Tutoring Adventures

Posted on April 18, 2012 by manaseepm
Manjiri Mahajan liked this post

One of the new and most interesting activities I have undertaken this year is tutoring. For kindergarten. I have started working for ‘Reading Assist‘, an organization dedicated towards improving literacy skills for children at risk for reading failure. As a participant in the Kindergarten Intervention program, I work in conjunction with a local charter school, and spend a day with a few kindergarteners doing various language activities with them.

Working with kids teaches you to be entertaining. Kids are brutal, they will not politely nod and pretend to listen to you if you are being a bore. They will simple find something more interesting to do (like rolling on the floor, going through your purse etc). With this in mind, the language activities to be performed during tutoring are all structured as games, which the kids can enjoy. The activities also involve using different props, like clappers, picture cards, so that there is visual and auditory involvement in addition to verbal instructions. Activities include songs that teach how to recognize syllables, card games like syllable battle etc. And if you goof around with the kids while doing these activities, my, do they love it!

Another portion of the tutoring is story telling, where I show picture story books to the children, and tell them the story over a course of 3-4 days, asking questions to see how well they understand and remember it. Kids love this part of their lesson, and come up with the weirdest of questions on the story. Last week, I was reading them the story of a dog, who becomes so dirty that his family is not able to recognize him. So he then starts doing his tricks like jumping and playing dead. A little girl from the group asked me “How can he play dead, he would have to stop breathing, and then he would be dead for real”!! Can’t beat her logic, can you?

We then pick a few words from the story book, which are a little advanced,  and might not be used by the kids in their day-to-day communication. We explain the words in simple language, and then give examples of the usage. Last week, we learnt the words ‘crawled’ and ‘dashed’. So as an activity, all of us first crawled and then dashed from one end of the classroom to the other. Hopefully such activities will enable the kids to learn using these words.

Being surrounded by a horde of chatty, smiley, shy, adorable five year olds gives me an adrenaline rush like no other. The way they eagerly wait for you, give you spontaneous hugs, and are genuinely excited to see you just makes my day. It is the most powerful feel good factor I have ever experienced. But it is a very trying task, and at the end of the tutoring, I am drained off all energy. I salute the teachers who spend entire days with thirty little kids swarming around, and still manage to come out of it with a smile!

Btw, here is a picture of the name card butterflies I made for all the kids in my batch. They wore this throughout the day, and loved them so much, that I had to work twice as hard to get their attention away from the butterflies to the story I was telling them!

Butterfly name tags

Butterfly name tags

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Book Reviews

Posted on April 16, 2012 by manaseepm

I am happy to state that I have once again started reading regularly (though not as voraciously as I used to). Some books I recently read -

1. ‘The Good Earth’ by Pearl S. Buck – enjoyed it immensely, a classic must read.

2. Few new Agatha Christie novels, she never fails me :) .

3. “The Catcher in the Rye” by J. D. Salinger – in progress, mixed emotions so far.

4. “Eka Dishecha Shodh” (Search for a Direction) by Sandeep Waslekar – in progress, not read enough to comment :)

5. “The Amulet of Samarkand” by Jonathan Stroud – avoid if you can.

I have also started writing for a website called Hubpages, and have posted a couple of book reviews there. Here are the links -

http://manaseepm.hubpages.com/hub/Book-Review-The-Good-Earth

http://manaseepm.hubpages.com/hub/Book-Review-The-Amulet-of-Samarkand

Happy reading! Which books are you currently reading?

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Do not judge me

Posted on March 15, 2012 by manaseepm
Meher Afrose Sayed, Manjiri Mahajan, Harshada Gune, Priyanka Ghotekar, Shweta Chavan, Shweta Sabannavar, Shraddha Sane, Vibha Somani, Komal Kalyani, Sonali Desai, Shruti Malelo, Ashwini Athavale, Suvarna Potdar Koshal, Ankita Athawale, Snehal Deshpande Kulkarni, Saniya Mahajan liked this post

Do not judge me
For being a career-minded workaholic
Or being a happy homemaker.

Do not judge me
For wearing shorts and tank tops
Or draping a saree with ornaments to match.

