentiment. She didn't need a voice to articulate out her anger or say she is sad. Her body and face were more than sufficient to communicate that. We heard what she was saying but it was just the words that I was connecting with Tara, the person standing and communicating to me with her hands and body. Tara did clear some myths I had in mind about deaf people. She said deaf people do not learn through vibrations. They learn dancing through sight only. Hearing alone does not entail learning a rhythm. Deaf people use their eyes for balance and their peripheral vision for controlling their movements. Deaf people learn the rhythm through counting and sight. I was so lucky that everyone is given a fair chance to learn what they wish and not be crippled by what nature/fate has not given them. So all you dancers, dance away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XprDOmkZDcM

Brenda- Wheelchair Tennis Player

2007-10-01T21:42:00.000-04:00

I have seen but never really cared for watching sports for disabled people. But my class led me to meet Brenda, a person who plays tennis while sitting on her wheelchair. Brenda seemed a very enthusiastic person, one who has never experienced depression( shocking to some) or stopped her life. She was disabled at the age of 27 in a car accident. She said that people started behaving differently with her and expected her to do just desk work. But as an active photographer, Brenda was not to give up. She said she was never an active sports person and after her acccident had no feelings in her legs. But still she wanted to do something. She felt tennis was something she could play. Brenda has now co founded the Prince George's Tennis Foundation for all children to play tennis, including children in wheelchairs, and to increase the confidence in children. She also won the National Championship of Wheel Chair Tennis. She has been on this wheel chair for more than 30 years and is so flexible and doesn't need anyone's help to move around. She says its a bit difficult to hold the tennis racket and at the same time push the wheel chair but still she feels it gives her a boost of energy. She feels tennis has reconnected her with people again. She has even challenged all those who scorned her and felt that she would never be able to play tennis. She even realizes that its difficult for a person to sit on knees and talk to her. She would rather have the person stand and talk to her. Through Brenda, I felt how arts helps disabled people and how it gives them the ability to learn something novel and be valued in life. It is still a cruel world for the disabled and people like Brenda and Sally Smith are trying to demonish it. I look at Brenda and feel that its always keeping an open mind, accepting your position, and then recognizing your strengths and utilizing them. Brenda has made me open my mind and raise my curiosity. I now want to go and see a game where people play tennis while being on wheelchairs. I feel I need to know more about this game and explore in details about what happens and how. But its a starting point and that is what matters the most to me.

The word Handicapped

2007-10-01T21:26:00.000-04:00

How often do we call disabled people "handicapped"? I would think everyday. But now this word sends a shiver down my spinal cord. This word, as per some, means a hand in a cap. It came from an English game when forfeited money was placed in a cap. We say that disabled people cannot function "normal functions" and need "help." We cripple their lives already with this assumption. Who has defined this word "normal"? Are we neglecting Gardener's Multiple Intelligences? Are we looking at everyone same? If someone is born with a defect, then why should the person punished by us helping him/her as if doing a favor? Whats wrong in helping someone realize their potentials? Anyways, coming back to the word "handicapped," this word has not come to mean this whole notion of disabled people begging. What are these people begging for? A bag of our so called normal life which is ever so changing. Its so cruel. Dont we help a child take its first step? Dont we help an old man with his heavy grocery bags? Help is not wrong to ask as you are trying to make an effort to do something in the world. But yes its wrong if you have the potential and have not tried. I think that it always helps to look at the world from multiple views and decide when to do what. This would lead us to helping a blind man cross the street but not help him host a radio show.

Writing a reflection paper

2007-10-01T21:12:00.000-04:00

I always abhor writing reflection papers as I feel I wont be respected and appreciated for being honest and being myself. It hurts when your feelings are not reciprocated. But I had to write a paper for my professor. It was a challenge for me as I felt the need to explain my culturally diverse background and education of India to my professor in USA. I wasn't sure of how he would react. But I must say I was somewhat dazed and rather pleasantly shocked at his comments. He seemed to feel my efforts in explaining the stark difference between my education in India and the education in the USA. I did like his thoughtful comments like "You are indeed fortunate to have such a creative, supportive, and interesting family." I felt like he was indeed reading and thinking about my paper and not just grading me. I felt his sincerity in reading my paper. He would acknowledge my heritage by saying like "As a tremendously diverse nation, India has clearly prepared you to teach and interact with children from countless backgrounds and traditions. This is a gift and one that will serve your students and your colleagues in ways that may not even be apparent to you at this stage of your life and career." He would also keep a track of what I said and how my writing was all related. I felt so satisfied that at least my professor appreciated my paper and did not just look at it from his view point. But still I feel I will always hesitate to write reflection papers as not everyone is so genuinely understanding as this professor of mine.

Sticky Notes Online

2007-10-01T21:02:00.000-04:00

I recently discovered, through my friend, the application called sticky notes on facebook. Its just like scribbling a quick note on a pad and sticking it on the board. It reminded me of how I would rush out and have to leave a note for my roomie and vice versa. Its so much more real like and not like typing on the computer. I am having my fair share of laugh at using this application.

Cousins

2007-10-01T20:48:00.000-04:00

I had the oppurtunity to bond with my sister and my cousin, both of whom I met after years. It was a meeting at my house, far away from home(India). I felt like my mother was meeting her brothers. The picture of the three of us reminded me of my mom and my two uncles. I know my elders will be proud of us as we, their children, have taken the pains to keep in touch and let their tradition of family carry on. Its so touching. Its like no matter how many friends you have, family is always special. We all become so busy in our own social lives but at times its so necessary to go back to your roots and meet those old people with whom you had grown up. You see yourself through your family and so does your world. I was very fortunate to feel that feeling of love at meeting your family.

Give Time

2007-10-01T20:44:00.000-04:00

I feel I get too impatient at times and think like is too predictable. Life is actually much more varied and slow than one thinks. Its like when you give yourself to know someone. It takes months and lots of experiences with that person that you can truly know someone. I am more careful of those who seem overtly friendly at the moment they meet you. Also its always nice to give people time to react. Dont rush into things.

A day of being idle.

2007-10-01T20:38:00.000-04:00

I feel exhausted and drained out. I was on the phone chatting with my friend the whole day. My mind just feels tired. I wish I had not chatted for so long. I guess I have lost touch with chatting on phone. I feel like my mind is so restless but yet its not satisfied with the whole day of chatting. I am so much more free in emailing and chatting now. I tried to see what a day or orkutting would be and realized its not so much fun. I think its more fun to meet friends and do orkutting 5 minutes a day. I think your expectations that everyone will write interesting things or reply immediately is high. I wonder how people spend hours in orkutting. I should have done some reading or maybe written something. Reading and writing makes your mind so much more relaxed. I have not even watched the television and feel a sense of calmness.

What's with having an Oreo Pizza??

2007-09-06T18:03:00.000-04:00

Oh where have all the Italian chefs gone?? Save us from the misery of having a sweet pizza made from Oreo!! Where is the tomato and cheese and lots of bell pepper on my pizza? I don't want to have a biscuit as my pizza topping.

As I was thinking about one of my assignments for class, I was fiddling with my coffee mug and was wondering ah! would I love to have a biscuit with it. I remember the salty biscuits which would not spoil my tea or coffee flavor. Those were the days in India. In USA, I have Oreo, a cookie with my coffee. Its sweet and crunchy and spoils the taste of my coffee thoroughly. I need to get those crackers.

And so, here I was, looking at a picture of the Oreo Pizza and it looked gross. Now why would someone have a sweet pizza? Why would someone leave the delicious pies or mousse for Oreo? It seems to me like the chefs were out of ideas and they just decided to do the most stupidest thing on earth. Its just oreos crumbled and placed on a thin crusted pizza with some sort of chocolatey syrup which binds it together. Its like giving an infant to make something. It also reminded me of how Hung on Top Chef crumbled cornflakes to make a drawing for his quickfire. Please chefs, lets have some decent meal. Lets not just start breaking down things. Oreos are for milk and not to eaten as a pizza. Have you forgotten how delicious a pizza tastes with the cheese melted and dripping on top of it and how you pull the cheese with your teeth as you devour it? I think Chefs should be given alternative tasks to do when they are out of ideas. And how does broken down oreos convert to a pizza? Have we forgotten our basic cooking principles? Alton Brown please help us. I want a pizza which is chewy, with lots of cheese, meat, pineapples, bell peppers, tomatoes and a crust which dont make my teeth have to bite too much on things. I want my mouth to relax and enjoy the pizza.

Dont make marks in your book. Let others also read the book.

2007-09-06T08:24:00.000-04:00

I have been busy with school and work. But I realized that I should also write in my blog. Its a habit to be nurtured. I will be writing shorter notes but at least I will write something.

I have been noticing for quite a while how students buy new books and underline lines they feel important with markers. These markers have a very flourescent brightness to them. I recently tried reading my classmate's book which had these marks. I could not read the rest of the lines as the color of these marked lines was so striking. It blurred my vision. I just fail to understand why would you spoil a book. If you feel a line from the book is important, write it down. Often later when you are rereading the same book, other lines might pop out at you. A text needs to be scrutized and analyzed and not just understood at one go. Also, when you are reselling the book at half.com or amazon, other users will have a problem reading this book as your underlined lines might not be of interest to them. Your book becomes useful then. How do we then think of passing down information and valuable knowledge to others? We have failed in our purpose of reading the book as we dont let others read it.

Its just something shocking I felt and wanted to write it in my blog.

Gang Intervention Programs in DC Public Schools

2007-08-01T14:16:00.000-04:00

It’s a very scary thought when you think of how much gang activity exists in DC public school. I shiver at the thought of reading about how a girl was being raped since age 8 by boys in her school who belonged to gangs. I am horrified to see how many cops are being put outside schools to stop the gangs from influencing school children. The first question parents and guardians ask school authorities now is whether their schools are safe for children to attend. Our children, our learning buds cannot even find a harmless place to study? Are we that incompetent? I have heard that some schools don’t offer children the option to go outside and play during recess as they are anxious that gang members outside the school will influence them to buy guns and drugs. Amidst this all, I look at the intervention programs that has been formed and find pages of reports from the government about what they are planning to do. I want to look at a few programs and see how affective have they been.
The US department of justice has written an article on “GREAT” or Gang Resistance Education and Training program aimed for middle school children. This program attempts to educate children about gangs rather than envisage which children will join and who wont. Their three objectives are to reduce students association in gangs, teach them after effects of joining gangs and show them how law enforcements can be helpful to them. They have a 9 hour curriculum taught by law officers who teach children how to be constructive and resist gang members temptations.
This program has led to students developing more faith and trust in police. Students feel free to mingle and ask questions to the police. The police in return also get to know what problems students face and why they would be tempted to join gangs. There has also been a greater awareness from students about the gangs that exist in DC area like Mi 13 and 18th Street gangs. Students can understand more about the penalty of joining gangs. But it still does not stop students from joining gangs. Still there are many students being allured to join gangs. What can we do to stop it is what the article is asking us.
This article led me to another article called “New Program Supports Anti Gang Efforts” by the US department of justice also. This article has formed the Five-Pronged Approach to Gang Reduction. The primary prevention program is targeted at offering “Services include prenatal and infant care, afterschool activities, truancy and dropout prevention, and job programs.” Their secondary prevention program asks for help from communities to identify and help the young children and monitor their delinquent behaviors. They should aim at helping the children early before the gang members can take advantage of them. The Intervention program is aimed at helping those students who have been involved in gangs and help change their lives for good. The Suppression and Reentry programs looks at dangerous gang members and how to stop them from influencing the society.
I was also led to the Metropolitan Police Department’s intake on what sort of gang intervention programs in the DCPS system. They say that Conflict Resolution Teams from their organization regularly visit the schools to talk about rising conflicts and in an effort to submerge them. “For example, our two organizations, along with the Department of Parks and Recreation’s Roving Leaders and the DC Public Schools, recently collaborated on the “Girlfriend to Girlfriend” summit involving more than 160 young women from 10 major female gangs.”
Their own prevention programs also include “40 Days of Increased Peace,” “Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Club,” and the “DC Fashion Idol” which aims at keeping the youth busy and involved in extra-curricular activities rather than engaging in gang activities. They are aiming at making the children feel good about themselves and increasing their boost of self-confidence. They even have the School Resource Officers who are continuously working with the local police and the school to be aware of when gangs members become involved in schools and prevent them.
Though efforts are being done to minimize gang activity, I feel that parents and teachers should help students from joining gangs. They should seek help from local communities and come up with novel ideas to help our children. We all want our children to learn in a safe and secure place.

Color Pencils

2007-07-30T13:07:00.000-04:00

I recently went to the 15th Color Pencil Exhibition organized by the Color Pencil Society of America (https://mail.nih.gov/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.cpsa.org/EXHIBITION/15thEXHIBITION/Exhibition.Bethesda06.html). I was amazed to see the paintings the artists had produced using just color pencils. I personally love using color pencils. It gives me an innate pleasure and a relaxation of the mind. Naturally, I was curious to see these paintings as I felt that these artists were like me. They too love color pencils and wanted to express their feelings through art. Color pencils are not expensive and children from the age of 2 years are given these. They don’t form a mess and you can use an eraser to delete what you don’t like. It is so basic. With all these ideas in mind, I was not prepared for what I saw. The paintings looked so real. They looked like live pictures. I saw a Christmas ornament which had the houses drawn on it and it looked like someone had actually painted using water colors or oil painting as it also had the effect of a 3D quality in it. I just could not reconcile to the fact that they were actually a product of color pencils. I saw a picture of shiny glasses and I wondered how someone could produce something so shiny and so crystalline using just color pencils. My favorite picture was that of rain falling on the wind-shield of a moving car. These artists had drawn from images of real life; like an image of a beach, or a horse, or even the side of a building, but still they looked so mesmerizing. I could just not believe that they were paintings.My mind became very inquisitive. I myself have used color pencils and I have not seen these qualities. I knew there were some principles to be followed when coloring but still there was something that I did not know. My Google search helped me discover that there are three types of color pencils. We commonly use the lead color pencils but there are also water color pencils and oil color pencils. Water color pencils have a binder in them that is soluble in water. After you paint with the pencil, if you apply water on top of it with a brush, then it produces the same effect as that of watercolor painting using paints. Oil based color pencils have lead in them that is oil-based. Turpenoid is used over the painting to produce the 3D effect or the oil painting effect. I had no idea that these types of color pencils existed.I will not be going into details about how to produce these paintings as that takes time and years of practice and learning. But a short tit bit from me- don’t believe that someone can produce a work that you cant. You too can produce that work. Always find out the details before believing something. I was so sure that just color pencils that we find in the stores cannot produce the shiny effects or the 3D effects in a painting. I believed in my instinct and came across new things to learn and discover. Sites for help:http://www.mooresartgallery.com/watercolorpencils.html,
http://bkjstudio.com/demo/BarbaraKransJenkins2.html,http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/farp/col_pencil/http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/farp/col_pencil/,

http://www.designedlykristi.com/tutorials/colored_pencil/index.html

Have we really changed?

