Everyone complains that the current schooling system is outdated -- large volumes of information that we are forced to read although we are not interested in it and we probably will end up forgetting most of it by the end of the year anyway to name a few. L~ sent me a link about a couple of kids who were home schooled in a pretty unconventional way by their parents -- they were just encouraged to read about their interests and they ended up scoring more in their SATs than most traditionally schooled kids. That's an interesting experiment, one that I would probably be too chicken to try on r~ but nice to know.
Anyway, one skill that they did not teach me at school is life skills! Duh, that's what you learn by living, you say? Well yes but a little help along the way would have gone a long way. Recently, I noticed that I was not very equipped with dealing with difficult situations at Tachibana (of all places!) So, we had gone there to send off a friend who was quitting work to establish her own business (so cool!) and as expected most of the items on the menu were not vegetarian which was a bit awkward for me and s~. So, here we are sitting around this round table, 15-20 of us from work and we are trying to ask the waiter if x was meat-free, the sauce was meat-free and also trying to make ourselves understood. By the end of it, I was slightly turning pink and wondering if I was creating a scene. Just then, k~ turns to s~ and me and says, "You might want to make sure the rice is not rolled in pork sauce" and he laughed when he caught our eyes popping out. The joke put me at ease and then I forgot all about the awkwardness.
The other time, another coworker had posted a Facebook status update about a difficult time his family was going through and how they had managed to pull through -- the entire story was published in a local newspaper and he had posted a link to the article. I went through a series of emotions -- empathy, sympathy, sadness, guilt (don't ask)...and then left a "Happy for you...blah" -- one of those standard, trademark responses. And then I read a comment left by another of my coworkers, something along the lines of "Neat stuff...the article didn't mention that you continue to be a healthy, robust young man...(something about his volleyball skills)" and it made me laugh. Here it was again -- a light-hearted comment for a heavy situation that worked!
And I was thinking, where do they pick these skills from? This ability to joke in the face of adversity, awkwardness and this ability to dispel an embarrassing/sad situation and inject smiles into it? So anyway, that's the kind of education I wish I had received. Perhaps, it's the American schooling system; while it has its drawbacks, maybe it teaches what Indian schools fail to teach? Maybe one day, I'll watch r~ interact in a formal crowd and learn from her ;)
For now, here's something I do know to do (or I claim to know to do :): a 3 minute short story based on a photo.
(Woohoo! 100 fans on my facebook page!)
Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
March 22, 2010
January 21, 2009
Scary stuff.
Life is one whirlwind, roller-coaster ride with a baby. Being a first-time mom seems to be even more challenging. You hardly have time to breathe a sigh of relief that the nine long months have come to a happy end, you have several other worries to deal with now, not just, "I hope the baby is safe inside", now it's a potpourri of issues about baby's health, behavior, growth, milestones, your own recovery, nursing, sleep-deprivation and a totally out-of-wac endocrine system!
Gak! I bet a few of you read this post today and decided to maybe wait some more time, say a year or two, before you have kids!
Anyway, baby~r gave me a scare today by deciding to not breathe for a few seconds while crying. That was scary! Scarier than the time when I almost drowned in the local gym pool. The latter had a kind of finality about it, I thought, "Ok, here we go. I guess I am drowing, when does the life-flashing business start? blubb blubb blubb".
The dear husband had cautioned me against swimming past the blue flags and so that's what I did.
I swam till the blue flags and abruptly stopped.
I went down.
And further down.
Only my feet did not touch ground when I thought they would and so I went almost a feet below the water surface and kept bobbing up and down like in a really weird comic routine.
The other time I was really scared was the time I lost my identity after graduating from Bits, Pilani. With a somewhat decent 8.75 GPA, related grade sheets, 10th and 12th report cards, passpost, birthcertificate and cash, I boarded a bus from Pilani to Delhi with a bunch of my friends. Now, I have never been any good at packing suitcases. And since I had everything that defined my four college years in Bits to pack, I did what I could and ended up with thirteen pieces of luggage! One of them was a regal looking suitcase with all the important documents that defined...me. When we got off the bus, I very carefully collected my paraphernalia and got down and started counting them. I counted twelve, recounted and wondered what I was missing. Of course, the suitcase. I looked up and suddenly the bus was gone. With my precious suitcase.