Do not judge me
For making more money than my husband does
Or making none at all.

Do not judge me
For not slogging all day in the kitchen
Or wanting to make a hot meal for my loved one.

Do not judge me
For holding a conversation on my own with any person I like
Or being to myself if that’s what I need.

Do not judge me
For liking the stark – black and grey
Or loving pink unicorns.

Do not judge me
For not wanting to have kids of my own
Or melting into a buttery slush at the sight of one.

Do not judge me
For disregarding what I ‘should’ and ‘should not’
Or having my own definition of the same.

Do not judge me
For what I am, or what I am not
For what I was, or what I could be.

I am a human being, and that’s all I want to be.

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Money matters

Posted on March 1, 2012 by manaseepm

My earliest memory of money is from when I was 3 years old. It was fee day at school, and mom was carrying Rs. 50 to pay at the school. I wanted to feel important, and grown-up, and insisted that I wanted to carry the money in my uniform’s pocket. Mom told me it was important that the money be handled responsibly and with care, and agreed for me to carry it. I remember walking down the street thinking I was the coolest and richest kid in the world. When we reached the school, I put my hand in the pocket to give the money to mom, and much to my horror, the pocket was empty. I had probably dropped it somewhere or someone had picked my pocket. We will never know. Mom reprimanded me a little about being careless, after all this was more than a quarter century ago, and Rs. 50 amounted to a lot then. That was my first experience handling money and responsibility, and the fact that it still is fresh in my mind proves how deeply it affected me.

I grew up in a well-to-do but frugal family. We were never deprived of anything, but we always followed a budget. My sister and I did not have expensive toys, electronics or chocolates every day, but we had enough games, friends and lovingly-home-made sweets and other delicacies to keep us happy; we were the happiest kids there could possibly be. Even as kids we were kept informed about how much money our family made, what the rent was, what other expenses were, and generally what the budget looked like. We were encouraged to record expenses ourselves in the budget book after the weekly grocery shopping, and used to take pride in doing so. As a result, we took budgeting to be a natural part of life, something that was just as routine as having dinner.

Dad used to work at a bank, and the topic of money was frequently discussed at home. We became familiar with the concept of loans, interest, principals, EMIs fairly early than other children. One of our favorite games was playing ‘bank-bank’ or ‘shop-shop’ where we would use monopoly money to buy CTDs or groceries, and haggle like adults in the process :)

As I grew up, I was given a Rs. 10 note to keep with me, to be used in case of emergencies. That included a one-way rickshaw fare to come home from school. I was also allowed to spend it over the course of a month, after which it would be replenished. My aim was always to never spend any of the money, and give it back at the end of the month. I was labeled ‘kanjoos’ by my dear sister, but that did not deter me from my quest of trying to never ever spend the money.

Even though I was aware of how important money was, somehow, the thought that I could earn money by taking tuitions, selling home-made crafts or the like never entered my mind, not even when I went through college. It was simply unheard of for kids to try to earn money. I now wish I had thought about it, would have been one-of-a-kind experience.

After graduating from college, I landed a good job, and remember the bewilderment I felt when I saw how much money was accumulating in my bank account. I had no substantial expenses (except fuel and personal shopping) since I was staying with my parents, and the amount that used to accumulate in the bank account at the end of the month seemed untrue. I started paying the rent of our house (after overcoming protests from dad) just to spend the money.

I went back to being a student three years after starting a job, and the economics here was completely different. I was supposed to provide for myself, and my tuition, which was quite a handful. It did not turn out to be as difficult as I had thought it would be, but the two years at post grad school taught me numerous valuable lessons in personal budgeting and finance, that I would not have learned working at a comfortable IT job in India.

After marriage, we found ourselves to be suddenly very prosperous due to the two incomes in the house. There was a lot of money at hand, with no real responsibilities. Even then somehow, we never splurged. I suffer from a condition called ‘pseudo-shop-ism’,  where I get a sudden urge to buy something fancy, but when I go to the shop, it vanishes and I come back empty handed and full-walleted. I must say that has worked very well for us :) .  V loves to spend more than I do, and has a harder time at trying not to succumb to the occasional splurge-urge, but he too comes from a family careful about finances, so thankfully we have more-or-less similar views about spending. Though we had the occasional extravagant urge, we managed to have a budget and stick to it, making sure we saved enough for the rainy day.