2007-07-30T09:19:00.000-04:00

Has India really embraced American culture? Or have they taken the wrong things from that culture? Or is it fake? These questions have been probing in my mind for a while but they cropped up more when I was watching the hindi movie "Life in a Metro." This movie showcases how young girls are being sexually used by the call center company married male bosses. Call Center companies are flourishing in India, with young men and women, having the basic graduate degree, working at nights and solving the innumerous queries of US people through the telephone. Its funny when you call up Sprint and someone in India answers your call and asks you about the weather. These Indians put on American names and talk with fake US accent and pretend they are also in the US. These young people are getting paid good money so why will they not take the jobs. For my readers information, a Metro in India is a cosmopolitan and busy city in India. You see a young man who wants to make it big in the world in a short while, and his common quote-"I am not here to go for jogging," giving out his apartment's keys to his married bosses who use it to have sex with the company's young girl. This man in return gets promotion. Amidst this we have a married girl whose husband is also involved in this racquet. She finds love in a young man but realizes that its wrong. Her husband asks for forgiveness for cheating on his wife but when he finds out his wife was in love with someone else, he freaks out. Its ok for a man to cheat but a woman can never do it. Even in the end of the movie, when everyone go back to their true loved ones, the wife cannot go back, or least she is not allowed by the Indian society. I ask where are we progressing if we cannot forgive a woman for cheating on her husband? Why cant the woman too go back to the person she truly loves? Why was punishment not meted out to her husband? Also are all women dumb to not understand when their husbands are cheating on them day in day out? And why are working women shown as selling their body to get promotions? Cant they use their talents to get promotion? I look at this movie as showing how less society has progressed and how women still are being used for their body and not brains. Also I feel that times have changed a bit and its not easy to just cheat on your wives. Now women too fight for their rights.

A mockery, a farce in the name of Multiculturalism- Where are the principles of class management being applied? How does the school still succeed?

2007-07-23T11:59:00.000-04:00

Classroom management clearly defines three roles- my job, your job and our job. The “my” is the student who comes from a diverse cultural background. The teacher also comes from a diverse cultural background and his/her job is to enhance learning in students. A teacher, I deduce, would want to bring out or cherish the students’ cultural heritages and respect the students’ ideas without crushing them. And then the students and the teacher together work on how to make a positive environment befitting everyone. But Crawford and Garza’s article called “Hegemonic Multiculturalism: English Immersion, Ideology and Subtractive Schooling” dazed me as there was no effort of classroom management on the teacher’s part which would benefit students. We can all make a set of fixed rules but it should always adapt and adept to the multicultural students. The school is a learning environment not a place where views of some stranger are imposed. Schools change their curriculum to adjust to the changing neighborhoods.
The authors used ethnographic approach, sheltered instruction observation protocol and interviews to “evaluate general education teachers’ use of instructional practices that promote language and content learning for students with limited English proficiency” (Garza, 2005, pg. 606). “ In this article, Parkland Elementary School, had to change from a prestigious white school to a diverse school. But the administration and faculty were still 95% white and only English speakers were 64%. It still maintained a good average rating. Also reprehensibly, one teacher said “Parkland is so good that our reputation gets around, which immigrant parents have told me”(Garza, 2005, pg. 604). The school boasts of its English Language Acquisition (ELA) program as its principal says “I’ve believed in engaging the community. If the community feels welcome, then the kids are going to be getting more out of education, so it really depends on who your community is and how you serve them” (Garza, 2005, pg. 605). The school’s teachers also swanked of having some expertise in dealing with children from multicultural backgrounds.
But then why are the language specialists only “adjuncts” and “a resource personnel who provide English Language Learners (ELL) with supplemental instruction”(Garza, 2005, pg. 607)? Why are being treated as people who just are given a very short time to robotize Non-English speakers to read, write and speak in English. Gone are all those ideals of respecting and loving the community. Its natural for people to stick in their communities when they leave their home county and come to a new place. But its wrong and you are being racist when you say “White people, I mean, they don’t feel comfortable with them” (Garza, 2005, pg. 608). Where is your faith and belief in your diverse student and his/her family?
I believe that the library is a very imperative place for reading about sundry subjects. This article talks about an incident where a kindergarten teacher asks the librarian to speak to the ELLs in Spanish. But since the librarian was not at ease with it, he said to the students to speak out books in languages their parents speak in. He then asked the students where would the books go after this. Benny, an ELA student responded in Spanish but was ignored. Where is the discipline enforced? Why did Benny feel mortified and disconsolate? Where is the union between the teacher and the administration? Why didn’t the librarian acknowledge Benny’s right answer? Do you feel that the school is aware of the needs of the students? Did you know that ELLs are provided books written in their native language by the library, only to read them at home and not at school with their parents or family members. Why not give them English books to read at home also? Are we assuming the parents to be illiterate in English. I am so tired of hearing the phrase that since the parents speak poor English, the child also does it. How then do the teachers converse with the parents or do they not make regular phone calls or have meetings with the parents?
I have often heard schools being treated as factory plants. You are just simply reducing schools to a lower level. Students in this school hesitate to speak in their native language. Natalia wanted to converse in Spanish with Martin, who also knew Spanish. But she “was reminded in a playful manner by her fellow bilingual peers [] ‘Speak English!’ they teased (Garza, 2005, pg 613). This shows how much pressure the teachers have imposed on the students who now think “speaking their native language is wrong” (Garza, 2005, pg. 613). Another point worth noting in this example is where was the teacher when this conversation was taking place? Wasn’t the teacher being “withit?” Why didn’t the teacher explain to Natalie and the other students that knowing your native language is not wrong? Why do I feel that the teacher is literally dictating to the students her culture which says you have to know English or else you wont succeed? Doesn’t this sound like a very familiar saying? How were any of the techniques of tangible recognition even applied to reward the students who probably will be scared to answer in class as they don’t know much English?
I ask these White teachers where is your classroom management skills? Why is there a duality in your actions? Their “affirmation of diversity is realized within the discourse of color-blind ideologies, so as to be palatable to teachers who mainly come from White, middle-class backgrounds and to remain in step with [] District’s accountability standards (Garza, 2005, pg. 615). I agree with the authors of the article who call this sort of management as “hegemonic device” (Garza, 2005, pg. 600) where “minority students and parents are often perceived as dysfunctional” (Garza, 2005, pg. 601). “Cultural difference is already constructed as a deficit” (Garza, 2005, pg. 602) and only the dominant group, the Whites, are chastising the rest to “adopt these status relations through various symbolic and overt practices entrenched within the school culture” (Garza, 2005, pg. 602). But I thought that the neighborhood was of diverse cultures? Then how did the Whites rule here?
There is clear division between certain groups of teachers, students and parents on one side and white teachers on the other side. I fail to though understand why parents don’t see this bigotry? Is it cause their children can act as “cultural brokers” (Garza, 2005, pg. 617)? Is there an optimal learning environment where diversity is accepted being promoted? Does the Incremental Theory by Dweck apply here? The teachers here are just not accepting that their students can get smarter by knowing their native language. Most students will not even be able to understand the feedback they get from their teachers as its in English and they will have to rely on their translators to help them.
I feel that this article is an eye-opener to me to apply my classroom management skills and knowledge that I have accumulated with my professor and books, and apply them to a setting which does not blatantly show me where the management skills are going wrong. I can test my understanding and see what my principles are. I can also recognize how important it is to know the school’s management where you are going to teach and having the ability to accept diverse cultures with an unbiased heart. I should know what discipline is and how to apply it in the appropriate way.

Quick and tasty recipes

2007-07-20T13:24:00.000-04:00

Have you found yourself trying out the honey chicken at the Panda place at the Malls? Well I did not want to spend $6 is trying out only two sides with rice at those places again. But my tongue was craving for some honey chicken. I am not one of those people who will spend hours cooking. So I read a book on Chinese cooking and added some Indian spicy zest to it and tango! in an hour 4 dishes are ready.

1. Spicy Honey Chicken- Heat oil. Add dry chillies and fry. Then add spring onions, honey and tomato ketchup and saute. Add the chicken pieces with some water and let it cook on slow flame.(The sweet and spicy needs to be to your taste so add honey and ketchup accordingly.) Serve.

2. Dry Chilli Chicken- Heat oil in a wok. Fry green chillies and ginger garlic paste. And 4 tbsp soya sauce, 1tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp red chilli powder, salt, sugar and 500 gms chicken and water. Cook over slow flame till chicken is cooked. Serve.

3. Szechwan Chicken- Heat oil. Add 2 dry red chillies, 1 tsp chilli powder, 4 garlic flakes, 3 tbsp vinegar, 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp soya sauce, 2 tsp tomato ketchup, salt, 3/4 cup chicken stock and chicken. Then add szechwan sauce. Cook till chicken is done. Serve.

4. Fried Chowmein- Cook chowmein seperately. Heat oil and fry onions. Add green chillies and vegetables and boiled chicken and saute. Add vinegar, some chinese sauces( pick any from the grocery store), salt and cook. Add chowmein when chicken is cooked and mix lightly. Serve.

Try these at home. These are for the moments when you are tired and dont want to go and buy food. And its easy and modify to your choice. Enjoy.

Praises

2007-07-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

Have you ever noticed how people praise you by just saying "nice." I am exasperated as I appreciate someone saying good things about my work or me but cant that person be more specific? It gives the feeling that the person just said it for the sake of commenting. Its so artificial. I am at a loss as I often don’t know what specifically the person liked about my work. Also I feel I am not given a chance to improve.
My teacher education courses always advises me to be specific when giving out praises to my students. Praise can be a teaching tool. The point of specific praise is to be descriptive and concrete so kids learn how to change their behavior. For example, if your student gets an A, you don’t just say good job but you say that you have really worked hard on this test and also that your grammar has improved.
Praises are useful when you are sincere and specific. You have to show that you actually took the time and the energy to see that other person’s work. When someone said that they liked how I designed my living room and how well the cushion covers added an Indian flair to the room, I liked it. I liked the information that the person observed that it was an Indian living room and hence its elements would be Indian. This piece of detailed praise will always be remembered by me. Its had the feeling of a personal touch.
I have many people say that they like my writing and my blogs. But I never hear them saying what they liked or whether they agreed with my ideas or whether they liked my almost conversational tone of writing. I feel they are doing me an obligation by saying they like my writing.
My friend always advises me to be specific as then people will tend to pay heed to your words more. Its such a spot on facet.
This also ties in with another common saying “I am busy.” We all are busy in our own lives but where there’s a will there’s a way. I may have mentioned this concept in my blog before but I want to reiterate it again. If you want to ignore someone, or you truly have work to do, then say it in a decent polite way.
So next time when you want to praise someone, be specific and keep the person’s feelings in mind. If your vocabulary has run out of stock, then use the thesaurus to find new words. Your life then becomes so much more charming and beautiful. But don’t just use big words for the sake of using different words. It makes you seem like a braggart.

Teachers have feelings too !!!!

2007-07-18T11:58:00.000-04:00

Someone recently remarked that only those who have limited subject knowledge become teachers. I was shocked. Did this person realize how psychologically strong and meticulous a teacher has to be to reach the minds of the diverse learners at the same time and hope that they learn something new? A teacher also comes across some problems as mindfulness “is not easy to cultivate and maintain because the human brain is predisposed to focus on a very narrow range of stimuli and to operate quite automatically relative to those stimuli” (Marzano, 2003, pg. 65). Are we able to forget our personal grudges and embrace withitness and emotional objectivity stances?
Teachers come across classroom fights and disruptions ever so often. A student can poke his/her friend while the teacher is teaching algebra. Teachers are advised to be aware of these distractions and take action. The students also will then realize that their teacher is always aware of what’s happening around every corner of the classroom. Withitness, as Jacob Kounin termed it, meaning how easily do you identify a problem in the class, is difficult to carry out. The teacher could be dealing with an emotionally disturbed child, and maybe explaining to that student certain key concepts, and since he/she does not have eyes at the back of his/her head, some other student could have already started a fight. A teacher could be totally focused on making the students learn a new concept, like Newton’s Laws, and the teacher’s mind could lose focus of the students’ behavior.
Teachers have their own individual feelings. Its difficult to keep them in control at all moments. Teachers could have their biases towards certain racial castes of students like some teachers could be against giving more time to ESL students. Emotional objectivity or “address disciplinary issues in an ‘unemotional, matter-of-fact’ manner”(Marzano, 2003, pg.69) is taxing. A teacher may see that a student is not getting due respect in class or is being pressurized by his/her parents. Some teachers may want to be more kind and caring to the student and not scold him/her while some may feel this is being unfair. Teachers, almost always, want their students to love them. But it can backfire as a student may take advantage and make up lame excuses every time he/she is in trouble. What would you do if your student every time said his/her parents are always fighting at home? What if the parents refuse to listen to you and the school counselor says she/he needs more time to help this child? Do you just stand there all helpless and looking at the student suffering in studies? But what if this is a lie? Where do you draw the line between being a caring teacher and being professional? Can you honestly tell a student that you don’t care for his/her personal family problems?
I recently heard about an incident where a certain home-school child was brought to the regular classroom. He had clear issues of not being able to mix with anyone else and his parents wanted the teacher to have lunch with him so that he doesn’t have to mix with anyone. The teacher feels that a child should be able to mix with other children and its healthy for one’s personality development. But the teacher also cannot go against the parents. The teacher may form an anger towards the parents. How can a teacher just be quiet and let such a wrong thing happen to this disturbed child?
I feel that we are just saying to teachers to ignore all your feelings and be professional, yet you have to think about the students’ well-being and that they are happy. How can you do both at the same time? Does your body operate like a switch? I know teachers put in a lot of effort to make up lesson plans. But what if a student refuses to still understand or do what you are saying and all your months of planning seems a waste? Wouldn’t you have at least some anger or frustration? My professor said her students once remarked that she was having menopause as she seemed very irritated. They said their mothers also behave in the same way when they are having their menopause. Students are very observant and they will always try to analyze what their teachers or parents are doing. My friend’s students observed that he was wearing new pants and had said it with glee. How do you escape such vigilant students’ eyes? How do you hide your emotional problems? My friend was substituting for a teacher and noticed that one assignment a student had plagiarized. When she asked the student, he said that his mother had asked him to look up in the internet for materials to write on. Can my friend blatantly tell the student that his mother was wrong and did not explain correctly what was to be done? Can she afford to have the student lose respect for his mother? What about how principals make athletes pass even if they have done no work for the semester? What does the teacher do is such unjust situations? Have you wondered what happens to those students who don’t make it to the NBA or national league and are illiterate? They are the ones who end up doing petty jobs. I would feel failed as a teacher if it happened to my students.
Its difficult to be withit and emotionally objective as a teacher but I feel one should always try. The school is a representation in small form of the real world and we would never want everyone in the world to know our personal self. Also, we take responsibility for the students who come everyday to learn from their teachers and look at them as their mentors. Its our duty to explain in simple form about what they are doing immoral.