Then, I went a bit crazy. I tried to run behind the bus in traffic and one of my friends stopped me and made me sit down. A couple of my friends even rented an auto to chase the bus but came back because that particular bus was lost in a sea of similar looking buses.
I cried and then cried some more, didn't eat for a day. I called my dad from a pay phone and told him the whole story. When I boarded the Delhi-Chennai TN express, I was still crying and hadn't eaten for more than a day.
And then the magic happened. The train stopped at Baroda maybe? for a few minutes and a stranger boarded my compartment and handed a box of sweets to me. He was my dad's materials-supplier and the best part, he held my suitcase in his hand. My dad had managed to track down the bus in Pilani and to get someone to collect the suitcase and hand it over to his colleague. I was thrilled! He then called my dad on his cell and handed the phone to me. I was too deliriously happy to say anything that made sense at that time. He got off the train just before the bell rang for the train to leave the station.
And then my friends gave me ice cream. Yeah, I know, just like in those movies where things mysteriously appear. I think one of them bought an ice cream for me because I hadn't eaten for a day. That was the yummiest ice cream I have had till now!
Ok enough of scary experiences. I don't want nightmares! Goodnight people!
Gak! I bet a few of you read this post today and decided to maybe wait some more time, say a year or two, before you have kids!
Anyway, baby~r gave me a scare today by deciding to not breathe for a few seconds while crying. That was scary! Scarier than the time when I almost drowned in the local gym pool. The latter had a kind of finality about it, I thought, "Ok, here we go. I guess I am drowing, when does the life-flashing business start? blubb blubb blubb".
The dear husband had cautioned me against swimming past the blue flags and so that's what I did.
I swam till the blue flags and abruptly stopped.
I went down.
And further down.
Only my feet did not touch ground when I thought they would and so I went almost a feet below the water surface and kept bobbing up and down like in a really weird comic routine.
The other time I was really scared was the time I lost my identity after graduating from Bits, Pilani. With a somewhat decent 8.75 GPA, related grade sheets, 10th and 12th report cards, passpost, birthcertificate and cash, I boarded a bus from Pilani to Delhi with a bunch of my friends. Now, I have never been any good at packing suitcases. And since I had everything that defined my four college years in Bits to pack, I did what I could and ended up with thirteen pieces of luggage! One of them was a regal looking suitcase with all the important documents that defined...me. When we got off the bus, I very carefully collected my paraphernalia and got down and started counting them. I counted twelve, recounted and wondered what I was missing. Of course, the suitcase. I looked up and suddenly the bus was gone. With my precious suitcase.
Then, I went a bit crazy. I tried to run behind the bus in traffic and one of my friends stopped me and made me sit down. A couple of my friends even rented an auto to chase the bus but came back because that particular bus was lost in a sea of similar looking buses.
I cried and then cried some more, didn't eat for a day. I called my dad from a pay phone and told him the whole story. When I boarded the Delhi-Chennai TN express, I was still crying and hadn't eaten for more than a day.
And then the magic happened. The train stopped at Baroda maybe? for a few minutes and a stranger boarded my compartment and handed a box of sweets to me. He was my dad's materials-supplier and the best part, he held my suitcase in his hand. My dad had managed to track down the bus in Pilani and to get someone to collect the suitcase and hand it over to his colleague. I was thrilled! He then called my dad on his cell and handed the phone to me. I was too deliriously happy to say anything that made sense at that time. He got off the train just before the bell rang for the train to leave the station.
And then my friends gave me ice cream. Yeah, I know, just like in those movies where things mysteriously appear. I think one of them bought an ice cream for me because I hadn't eaten for a day. That was the yummiest ice cream I have had till now!
Ok enough of scary experiences. I don't want nightmares! Goodnight people!
August 10, 2007
A journey with many stops...