I lost my job a few months ago, and since then we have remodeled our budget to fit in one income. It is a bit difficult at times, and we have to be careful with expenses, but thanks to our frugal upbringing, we have figured out ways to spend, save and enjoy life. We have been through phases where money meant we could get an expensive decor for our house, or the latest TV set, or a really expensive suit, but now it just means safety, security and a future. That is all that matters.

 

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Dilbert Day

Posted on January 10, 2012 by manaseepm

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The wild wild west – Part 4 – Monument Valley

Posted on January 9, 2012 by manaseepm
Manjiri Mahajan liked this post

“Monument Valley is the place where God put the West.” ~ John Wayne

The most amazing feature of Utah is how the landscape and the rock formations change every hundred miles. From the red sandstone of Antelope Canyons, we were now headed to the colossal rocks of the Monument Valley.

Monument Valley came as a big surprise to me. I was expecting it to be no more than half a day of touring to cover the valley, but I had in no way anticipated the magnitude, beauty and number of these formations. You know you have entered the Monument Valley when you see the classic view of the straight road cutting across the completely flat plains, interrupted by scattered rock formations. You see the first couple of monuments, marvel at them, and think you have seen it all. But wait till you go go into the heart of the valley, for the sheer number and the varied shapes of these monuments are patiently waiting out there to take your breath away.

The numerous buttes, mesas, canyons make up the unique landscape of the Monument Valley. This valley has  been the location of many John Wayne classics (Stagecoach, The Searchers, She wore a yellow ribbon to name a few). It was also the site for the famous Chevrolet advertisement (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvKvP4r4i2o. Oh, what would I give to be the model in that one!). The rocks have been named with much ingenuity. There are the left and right Mittens, Elephant rock, Camel butte, Big Hogan (hogan is a round native Indian dwelling), Snoopy Dog, and believe it or not, Alfred Hitchcock.

On a side note, V had made the best choice for our stay here. The Goulding’s Lodge is located right in the valley, with fantastic views of the monuments.

On way to the Monument Valley

The Monument Valley

Landscape

The left and right Mittens

Guide playing the flute under the Big Hogan

Goudling's Lodge

We took a guided tour through the valley, and I would highly recommend this over exploring the valley on your own. Firstly, the roads inside the valley require a four wheel transmission, they will kill your two wheel transmission car. Secondly, the guides tell a lot about the history and geography of the place, that you otherwise wouldn’t know. Our guide, Robert, was a native Indian himself, and gave us very interesting information about the valley and the lifestyle of the Navajo tribe. Thirdly, the tours take you to back-country monuments, which are extremely beautiful, and not open to general public. Some tour guides also play native Indian flute while you watch the sun setting on the valley!

We also visited the Natural Bridges National Monument, about an hours distance away from the Monument Valley. We were not expecting much, but were in for a pleasant surprise. The road to this monument was the highlight. We had to drive up the rim of the valley, through very steep switchbacks, along huge rocks that looked like they could turn into a landslide any moment. If you are visiting the Monument Valley, do plan a short visit to the natural bridges, it is completely worth it.

Road to Natural Bridges Natural Monument

V and I did a short hike to one of the bridges (Sipapu Bridge). The hike required us to climb down a few hundred feet along the sheer drop of stone to the base of the bridge, and then climb back up.

Sipapu Bridge

Hike to the Sipapu Bridge

We met our friend O, who was also visiting the Monument Valley, that evening. Next stop – Arches National Park.

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The wild wild west – Part 3 – Antelope Canyon

Posted on January 7, 2012 by manaseepm

When you arrive at a place at night, exhausted and hungry, you get a very different impression of the place that you would otherwise. But when you see the same place in broad daylight, when you are rested and fed, you see it in a completely different light!! That is exactly what happened with us at Cameron. The place that looked so drab last night looked resplendent in the early morning daylight. There were acres and acres of flat land around us, with a strip of road cutting straight through it for as long as we could see. The only vegetation around was small dry shrubs scattered throughout. It was beautiful.