Time to study

2007-07-14T17:13:00.001-04:00

I was literally exhausted after my first summer session of classes. Dr Sadker's class had drained my mind. I was tired of thinking and thinking and writing 12 thoughtful answers and 1 long essay. To top it all, I had my weekends packed with meeting friends and a plethora of activities. But I survived it all. Then I broke down. My mind refused to do any work. Two weeks I was lost. I had no aim in life but to sleep and sleep. But I realized that I had to read and write or else the idle mind would feel wretched and low. Painstaking hours of explaining to my mind that I have to study, rereading articles, blankly writing a few words and stopping, and a bit of pampering of my self refurbished me again. I feel the urge to read and write again. Thoughts again seem to be popping out of my mind. I want to write essays. I have to mention that my professor's gentle way of coaxing me to talk and the movie "Stand and Deliver" stirred my lost soul. These two actions again showed me my purpose of life of making a difference in this world. I again feel like reaching out to the stars. I feel like jumping with joy cause I want to study and write and read. I know I have not reached the utmost point of my energy but I can reach that point soon. I did go to coolgoose and download my favorite old time hindi songs to remind me of how staying idle is what I hate most. I have seen many people talk and talk but when its time to turn those words into action, they make up the worst of excuses. aaah! how I abhor those people. But I would suggest that one should take a break and rest a while once in a while. Dont be a workaholic. I am dressed well and made myself Spicy Honey Chicken and satisfied my body and now with a large smile on my face I get back to studying. But I will also pursue my passions of designing and writing for pleasure as well and entertaining friends. These are my side dishes in my life and studying is the main dish.

Friendship

2007-07-14T16:08:00.000-04:00

I think, I wonder, I muse, I laugh. My mind is just wandering. I have had a very busy summer with old friends coming over every weekend to visit me and see the nation's capital DC. Its the immunerous trips to the White House and the wee excitement on everyone's faces. Everytime I notice something different in DC. I realized the trees surrounding the tidal basin have a cut in between to allow visitors to see the White House from the Jefferson Memorial. Isn't that fascinating. My friends have been very thankful to Debdip and me for taking them around. Many good old memories were brought back. Weekends would be fun but weekdays would be tiring. Well finally I can now rest. I am contented. I must say that you have to work hard and be selfless to have true friends. Its all about loving, caring and giving your friends. It has to be topped with a large smile. Fake efforts wont carry you far as friends can easily detect that. Friendship is a treasure that needs to be valued. Saying you are busy does not help to increase your closeness with your friend but widens the gap. You cant take anyone for granted. Thank you notes matter a lot and even one line Orkut scraps can make a whole wide difference. So to all my readers, take out the time to be with your friends or even just hi to them. Without friends the world is much much uncommon and larger. And it makes you feel sad and homesick. Cheers to friends. But dont expect anything from them as often expectations are not met leading to misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Have an open heart and make everyone your friend.

Classroom Management...example of Mr. Feeny

2007-07-11T09:02:00.000-04:00

I have always been fascinated by Mr. George Feeny, the school teacher who eventually becomes the principal, in Boy Meets World, a sitcom on television. Mr. Feeny comes across as this strict teacher who is always making rules for his students to follow and he is very rigid. There are moments when he is exasperated with his students’ stupid misdeeds. This sitcom is focused mainly on Cory Mathews and Shawn Hunter, two of Mr. Feeny’s students. I found that beneath the hard shell of Mr. Feeny was a genuine concern for his students whom he loved truly. I particularly felt that he showed effective signs of classroom management which even his teachers failed to understand.
There is this one episode called Me and Mr. Joad, where Cory’s high school teacher Mr. Hunter decides to not give the class a test on the book “The Grapes of Wrath.” Rather he wants them to all read the book and have a class discussion on it. This book is about how the Great Depression forced the Joads to leave their home and venture out towards California in search of better jobs. Its about how cruelly these migrants are treated in California forcing them to form unions and call for strikes. Eventually it leads to nothing but ruthless killing and their mother still remains a true humanitarian who still stops to offer the little food she has to the hungry people.
Mr. Feeny feels that Mr. Hunter’s idea will fail as no one will read the book. Mr. Feeny commands Mr. Hunter to give the students a test or else they wont figure out how much the students read the book. When Mr. Hunter asks his class it will be a simple test, the class gets angry. Cory decides to go on a strike and his classmates join him. Cory feels like the Joads in the book he too has a right to demand justice. Cory feels he is fighting for his classmates against the injustices meted out by his teacher. The whole class marches out. Mr. Hunter clearly fails in classroom management as the students hand back the blank test sheets and storm out. He loses control over his class leading to disruption and chaos.
Mr. Feeny decides to step in when Mr. Hunter comes to him for help. Mr. Feeny knows his stduents’ interests. He says that the school dance will be cancelled if the students go on strike. The dance for these high school kids is the most interesting and exciting event in their life. They all immediately get back to their classrooms. Cory doesn’t budge. Cory feels that he is being a brave person like the Joads.
Later Cory and Shawn are coerced to come and apologize to Mr. Feeny by their parents. Mr. Feeny at this point asks them what was the purpose of their strike and who influenced them. Cory and Shawn talk about the book in great detail and what had happened there and how the Joads had fought back for their rights. It was astounding to see that Cory and Shawn had actually read the book and understood its true purpose. Mr. Feeny accepts their apology and shows them their err of judgment and how they missed that strikes bring nothing but more misery.
What is important is not the boy’s understanding the book but how they had actually read a book. Mr. Feeny felt the boys had passed the test as they were defending themselves from the perspective of the Joads. They could identify themselves with what they read. It was not just a book they were supposed to read. I feel Mr. Feeny truly demonstrated a classroom management skill. He may be strict from outside, but he is always there to lend a keen ear to hearing his students’ needs and problems. He knows he has to be flexible at times to suit their wants. He recognizes their vulnerable minds. He wants the best for them. I feel that Mr. Feeny knew the need for tests but he devised an alternate plan for testing also. He was not carried away by the total chaos and knew immediately how to get control of the class without being loud or unfair.

How personal is your teaching? Do your morals, values, beliefs, thoughts really matter in your teaching? Do you feel free to open up to your students?

2007-06-26T14:07:00.000-04:00

One of the first things that struck me about Dr Sadker, my professor, was his ability to freely share his personal stories with his students. His stories not only made the class more alluring and riveting, but also added a touch of humaneness. My notes would be carried with tidbits about what to do in DC like going to the Wolf Trap to listen to music, or going to the Bedazzle Beads store to buy beads. I remember seeing a Southwest Airlines banner at the baseball field, and it immediately struck a chord in my mind. It reminded me of how Dr Sadker had said that this is the only airline which has built its company around its employees and how too schools should be built around teachers and students. But how far do we really go in being personal to our students? Do we really open up our personality? I feel my students might dominate over me if they discover my weaknesses.
The case study of Amanda Jackson (Sadker, 2008) watching one of her teacher’s having a drinking problem had aroused a fear in her. When that teacher was going to drive back one of the kids, it raised a fear in my mind. Would Amanda want to use this example to prevent her kids from drinking? Would she show how drinking can be dangerous when one is driving? Why did Amanda not prevent the teacher from driving? Did her morals of protecting her students not command her to take some action? I ask myself how can I respect Amanda as a teacher.
We are either believers or non-believers of different religions. Teachers are taught to teach to be tolerant of all religions. But can you really have someone in the class say something improper about your religion? You don’t respond but then are you being true to your religion and are you protecting your faith and belief? In the Florida High Schools, the Bible was required for all students to study. “Examples of “unconstitutional instruction” include: []Assuming that all students are Christians.[] Teaching about religion from a Christian perspective without regard for other faiths. [] Treating Biblical events as universally held factual historical events. [] Requiring students to define their personal relationship to God and Jesus” (Black, 2004, pg. 1). The court made this illegal, but it still raises the situation about the Christian students who were learning about their religion? Is it easy to just teach students about other religions when they could be having little or no knowledge of theirs’. How can you teach about religions if you are a non-believer? Will your emotions and actions convey the depth of acquiescing religions? Can you excuse a student for not doing his/her homework cause she/he was busy celebrating a festival? I don’t know if I would be able to be so patient and mete out the proper judgment every time. Maybe the “OABITAR [which] urges schools to teach about religion in a “spirit of fairness and inclusiveness” and to respect every student’s freedom to hold a religious worldview or a nonreligious worldview” (Black, 2004, pg. 3) can help me.
Instilling moral education in students is cardinal. But if you esteem gay and lesbian parents, and your school does not, what do you do? What if the parents feel that a certain student is talking too much about her lesbian parents to her classmates, and they feel its harming their children and that as a teacher you are liable for it? Kohlberg’s theory of “Social interactions—i.e., lived moral dilemmas—advance learners’ moral judgment as students clarify and refine their thoughts while listening and responding to other points of view. In such environments, “teachers and students engage in philosophical deliberation about the good of the community” (Joseph, 2005, pg. 5) stops me from telling anything to the student. But what if my other students disagree with me? How much can I fight back? I would be in a quandary and that could create fences in the classroom.
Melissa a new teacher talked about her experience of how one of her student’s hated her when she had punished him. In his writing, “Her character was described as an “unfair, worthless, nobody of a student teacher.” [] himself as unforgiving and vowing revenge. His last words were, “When I go home tonight, I’m going to get my father’s shotgun. I know just where he hides it. Then, tomorrow, I’ll come into school real early, hide, and blow the bitch away” (Sadker, 2008). This would frighten any teacher. What if the counselors dismiss it? What does the teacher do to save her life? Today with so many students being found with guns in classrooms, what does a teacher do to save herself/himself?
My scenarios raise questions in my mind that you never know what to expect in a classroom. You can’t always expect your students to empathize your stories. There are moments when you will get very angry but are helpless. Sometimes your zeal for teaching with its energy and passion can fail miserably. You still have to replenish yourself, as you are there to teach your students and not make them your friends. You care for your students even if they hate you. It looks like an almost impossible and daunting task but you can do it. Molly Ness, a first year teacher’s words rings in my mind. “My students have been handed immeasurable challenges and have tackled them with the courage, grace, and strength that many adults fail to demonstrate. I have learned how to make personal sacrifices for the sake of a greater good. [] I have learned that it is rather easy to be idealistic in thoughts and words, but much harder to keep that idealism alive in actions every day” (Sadker, 2008). I believe that sometimes your personal life can take a back step and humbleness steps in. It’s the belief in myself as a teacher, that will move me forward.

An Essay that I wrote from my heart

2007-06-26T06:54:00.000-04:00

A dedication to my father who taught me about Pranayam and the strength to believe in myself and Dr Karen Zittleman, a young professor, whom I have met once and whose story has touched my heart deep down, and my love Debdip who has challenged me to new heights everyday, to a level of perfection attained by the few. And lastly, to my professor Dr David Sadker who felt I was worthy to be taught a valuable lesson.

