How are you, my Cyber-Ears?

Feel So Frustrated....For doing NOTHING....

2010-04-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

A former colleague of mine forwarded this link to me. It has touched a deep chord....so a senti blog....dont know why iam writing this...maybe venting out...??

http://www.ted.com/talks/shukla_bose_teaching_one_child_at_a_time.html

Well, maybe while we used to work together, we have had talks about how we people "privileged" to have the education and ways to ensure a decent source of livelihood, should do something to give back to society.

I remember we have had passionate discussions about this. When I took decision to quit the Software Industry and join the Teaching Profession, he was one of the rare people who didnot look at me as a "mad person", joining a profession that would pay less than half my salary at that time. For everyone else, that word "MONEY" meant "Life"!! :-)

He said, as a Teacher, I can make a difference..to inspire my students to understand and feel the "Joy of Giving".....

But, for all that, I strongly feel...one should lead my example....

I feel so humiliated to know that he tried to practice what he "preached" or "believed in", by spending weekends doing something or the other for the poor kids. Many a time, he asked me to join. Asked to join as family, with my kid and husband. I had some excuse or the other. I never did.

Now he has shifted base to another city with his wife and kid, and continues to do his bit. But me...well, am stuck in my own selfish world...same excuses....

Seeing Mrs.Bose, in the above link, I felt so frustrated....felt so ashamed of doing nothing....

This place Christel House, used to operate very near my house.

There was a Parikrama School just next door.

BOTH the above have shifted to some other place now.

A lady in my apartment, used to teach at Parikrama, when it was next door.

And me....what did I do??

I thought / still think....let me complete my research work....then I will do something....

Is that not procrastination??

Is that not "just another excuse"??

I feel so frustrated....

I know that as a family, if we decide to spend some time on doing our tiny bit, we could....Its just lack of initiative from our side....

I cant do anything alone...I need my family's support....Its just a matter of taking initiative....which somehow is not happening....

Please share your thoughts....on how to start...one small step at a time....

Good Morning My "Project Students"....A Flash Back....

2010-03-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Oh Well....I came early back home...had a niiiiiiiiiiice sleep.....got up a few minutes ago to make a Farewell gift for Hemant's class teacher who is leaving his school and Bangalore tomorrow.

Wanted Hemant to understand the "joy of giving"....so told him...even if his classmates are not getting any present for Mam, you get, on behalf of the class...NOT as your individual gift....make everyone sign...

So hand-making a few stuff....Want Hemant to experience the pleasure to see a person smile at receiving an unexpected gift!

Well, in the process...remembered you people....my "Project Students"....so writing this email....JUst writing whateer comes to my mind....Guess its gonna be a long email...and as usual...am not gonna scroll up at the end and read....so it retains its spontaineity. OKies? :-)

****** Sun Tech Days UPDATE *****

Some of you know this...I was invited by Sun Microsystems(now Oracle) to give a one hour session on my Research work at this years Tech Days held in Hyderabad. My presentation was on March 25th.

Here is the link for the Picasa Album, my student(Varun) has put up:

http://picasaweb. google.com/ varundesh/ OracleTechDays# 5453259850376972 930

From that URL onwards Iam there. I look like a ghost with red-eyes, which my student hasnt removed from the photos :-D

My family had also come with me. The pictures towards the end show my husband Hari, son Hemant and Indira my mother.

***** A FUNNY EXPERIENCE ******

A funny experience was...To figure out how and where to load my PPT, I went to the back of the room where I was to present. There was a high table there, behind which the technicians who controlled the mike and organised stuff were sitting. A 'Gora Phirangi' (from some foreign country) had just finished his presentation at 5.00 pm and mine was supposed to start at 5.10pm. I was wearing a Speaker Badge, but the table behind which they were sitting was high, so they could see only my face, I think.

I told them, I wanted to load the PPT. I think they heard, "I wanted the PPT of the earlier speaker"(the foreigner). They told me, "No Maam, we are busy, the new session is about to start...the next speaker will come any moment!" :-D

I couldn't control laughing when I showed them my badge and said --" Iam the next speaker". :-) Felt a bit bad, that maybe I didnot look dignified enough to appear as a speaker?? Others were wearing business suits, you see. Even the ladies, who were part of the organizing staff / speakers wore either saree or a suit.