These straight, empty roads gave V a chance to enact Schumacher to his heart’s content. While I was clinging to the car window for dear life, he delighted in zipping the car at 100 MPH.

As we neared Page in AZ, we could see a thin yellow line in the blue sky. We wondered what it was, it looked like a streak of dirt in the clouds. Going closer, we found out that it was in fact dirt, pollutants rising from a couple of factories in town.

The biggest attraction at Page was the Antelope Canyon. These are canyons carved by sediments flowing in water through the red Navajo sandstone, causing classic ‘flowing effects’ in the rock. There are two main canyons here, Upper Canyon and Lower Canyon. In the summers, when the sun is high, one can see sun beams stream in to the canyons from above, creating extremely photogenic light and color effect. In winter, the beam effect does not occur, but a myriad of colors can be still seen. We decided to see the lower slot canyons, as they are supposed to be more beautiful in winter. Visits to the canyons are only through guided tours, but if you have an SLR and a tripod, they give you a photographers permit, allowing you to stay unsupervised in the canyons for two and half hours, giving ample opportunity to capture some good clicks.

The guide led us about 50 yards into the open land towards the opening of the canyons. We were puzzled, there was no canyon to be seen anywhere, just flat land. Then we saw it, there was about a foot and half wide crack in the ground. That was the entrance to the canyons, located underground (Lower Canyons, duh!). Here is a pic of the entrance.

We squeezed in through the crack, and the canyons took our breath away. They are about 5 ft at their widest, a foot at the narrowest, and about 30 ft deep. With the colors, textures and the light play, it was a photographer’s paradise. Water flowing through these cracks has polished the rocks over ages, giving it a unique texture, and rounding it off to depict the flow of water. The canyon is very narrow, and not recommended for anyone with claustrophobia. And though we did not see any, I can totally imagine that rattlesnakes could be seen in summer.

We made full use of our photographers permit, and took numerous pictures. We had taken the morning tour, and were among the first tourists of the day to start the tour. That worked out well, as we got the canyons almost entirely to ourselves for those two hours. At the end of the canyon, there is a ladder to climb out, and a half mile trail that leads back to the parking lot. Instead of climbing out, we turned back and returned through the canyon itself. That gave us different views that what we had seen while going the other direction.

It was an experience of a lifetime. I cannot say enough to convey the beauty of the place.

The famous horseshoe bend on the Colorado river is close-by from the canyons, about half a mile hike from the parking lot. This is a point where the Colorado river turns at 270 degrees around a huge rock, resulting in a horseshoe like structure of the rock. I wanted to take a picture with V appearing to sit on the center rock, with the river encircled around. It seemed to be a wonderful idea, till I realized it meant him having to sit at the precarious edge of the rock, with a direct drop of about a 1000 ft below. Alas. I made do with some pics of him standing at a safe distance from the bend.

We also made a quick visit to the Glen Canyon Dam, which turned out to be quite huge, and started on our way to experience the old west in the Monument Valley.

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The wild wild west – Part 2 – Grand Canyon

Posted on January 6, 2012 by manaseepm

The flight from Philly to Vegas was uneventful. Accepting the possibility of you labeling me as a wuss, I maintain that I am a big fan of uneventful flights. V and I spent the time on the airport and on the flight solving Sudoku and for the first time in our life, crossword puzzles. About five hours later, we landed in Vegas. The view of the city from the top was pretty awesome. I thought it looked like a land ‘aglow with the light of a thousand fairies’ (I don’t remember where I have heard that phrase, it kind of just popped up in my head that time). It was around 12 AM already, and we had to make an early start the next day to drive to Grand Canyon, so we decided not to go out to the Strip that night. I had a tremendous craving for Chinese/Thai food, and we found this restaurant called Satay, a Chinese/Thai/Malaysian place. While happily slurping on Tom Yum soup, I remarked to V that I could have South Asian food for each meal, every day, for the rest of my life. Little did I know that this innocent remark would soon turn out to be almost true!