Teaching is a passion, that is pursued by the heart, that yearns to learn and impart education, to all the young buds or children in the world. I have always wanted to be a teacher and my unruffled yet gifted father inspired me and pushed me towards my goal, which I did falter at many a time. Lack of perfection, inability to be physically bold, not quite digesting societal psychology and powerlessness to bear harsh criticism did once make me want to change my ambition. I respect the rules of society, yet I feel there is so much more I could add to it to enhance its natural beauty. Teaching for me is being kind, compassionate, patient, understanding and treating all as respectable humans of this diverse world. Books like Tuesdays with Morrie, The Courage to Teach, The Five People you meet in Heaven, Dr Karen Zittleman’s life story of not giving up when all doctors gave up on her and yet completing her PhD and becoming a teacher, my father and Dr Myra and David Sadker, all made me pause and be silent and think whether I want to run from teaching or pursue my passion. It’s an ardor I remember since I was a young girl, shy and timid; and how I would pretend to teach my dolls with an inviting tone. I was intimidated by my teachers and their rebuking. I always felt the urge to be a teacher for all those silent students whose learning skills were not apprehended to their true potential.
Mitch Albom is an author as well as a sports writer at the Detroit Free Press. I say this as I find it astonishing, rather bewildering, that someone so avid about sports could pause to write about life which is not about money and baseball bats. Life for Mitch or Eddie in The Five People You Meet in Heaven is about meeting the unexpected people. Eddie was just a simple maintenance man who looked after the rides at Ruby Pier. I hope my readers can recognize how I am trying to resolve my biases, which are based on certain criteria’s of society. Eddie died trying to save a little girl, a girl to whom he had bluntly responded “C’mon, kiddo. I don’t have all day” (Albom, pg.12) to her fervent plea “ Can you make me an animal?” (Albom, pg.12). Eddie comes to Heaven to meet people who have been affected by his actions unknowingly on earth and are waiting to pass on their story. The Blue Man died as he lost control of his car while trying to avoid the boy who was running to catch his baseball. Eddie cannot be angry or apologetic or say “it ain’t fair”(Albom, pg. 48) at his action as human lives are connected and will intersect. Coincidences just don’t occur. I used to read Albom’s assiduous sports articles but would I have ever given him a second thought to relate him to my teaching career. I don’t think so. But yet, here I am struck with trepidation at his thoughts. It’s a dread that I need to think twice before I say something to my students. My students will look at me at all times for guidance to veer them in the right path of life.
My students will expect me to be patient with them at all times. Patience, which so many of us give up, which Dr Myra Sadker observed in her dissertation when a teacher lost patience at her students asking her so many questions. But she was giving them treats to ask questions. It’s a contradiction. What does it do to the baffled immobilized student? Where does he/she go? Patience stems from regrets. “A freed soldier is often furious. The days and nights he lost, the torture and humiliation he suffered- it all demands a fierce revenge, a balancing of the accounts” (Albom, pg. 80). Patience is being quiet and sacrificing something for someone else’s good. Eddie, our maintenance man, realizes how the captain had given up his life to save Eddie’s. But Eddie always regretted for limping. His father, who had never loved him, or given the due love he deserved as a son, had been the one to shake him and start life afresh. There will be moments when my students will not listen to me day and night, but one day I believe they will heed my words, or just remember my smile in class everyday. I worked at the Writing Center at Eastern Illinois University where I would have to be patient and listen to my students who came in the day before the assignment’s due date every semester, and would expect me to be a wizard and fix their papers in an hour. I was given a short amount of time but I never lost my temper. I always smiled and helped them. My director aptly felt, “smile” should be my nickname.
I remember a little girl naming her soft toy after me as I had helped her mother and had also played with her for a while. I could have just done my work and walked off. But I took out time and energy to be with the little girl. It reminds me of how Eddie was not related to Ruby, the original owner of Ruby Pier, yet she was destined to meet Eddie and make him see the unknown, the secrets of why his mother was still devoted to his mean dad, who after all did care for his loved ones. Eddie had always complained of just working in the Ruby Pier, but again a little girl shed light and showed him that he used to make rides for children to ride; children who felt joy and excitement and parents who felt secure. I, too as a teacher, want to open my heart, and give every student equal magnitude. I don’t want biases, opinions, appearances affecting my acumen in the classroom, or at any point, when I meet any student.
Everyone is a student in this world. Everyone is connected with the other person, as the Hindu custom says that we are one and that energy moves from one body to the other constantly. Albom’s book about Morrie removes death, another cultural taboo, from its shackles of unwantedness. I see another connection between cultures, as the Desana tribes in South Africa also believe that there is always a fixed quantity of energy flowing between humans. I don’t want to see every student as being sundry. I want to see them helping each other for reciprocated learning. I too want to be involved in this learning process. I learnt so many a valuable lesson from Morrie about teaching. I am not limiting my learning abilities just because a class full of students are looking at me to impart knowledge. How can I carry on to inculcate knowledge when I don’t find an avenue to fill in the gaps occurring when my knowledge is being passed on? I read books or have class discussions with my students for mutual learning. I had thought that Morrie was just boasting about his life with the innumerous journalists coming to interview him about his life. But if he did not pass his learning thoughts, then how would the cycle of life revolve? How would my students test their knowledge if they don’t talk to someone else about it? Also how would their individual experiences affect our lives? I am connected with them and cannot let that knot break. I too want my students like me to “Study (Morrie) me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me” (Albom, pg. 10).
Morrie had said “America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help” (Albom, pg. 65) and I laugh. As a teacher, I want to let my students vent out their emotions and experiences and learn to fend for themselves. Let them learn the countries of geography by clapping and moving their hands and legs as Chrissy showed in my class, or let them spin the wheel to feel energy as defined by physicists. If they don’t recognize their qualities and abilities themselves, then all my teaching will go down the drain. Albom wonders how wonderful it would be if people could have a time limit daily on how much self pity they could express. Maybe we could enjoy life with others, than crying over spilt milk. When Morrie is near death, he can feel the pain the people in Bosnia are feeling as they too are dying. Maybe I and my students, can then develop a compassion for ourselves and others. Maybe then we all can close our eyes and fall and make our strong trust that someone will catch us, come true. Morrie articulates “sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too- even when you’re in the dark” (Albom, pg. 61).
It’s a belief that I will have in my students that everyone will be successful in what they do. It’s a belief that they too at a funeral will see “The grass was wet and the sky was the color of milk. [] hear the pond water lapping against the edge and to see the ducks shaking off their feathers” (Albom, pg. 188) like Mitch Albom saw, and like me can feel even though I am not physically present. It’s the feeling I had when I had read Pride and Prejudice by Austen, and could picture myself walking across the field like Elizabeth; holding up my petticoat and behaving so unwomanly like, and yet understanding the need to be practical and sensible. It’s an arousal of our senses that I hope to see in my students. Knowledge should be more than words to learn, equations to formulate, tests to pass, and heads to nod. Students should challenge my beliefs and question me. They should read books, which have been ostracized many a time for the publisher’s profits, or to hide the government’s dark secrets. They should use their hands and mind to make life momentous and exhilarating.
My students would be required to learn love. Love is what our parents felt when we were born. We all wish to be loved and want to love someone. Morrie quotes Auden “Love each other or perish” (Albom, pg. 82). Love is the only rational act I repeat with Morrie. It’s a love stemmed from a belief that learning is possible, and that trust is crucial for love to happen. I want to instill this same love in my classroom, where my students will remember me and their classmates and the school’s staff for the love mutually showered on each other. Love makes learning meaningful. It’s the love which again brings security.
It’s the love for my students which replenishes me with energy to talk about Palmer and “how her deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet in her classroom through her teaching” (Sadker, 2008, pg. 520). Palmer’s words induces practicality into my teaching. He talks about Maria Moser’s experience of teaching in a challenging inner city school. Again, I say the school is not challenging cause its an inner city school, but cause of “the inability of suburban students to imagine the realities of poverty, racism and classism” (Sadker, 2008, pg. 521). Maria says there are times when as a teacher you feel the pain of your students, but are helpless like when Maria saw two students being shot in her classroom. What can one do than cry? But if there is discrimination going on in the classroom cafeteria then I can be a fighter and report to the school administrators. It is crucial to know my rights and responsibilities as a teacher in my state. And if forsaken I am still disappointed, find allies to help you. If I am confident as a teacher, then my students will pay heed to my words and effective learning will occur. I don’t just want some learning to occur; I want digestible learning to occur.
Ultimately at the end “it’s all about the kids” (Sadker, pg. 522) and I “will get back more than (I) [] give, no matter how much (I) [] give” (Sadker, pg. 522). I am a teacher who has her personal desires but they are co joined with my students’ desires. I wont be a tracking teacher who believes that trains cannot jump. Nor will I believe that the school is like a power plant, with the principal being the superintendent and not a mentor, an adviser, to help me with those higher-order questions and problems, my students and their families face, which I unfortunately cannot solve. I wont hesitate to ask for help, and expect my students wont do so either. This reminds me of their families whose trust, I hope to gain. I will always remember that they are the primary food givers and the first teachers of my students’ lives. Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs come to my mind as I think of how physiological needs and sense of belongingness and love need to be fulfilled before attaining self-actualization. It’s the self that Dr Zittleman and everyone else helped me achieve. It’s the same individual self, bursting with knowledge like a splash of red color on a white paper that I hope my students will accomplish.

A school is not a child's play

2007-06-06T09:12:00.002-04:00

I had never realized how easily assumptions are made about schools by everyone till Dr Sadker commented on how people think that they have all been to schools and so they are acquainted with it and its easy to be a teacher. We can all make a burger at home and it takes minutes but then why do we rush to MacDonald’s or Wendy’s. There must be a practiced and unique skill needed to master to make a burger in these fast-food joints. Similarly, schools too have a set of bodies who boost each other to create the perfect learning environment. “In short, the institution we know as “school” teaches by its very nature. And the nature of schools is rooted in the historical traditions, values, and assumptions into which we have been socialized”(Eisner). Eisner’s article makes us question these assumptions.
One of the assumptions that struck a bell in my mind was how schools were meant to function as bringing unity in students’ lives. In the physical sense it means to bring students together at the same time the school opens. But a deeper delving into the meaning shows that students are to achieve educational equity and comprehend the same set of goals of life. Eisner feels that this leads to a race where students whose interests and talents are not qualified for the race are deftly ignored. I think this is true. With the pressure on schools to perform, subjects like art and social studies are clearly disregarded. Why aren’t art and crafts classes encouraged? How about having a class on the importance of recycling? Also, how are we comprehending the meaning of the term unity? Does it mean giving up one’s individual self and exclusive learning styles? Schools should unite families across cultures and races and make our students feel the need to work together.
Tests measure a student’s learning. This assumption still unfortunately holds true in schools. If your school fails the standardized tests, then the school is unsuccessful in imparting learning. “One important educational purpose of testing is to provide information that has some relationship to tasks that go beyond the particular items to which students are asked to respond” remarks Eisner. I agree with Eisner that there is also another life outside the school. To blame a school for a students’ test is to ignore the family and community of the students. A positive environment affects a student’s mindset a great deal. Schools are just being pressurized and this leads to focus on test content than maybe developing the individual skills of the learners or even having a fun period. My friend talked about how a school had the students not go out to play and instead read in the library. The environment outside the school constituted of drug sellers and gang members who would entice students towards them. The school is trying its best to protect the students. But the students also need time to play. Can we blame the school here for not providing the recreation? What about those latchkey kids who don’t even have time to do their homework as they have to look after their siblings. School is the end all for the student in that part of his/her life. Schools need to spend a huge amount of dollars to purchase the tests. More often than not, schools cannot afford to buy the books. But they still are trying to help the students. This endeavor is so easily unobserved.
Teachers are also assumed to perform. Teachers face a lot of pressure in schools from parents and the government. A teacher can fail when its students may not have been the best group to learn together as a class. Also opportunities for the teacher’s thinking to expand or be critical may not have been weighed and given time. Teachers have limited topics to teach and they may not often tie in with the students’ personality and interests. It becomes tiresome. I feel teachers should be allowed to take special courses or conduct experiments every few years to expand their horizons to match the ever changing student population and keep up-to-date. Firing a teacher wont help. Teacher counseling can also help or maybe looking at the students’ profiles in that class could help to understand why the students’ were not up to the mark.
Assumptions can be made by anyone and everyone. But if we are intelligent and thoughtful and considerate, we can improve our schools to a great extent. The school and its administrators work very hard to help the students. Playing the blame game doesn’t help.

Idiocy in schools

2007-06-06T09:12:00.001-04:00

Idiocy unknowingly looms over our schools. “An idiot is one whose self-centeredness undermines his or her citizen identity, causing it to wither or never to take root in the first place” (Parker, pg.1). All notions of a democratic school where students mix and mingle in diverse groups and voice their opinions are demolished by idiocy. Walter Parker feels a school is the building point for a student to grow into a responsible democratic citizen of the nation. This American dream as Martin Luther King Jr. said “We have come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice” (Parker). Schools need to instill values of morality, social justice, intellectual freedom in the students who can work together, conjoin, fight for a common good that our forefathers had dreamt of. Parker’s notion is accurate but I regret to say how little of it has been realized today.
I fail to understand how NCLB and standardized testing even attempts to remove idiocy. If a student from a school fails a test, the education board not only shows which class, race he/she is from, it also assumes that the particular race is lacking in certain skills and the school is punished also. Is the board blind to other problems that the student might individually face or whether the school had sufficient supplies and time to educate or rather make the students memorize the tests? I say memorize as only a particular area of the subject is taught and no scope is there for understanding and thinking. How does one think of the ideals of a democratic society? Where is group work promoted? Every student only think of his/her testing skills being developed. The teachers also fight with each other as stakes are high. David Letterman’s comment that “Leave a Couple of Kids Behind” (Sadker, 2007, pg.233) rightly places NCLB’s mission for our schools. Also, if we look at the history standards, “Should traditional heroes, sometimes called “DWM” (dead white males)- such as Washington, Jefferson [] be researched and included?”(Sadker, 2007, pg.229). States decide what subjects should be taught and what books are to be followed. Where is the freedom of speech? Where is the school’s choice? Does the state look at whether every student’s cultural background is included in the curriculum? Are there stereotyping of some issues?
Home schools supports idiocy as they assume that drugs, safety, peer pressure can harm children’s education and life. Parents opt for specific religious beliefs and they teach on a single train of reflection with specific rigid rules. Students miss out the vital part of mixing with students from multicultural backgrounds and working together. “Researcher Van Gulen describes parents who home school as either ideologues or pedagogues” (Sadker, 2007, pg.154). Religious schools also promote idiocy as they are saying that only their religion is superior and they don’t allow scope for other religions to be even affected by the students. Students already become self-centered and biased towards people from other cultural groups. The whole idea of vouchers to choose a school seems a very idiocy societal practice. Parents often have limited knowledge about multiculturalism and different races, and they tend to send their children to a school where only students are there from similar backgrounds. Poor schools fail as parents feel these schools don’t perform well. Religious schools after the 2002 Supreme Court ruling, can attract more students as their costs are less and its gives rise to more selfish thoughts.
Schools should strongly instill values of a democratic society where students work together. A school represents a diverse society in miniature form, where students learn about history, science, social studies, cultures, morals, together on a common ground. They help each other and enjoy various events together. They even play together for fun. “These are places where multiple social perspectives and personal values are brought in face-to-face contact around matters that “are relevant to the problems of living together,” as John Dewey put it” (Parker).
Schools should foster harmony by educating students about other cultures and the whole idea of a democracy. The more time a student is allowed to think and exchange ideas with others, the more the student will flourish and think less about the self. If students want to fight against social injustice, they should be allowed. A common good should be the theme of the school. Also schools should also celebrate various cultures and have them incorporated in their classrooms. Parents could be asked to come and talk about their own heritage. Students should be able to feel their presence being reflected in the school’s curriculum. Poor, rich, girl, boy, differences should be eliminated. Schools are learning places. And learning cannot take place alone, if a student is not challenged. The challenge, the question, makes the student see his/her biases and the how closed the mind is. Schools should definitely ban

Dont corner me for my race

2007-06-06T08:49:00.001-04:00

The word stereotype came from the print shop where all plates had the same design. But today the world uses stereotypes to indicate group members sharing the same characteristics. Individuality is killed by this. It saves time for the busy world. If you are an Asian, you have to be par excellent in Mathematics, ignoring the fact that Asia is a colossal continent constituting of numerous countries and cultures. Stereotyping is leading to disastrous results. After the 9/11 incident, Muslim cab drivers had to post signs “I am not a terrorist! Proud to be an American!” (Aronson, 2004, pg.1 ) as they were scared of being stereotyped as terrorists.
Stereotyping in schools can lead to students being scared and racially marred. It creates for an unhealthy learning environment. Stereotyping leads to teachers’ forming expectations from students about their behavior and performance. “Counselors place middle and upper-class students with comparably low grades and test scores into higher groups”(Sadker, 2007, pg. 178) as parents expect these students to do well. Dr Sadker had conducted an experiment in class where he had told two students that they had to train two dumb mice to run into the maze. He told another two students that their mice were exceptionally talented and they too had to conduct the same task. It was the stereotyping in our minds that led the first two students to place less effort as they assumed the mice would not perform and the confidence level in the work dropped. In the same way, research has shown how white male engineering students with above par SAT scores failed to produce good results as they were being compared to strong Asian students. Irrespective of whatever these Asian students achieved, the other students’ grades fell. Stereotyping also makes me think of labeling and how it can make a student’s self esteem plummet. A shocking story I heard was of Afro-American males being scared to excel as they would be called wanting to be like the whites. When teachers ask students’ what is their race, they are indirectly stating that their future is already determined. One race cannot be more intelligent than the rest. Can you imagine how a student’s motivation to study and learn is crushed into pieces. The student will think what is the use of the effort when my teacher knows I will get that stereotyped grade assigned to my social class only. Stereotyping can never be positive as it always starts with an assumption. Aronson feels stereotyping also affects one’s attitudes and beliefs. It leads to adolescents avoiding challenges and expanding their intellect mind. “One of the most pernicious effects of stereotype threat, then, is that it creates a goal structure in which looking smart becomes more important than getting smart” (Aronson, 2004, pg 3).
One of the ways of eliminating stereotype threat is by making small classrooms where students put in the effort to help and discern each other. Valid information, tried and tested by observing and interacting, can eliminate all the unknown stereotype threats in the teachers’ and students’ minds. Stereotyping is the end of all results and it needs to be broken. An individual just does not stop learning or improving at a given point. Knowledge can be gained also by reading a extensive multiplicity of books on an assortment of topics. A simple word of encouragement from the teacher to the student that he/she can do better, helps to erase all stereotyping that a student from a certain race cannot do well. This word of support also stops students who are stereotyped to perform superbly to not be murky at one failure. Improvement and hard-earned efforts should count more than the standardized tests where every student is stereotyped to attain a specified grade. “When we teach students to reconsider the nature of intelligence, to think of their minds as muscles that get strengthened and expanded—smarter—with hard work [] They stop trying so hard to not look dumb, they engage more, take on more challenges, and are braver about asking for help”(Aronson, 2004, pg. 4). Introducing new topics, valuing students’ experiences from their homes and their cultures, also helps to eliminate stereotype threats. Students become more unprejudiced and more akin to valuing their individual self.
Stereotyping is ghastly. The more knowledge teachers can possess and the more doubts they can clear in our mind by mixing with a tolerant mind, the less stereotyping threats can there be in the classrooms. Many students are affected by the teachers’ actions. The teacher should be sensitive to not hurt any student’s mind through stereotyping which was probably heard ages ago and is phony today. The individual student is one ,who should matter the most in the classroom.