**** Sadly...LAST SUN TECH DAYS ...:-( *****

Anyways....Oracle allowed only two students to go to Hyderabad and demonstrate our project. Unlike last year, where they allowed 7 students. But that was a loooong time ago....another era...when there was a company called Sun Microsystems....which promoted Open Source....encouraged student and therefore University participation.....

Oracle has sadly, scrapped the entire Student Campus Ambassador Program! So, looks like this is the LAST Sun Tech Days we will ever participate with a demo. In that sense, I guess I was lucky to get invited to speak and so were my students to demo!

**** Remembering you people *****

Anyways...the two students who were allowed to go are the two guys with specs seen in the photos. The thinner one(Chandan) is the student with whom I started my entire research journey with, someone I can NEVER forget, my whole life!

As Project Partners, we have had fights...misunderstandings...(Shishir is the first person I remember here!! An exceptional student with a high IQ and a good heart, but pathetic at expressing himself the right way

...:-D )

Followed by 3A+N, from whose memory I wish I could remove THAT ugly outburst this semester! Two of the BEST presenters and budding analysts, I have seen so young---Ashwath and Aniket. A "balanced" team with the Techy guys Ashwin and Naren.

Then people like Varun, Hari, Siddiq...who have been at the receiving end of thrashing for an ever-extended Bridge Project. Oh God! That I guess, is the ONLY project in my entire career which I have not managed to deploy satisfactorily!

Rak,Sak,Vik: The ONLY students who as a team have till date given on time and almost perfectly any project deliverables asked without having to remind them! Let this "goodness" streak continue for them outside MSRIT gates!

Suhas(who NEVER ever says "NO" to any work given. Amazing guy....wonder how he manages to gel with multiple types of people....)

Avinash(My! how he has changed from always in the "shadow" of someone to Mr.Confident)

The present 8th Sem, the BEST example of this is Hariharan, who has managed to come out and stand on his own!

Akhil(Oh My God! Lazzzziness Personified...has trouble STARTING to use the grey matter given in abundance)

Kavya(diplomacy personified, Ms.Organized/Ms.Multi-tasker, ULTRA-Loyal to her friends)

Sanjay(Quiet and hardworking)

Priyanka(Ms.Injured Knee with a HUGE smile)

2008 -- 1 Student

2009 -- 7 students

2010 -- 10 students

These are the 18 people I would proudly call "My project Students" during my Research Phase of life! Whom I will always remember fondly....whom I cannot forget....come what may! Have attached the PPT I presented at Tech Days. The last slide, I have credited to all of you...have a look! :-)

Hope to wind-up my "Research Based Projects" with this present VTU 8th Sem.

Aiyooo....that sounds like a "full stop"....Actually no...I cannot imagine going on teaching Computer Networks for the rest of my life! :-D

So will always offer new courses...can afford to under autonomy....

But it will be different...those projects wont be "tied to my research".

Even if they fail / is delayed...the pressure will be less on me....as it will be "just another project" NOT linked to research....

Hopefully I can open up to new ideas....not "married" to web services....You get what Iam saying, na?

So VTU batches ends an era / phase in my academic life....

Just felt like recording my thoughts....

Will keep this email in my mail-box, under a folder called 'Senti' in Personal Section....

Have similar emails here in Yahoo when I left multiple companies.....

Basically a record of a journey to unwind / look back with nostalgia when I want to....

Maybe I should have blogged??

Oh well....realised it late....so copied and pasted the email and added colours!

"Ashte"....

:-D

चल शुभ रात्रि

Too Addictive....So A Loooong Pause.......:-)

2008-11-23T00:56:00.000-08:00

I know...I stopped whispering / raving / ranting to your Cyber-Ears ages ago!

Did resume for a while in 'mythilin.sulekha.com', stopped there also...

I admit I found blogging too addictive....It ate up tons of my time...I used to end up looking forward to the numerous comments--connecting with cyber-friends....Must say, it was a little too heady, too addictive...