So, our predominantly singles gang in Lex has now jumped teams and most of our members now fall in the to-be/just/recently married category. For someone who has lived here for the past 7 years, this is another of those changes that I initially need to make adjustments to accommodate, and then adjust and finally assimilate. I remember a comment I heard recently that the real friendships are forged during your College days (For some reason, this reminds me of "Musthapha Musthapha..." from Kadhal Desam - I saw it in Bits and loved the experience - a bunch of us lit candles although it was forbidden, threw paper bits, it was riot!) but I have gained some meaningful experience and hopefully a few long-lasting relationships after Bits...In terms of social life and relationships, living in America has been quite an interesting journey for me.
GOLU @ my apartment.
In 2000 (the year I came to the US), I had no idea that I would be sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a 30 year old woman from Hyderabad who had spent several years living in N.India and then Canada and had an almost fanatical urge to keep everything squeaky clean (let's call her R~), a 20 year old from Hyderabad and a 22 (25?) year old from Madras. So the 4 of us managed to co-exist in that apartment for about a month when R~ decided she had had enough of us and she would prefer the apartment to herself. So, we packed our few belongings as R~ scrubbed the kitchen floor and we shifted (one of my many moves as a student) to a 1BR apartment in another block. Life was all hunky-dory. The 3 of us decorated the apartment, unpacked as much as we could (I kept most of my Indian dresses and winter wear in my humongous "India-suitcase") due to the limited closet space. I learnt to cook (still remember the first dish I made -a pulav with peas, three spoons turmeric and less salt, k taught me to make maggi and tea!), kept my first Golu, and was thrilled about it. My gang was predominantly Telugu-speaking and I picked up the language fast and even watched a couple of movies (Murari?, Manasantha Nuvve...). And wished I could also watch Tamil movies at times. Unfortunately the small Tamil gang at that time was pretty closed, under-grad friends who didn't seem like they were accepting new members :p
Never thought I would learn to even stand upright on skates!
Several exciting, stressful, happy - trips, fights, confessions, talks, moves later, I became friends with a Marathi/Hindi gang. Around this time I shared an apartment for a short time with a memorable room-mate, a 65 year old Bengali lady who stored a huge fish in her fridge everyday - it was always there, stored above the vegetable tray - I stopped storing anything other than milk in the fridge, I also stopped cooking at home. How I came to stay with her is an interesting story, about my not having an apartment and being declined temporary accommodation from all the senior Indian girls in the apartment complex :p Anyway, by then, I had moved away from my earlier gang, just a general drifting-apart in some cases, conscious moving-away in others and I began to fit in with my new gang. I wished I could speak/see/hear some Tamil though. Finally, k probably bored of my constant complaints suggested that I start a Tamil Cultural Assoc (at that time the Indian Students Association frowned upon regional movie screenings and any thing presented in a language other than Hindi/English), around that time I remember meeting D~ (my first impression of him was "Gosh, this guy is critical of everything in Lex!" - he found it strange that we did not have dinner in big groups and sometimes ate alone, he mentioned it about three times the first time I took him to Walmart and I thought he was a strange sort of guy! D~, by the time you get to reading this post, it would be pretty old anyway, so am hoping this will kinda slip by unnoticed :p), so anyway, I had my first real conversation with D~ about starting a Tamil Cultural Assoc and the rest as they say is history (Yeah, yeah, I like to gloat! So what?). Finally I had my beloved mother-tongue all around me and I reveled in her embrace!
During my trip to Arizona (for some reason, I had an impulse to try out pigtails :p)
Around 2003, I had a good mix of Hindi and Tamil speaking friends and then a Gujarathi (Yes, I insist on the "H") room-mate. More drifting-apart, fights, make-ups, messy birthday parties and impulsive road trips later, I now find myself in a predominantly Tamil-speaking mini-community. The surprising outcome of organizing cultural events is that I got to know the mamas and maamis in Lex and in some strange, comforting way they filled a gap in my life - I still missed my parents and relatives back home, but now I have people to remind me of them, to ask me where I purchased the pattu podava I am wearing, was it one of my marriage sarees? Someone to say, not unlike relatives back in India - "You should drop by more often, we are at home only, come and join us for dinner sometime..."