Tracking or Putting a stop on your Improvement Abilities for School Students

2007-06-06T08:44:00.000-04:00

Imagine your 8th grade school teacher beckoning out to you and telling you that you cant display your realistic tear-drop painting of the girl at the National Gallery of Art’s high school display as you don’t belong to the arts grade level. You ask why don’t you belong to that grade. Amongst her other excuses, which include under the tracking system you have already been placed at a lower level, she also comments that your parents are laborers. Can a laborer’s child not have an artistic talent? Alas! This is what many children have been facing over the ages. Tracking, as Talcott Parsons had explained, determines a child’s future at the elementary age according to his/her achievement. I pause to question myself and ask about the children who are slow learners and yet catch up at a later stage? But teachers around the country have concluded that to place homogenous children together will enhance learning. Does learning only have to be molded by your likes and dislikes, and skills, which change so often. Does my parents’ grilling that I can only write stop me from becoming an ice skater someday? Parents are a child’s first teachers before he/she goes into elementary school. Also research shows that children are placed into tracks depending upon their hereditarily backgrounds.
Teachers and researchers seem alike to me as they are trying to improve the quality of education. In 1929, Robert and Helen Lynd, in their research concluded that lower class students are more discriminated, or as Warner said they are called “non-readers, first grade repeaters or opportunity class.” I think this is wrong. August Hollingshead found that 90 percent of school dropouts are from the lower class. Other research evidence leads us to see that schools with poor minorities don’t even have the option of studying an advanced subject as it is assumed they wont fare well in it. An Asian student is just assumed to take an advanced class like science irrespective of his/her scores. In the Advance Placement Examination, only 6 percent are black students compared to 63 percent of white students. 73 percent of white students presumably complete their studies in relation to the 7 percent black students. Students are encouraged to mix and mingle with others who are in their tracks. Teachers with the least experience teach the lower class children.
Teachers, our providers for transmitting knowledge, are encouraging tracking. Teachers feel that having mixed classes leads to boredom and fatigue amongst the brighter students and slower students fail to keep up with the rest of the class. Is the teacher assuming that slower students can never be exceptional learners? Assumptions seem to fall in the way of teaching. Ray Rist observed a kindergarten teacher who had already classified her students by their race and class, and following this path, she had further assumed that high class students were fast learners. She would give these students only encouragement and motivation to learn while the other students would be ridiculed as failures. Jeannie Oaks name rings in my mind and how teaching students according to their race leads to a child in the higher group moving 5 times faster in learning than the rest. The student is finally assessed according to the amount he/she has learnt and teacher’s providing less time to the lower graded students is ignored. Can we still say that tracking helps a student to get into college?
Teachers who support tracking are encouraging race discrimination and leading to segregated societies. These teachers will also face problems when they have students who come from a different culture than the school’s dominant culture. As a teacher, we should try to promote unity in the classroom. Looking from the teacher’s perspective, who would support tracking, I feel that the teacher is promoting a more comfortable environment and more sense of security and bonding. A Chinese student, who is new to this country, and whose parents rarely mix with other communities, may want to be in the school with other Chinese students. They could talk about their own cultural events or share the same cuisine or even have the opportunity to talk in Chinese language. This would endorse the use of the traditional language. Teachers also would better understand how a student from a particular culture behaves and not just label a student’s characteristic as being abnormal. The notion of stage setting is one such pattern which teachers would better comprehend if more than two students displayed that behavior.
But it still is promoting race and class in classrooms. Students from lower classes are still being labeled as incompetent for higher level learning and they fall for the level 4 jobs. I personally believe that opportunities must be ample for all students. A student is never too old to learn something new. We just cannot judge a student based on his/her heredity. This also leads to student pressure to perform in one assigned area and often students end their lives when they cant perform. I remember my professor’s story of how tracks of the train don’t jump and hence we assume students can never do better than being in their tracks. I think this story questions me about whether education is to promote learning or increase racial biases.

Kolkata and USA- my two homes

2007-05-29T12:30:00.000-04:00

I am an Indian
Born in Kolkata
A warm lovable comfortable exciting friendly city.
But now I stay in USA
A land of opportunities
And diverse cultures.
I find a new home in USA
As it’s so analogous to my old home.

I celebrate New Year in January
In Kolkata and USA
With champagne and dance parties
And bang bang bang
Flash flash flash
Crackers go up in the sky
As the clock strikes 12.

I promise to study
I affirm
To my advisor in the University
And Goddess Saraswati
Who is the Goddess of Education
As I celebrate Her
Wearing yellow clothes
Eating a few green cools
A type of berry
With new books and new topics
I celebrate my love for education
In Kolkata and USA.

I pay a tribute
To all our nation’s leaders
Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru
And Subhas Chandra Bose
And the innumerous soldiers
Who fought for our India’s independence
On Republic Day
Where students veterans
People of all ages
Dance and sing
In colorful native dresses
With the police, army, navy, ambulances
All our rescue workers
March together.

Valentines Day comes in February
Red roses
Little red hearts made from candy
Soft toys
Singing I Love you
I always find a reason to say
Happy Valentines Day
To my loved ones
In Kolkata and USA.

March comes with new life
In trees and flowers
With little buds peeping out
And vivid and bright bursts of color.
I smell the flowers
Love the strawberry colored trees
Prance around in circles
Or play with colors
With friends in the garden
As I am celebrating Holi
Or Spring.
In Kolkata and USA.

April is lovely
As all around its beautiful
With the Cherry Blossom trees in DC
Where all is pink and white.
I celebrate Poila Baishakh with Bengalis
Or another new year
I don’t mind
As I wear new clothes
And eat delectable food
Ilish fish with mustard sauce
Sweet rossogollas
With friends and family.

Easter eggs and bunnies
And little kids call me
On Easter
Good Friday
Easter Sunday
Easter Monday
I sing songs
Everyday
While making candies
And eating egg-shaped chocolates
And painting eggs.
In Kolkata and USA.

May time summer time
I run around
And play
And wear my summer dresses
All covered with flowers
And pink slippers
Sipping a glass of orange juice
Eating spicy barbeque wings
Licking the ice lollies
Cheers to a great life
In Kolkata and USA.

But I don’t forget Memorial Day
Where students and every other person
Salutes
And remembers the war veterans in USA.
Marching down
Singing
Dancing
In fancy dresses
Everyone is there
With our rescuers
Firemen, policemen, doctors, soldiers, politicians.
I remember India’s Republic Day
And pay a tribute again to soldiers
In Kolkata and USA.

June is the month of summer
Lazing around
Playing Frisbee
Going boating
Eating out on the green grass
Its all about fun
In Kolkata and USA.

July brings in more pleasant weather
4th July is USA’s Independence Day
The star spangled banner
I go to see
Fireworks being lit in the sky
Dazzling lights illuminating the blue sky
One after the other
It’s a pleasure to see.
I too love bursting crackers
In Kolkata and USA.

August is the rainy time
When I wear white clothes
And hold India’s national flag
Orange, white and green
With the charka
I now celebrate India’s independence day
In full glory
Like I did for USA.
I sing Vande Mataram.
I again celebrate another nation’s independence day
In Kolkata and USA.

September is the best month
As my birthday comes
I cut a chocolate cake
Wearing my new dress
And party with friends and family
And love the innumerous gifts I get
Everyone says Happy Birthday to me
In Kolkata and USA.

October is the month of festivals.
I celebrate Durga Puja
As Mother Goddess comes home to visit her family
With her 4 children.
The whole city of Kolkata
Comes to life anew
As everywhere every corner is covered with lights
Representing the White House
Or the football stadium
And idols of Mother Durga is various forms and textures
And her houses are made from broken records
To intricately designed cloths.
Everyone is out
In new clothes, new shoes
All looking so beautiful.
People gorge on
Luscious delicacies
It’s a time to bond with family and friends.
I touch my elder’s feet
As they bless me
And share a mouth-watering meal
With lots of fish, chicken, meat
And huge amounts of sweets
With all my loved ones.
I too enjoy the festivities
In Kolkata and USA.

I burst crackers again
The chakris and phooljhuris
When the sky is dark
And the diyas or candles are lit
All around the house
To illuminate the world
On Diwali.
I keep a skull
Glowing and changing colors
And making creepy noises
With my black spiders on the window sills
To ward off the evil spirits
On Halloween.
I distribute sweets and candies
On Diwali and Halloween
To children and families
In Kolkata and USA.

November brings the onset of winter
When the trees have shed their leaves.
I feel sad
But Thanksgiving cheers me up
As I eat Turkey, Cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie
Again with my friends and family
To thank God for the lovely year that’s passed.
In Kolkata and USA.

December is full of mixed emotions
As its time for Christmas
But sad as a wonderful exciting memorable year
Is passing by.
How I wish I could stop time.
My Christmas tree is lighted
And decorated with stars and bells
And I sing Holy Holy Lord God Almighty
And Jingle Bells
With friends and families.
Santa Claus loves me
As he comes with Rodolf the red-nosed reindeer
On his sleigh
To bring me presents.
I am happy and contented
To see the beautiful decorations
Of lights and figures
In all the houses.
I rejoice in Christmas
In Kolkata and USA.

I don’t find a difference
In Kolkata and USA
As I celebrate all the festivals
In equal grandeur
With a lovable and joyous heart
And a colossal smile on my face
With my eyes twinkling
In both places.
They may be miles apart
And people may call them very dissimilar
But they are same to me.
I feel a strong affection and attachment to them
As they are my homes
Where I sing, laugh, dance, cry, read, sleep, eat, talk, write, draw
With friends and families.

I believe in the saying

There are 13 festivals in 12 months

And this rings true

In Kolkata and USA.

A weekend which lifted my spirits

2007-05-29T08:50:00.000-04:00

A weekend with a difference, a partly planned weekend, a three day break where I don’t know what to expect. This was the thought in my mind when I looked at my Memorial Day weekend. I had an Indian dance and an art exhibition to attend, a lunch with my old friends and their parents, and a Memorial Day parade to attend. It was also the opening of the Rockville Town Center. Concerts, food, people all would be there. But I was apprehensive. I was also thinking about my late grandmother and her thoughts and words filled my mind with regret of not seeing her smiling face or listening to her talk about Sanskrit literature. My grandmother was a talented lady, a lady who was never afraid to embrace modern changes. I drew inspiration from her to embrace this weekend. I also was thinking about the war soldiers who bravely gave up their lives for a good cause for their nation.
Friday evening was shopping time. It was warm so a drive with fresh breeze waffling in was pleasant. MacGregor and I were content to look outside and enjoy the weather. Everyone was in a happy mood as the long weekend had finally arrived. There seems to be an extra energy formed when one thinks of a long weekend. We tend to work more. I also found the time to redo one room in the house which looked more like a college dorm room filled with zillion pictures. Alas! We can only think of pictures to decorate a room. How about some shelves and some plants?
Saturday morning I woke up early. I don’t know why. I guess I was tensed as to what to cook for my friends. I knew they did not have much fatty or oily food and I wanted to cook an authentic Bengali cuisine. The hot weather would not permit heavy consumption of heavy food. Every dish created seemed imperfect and lacking something in taste. But I had another event to attend so I had to be happy. I bought plants, something long overdue. It was to be bought in spring but summer had already come. I bought two small flower pots and one large plant. A few plants to gently look after I mused. I would bring life to them and hope they continue over the years to remind me of the gift my friends gave me.
Time to put on my artistic cap. An Indian Odissi dance and an art exhibition welcomed me in the Scott Fitzgerald theatre. I made a new friend there. I met few important honoraries like the council member Susan Hoffman and the first lady of Rockville. The first lady spoke of her personal life, a time when she did not even have heat in her house and how she became the first person in her family to attend college. It was a prestigious moment for her family. We forget how lucky we are to be attending college. The host for the evening missed this lady’s story as she said she does not get time to put her nail polish as she has to take her daughters for dance practice. It was sheer mockery. The Indian dance was truly a celestial experience. Being afar from India, experiencing a classical dance performance, with the whole reason of parenthood highlighted again and again. A tribute to her parents, Jayantee truly displayed her devotion to her parents, who had once given their time and energy to encourage their daughter’s love for dancing. Today when schools fail to provide children with basic art classes like dancing and painting, I feel ashamed. We talk of new technologies but fail to provide a basic out pour of artistic talent, especially for the learning disabled students, who so often fail in the standardized tests. How often we embrace new gadgets to help us work more efficiently, but what are we working for. Where did our own creative intelligence disappear? Why did we stop attending dance classes? This two hour performance showed me how addicted I had become to the television. I had also become impatient. I needed to stop and pause. I wish I could feel myself dancing with Julie and her students. Her students must have felt her pain of losing her parents together. They too commemorated her parents. The facial expressions of once sad and once happy, the evil demon showed by Shalini, (a lawyer who dances as its her passion) the finger movements, the rhythmic movement of the legs wearing the jhumurs or ball filled bands which make noise, the embrace of one’s love publicly yet keeping a distance all combined to show emotions. I was putting in an effort to be one with Jayantee. My mind’s distractions were trying to prevent it but they failed finally. I was dancing invisibly and celebrating parenthood. I must confess that after ages I have seen a classical dance in USA. I get tired of the Bollywood dances. I remember going to see my sister perform the Kathak dance on stage with Bandana Sen. It was all about facial expression and finger and leg movement. It was a graceful and meaningful dance. I could feel the same emotions and devotion here. It was truly spectacular. Simple and delicious food greeted me outside. I was also appreciating my friend’s art work. I liked the human body turned back, as if it was tortured and is in pain. It looked like a true picture and not a pastel painting. My friend draws so beautiful and she brings humans to life in her paintings. Another form of art appreciated truly.
Sunday was a satisfying day. I remembered my grandmother and her good morning to me everyday on the phone. I still think she will call me or will smile at me. I can hear her talking to me in my dreams. My friends came with their parents and were just full of praise for our cooking and our decorations. I felt so homesick. I too want to go home and see my parents. For the first time, someone truly appreciated my mandir. I just was overwhelmed by the praises. They even could feel that one of the rooms was meant for education and activities and that it gave the vibe of inspiring ideas. Every room could speak to them like I had designed it to be. My design was truly realized and its meaning had come out clearly. It was a relief. People do value other’s art unlike what I have experienced. I loved the yellow rose’s plant and the box of chocolates I got. My friend’s parents also said that my friends can’t stop talking about us. I felt special. It’s good to be nice to everyone. I would have never thought that my friends would come all the way from another city to meet us and introduce us to their parents. Sunday evening, I just sat at the Town Center with Mac and Debdip. We were looking and smiling at everyone and listening to music. Free food satisfied our taste palettes. Big small young, every kind of person was out at the Town Center, enjoying with us. I love to sit outside in summer and look at people. I observe their flowery and bright clothes, especially the dresses the pretty ladies wear. Everyone is so relaxed and in a tranquil mood. Kids run around in glee. I guess everyone hates being cramped up in their houses in the cold winters. The trees are green, the gorgeous and rich flowers are blooming and there is an aroma of newness in the air. Nature seems to enlighten our spirits. The clear blue sky spreading out on the horizons also reflects our peaceful minds. After a long week’s of hard work, sitting outside and just musing one seems so idle and relaxing for the mind and body. I feel like someone is comforting my tensions. I feel like the skylark in Shelley’s poem-
“Like a high-born maiden
In a palace-tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower”