Oh Well, Some of you have asked me--"Why did you stop blogging??"

Since I am teaching in an Engineering College, and my students somehow manage to stumble upon this old blog-address of mine, and repeat this question, and I end up having "nostalgic" pangs of the "good-old-days" when I was hopelessly addicted to blogging! :-)

My students belong to the young, carefree clan, who have parents to take care of everything & therefore are alien to the "tight-rope" walking that I do everyday balancing my work and home life. So atleast a few of them tell me to continue filling those "Cyber-Ears"!

So this "shmall" blog to let you all know that I HAVE PUT A LOOOOOONG PAUSE, MAYBE A HUGE SEMI-COLON TO BLOGGING!

Okies?

Continue the addiction, you lucky people who can afford the time!

Ciao for now....:-)

Ammooma(Grandma), tell me a story...

2006-07-26T23:14:00.000-07:00

I feel so helpless!

Ah...Am not sure if you can relate to my feeling, if I tell you the reason.

See, I don't have any nice colourful stories from my childhood and teen years to narrate to my grandchild! Does this sound too silly to you?

Well, let me try and tune you into my thought frequency. Ready?

On your mark, get set, goooooo...:-)

My mother stays with us. She was born and brought up in a small village (Champakulam) in Alapuzha District, Kerala, until marriage (un?) settled her in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram, a sleepy city. We have visited her birthplace only once.

But, I have such vivid images of her birthplace in my head, because of the innumerable stories she has told me, during my growing up years. Her home was in the middle of acres of fields, criss-crossed by a small river. They had two ponds, one of them dedicated for bathing and the other for washing. They had a family who would help them with the household chores which consisted of housemaid "Mary Pembala" (a typical Mallu slang meaning Christian Woman), her husband "Vakkan Mapila"(again, a slang meaning Christian Man) and her children GeorgeKutty and JoseKutty.

It seems her grandmother never allowed Mary to enter the main kitchen and cook because she was a "Pembala". Her mother, who was too lazy to do the cooking, used to find ways to sneak Mary in to do the cooking or give her the raw materials and ask her to cook in her kitchen and bring over to my mother's place!

Mary's specialty was "Indariappam"(Cake, made of rice, sugar and coconut in which you poured a little "Kallu" (local toddy) and baked it on banana leaf) that was made for Easter and Christmas. From her description, I can still feel the taste of that dish! Actually, as I am writing this, my mouth is watering, just remembering the description, though I have never tasted Mary's cooking. :-)

Whenever my mother had made this dish in my childhood, she used to always comment, “This does not taste as good as what Mary Pembala used to make. You know once, she made this Indariappam...." another story used to unfold before my eyes, and I used to savour the dish in front of me with the added flavours of the story she would narrate!

Then there was her dog Jimmy. He was a "Nadan Patti" (local Indian breed dog) He had a black body with a white vermilion like mark on his forehead. All four of his legs had white fur at their tips giving the impression that he was wearing white socks! It seems he used to jump into the water and fetch the coconuts that fell into the water. Since he used to get a lot of praise for doing this task, he used to jump and hunt in the water for mangoes too, that fell when they were over-ripe!But used to come back disappointed as mangoes didnot float in water like coconuts did!

Then there was the time they got electricity. It seems Jimmy went running round the house, with his head held up, barking at the new intruder into his home, electric bulbs! It was during that time that my mother's family discovered that Jimmy had a girl friend! It seems he used to make a show of eating his food when his bowl was filled, and leave half the food behind. He used to wait for these new "intruder-lights" to go off and everyone to go to their beds.

Then, he used to sneak out to a "Pulavante Veedu"(worker house-hold) where his girl friend would wait for him. He used to bring her to his home and give her the leftover food. One day when my mother's grandmother got up in the middle of the night to fetch herself a glass of water from the "Kooja"(mud-pot), she heard "soft coochy coochy sounding dog-talk", which made her suspicious enough to investigate and Jimmy was caught red-handed!

Then there was "Doctor Mamman" her neighbour...

Ah...such colourful stories I could go on and on...