Early morning next day saw us up, ready and fed at 7.30 AM, starting our drive to the Grand Canyon. This was the first time we were seeing city in daylight, and were amazed to see the desert around. Just miles and miles of flat, rocky land, with no tree cover what-so-ever. We were surprised to see some coconut like trees in the city, but those probably were like most of the people in Vegas – outsiders. They shot up through the landscape as very ill-fitting additions to the surroundings. It looked something like a patch of Florida in the middle of a desert.

Vegas is a desert surrounded by mountains all around. Having lived on the east coast, this landscape was very new for us. The city surrounded by mountains reminded me of the quaint town of ‘Satara’ in India, which is also surrounded by mountains all over, although Satara is far from being a desert. V was driving, and I started clicking photos of everything around (Most of these pics turned out useless, since I took them on high exposure, making the entire picture white :( ). We stopped at a couple of scenic overlooks on the way. One overlook had a sign “No selling of any goods”, under which a couple of native Indians had promptly set up their shop for selling Indian jewellery. Some things are the same, anywhere in the world :)

There were ‘rock-dunes’ all along the road. According to V – ‘Looks like god made these when he was at play’.

The Grand Canyon is a rift in the Colorado plateau. The North Rim is about a 1000 ft higher than the South Rim, and is not accessible in the winter. The Colorado river snakes through the canyon, and glimpses of it can be seen from the South Rim. The size of the Canyon is overwhelming! It is 277 miles long, about 18 miles wide and 6000 ft deep!! The North Rim is said to have better views than the South Rim. There is also a glass bottom viewing deck on the west side of the canyon, which extends into the canyon at a height of about 5000 ft. Since we were going to visit only the South Rim, we marked this as a to-do for our next trip.

Standing at the rim, one cannot feel anything but humbled. One realizes their insignificance in the grand scheme of nature. The color-play along the rim and the structures created by erosion are truly magnificent. There are a number of hikes from the top of the canyon to the bottom, but they require time, and in winter, proper gear. Since we had none at hand, we had to be satisfied with just watching the canyon. There are many overlooks on the road, each providing a different view of the canyon. Free shuttle buses run along these routes, and make stops at each viewpoint. We walked along the rim for some time, and then took the shuttle to the farther points. Sunset at the South rim is best seen from the Hopi point. The setting rays cast shades of red, orange and gold throughout the valley.

Before we knew it, it was sundown, and time to leave. We were going to stay at Cameron, about an hour and half east from the canyon. Throughout this hour-and-half drive, we did not see a single car on the road. It was pitch dark, we were zipping along the lonely roads with only the canyon and the soulful voice of Kishor Kumar for company. Blessed peace!

Cameron turned out to be a settlement (I wouldn’t even call it a village), which was closed up for Christmas. Absolutely nothing was open by the time we reached our hotel. Not even a gas station food shop. Both of us were extremely tired and hungry, and the possibility of dinner started to seem bleak. We dropped our luggage at the hotel, and drove off to find food. About 25 miles away, we found another small city called Tuba City. All the restaurants here were also closed. The only place we found open was a Chinese joint :) Yay! I was more than happy to have another Chinese dinner. My prophecy was coming out to be true :D

Since the next day was Christmas day, there were strong chances that we would not find any food place open anywhere. So we armed ourselves with cereal bowls, milk, granola bars and fruits…our Christmas food…from a nearby 7-Eleven store. Back to the hotel, we were asleep in no-time, waiting to head off to the wonderful Antelope Canyons the next day!

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The Seven Samurai

Posted on January 4, 2012 by manaseepm

From my drafts – written sometime in October…
*******
This movie was in my to-watch list for quite some time. Not because it is supposed to be a classic (which it oh-so-magnificently is), but because a friend, whose movie taste matches mine, had suggested it. We finally watched it this weekend, and loved every minute of it.

The movie is four hours long. That’s quite long. But this was probably the only movie during which I did not check my laptop, look the movie up on Wikipedia or make a million rounds to the kitchen to scavenge between-movie snacks. I was glued to the screen the whole time.