I was also lucky to see huge bright red and yellow and green birds. I was wearing a yellow salwar and few of the birds matched my dress’s color. I even took a picture with the birds, and I looked comical with a red bird sitting on my head. But so often the adult mind yearns to do something childish. I was a child, all energized and jumping with joy.
Monday morning was time to be serious. It was Memorial Day. We have seen so many soldiers valiantly giving up their lives to protect the nation. Memorial Day was a day to honor these brave soldiers. Like-minded people like me, were out at the Town Center, with their little children and chairs and holding a US flag and wearing red and blue colors. We all heard a few experiences of some people who were in the war and then it was time for the 63rd Memorial Day Parade in Rockville. The candle was lighted and wreaths were placed. The host Brain van de Graff, a weatherman, who often comes to educate children about weather issues, was proudly announcing each participant as they came marching down or dancing down the streets of Rockville. It was all cheers to the law enforcement agencies that first drove down in their ambulances, police cars, horses and bikes, blasting the siren and the flashing red lights. It reminded us all of how these men, be it holiday or middle of the night, are up waiting to protect us and remind us how important it is to be safe. Then came the Mayor of Rockville and all the council members. They were throwing candies at the little children who were excitedly holding up their hands. It was a plethora of candies. Then there were little school children, marching bands, clowns, dance troupes, high school baseball players, everyone came. It was a variety show to show how diverse our lives are. We were clapping and dancing with the performers. I guess my mind was truly playful and away from the TV blaring noises as I was actually dancing with the crowd. My mind felt jocund. I was also reminded of the Republic Day parade in India. It seemed like I was back home. We say we are dissimilar but the truth is that we are all identical. We just celebrate under special names.
My mind was blissful. I had a wonderful weekend. I feel relieved. I would summarize my weekend with a quote from Wordsworth:
“For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,

They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.”

Am I a melting pot type?

2007-05-24T07:23:00.000-04:00

I was said by my professor that I was the melting pot type. It made me perplexed. Was I losing my Indian culture? Was I becoming Americanized?
Melting pot is an age old term used to denote that different cultures come to USA and blend into the American culture and this lose their own cultural flavor. This term came into play in 1908 in the Romeo and Juliet play,
"Understand that America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming! A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American."
I ask myself again if I am becoming Americanized. I had been living in India for 23 years. I had first come to USA to study in a small university which had about 150 International students. I was the only International student in my department. For my classmates, India was a term they had never heard of. They asked me whether it was a city or a country. I remember drawing a brief map of the world and showing where my home town in relation to USA. For my friends, I was a totally another person from another planet. I was shy and hesitant. I had come with all the notions about USA and how one was expected to behave. I was always on the alert. I would say thank you, God Bless you, call my professor by name and not stand up when answering. I learnt to be freer with my professors. I learnt to eat using napkins always.
I slowly learnt the American culture. I saw that when I only spoke about India, people often lost interest. When my friends would talk about some program they saw on TV, I was lost. I had no TV at that time. I was still stuck to checking the internet for the latest happenings on the TV serials I used to watch in India. There I was checking what's happening in Kkusum, Kyunkis and all the Ekta Kapoor serials.
It was difficult to explain to my friends what Durga Puja was. I felt as if I was only imparting knowledge to my friends about India and was being a braggart. I was failing to acknowledge their culture. I was scared of going to bars and thought everyone only had hard drinks here.
I was shocked to see how comfortable and relaxed everyone was in the bars and how students and professors would sit and chits chat. I was never forced to have a hard drink and contentedly sat with my glass of coke. I saw another side of USA. I saw how friendly people were and how they loved to talk about their own culture. Many of my friends had not even seen New York so how could I expect them to know about India. I saw that some of them loved spicy food and that their food had so much more variety than just the McDonald’s burgers and pizzas. Everyone did not love McDonald’s. I slowly mixed and learnt the American culture. I was enjoying myself more and felt less homesick. I will never forget the moment my mom said that I was no longer crying and saying I want to go home. I developed this confidence to talk and mix with everyone. I was even labeled as the talkative girl. I was speechless. I used to be the shyest girl in India. What changed me? I guess my passion and love for knowing another culture, another country, I had always dreamt of. I have never been to New York till now, but I know I won’t love it more than the small cities I have visited and stayed in USA. I will no longer be awed by Shah Rukh Khan singing in Kal Ho Na Ho on the New York Bridge. I discovered I love the old buildings in Washington DC and would take more pictures of them than the White House. The White House is a place everyone in India talks about all the time. My perspectives were changing. Life in USA is not easy. Here there maybe dishwashers but still dishes need to clean before putting in the dishwasher. Here people work hard inspite of all the latest technologies.
But at the same time I kept in touch with my Indian background. Ironically, I have become more aware of Indian culture after staying in the USA. I don’t think I was aware of the innumerous characteristics of my culture. Today I am more interested in knowing all the details of my culture as I have to explain to another person, who has completely no idea about an Indian culture. But still they are better than the ones who have some idea. For this other category of people, Indians eat spicy food only and they have arranged marriages, they dont speak English and they have more rote memory. All these facts are true but there are variations. Indians also love sweet dishes and not all Indians can consume the same amount of spicyness. Also nowadays Indians are having love marriages and a certain portion of Indians do speak English. We have to acknowledge that Indians learn so many other languages other than English. English was more of a language brought by the Britishers to India. Not all classes of society felt the need to learn this more aristocratic language. Many farmers and laborers felt Hindi, the nation's language and some other native language helped them to carry out their daily tasks. I can completely understand their position. I did not get much help or importance in learning in depth about the literature and grammar of my native language. It’s a regret I have today. My school was more focused on instruction in the English Language as almost everyone from my school goes abroad to study. I only had to learn uncomplicated Bengali literature compared to my cousins who learnt the same subject at an earlier level. So I was reading 6th grade Bengali literature at class 10. It is easier said than done to master two languages. I verbalize in Bengali with some friends here but going back and forth between English and Bengali is baffling at times. I have seen people using some native language terms while conversing in English. It’s a slip of tongue as we are so used to denoting certain terms in one language. Also we never speak in a total native language and we often use many English terms like "hi, hello." It’s a complex transition.
I celebrate Durga Puja in USA with other Bengalis. I love to wear my Indian clothes at Indian occasions. I keep in touch with Indian news. But there at times when I cannot relate to what is happening in India as things have changed so drastically. I also enjoy watching American games and now love the American TV shows more as I can talk about it to my American friends with whom I study and enjoy. I feel the need to know this culture as this is a place where I chose to study and live. I call it adjusting to the new environment.
I am not lost with my Indian culture. I still cook only Indian food in my house as I don’t like American food so much. I feel I can taste American food when I go out to eat. In India, we would eat at Shiraz’s or The Taj as there certain delicacies were available like the Biryani which we just could not make at home. I also had rolls and puchkas as they had the spiciness or that special sour flavor of the “imly” which was impossible to make at home. I have eaten at a few Indian restaurants in USA and feel they make food which I can better make at my house here. I just don’t get the taste of something new. So I go to Olive Gardens or Palios where they make dishes which I cannot make at home.
I feel I am justifying myself as I want to explain that being multicultural is difficult. One can visit a place in two days but unless one stays there and mixes with the real local flavor and community, one cannot understand that place’s culture.
My professor, a very knowledgeable person, has been to India on visits. But he has been showed a life which the officials wanted to show. Was he shown the accurate savor of India or how much advancement India has made or the disparities between Indians? I wonder. Is it possible to know a culture in a few days? I don’t know so much about USA and know only the Christian culture. What about the other religions and other festivals?
I find it difficult to keep in touch with India and USA at the same time. It’s onerous. I feel adjusting to a new place is arduous as you are constantly in struggle between learning and keep up to date between the two cultures. I again say it’s easy to say you want to be multicultural but only the person who experiences it knows how different two cultures are and how much lost you are at times with your beliefs and views. A culture is not just facts and figures and theories. There is more to it. You need to know the heritage of a culture and why certain norms are followed. The developments of a culture over the ages need to be learnt. And foremost, you need to see how much of this culture you are willingly compiling with and how much is forced onto you due to family and other reasons.
I say it’s easier said than done.

A poem

2007-05-22T18:21:00.000-04:00

I am not an American. But this was a task I wanted to do as I wanted to identify myself with the American students I will be teaching in a school. I wanted to bridge the gap between myself and the Americans.

I, too, am an American
I am the dark haired girl from India, a country in Asia
Who has also come here to study like many others.
I can speak and write and converse in English,
But I communicate in other languages also like Hindi and Bengali,
I love to wear my bright embroidered Indian dresses,
But I also love to be dressed in
Pretty skirts and colorful tops
Or the attractive printed dresses.
I, too, am an American.

I, too, am an American.
I adore Christmas
Especially as Santa Claus comes with Rudolf,
The Red-nosed Reindeer
In the sleigh over the snow
To bring me presents.
I decorate my Christmas tree
With jingling bells and twinkling stars
And sing carols in the church.
I too, love to eat turkey and mashed potatoes
And the sweet and red cranberry gravy
Topped with the pumpkin pie,
With friends and family on Thanksgiving Day.
I don’t miss the football game after the hearty meal
And I do go shopping early next morning to get a good deal at Best Buy.
I too, celebrate Halloween on the dark night
And carve out a pumpkin.
With my black large shining spiders on the window sills
And the glowing skull of a skeleton
Which glows in the dark and changes its colors
And makes an occasional whining sound
I ward off the evil spirits.
But I make sure the little children
All dressed as fairies or superheroes
Come to take treats from my candy jar.
I too celebrate Easter
Where I help little kids paint Easter Eggs.
I too watch the extravagant fireworks display
As America celebrates its Independence Day.
I, too, am an American.

I, too, am an American.
I too love basketball.
I support the Detroit Pistons
And go to the stadium to cheer with my friends
Go Detroit.
I also love to watch baseball, the traditional game
Especially when the Detroit Tigers
With their old English D signs on their jerseys
Play against the Yankees.
I love to spend my Sunday nights
Watching a game on the big screen TV
At Buffalo Wild Wings
With a plate of Hot BBQ wings
And a pitcher of Coke with lots of ice
At my table.
I, too, am an American.

Rockville, MD

2007-05-22T15:48:00.000-04:00

Memorial Day is approaching. I will be witnessing the opening of the new Rockville town center and will see the Memorial Day parade. I just can’t be ignorant. I need to know about Rockville. Rockville was a city to me, on the Red Line Metro, and close to DC. Who knew that one day I would fall in love with this historic city? It’s special and dear to my heart and I would be happy with a tiny place here. It’s my new home, a city where many new memories are made, where I discovered my love for writing anew. It’s a city where I met MacGregor, my puppy. It’s a place where dreams are woven and realized too.
Rockville is a very historic city. Most houses are centuries old here. But alas! Now they are breaking these old houses to make new high rise buildings. But still, certain areas are maintaining their old charm. So what makes Rockville, a historic city in Maryland?
Rockville was a refugee for semi-nomadic Native Americans in the early 8000 BC. It was crossed by three creeks- Rock Creek, Cabin John Creek and Watts Branch. These inhabitants were also called the Montgomery Indians. They were later driven away by the European colonists. General Edward Braddock( a British soldier deployed to fight the French in the 1755s) said "we marched to larance Owings or Owings Oardianary, a Single House, it being 18 miles and very dirty" This road later became the Rockville Pike. Rockville was originally called the Montgomery Court House but on July 16th, 1803, the name became Rockville from Rock Creek. It was made the court house for the county as it was centrally located. During the American Civil War, General George B. McClellan (the founder of the Army of the Potomac) had stayed at the Beall Dawson house in 1862. In addition, General J.E.B. Stuart and an army of 8,000 Confederate cavalrymen through and occupied Rockville on June 28th, 1863 while on their way to Gettysburg stayed at the Prettyman house. Battle of Gettysburg had the largest number of American casualties in the American Civil War. After this, in 1873, the Baltimore Ohio RailRoad made this city easily accessible to DC. Rockville had a trolley system which connected Georgetown to Rockville. This was later replaced by cars. Then on 15th Dec, 1984, the Rockville Metro Station was established. Rockville also has the Marc and Amtrak trains running through it. Rockville’s town center is now being newly made and will be opened in May 2007. Richard Montgomery High School, named after the American General who tried to capture Quebec, is one of the top 15 high schools in USA. F Scott Fitzgerald’s grave and a theatre named after him are also in Rockville. Fitzgerald was one of the leading novelists in the Jazz Period. This period was between the ending of the World War I and the beginning of the Great Depression. This period saw writers writing about the decadence and hedonism as well as about a new individualism seen rising amongst the society. Fitzgerald had written The Great Gatsby, which talks about this period, when alcohol consumption was banned by the 18th Amendment. The American society was flourishing with money, especially in the hands of the bootleggers who illegally sold alcohol. Fitzgerald writes a story about the whole immortality of a person who is a bootlegger and who had tons of money.
I loved to learn about the history of Rockville and know there are more stories, which I hope to add later. But I want to go back to this song which was written about Rockville. This song was written by the REM, a rock band in the 1980s. The bass player Mike Mills was in love with Ingrid Schorr, who lived in Rockville. This song was a request to Ingrid to not go back to Rockville. I just found it amusing and felt it had a place in the history of Rockville.