My very first car, my cute '93 Camry which I lost in an accident :(
Talking about relationships, I enjoyed working with the professors @ UK, I remember having interesting discussions, academic and otherwise with my professors - my Math TA prof, my Statistics-TA prof, my advisor. And I cannot forget the day when the wretched lady in my department insisted that I had forged my professor's signature on my defense slip and perhaps, I would never be allowed to get a degree. In retrospect, I think I shouldn't have cried and depended on my advisor to sort it out, I should have handled it myself. But, he was an angel that day, who convinced her that I was a good student who deserved her degree :p God bless him (although he made me edit my project report 11 times - each time the proposal would be smudged with red lines - "Dangling participle", "Active, not passive!", "Wrong use of the word 'example'", "The density of red on this page is too high for me to continue!").
Guess who managed to graduate!
Anyway, coming back to Tamil, k's complete sentences in Tamil surprise me every now and then. All my years at Lex, I yearned to experience my mother-tongue and finally it had come true. k says I tend to exaggerate when I tell him how all my life, I have wanted to learn and be near Tamil, as if "she" were a real person, a friend I sorely missed...I don't think he believes my story that I cried for weeks together when we shifted to Bangalore from Madras in the 80s, I sense his mild skepticism when I tell him, 5 years later no-one was happier than I when we shifted back to Madras; I insisted on taking Tamil as my third language in-spite of 5 years of Kannada and Hindi and I actually did pretty well (thanks to my mom's help with essays on Bharathiyaar) :)
So, believe it or not, I know "exactly" what the phrase below means...perhaps I needed to be away to realize how much I missed it...Bharathantyam and living-in-Madras are other example s of this same feeling (Not only am I repetitive, so are my feelings!) but that's a whole new post!
"தமிழுக்கு அமுதென்று பேர், இந்த தமிழ் எங்கள் தமிழ் இன்பம் உயிருக்கு நேர்..."
Talk about digressing! I started writing about marriages and friends and landed up in languages! Gosh, I can think of a million other things to write about my student life here but it's lunch time and am starved! Anyway, I discovered some old photos and thought I would add some visual touches to my disconnected reminiscence.
Life...can be strange at times. Memories too. But, in a comfortable sort of way.
Fall in Lex (when we were still students @ UK)...a season when our sleepy little town explodes in colors!
p.s - apologies for the spelling mistakes in Tamil.
GOLU @ my apartment.
In 2000 (the year I came to the US), I had no idea that I would be sharing a one-bedroom apartment with a 30 year old woman from Hyderabad who had spent several years living in N.India and then Canada and had an almost fanatical urge to keep everything squeaky clean (let's call her R~), a 20 year old from Hyderabad and a 22 (25?) year old from Madras. So the 4 of us managed to co-exist in that apartment for about a month when R~ decided she had had enough of us and she would prefer the apartment to herself. So, we packed our few belongings as R~ scrubbed the kitchen floor and we shifted (one of my many moves as a student) to a 1BR apartment in another block. Life was all hunky-dory. The 3 of us decorated the apartment, unpacked as much as we could (I kept most of my Indian dresses and winter wear in my humongous "India-suitcase") due to the limited closet space. I learnt to cook (still remember the first dish I made -a pulav with peas, three spoons turmeric and less salt, k taught me to make maggi and tea!), kept my first Golu, and was thrilled about it. My gang was predominantly Telugu-speaking and I picked up the language fast and even watched a couple of movies (Murari?, Manasantha Nuvve...). And wished I could also watch Tamil movies at times. Unfortunately the small Tamil gang at that time was pretty closed, under-grad friends who didn't seem like they were accepting new members :p
Never thought I would learn to even stand upright on skates!