"Is this 'Karimeem Pappas’ (a typical Kerala dish made with fish) you made as tasty as the one Mary Pembala's used to make, Amoomma (grandmother)?", my son asked my mother when we sat down for lunch an hour ago.

I watched with a de-ja-vu feeling as Amma started narrating a story revolving around 'Karimeem Pappas', the said dish. I watched as my son sat totally enthralled by the various by now familiar characters of the narrative, oblivious of the many "chor urulas"(rice balls) that Amma was popping into his mouth!

Sigh! How many times I have heard these stories. But, I am never bored and love hearing them again. I went and hugged my mother and opened my mouth too, and told her to pop a rice-ball into mine! To get a feeling of having pressed the time machine's rewind button, albeit for a moment, of me as a schoolgirl, sitting beside her at our home back in Thiruvanathapuram and savouring the taste of fish-curry with rice and the added flavours of "Champakulam" stories!

This set me wondering what stories will I tell my grandchildren? Amma's stories were all her own childhood memories, true and real. I don't have any such wonderful stories to narrate about my childhood as we lived in a city with its mechanical routine of a 9-5 schedule, school, homework, exams etc with no spice, unpredictability and range of incidents, things, people and places that were inherent and unique in Amma's narratives.

I have to preserve my memories of Amma's narratives. Maybe write a series of stories, dividing them into parts and share them with you! :-) If only I knew how to draw or sketch. I could have added a few pictures to spice up the stories, of course after getting them reviewed / validated by my mother!

Maybe next time Amma ventures into one of her narratives video-record. But these won't be the same as hearing them fresh from Amma herself, who has experienced whatever she is narrating.

This is why I feel so helpless...:-(

Are you safe, my friend?

2006-07-20T01:09:00.000-07:00

I have a whirl of thoughts in my head. Just feel like venting them out.

Unlike the usual way I write where I know at least what and how I want my blog to sound, I haven’t organized my thoughts. Don't have the time to do that "arranging the jigsaw of thought process" that I do before tapping on the keyboard, as I have to finish a chunk of work at office and leave early.

But, I have to drain out what I have to say. Can't find a human being around who will match my thought frequency, enough to lend me his or her human ears without looking at me with the expression --"Don't you have any better work?"

So, hoping these "Cyber-Ears" would provide me solace!

Well, I can't seem to get this question out of my mind. "Why do we loose touch with people whom we know and care about?”

The standard answer is "We are all busy". But is that **really true**?

Last week, I was waiting for my husband to pick me up from work. Bangalore traffic being the way it is, he was late. I got bored staring at the unknown human faces passing by in various forms of locomotives and shooing away the perpetually hungry/starved stray dog that came sniffing at my knees much to my horror!

So I took out my mobile and stared at it wondering whom to call and speak to. Scrolling down found a friend's contact whom I knew many years back and with whom I have completely lost touch. So dialed her number only to get a response that the 'Number is out of service'.

Pressed the end button with much more force than what was required because I was irritated, as I really felt like talking to her. Did not have any other contact number or contacts of any other common friends, as she was basically an introvert and kept her distance socially.

I went back home and my son told me that he has to make a chart matching the new words he learnt with pictures that were relevant to the words and take it to school in a couple of days. Set about "hunting" for pictures in the magazines haphazardly stacked in various cupborards, some of which were untouched for a very long time.

Found a novel which my friend, mentioned above, gifted me, a few years back in which was written in her characteristic roly-poly handwriting ---" This note is to remind you, my dear friend, to smile and not get angry with me, if I don't respond to your e-mail. Please understand that you will always be in my thoughts and I will think of you, however far apart we are."

I remembered the day when we were parting. We used to work together, but her husband got a huge break in a Mumbai based company and they decided to shift out of Bangalore. We exchanged novels as parting gifts with promises to be in touch, via email and phone.

And we did, during the initial few months, as long as she had access to the Internet at work and we could e-mail. Later she had to quit her job and I started getting mailer-daemons indicating her e-mail id was invalid/unused. She had called me last year to tell me that her number has changed as she was moving to a new locality in Mumbai.

Told me she was in a hurry and will call me up when she shifts to her new home. She did not call.