The Song:

Looking at your watch a third time waiting in the station for a bus

Going to a place thats far, so far away and if thats not enough
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
Youll be coming back before too long

Dont go back to Rockville
Dont go back to Rockville
Dont go back to Rockville
And waste another year

At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend
I dont care if youre not here with me
Cause its so much easier to handle
All my problems if Im too far out to sea

But something better happen soon
Or its gonna be too late to bring you back

Dont go back to Rockville
Dont go back to Rockville
Dont go back to Rockville
And waste another year

Its not as though I really need you
If you were here Id only bleed you
But everybody else in town only wants to bring you down and
Thats not how it ought to be
I know it might sound strange, but I believe
Youll be coming back before too long.

Dont go back to Rockville
Dont go back to Rockville
Dont go back to Rockville
And waste another year.

Its amazing how far I reach and how much needs to be learnt by just looking at a small part of history of a place. I love Rockville.

http://www.rockvillemd.gov/historic/walkingtour.html - This site has some more history about Rockville.

Dollar Store in Kolkata, India

2007-05-22T13:07:00.000-04:00

Everything for under one dollar. That sounds cheap! I would love to go to a store that sells everything for only a dollar. It sounds unbelievable. Well thats the Dollarstores for you. They sell everything and anything for one dollar. Lets stop here and rake our minds at this concept. I am no entrepreneur but would like to know whether its a cheap deal or are they fooling us?
As always, I needed to find the history of these stores. These stores started selling things for either 5 cents or a dime. They could afford to sell things at a low price as their products are made only to cater to these stores. They also sell stuff which were originally manufactured to be sold to international markets. Overstocked items or items from a closeout store are also available here. And items which were made to cater to an event like Christmas are also sold here. As prices started to inflate, the dollar stores had to rise their prices and now its $1.02 for an item which includes taxes. Most of the merchandise are also exported from countries like Asia for a cheap price.
As I look around the dollar store, I see many things like candles which I feel are over-priced. Dollar stores makes profits on items which are cost less than a dollar in other stores. But since consumers see everything as being only a dollar, they neglect this issue. I also look at the quality of products being kept and see they are not good. There is a lot of trashy things and plasticky things available. Games look very petty and hardly last for more than a few days. We have duplicate brands of Coke and Pepsi and other food products being available. What would seem to be cheap is not always good. Wouldn't you rather wait for good deals in other stores or wait for the sales than buy something which is not of the basic good quality?
This brings me to then why would a dollarstore in India look to be so expensive. Ninety nine rupees is a whole lot of money in India. It means a whole day of hard work and toil for an average earner. It rather seems ill-fitted. They say they sell things from USA, UK and China. Everyone is tempted to buy exported products. The transportation costs is also high. But still I dont understand how it is helping the Indian people. A dollar store in USA helps the average US citizen to buy products which would cost more in other places. Its a part of many people's lives. But in India, anyone who wants to use like a perfume from USA, would be earnning that amount of money to afford it. I have not been to a dollar store in India, but I question the quality of their products. Is their product as good that people will fish out such a huge amount of money? Its just not making sense to me. The whole purpose of a dollar store seems to be lost. Is it being affordable in India? I guess my blog will stop here as I need to discuss with people to find how is it being useful in the same way as its being in USA.

Death don’t take my loved ones away from me

2007-05-16T10:42:00.000-04:00

Death scares me. I feel death takes away my loved ones away from me to a far unknown place where I can never see them or speak to them. Death can never be satisfied or bribed. Death will carry out its action whenever it wishes and however it wishes. We are all the mercy of death. Yet there are some who face death bravely and are willing to make the last few moments or days of their lives the best ones. Death gives them a fresh new perspective of life. Life with all its material wealth is suddenly meaningless. The inner soul comes out to understand human emotions and feelings and things which cannot be bought with dollars. At these moments in our lives, we embrace life with a new found love. Morrie is one of those people who bravely enfold death. Morrie “a prominent doctor of sociology” (pg.5) was a teacher at the university. A teacher, one who touched the lives of many a student, including that of the author Mitch Albom. Mitch was the player and Morrie was the coach. Mitch writes about the last semester with his teacher, a class where he was the only student, where no books where required, or no tests were conducted. It was be to his last thesis. It was a class about the last few days of Morrie’s life and the class was always held on a Tuesday.
Morrie’s life is very moving. Morrie was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis where slowly his body would decay and he would be unable to perform any function on his own. A teacher who loved dancing would hardly be able to walk without a crutcher or maybe not move at all. Morrie’s life as Mitch says was like a lighted candle which would slowly melt and wither away. Morrie thought the world would stop to sympathize with him. But why would the people stop? Does time stop for anyone. Morrie decided to share his last moments of his life and make it the best time. “Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.”(pg. 10) Morrie’s life now became Mitch’s thesis.
Morrie says “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.” (pg 82) But how did Morrie learn to die? Was it his inability to perform simple tasks like moving his head that made him think he is dying? Or was it his ability to see things in a different way than he previously did? Or was his perception that he would die? He could see the death locomotive coming. It was a question that Morrie repeatedly had to answer. He knew more than the knowledgeable doctors when he would die. Morrie was looking at life from “a healthier place,” (pg 63) “a more sensitive place” and a “mystical clarity of thought came when you looked death in the eye.” Would Morrie have seen this new view of life if he had not been diagnosed with this deadly disease?
Morrie believes that culture teaches us to value material things. Culture does not permit us to talk about death. I wonder what makes Morrie think that the people who come to meet him are not satisfied with their lives. Morrie starts reading about all religions. Morrie takes us to South America, to the Desana tribes, who believed that there was always a fixed quantity of energy that flowed between humans. When someone died, someone else had to be born to take that energy and maintain the balance. (pg 141) Morrie becomes very spiritual. He feels the need of a spiritual security, a feeling that someone is always looking after you. It’s that feeling that makes us feel wanted in this earth. It’s this feeling that makes you know that someone will miss you. Culture is what we make it to be. It is forever changing to our needs. Culture is not divided into races and castes.
Morrie’s journey from the incompetence of the societal rules of culture takes him to talk about love. Love is a tender emotion. We all wished to be loved and want to love someone. Love was what Morrie missed when his mother died at a young age. Love is what Morrie shares with his wife Charlotte. Love is what Morrie shares with his children. “Love is the only rational act.” (pg. 52) Morrie quotes Auden “Love each other or perish.” (pg 82) It’s true. Who are we without love? Would we feel a sense of belongingness in this world, a need to do something for others if we were not loved? Who would we wish Good Morning or Good Night everyday? Who would we accumulate all the material wealth in this world for? We would not be able to say to our other half’s “Till death do us apart.” Who would shed a tear for us when a drop of blood spilled out of our body? Who would we share Valentines Day with? Who would we give those colorful heart-shaped candies of “love me tender” to? Who would hold the red rose for us? Love is the only rational act, to quote Morrie.
From the deep pangs of love, where many a lover wrote a poem, we move with Morrie to few other emotions of life, lost in the material world. Morrie is a teacher, a father, a husband, a coach, a dancer. He has many roles to fulfill in this world. He was also a child once. A child, whose mother died when he was very young. Morrie had to read out his mother’s death telegram as his father could not read. Morrie had to break the news of her death to his family. Morrie also saw his brother, with whom he had played in the open fields in the rain one night, develop polio. Morrie did not know the diagnosis or causes of polio as he was not a medical student. Morrie was just 9 years old. “Morrie felt responsible.” (pg. 73) Morrie recalls getting a letter from a teacher whose 9 year old students have each lost a parent. Morrie says he can feel the pain, which is 70 years old, of his mother dying. Morrie had a loving step-mother, one who believed in education. But still Morrie cannot forget his mother. Morrie asks us how does a child cope with death? Can ignorance or work make a child forget the death of a loved one? I too cannot forget the death of my grandmother, to whom I was supposed to say something. I had waited for the right moment to tell her about my love. But alas! It was too late. She is gone and I still feel responsible for not giving her the one last happy news. I guess I am like Morrie now, where I don’t waste a moment in sharing my thoughts and actions in life with others. Who knows how it might help the other person? Or maybe take a burden of news from my shoulder.
Morrie talks about our discomfiture with expressing certain emotions to the public. Morrie was not embarrassed to ask someone to help him to perform his urinal functions. Morrie asks his class what is the “effect of silence on human relations” “why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?” (pg 53) Why do we need to talk all the time? Why can’t we find happiness in quietness? I feel that people’s mind become restless and the need to always do something makes them be afraid of silence.
But then there is this numbness when someone dies. I remember seeing Bo Schembechler's funeral on the television. It was a celebration of his life, a life where he had coached many a football player, who became famous NFL players. Bo had affected the lives of the Michigan wolverines. He had made a huge difference in the University of Michigan’s football team. I was happy to see people cheer Bo and remember him and not just silently mourn the loss. Morrie is scared that people might forget him when he dies. He looks at the irony of this funeral where people talk good things about their loved ones. Morrie feels how unlucky are the dead who don’t hear the praises. Morrie organized a live funeral where people told Morrie the good words what they would have told when he died. It was worthwhile to be appreciated and loved.
Compassion for others! I ask with Mitch that have we felt like crying when someone we don’t know dies. I have felt it as I have lost a dear one and know the pain. But can a person who has not seen death feel it? When the people in Bosnia are dying, Morrie can suffer for them. Morrie is near death and so he can. Morrie feels that there is a shortage of compassion in our lives. We tend to pity ourselves. Mitch wonders how wonderful it would be if people could have a time limit daily on how much self-pity they could express. Maybe we could enjoy life with others than crying over small things that happen to us. Trust for one another is something we are at a loss today. Morrie had his class conduct an experiment where they would have to fall down from a chair and someone else would have to catch them. A girl boldly closed her eyes and falls down. At the last moment, someone catches her. But could the rest of the class have the same valor to trust someone else to save their life? Morrie articulates “Sometimes you cannot believe what you see, you have to believe what you feel. And if you are ever going to have other trust you, you must feel that you can trust them, too- even when you’re in the dark.” (pg 61)
Morrie reminds me of Shakespeare’s play “As You Like It” and Jacques famous speech on “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women are merely players.” Morrie’s need to be a child again, “when our mothers held us, rocked us, stroked our heads” (pg 116) hark back to “Last scene of all,/ That ends this strange eventful history,Is second childishness and mere oblivion, / Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything” from Jacques’s dialogue. Everyone feels their love as a child was derisory and they are still parched. Like Morrie, we all yearn to be with our mothers.
Mothers, it’s a very fortunate blessing to be a parent, even a foster parent. Morrie boldly exclaims “There is no experience like having children.” (pg 93) Morrie loves to be with his sons is his death bed. The author, his student, is also like a son to him. Eeven our teachers love us like their own children. They are constantly imparting their hard earned wisdom to us. I look at my friends’ and their little kids, and the glee in their eyes when their child does something a new and laugh. It’s a God given blessing to be a parent. It’s a joy. It’s one that one who has a child or raises a child can understand. It too like death needs to be almost experiences to understand its ecstasy and pains. It’s a bliss to be fulfilled in life.
I was reading this book as a book about the life of a teacher. This book was a course requirement. But when did I get so deeply attached I don’t know. I read Morrie’s words slowly. They were not to be read like words of wisdom. They were to be integrated into our lives. They were to help us find a new dimension in life. They were to show the bridge between life and death. I don’t want to read another book on how to improve your life. Morrie laughingly says “America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help.” (pg 65) A Persian Bazaar means a place of disorder, a veiled place of desire and a place of wealth. We see books after books on self help. We cannot just read and follow them if we don’t understand how our daily simple life is precious. This book was read as a command to be followed, but soon it touched me and showed me how valuable my life was and how dear my loved ones were to me. I was also reminded of Morrie's picture with that of the Professor who died while saving his students' lives in the Virginia Tech Massacre.
I loved the last lines of the book where the author summarizes the funeral ground. “The grass was wet and the sky was the color of milk. We stood by the hole in the earth, close enough to hear the pond water lapping against the edge and to see the ducks shaking off their feathers.” (pg 188) Who would believe that this line was talking about someone’s funeral? Who would believe this paragraph started with “The funeral was held on a damp, windy morning.” The death of Morrie is being highlighted with giving importance to the daily tasks of other living things around us like the grass and the ducks. It’s as if we are celebrating Morrie’s life and our lives also.

A song Morrie mentions- by Ray Noble

The very thought of you and I forget to doThe little ordinary things that everyone ought to doI'm living in a kind of daydreamI'm happy as a kingAnd foolish though it may seemTo me that's everything.

The mere idea of you, the longing here for youYou'll never know how slow the moments go till I'm near to youI see your face in every flowerYour eyes in stars aboveIt's just the thought of youThe very thought of you, my loveThe mere idea of you, the longing here for youYou'll never know how slow the moments go till I'm near to youI see your face in every flowerYour eyes in stars aboveIt's just the thought of youThe very thought of you, my love.

Free me

2007-05-10T08:42:00.000-04:00

Free me
From the stringed ties of the wedding
Help me
I want to get out
From this dark mysterious room
I want to escape the ominous night
Where all I see is red
As red as the blood
That flows everywhere in lines
Or spots
Oh like the spot glued on my forehead
To remind me that
I am married
I am tied for life
Help me
Free me.