The plot is something that has now been beaten to death in movies. Poor villagers need protection from bandits, so they hire a team of seven warriors, who protect the village and empower the villagers to fight against injustice. Same as The Magnificent Seven (which I haven’t seen), Sholay and China Gate. Nothing new there.

What struck me was the simplicity of the movie and the amazing characters in the plot. The oppression of the villagers is portrayed forthrightly, without tear jerking emotional drama. I think that a subtle portrayal of sorrow and pain affects the audience more intensely than loud screaming or emotion-filled dialog. E.g. in Sholay, the grief and sorrow that was so powerfully expressed by Jaya Bhaduri’s silence, was lost with the blind old man lamenting his son’s death. In this movie you understand the oppression of the villagers when the bandits say “We just took their rice, they don’t have anything to give. Let’s come back when the barley is ripe”. You see their poverty when the villager picks up few grains of rice spilled on the floor, hoping it will make him a meal. You see their anger and their fear in their eyes, not in their dialog. They do not make big speeches about how they want to fight the bandits. They just pick up spears, too heavy for their scrawny and malnourished bodies, and get ready to fight. Simple and powerful.

Overall, a complete must-watch. Thanks R for recommending it!

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The wild wild west – Part 1 – The Plan

Posted on January 4, 2012 by manaseepm

The husband (V) and I had wanted to do a trip to Nevada, Arizona, Utah for a long time. After seeing some amazing pictures posted by friends, and reading up about the wonders of nature these three states have, we were very excited to make this trip. We had 10 days, from the 23rd Dec to the 1st Jan, which would make a nice and long trip. We wanted to make this our annual trip with friends, but it was difficult to match everyone’s planners for a 10 day long trip, so it ended up being just the two of us. V was keen on a road trip complete with camping and cooking, but since it was winter, I was skeptical about it. Most of these places would be at a subzero temperature, and I did not fancy the idea of sleeping out in the cold for 10 days. After a lot of deliberation and discussion (and some deliberate discussions) we decided against the camping part of the road trip.

We were most eager to see the Utah parks, namely Arches National Park, Bryce Canyon and the Monument Valley. I also wanted to include Las Vegas, as we were flying so close to Nevada anyway. Since all these destinations are a little over couple of hours driving distance away, we decided to fly to Vegas from Philly, rent a car from there, and then drive for the next 10 days to all these state parks, expecting to cover about 1200 miles on road, and drive back to Vegas for the new year’s eve. That decided, we started to make a list of all the places we could visit on our way.

The Utah tourism website is very good (http://www.utah.gov/visiting/travel.html). It helped a lot in planning the places to visit and the activities to do. By the time we were through with it, we had a list of about 15 destinations to cover!! With only 10 days in hand, this was an impossibility, so we had to cut down many places from these list (those places will make the itinerary for a second trip to these states, hopefully!). Five versions of the list later, we had finalized on the following destinations -

1. Grand Canyon
2. Antelope Canyon
3. Monument Valley
4. Arches National Park
5. Capitol Reef National Park
6. Bryce Canyon
7. Las Vegas

Due to winter, the days were short, with sunsets around 4.30 – 5 PM. So, we decided to drive in the evenings, and do the sight-seeing in the mornings. We were unsure of the activities that we could do at these places, as most of the sought-after activities here are non-winter activities, and we are not good at winter activities like skiing/snow-boarding etc. So we decided to just leave it to serendipity.

The next task was the hotel bookings. I do not lie, this was the least enjoyable task of the entire trip (including the 5 hour flight to Vegas). Many lodges were closed due to winter, and many of those open did not fit our budget. We must have looked at so many options, I was even tempted to say yes for the camping just to avoid this hotel booking part. Thankfully V handled almost all of it (and turned out later had made some pretty awesome choices).

None of our plans are made without MS Excel (even grocery lists at times), so we immediately made a detailed plan in excel, with fancy groupings, sorts and all the frills and fancy. Versions after versions of this plan were exchanged, with details like date, destination, expected travel time, hotel to stay, hotel address/phone etc. We also found some really good deals for activities through Groupon. While in Vegas I wanted to see one of the Cirque Du Soleil performances, so we also booked tickets for the Ka show.

All that needed to be done now was wait for the 23rd of December!

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