No, neither did I attempt calling her up, not until last week, the day after July 11, Mumbai attacks, when I suddenly remembered her, while scrolling down my contact lists wondering whom to call and speak to kill the time waiting for my husband.

Now Iam scared. Was she or any of her close family members in those ill-fated trains?

Is she alive? Is she ok?

God, I have this immense pang of guilt for not having kept in touch!

Why is her number not valid? Why had I not tried getting in touch with her since she last called? Must be close to 20 months ago. Was I so busy during that time that I couldn't spend those 10 minutes to dial her new number see if it’s valid and speak to her?

Why does this happen?

Don’t we all know that we live in such uncertain times that the shadow of ill health and death is omnipresent?

Is it too much to ask for to make a phone call to our friends, whom we once knew quite well and still care about, at least once in a year in the pretext of wishing each other New Year? Or set a few Birthday Alarm reminders and try and wish on our birthdays, so we know they are safe and in good health?

She is an immensely private person, so unlike me, and would not like it if I write her name in this blog. Otherwise, I was thinking of putting her name in this blog title, in the hope that she or her husband or someone who knows her would respond and tell me how she is.

My only hope now is "Telepathy". Since I have been thinking about her a lot these past few days, I hope my thought waves would reach her somehow and she manages to get hold of my correct contact number and call me.

Whenever my phone rings at home, these days, I wish with all my heart that it were her phone...

Are you safe, my friend? Please tell me you are...

Ok to be an over-grown kid?

2006-07-12T01:19:00.000-07:00

Well, I am not too sure of the answer. Lets try and come to a conclusion together, may be at the end of this blog!

First of all let me tell you, I am a married lady with an 8-year-old school going son.

By profession, I am an Engineer. Was earlier in the typical "IT rat-race" rose up the ladder to be Project Manager in an IT firm. Hated the ever-extended official timings eating up personal time and space, quit, and is now working as a Lecturer in an Engineering college and is currently pursuing my research studies.

Why did I have to blabber about myself so much?

Wanted to make you tune into my thought frequency for this blog. Hmm... where do I begin? Ok, what kind of books do you expect me to enjoy reading?

Yes, I confess I am a voracious reader and read fiction, novel and philosophy like any other person of my age. But that's not the point.

Would you be able to digest if I tell you that I love the "Noddy" stories of Enid Blyton? Also her dolls stories about Golliwog doll and the baby stories written by Dr.Suez?

Just yesterday, my son and me were fighting to read "Five Run Away Together"!

I love playing Bay-Blade, Pokemon, and Spiderman board games with my son. I love helping him with all the activity homework he brings from school. Recently he had to draw a dwarf, colour it and stick it in his class workbook. When my son drew the dwarf it seemed to have Pinocchio’s nose and Dracula-like fingers! I really enjoyed spinning stories with my son, as to why our dwarf could be like this in DwarfLand. May be he was a perpetual liar, maybe he had put nail accessories on his fingers to appear savvy as Dracula nails were the "in thing" in Dwarf Land...Our imaginations kept soaring. We both had a nice couple of hours of fun and laughter.

When my husband gets a bar of Kit-Kat or a packet of Cheetos, for my son, we again fight over it, as both my kiddo and me want these! When a movie such as 'Superman Returns' or 'Krrish' releases, more than my kid, I make plans for all of us to see the movie!

We enjoy playing imaginative games like 'Hercules and Ghost' where the treasure to be fetched could be a powder tin!

I also love guffawing at the silliest sardar joke SMS that I get. I really enjoy interacting with my students, listening to their lamenting about a tough question paper, their fears about what kind of viva questions will be asked, their complaints about various things in life--parents, teachers, friends, the class trip they went for, the funny incidents etc. Feel overjoyed when a friend forwards an e-mail or SMS. Would feel happy and contended today, as I was able to create a blog of this question I was having in my mind for a long time!

Is this normal? I tried introspecting to find out. Realized that I feel I am re-living my lost childhood when I do these kiddish things.

Does every mother go through this phase? Asked my colleagues at work. Got mixed reactions as some don't have time to "enjoy" their child's homework as they treat it as another "irritating" job that has to be done. Some find me strange for wanting to read Famous Five at my age and perceive me as a creature they are better away from because my tastes are "immature".