Several exciting, stressful, happy - trips, fights, confessions, talks, moves later, I became friends with a Marathi/Hindi gang. Around this time I shared an apartment for a short time with a memorable room-mate, a 65 year old Bengali lady who stored a huge fish in her fridge everyday - it was always there, stored above the vegetable tray - I stopped storing anything other than milk in the fridge, I also stopped cooking at home. How I came to stay with her is an interesting story, about my not having an apartment and being declined temporary accommodation from all the senior Indian girls in the apartment complex :p Anyway, by then, I had moved away from my earlier gang, just a general drifting-apart in some cases, conscious moving-away in others and I began to fit in with my new gang. I wished I could speak/see/hear some Tamil though. Finally, k probably bored of my constant complaints suggested that I start a Tamil Cultural Assoc (at that time the Indian Students Association frowned upon regional movie screenings and any thing presented in a language other than Hindi/English), around that time I remember meeting D~ (my first impression of him was "Gosh, this guy is critical of everything in Lex!" - he found it strange that we did not have dinner in big groups and sometimes ate alone, he mentioned it about three times the first time I took him to Walmart and I thought he was a strange sort of guy! D~, by the time you get to reading this post, it would be pretty old anyway, so am hoping this will kinda slip by unnoticed :p), so anyway, I had my first real conversation with D~ about starting a Tamil Cultural Assoc and the rest as they say is history (Yeah, yeah, I like to gloat! So what?). Finally I had my beloved mother-tongue all around me and I reveled in her embrace!
During my trip to Arizona (for some reason, I had an impulse to try out pigtails :p)
Around 2003, I had a good mix of Hindi and Tamil speaking friends and then a Gujarathi (Yes, I insist on the "H") room-mate. More drifting-apart, fights, make-ups, messy birthday parties and impulsive road trips later, I now find myself in a predominantly Tamil-speaking mini-community. The surprising outcome of organizing cultural events is that I got to know the mamas and maamis in Lex and in some strange, comforting way they filled a gap in my life - I still missed my parents and relatives back home, but now I have people to remind me of them, to ask me where I purchased the pattu podava I am wearing, was it one of my marriage sarees? Someone to say, not unlike relatives back in India - "You should drop by more often, we are at home only, come and join us for dinner sometime..."
My very first car, my cute '93 Camry which I lost in an accident :(Talking about relationships, I enjoyed working with the professors @ UK, I remember having interesting discussions, academic and otherwise with my professors - my Math TA prof, my Statistics-TA prof, my advisor. And I cannot forget the day when the wretched lady in my department insisted that I had forged my professor's signature on my defense slip and perhaps, I would never be allowed to get a degree. In retrospect, I think I shouldn't have cried and depended on my advisor to sort it out, I should have handled it myself. But, he was an angel that day, who convinced her that I was a good student who deserved her degree :p God bless him (although he made me edit my project report 11 times - each time the proposal would be smudged with red lines - "Dangling participle", "Active, not passive!", "Wrong use of the word 'example'", "The density of red on this page is too high for me to continue!").
Guess who managed to graduate!
Anyway, coming back to Tamil, k's complete sentences in Tamil surprise me every now and then. All my years at Lex, I yearned to experience my mother-tongue and finally it had come true. k says I tend to exaggerate when I tell him how all my life, I have wanted to learn and be near Tamil, as if "she" were a real person, a friend I sorely missed...I don't think he believes my story that I cried for weeks together when we shifted to Bangalore from Madras in the 80s, I sense his mild skepticism when I tell him, 5 years later no-one was happier than I when we shifted back to Madras; I insisted on taking Tamil as my third language in-spite of 5 years of Kannada and Hindi and I actually did pretty well (thanks to my mom's help with essays on Bharathiyaar) :)
So, believe it or not, I know "exactly" what the phrase below means...perhaps I needed to be away to realize how much I missed it...Bharathantyam and living-in-Madras are other example s of this same feeling (Not only am I repetitive, so are my feelings!) but that's a whole new post!
"தமிழுக்கு அமுதென்று பேர், இந்த தமிழ் எங்கள் தமிழ் இன்பம் உயிருக்கு நேர்..."
Talk about digressing! I started writing about marriages and friends and landed up in languages! Gosh, I can think of a million other things to write about my student life here but it's lunch time and am starved! Anyway, I discovered some old photos and thought I would add some visual touches to my disconnected reminiscence.
Life...can be strange at times. Memories too. But, in a comfortable sort of way.
Fall in Lex (when we were still students @ UK)...a season when our sleepy little town explodes in colors!p.s - apologies for the spelling mistakes in Tamil.
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