This dark and mysterious painting jammed my eye as I was browsing through paintings by Rockville’s artists. I was looking at the red spot or bindi on the Indian woman’s forehead. I looked at her dark long flowing hair and her eyes. Her eyes seemed to question the meaning of marriage and life. She looked like the Kali Goddess. Kali Goddess is worshipped on a dark night when there are no stars in the sky. She had stepped on her husband by mistake and so her tongue was out. It’s on this night that many people go to the burial grounds to worship her. There are no lights other than the candle lights. It’s all very mystifying. This woman in the painting is in a house which has this arched window leading to a white light. Alas the light is far far away and hence it does not illuminate the dark room. There is an alpana,( design with rice powder) maybe drawn by her to decorate the house. A hand is trying to grasp a stick to hold or maybe a knife. There are red spots all over the picture. I see red blood flowing in all directions. What has this woman done? Why is there this intense passion in her eyes? Why are her lips tightly closed and her eyebrows raised? Her long dark black eyebrows so beautifully arched. She has a very long and pointed and sharp nose. I see a wind trying to blow in some fresh air into the room. Has there something happened here as the wind fails to reach in all corners of the room. Or is the wind pointing at the star? Why is there a star? This painting is very mysterious and scary. But maybe the woman in the painting wants to say something to us. I see her picture as being the prominent image amidst all the shady red and blue and black and green small images. Perhaps she has a confession to make? Maybe she wants us to help her? I associate marriage as Indian women wear red intense bindi when they are married. A new bride and darkness are very opposite concepts. I feel this image is about the bride asking about her marriage and its implications. Possibly there is bond she is wants to be freed of.

Bummer!

2007-05-08T17:26:00.000-04:00

Bummer! The first American expression Lowji learns. Candace Fleming’s book “Lowji Discovers America” grabs my attention in the Children’s book section. There is an elongated picture of an Indian boy which his thumbs up and a smile on his eye, with the typical American houses in the background. I laugh and say why not read this book.
This book is about Lowji, a little boy, leaving Mumbai (the big and busy city), India to go to America. America meant the United States of America and not any other country in America. Whew! What confusion. This book is comical as one sees a landlady following Lowji’s words. Lowji asks her to get a goat so that she won’t have to mow the law and the next day the landlady arrives with two goats. She further buys a dog and a cat to protect the place and get rid the mice. Lowji seems to look for the silver lining in USA as it were his best friend’s advice. He picks up few American phrases like Scat- to go away, It’s on the house- free, Fritz- not working. I also loved the parts where Lowji explains to other US citizens about how Mumbai is filled with rats and they roam all over the Rat City. A boy’s version of his country is just humorous.

Words Fail Me..a book I read by Patricia T. O'Conner

2007-05-08T12:33:00.000-04:00

“Is your egg ready to hatch?” Conner asks the readers as you open the book “Words Fail Me”. I ask myself have I taken a book which talks about hens and eggs. Hens and eggs always harks back me at me “Which came first- the hen or the egg?” After the startling start, and the initial confusion regarding the subject matter of the book, I started to seriously read the book. I wanted to get some tips on how to avoid using the same words. I repeat myself on and on. But oh no! This book was not a thesaurus. I again received a shock.

Conner wanted the reader to think. She has this almost colloquial style of writing. I say almost as it’s not as if someone is writing in spoken words or asking us questions. She delves into our minds and seems to play with our emotions. Her chapter headings instantly make a dong sound in your head and you almost wake up in haste to read the next few lines. Examples: Smothering Heights (Misbehaving modifiers); “Hold the Baloney (Pompous Circumstances); “Made for Each Other (Well-matched Sentences); “Thou Shalt not Embarrass myself (Grammar Moses).” It’s the catchy openings that make you think of something you are familiar with and grabs your attention. Even in her examples, she uses expressions and ideas from everyday life. To explain a simple concept that you should write about something you know, Conner uses the example of how Jane Austen’s novels always has ladies present and we never got to know what the men think. Jane Austen did not take part in men’s conversation so she did not write about their minds. Organizing your writing ties in with how you can’t go to Home Depot to solve this problem.
There are moments when Conner can almost sense what’s going on in our minds at time. She says “Do I hear grumbling” when a certain task in writing is not easy to do. She catches us off guard and we have the urge to read more to maybe prove her wrong. I almost at times felt she was Miss Smarty Pants.
Yet there are excellent tips on how to improve your writing. A few phrases and sentences that stood out to me and I felt were helpful are:

· Emily Bronte paused while cooking, ironing or kneading dough to make notes for Wuthering Heights. (I too cook almost everyday, so I can also make keep a notebook handy)

· Give yourself the Third Degree(why, what, how) (I hate the question answer session)

· Tidbits(things that make you smile or give a pang) (I am always up for snacks than the large meals)

· It may help to begin with an account of an important or symbolically significant incident in your life. (I always write about what struck me, which s often happens to be something we don’t usually notice)

· Don’t wait around for inspiration. It almost never shows up punctually.

· The best writing is the clearest. (here she also uses the example of how particle physics is difficult to understand but writing should be easy to understand)

· Give yourself time to write

· Just try a juicy verb once in a while. ( I got up and made myself a strawberry shake at this moment)

· Some of the words we use to tell us when and where- here, then, there, now, this and that- can leave readers scratching their heads. (This reminded me of a monkey scratching his head.)

· A good rule of thumb is to avoid the kind of pompous language used by people you’d like to punch in the nose. (I was laughing and almost fell on the floor when I read this line. I know quite a few people who I would punch for their bragging.)

· Like a superhighway, the sentence is a triumph of engineering: the stately capital letter, the procession of words in their proper order, every arch and tunnel, bridge and buttress fitted to its job. (The highway reminded me of Nilanjan Da’s car stories, he told us yesterday. It was very funny. He talked about his car was the tiger and it was very long. Once a part of the car had opened and he had just picked it and dumped into the back, and drove the car. Later he realized it was the muffler of the car. He also talked about how one of his friends had a car which would only open from the back door and could never back. Old cars so many funny things happen)

· The book also mentions Oprah. (I think about Oprah and how she spends 3000 dollars a month to go across the country to get her eyebrows plucked from her special person in her personal jet)

· It’s not the pearls that make a necklace- it’s the string. (I guess this line means the medium is important. In this book, Conner uses it to explain how words ought to be joined carefully to make a whole sentence. Offhand, I liked this sentence as I have been wearing my pearl necklace too often now and it reminded that I should change my necklace.)

This book made me laugh. It was a relief as I was tired and needed some fun. Good book for reading though I am disappointed as I don’t think I learnt about how to think of new words. I misunderstood the title of the book. This book is not about Words which is written in red and bold, but about how to write using suitable and original words.

An artistic picture of a flower

2007-05-08T09:12:00.000-04:00

Often it happens
You look at something
You know you like it
But why you dont know.

I saw this flower
Or bud as some would say
And I instantly was in love.

The dark pink color
Of the flower
Against the olive green color
And with dark green leaves
Added as an accent color
Heightens the beauty
Sharpens the image
Of this image.

I look at it
With my eyes wide open
I am tired
But I force my eyelids
To be open
And stare at this image.

The pink crushed petals
Remind me of
Wrinkled shiffons
Worn by women.
How I would be scared
To wear these clothes
Or wash them
Lest they loose
Their wrinkingly effect.

The whole flower
Reminds me of the small rice holder
Red in color
With intricate designs
Held tightly by women
When they get married
In India.

Its a sacred thing
So dear and precious
Indicating the start
Of a new life
Of happiness and prosperity
With your husband.

Its their beside Goddess Lakhi.
I know as I take it out
When its Lakhi Puja
In my house in India.

I like the slender figure
Of this item
And this flower
Also reminds me
Of Goddess Lakhi
And of the new bride
And all the rituals
And wealth
And rice
All stored inside it.

I know now why I love this image
And I associate this flower
With wealth and life and food
All clasped tightly
Inside one flower.

Spiderman 3- Drama, Emotions, Violence all cooked together

2007-05-06T06:46:00.000-04:00

I was too energized to see a movie with friends in the movie hall after a year. I was also interested in seeing this particular movie, Spiderman 3, as my nephew’s birthday is coming, and he idolizes Spiderman. I have seen him with every possible Spiderman product from shoes to comforter. Shounak, my nephew, 6 years old, always makes his hand stretch open like Spiderman and shows me the web. I would be seeing him soon after a long time so wanted to bring back all the excitement of Spiderman. I wanted to believe in Spiderman the same way Shounak idolizes.
It was wonderful to see so many children, mostly teenagers, at the movie place. I thought watching these children’s reactions would be an added windfall to the environment to enjoy the movie of a superhero. Superhero that is what Spiderman is, in children’s hearts. He can save anyone and everyone. The children were clapping loud every time Spiderman performed an action of gallantry and valor. There was cheering for him as if he truly was a hero. But in the children’s mind, Spiderman is their fantasy hero. Children love to be in the fantasy world with their hero. It is a part of their growing up process before they truly embrace reality. At one point, the children were actually urging Spiderman to get up and do something. The movie place had come alive to honor Spiderman.
In the movie, I recall Spiderman about to kiss a woman, who was not his girlfriend, and a little child was saying no no, and he even closed his eyes when Spiderman kissed the girl. The adults in the movie were cheering but the child did not enjoy the experience. The scene where the people are going to give Spiderman the keys to New York City, with camera men, balloons, streamers, banners, thousands of people standing the street, and there Spiderman makes his grand entrance, more grand than the Queen of England just sitting in her car, with him jumping on top of building and swinging his body from one end to the other. The cheer that was generated in the movie equaled the cheer in the audience. The atmosphere was just electric.
I don’t want to describe the movie or analyze it part by part. But I felt the movie was too emotional and too violent for children. I can see a superhero saving people and jumping around like The PowerPuff Girls. But Spiderman becomes proud and vain of his work. He ignores his girlfriend and her legitimate crisis. He is too proud. He feels almost as if he rules the world and the world salutes him only.
We have innumerous villains in the story. I don’t mind it as Spiderman is a character who can fight against all villains alone. It’s his special power that makes him perform such tasks. But do we have to see the same villains reappearing again and again. And when they don’t reappear, it means Spiderman has killed them. Is death the only punishment to evils? Then we can also shoot the evil. What is special about Spiderman? Spiderman can wear a black suit, which makes him be more aggressive and more angered and needier for revenge on others who disobey or humiliate him. He may have risen above the egoistic point where no one can advise him. But isn’t he still saving lives?
How does he share the same emotion to save others? And why is he not punished in the end for killing certain people and taking the lives in his hands? And if it not were the other half-evil half-good super hero, Spiderman would have never been able to save his own life. Then why did the director kill the good guy? He did a good deed so his evil work is erased. Couldn’t he maybe gone and started protecting another city? We just don’t see the presence of two super heros in a comic strip. And please explain how did a person get Spiderman’s web making powers when he just wore that sort of clingy and evil substance?
And why did someone not ask all the famous men, in biology, entomologist, or even the scientists who had de-molecule the sand man, about how could he be restored to life or even stopped? He asked forgiveness from Spiderman as is Spiderman was God and then he was set free. He used the excuse of his daughter dying and asking the audience to be sympathizing with him. But he did kill many people who have families too? Maybe I am thinking too much but it’s when you want to see a good movie and are involved in it, that your brain starts questioning.
This movie is all about the director making more and more drama. And this leads to the Spiderman’s emotional thoughts getting crossed up. He dances, he cries, he exhumes every potential emotion. It’s the unfolding of the human in Spiderman.
The movie is also about everyone confused about what is right and wrong and what is Spiderman supposed to do.
The movie is also about Spiderman not truly gaining his love, no marriage, as his girlfriend does not appreciate how hard his job is to save people. Her aim to sing in the Broadway comes in the way. Sorry, you can’t be a singer. You have to be Spiderman’s escort.
I did like the audio-visual effects in this movie. I liked the technological aspects in the movie. But I do clap the director who put in so much drama, emotion, violence all in one movie. The director truly had a lot of time and patience. I also liked seeing a sweet face behing the Spiderman's attire. I also liked seeing Harry Osborn's paint and display his rather brilliant cooking skills. He so tries to show off how he can flip an omlette and fails. It was comical and down to earth considering we were up in the air with Spiderman or in his dingy apartment. I also liked the place where the models are phtoshooting and the gay camera man sees a huge metal plank coming towards them, and he gets irritated as its disturbing his photo background. And also when one of the models is hanging off a window sill, and her boyfriend decides to tell her father who is a cop, that he loves her.

Though now I am lost and don’t know whether I like Spiderman? What do I tell Shounak?

Literary Misblurbing..a review of this article

2007-05-05T09:25:00.000-04:00

New York Times has the most accomplished writers of our age. They hail writers, critics from various genres. It’s always a special treat for the mind and for the writer to read an article here. The words, the precision, the style, the professionalism all make me want to be a writer like them. It’s a paper I find worth reading. It is a prestigious honor to have your book’s name mentioned in the New York Times. Project Runway had said that it was every designer’s dream to have their name cited on Page Six on the NY post by Richard Johnson. Every gossip worth hearing, every dress worth wearing, all the scandals, are written here. This is the page everyone looks at first thing in the morning. The pictures aren’t just of celebrities posing and smiling. It’s catching the celebrities off guard. Celebrities can become famous in a day by just having their picture in Page Six. That’s the power this one page can exert over the nation.
New York Times too has this classic collection of books, books you want to read. An essay by Henry Alford caught my eye today. I was more attracted to it as I am those people who looks at the heading of an article and feels that the summary or jist of the article. This article talks about how Times magazine’s book critic Lev Grossman’s review of “Thirteen Moons” by Frazier had the word Genius as the heading. Grossman had written “Frazier works on an epic scale, but his genius is in the details” but all the publishers took out was that one word. Did that one word summarize what Grossman was saying? Alford explains this model of misblurbing and how publishers misuse what critics write. Are publishers trying to remove all the negative aspects of that work? Is people’s impatience and need to fight against time making the publishers use one-words to attract people’s attention? Morgan Entrekin, a publisher justifies her work by saying that they have innumerous books to publish every year and hence mistakes will happen. But who is making the mistakes? Why would someone use a word as a title that totally alters what the reviewer is saying? Is someone not giving enough respect or time to the reviewer who read the book and wrote about it? What about the writer? Doesn’t he/she deserve a critical opinion? We all say a piece of writing is good. But who says that the use of a certain idea or a phrase was breathtaking or maybe a word should have been omitted? It is all about scrutinizing a piece of work. Someone wrote a book and had feelings and thoughts ingrained in the book. When a reader reads it, he/she is also pouring in the same effort to recognize and maybe identify with the other writer. We talk about certain books to people who share and invest in our same interest. And this brings us to the use of the exclamation mark. This punctuation mark was made to indicate a strong feeling. But do we have to use at our own freedom. Why does every book review have to have a strong feeling? Is the author venting out his/her emotions ferociously at us? I don’t think so. Maybe a writer wrote a book to express his/her saccharine emotions and mellow thoughts to us. This article is worth looking at and wondering what we do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/books/review/Alford.t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&8bu&emc=bu