The most common reaction is they don't "have time" to think of "enjoying kiddish things" because they are caught up with their daily routine jobs!

Do we really have to set aside time to enjoy life? Can't we take pleasure in the small small daily things we do and still find enjoyment?

What do you think of me? Don't you think I am an over-grown kid? Chronologically mature but kiddish mentally?

Or do you think am I slightly "off tangent" / "wacky"?

Or does most of you go through these emotions but like my friends mentioned above never had the time to "realize", "think" that you too enjoy being an over-grown kid?

Looking forward to your comments on my blog. I am really interested in knowing -- "Is it ok to be an over-grown kid”?

I always want to diet...

2006-06-28T01:00:00.000-07:00

See, I came to college today, not packing my lunch, though my cook was churning out a nice aroma of a typical coconut based Kerala curry and associated paraphernalia for a good lunch for my mom and son when he comes home from school.

I thought, since I had a nice sumptuous breakfast late, and since I had the liberty to login slightly late for work, I would postpone lunch to teatime when am back home from work.

Right now, in my staff room, there is this tempting aroma of a typical South Indian meal arranged for the practical exam examiners.

How can I resist going there and having a bite of nice fried pappad? And when my taste-buds gets simulated, how can I resist my brain directing my legs to walk up to the canteen and just have a peek at what they have?

Just a peek...that's the intention. But reaching there, my stomach would have the biological craving to just have a "shmaaaaal bite" of a poori-saagu or some rice-bath.

May be I can try re-directing my legs to a nearby canteen where they sell samosas, kurkure, fruit juice. :-)

Hmmm... no amount of will-power works for me. Born a foodie, meant to be foodie, I guess.

That is until my body gets the inherited diseases such as diabetes, high cholesterol, blood pressure etc that is part and parcel of my family tree.

If you notice, I have always wanted to diet. It’s only my brain, my taste buds and my family tree that prevent me from having an "Oh so slim" appearance! :-)

--- Confessions from an out and out foodie who strongly believes in "Live to Eat" rather than “Eat to Live"!

Couch "Dum Aloos" the next species?

2006-06-16T23:43:00.000-07:00

Why such a "crazy" title, huh?

Being a foodie I sometimes visualize life as a variety of dishes into which all of us are put as ingredients making the overall experience sometimes hot, sweet, tear-jerking, cold etc. Each dish I feel, educates us of the various flavours of life and their intensities.

Dum Aloo is an Indian curry where we select baby potatoes to cook the dish. Are we bringing up a generation of "Couch Baby Potatoes”?

I see today's children preferring to watch Pogo, Disney, Cartoon Network etc instead of going out to play.

They also take great pleasure in putting in their computers the game DVDs of cricket, football or logging on to the internet and playing cards, chess and whatever else they fancy, instead of "actually playing" these games with their fellow kids.

Would these children miss out the other flavours of life and savour only curries like Dum Aloo? Is that a good sign?

Would these Dum Aloo ingredients around the world slowly learn how to extract chemicals from the air as food for themselves thus making the stomach, intestine etc vestigial organs? Would they learn to transport themselves from place to place using their brains? Would they use telepathy for communication thus making utopian the notions of body language?

Are we seeing the evolution of the next species on planet earth? From "Homo-Sapiens" to "Homo-Craniums" as the only well-developed organs of their body will be the brain!!

Generation Gap?

2006-06-14T01:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, that much used phrase to shake your head when you just can't tune in to the thought frequency of the person trying to make you understand his or her viewpoint!

Recently a group of students and me were trying to figure out how to revive a forgotten dead dinosaur of my college department magazine given free of charge to students.

We hardly had a week to get it churned out and we were at level zero with no contributions of articles for the magazine, students busy with exams and other academic work and the biggest hurdle--no money to get the magazine printed on paper!

I was taken aback by the energy level of my students in whose sphere of thought optimism reigns high and things happen in a jiffy!

From my perspective the whole stuff was studded with hurdles and I could sense them chuckling at my extreme pessimism!

That's when it started sinking in that the decade's gap between the times they and me were born on this planet earth is the classic example of this thought frequency mis-match called 'Generation Gap'. It seemed just yesterday that I was cribbing to my friends over a packet of popcorn at a movie theatre about me unable to comprehend my parent's notions on some aspects!

Now I seem to be part of "that strange generation"!?
This set me wondering, is the older generation really weird? If so, what makes them weird? If not, why this age old concept of Generation Gap?

My answer came in the end-result of the above said magazine. The students were right. They could get the ball rolling and managed to get the contributions from their classmates, juniors and seniors. Their productivity levels were so high that by spending just a few hours at the computer they could get all the stuff on-line.

But, I was right too. My "experience" told me that solving the financial puzzle was the biggest hurdle. So we couldn’t get the stuff printed on paper as planned.

I got the answer to my puzzle!

Generation gap is inevitable due the experience gained by the older generation because of the larger number of years spend interacting with different forms of the human species.

Probably, we appear "weird" when we stick to our "Iam older, therefore wiser, and always right" stance.

I feel its up to us to widen or shorten the "gap" between generations. We could share our experiences with generation-next, so they are not caught unawares, but what is stopping us from accepting that they are much quicker, much more tech-savvy, have much higher levels of concentration that we can ever hope to have/sustain?

Yes, Let our body age, let our mind stay young!

Ah! These Mothers....

2006-01-08T22:44:00.000-08:00

I just tuned in this morning to this brand new 'virtual toy' I have "Blogging" to see what my friends had to say about my maiden posting last week.

Was mentally prepared for a nice quite half hour of cyber-surfing, when I was shocked to hear the loud vehemently angry voice of a woman saying "Don't you dare come back to my house unless you improve your attendance and grades.

I am ashamed you are my son" . Would have minded my own business and not bothered to find out the reason for this, if the source of the voice and the associated brisk steps had not come into my department staff room and settled itself in my adjacent chamber.

Inherent female qualities of curiosity filled me, and I risked a peek above my cubicle wall, at the adjacent chamber where a 'temper sensor meter' would have exploded cause it wouldn't be calibrated to handle the onslaught of two furious people, the mother of a student and his teaching faculty.The student was desperately trying to preserve any semblance of self-respect he had, by silently listening to the sharp allegation made by his faculty for having missed two classes and one test.Maybe he was hoping that if he remained silent, the screaming would stop, especially from his mother, as some of his classmates were already peeping into the staff room from the corridor.

I got reminded of something my mother told me when I was in high-school. She said--"When you no longer have to look down to see your child's face looking up at you, you should realise that he is an individual, with an idenity of his own, and treat him as a friend".

Would this mother have shouted such a harsh statement so blatantly and openly in front of her son's teacher and classmates had her mother told her this?

I wonder.....

Transitioning to an Academician.....

2006-01-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

Hmmm....Well, you know me, coz I send you this URL of my Blog Page.

It just struck me how Iam slowly but surely transitioning to be an academician, after around 8 years being part of hard-core IT(read software industry), when in the beginning of last year(2005), one of my students asked me "Mam, do you blog?".

I stared at him blankly, as the word "blog" wasn't part of my vocab then! Over the last year, heard this repeatedly from a few of my blogger-friends who are (un?)fortunate enough to sit in front of PC whole day!

It took the beginning of a brand new year and the realisation that I have not yet created a 'blogspot.com' id that I decided to come out of my 'Intertia Of Rest' and punch away at the key-board of my work PC today!

Today, I truely realised that though I have jumped out of the IT Bandwagon,

I don't want to cut myself away from it and morph into the 100% Academician with minimum or no contact with knowledge beyond syllabus and books, which is the easiest path to choose.

My tuning into the frequency of my students and IT Friends, like you, I would want to keep myself updated with the what's happening around me, be on the aware level, if not know the intriciate details of the technological advances being made!

Waiting for the day when my son(and his friends)would call me --'Cool Mom', where the 'Cool' there stands for being "tech-savvy". Wonder what slang will be in use 10 years from now, when he would reach college, like my students now!

So, help me in my transition to be a 'Cool Academician', ok, my friend? :-)