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How to P*** People Off | Collectables

Loved this post by Boston Margy..couldn't resist sharing.

How to P*** People Off

Backseat Conversations

9-year old: Did you know that there is a law in India that boys cannot hit girls, but girls can hit boys?

7-year old -1: Really?  that is so cool

7-year old-2: So, if some boy hits me, I can hit him back?

9-year old: Actually, if a boy hits you, you can tell the police and police can put him in jail.

7-year-old-1: So, I can hit anyone?

9-year old: Yeah.  I can hit my class boys and they can't hit me back.

7-year old-1: I can hit appa !

7-year old-2: That is so funny.

9-year-old: My friend J says that if some boy hits her, she will complain not to the teacher, but to the prime minister of India - "Dr. Manmohan Singh, don't you know there is a law that says boys can't hit girls?".

[[Driver increases the volume of the radio in the car]]

Ho Hum

"Threptin" is a high protein biscuit that is believed to be a healthy snack.  It tastes like delicious cardboard, but it does seem to have some benefits, especially between mealtimes when a sugar-low headache threatens to appear.  I plan to stock up on Threptin.

However, I MUST stop reading labels.

"Three to five diskettes of Threptin taken at 11 a.m. or 4 p.m. will relieve in-between-meals hunger and exhaution common to housewives, school going children and business or professional men".

So much for gender equality.

HAC

I attended the alumni meet at my school today. I am one of those rare people who studied in the same school from kindergarten to class XII - a whopping fourteen years (actually fourteen and a half, if you count the extra six months of UKG that I studied because I was underage for first standard).  I have many pleasant memories of school. 

All the teachers who taught me, except two, have already retired. Today's meet was wonderful because the retired teachers had attended it and I was able to meet all of them after nearly two decades.  I met Miss Meenakshi (chemistry), Mrs. Peace (biology), Mrs. Jacob (chemistry and physics), Mrs. Sulochana (chemistry and biology), Ms. Vasantha (primary school science), Ms. Visalakshi (Tamil), Mrs. Kameshwari (history/geography), Mrs. Annamary (PT) (who told me that Mrs. Rao has passed on), Ms. Evon (Primary English), Mrs. Subbulakshmi  (Tamil), Mrs. Rajalakshmi (Hindi), and Mrs. Alamelu (Tamil) (who looks unbelieavably old ).  They have aged quite a lot, but their enthusiasm remains unbroken. Most of them remembered me by name, but a few really really old ones were muddled.  But all of them were very happy to see their old students.  The earliest alumnus was from the 1957 batch.  She was older than some of my teachers who have retired ! There was only one other girl (?!) from my class who attended - Shantakumari, and even she left early because the school brought back memories of her mother, who has recently passed on. I recognized a few seniors - Niveditha, Usha Jayaraman, etc. and one junior - Anusha Sundaram.

Ms. Evon asked for volunteers to sing the school songs - someone who knew both - "All hail" and "Onward Holy Angels", I believe I was the only one who knew (and remembered) both.     I was part of the choir that released the "new" school song, "Onward.." during school assembly when we were in ninth. I surprised myself by remembering both songs completely, in addition to the school prayer "Our Father in Heaven..."  After twenty years !  I am impressed. 

If you were/are from HAC, the school exudes the same aura - it has been maintained well. The neem tree at the junior's assembly ground continues to thrive.  The sad part is that the playground with all the "apparatus" - swings, merry-go-rounds etc. have given way to more classrooms.  There is a new basket ball court.  The rock garden at the entrance has been replaced by a pillar with the school emblem on top.  The chapel is still at the same place, but the pews have been removed, so it is one large room with the alter at one end.  The junior class rooms (classes 1, 2 etc.) that were to the side of the junior assembly ground have been pulled down, and there is  a high wall on Raman Street side.  There is a new gate opening out to Lodikan Street.

I was so caught up with catching up that I completely forgot that I had a camera phone until the very end of the meet. 

Random pictures from the cell phone

A crane (or is it a stork?) deep in the woods adjoining the stadium in our campus:

Sunset over the stadium in campus

Sunset at stadium, a few minutes later

Skull and backbone of a dead deer, at the fringes of the woods, adjoining the stadium

A hawk on our fence

My padikolam on Pongal

Kiddo's wishes for Pongal

 

Pongal-eve.  All set for the morning.

 

Backlog Thoughts

Just met a big work deadline headlong and came out unscathed. Well, almost.

Usually, the minute after the deadline two things happen to me. A tsunami of exhaustion originating somewhere at the top of my skull engulfs me for a few hours.  I can't think (which is not rare, but you know..), I can't talk, heck, I can't even sleep.  The second, more serious event, is the sinking feeling of "what next".  Of course, this lasts for a few minutes after I have hit the final "send" button, after which, life (and exhaustion, see above) take(s) over.  I suppose, I could be a conceited prick and call myself a workaholic, but I suspect that I am just a maladjusted human being who seeks identity in her work, instead of herself.

This time, it has been different. The sinking feeling is less intense because looming in front of me, much like the deadline that just passed are other assignments that I had been pushing to the backburner.  I know I can't afford to take a break, but the exhaustion is compelling, as is the family, with whom I have had minimum, if any, interaction in the past few days. 

Another reason for my silence here is that I have been a consumer rather than a producer ever since dude gifted me an e-reader.  Being a gadjetophobe, I had not been particularly excited about it before it came. But once I held it I knew that I would have a new addiction, and I was right.  Before we got it, we asked people for their opinion on e-readers. People who owned one absolutely loved it, and those that didn't had opinions ranging from "it is too expensive" to "I need to touch, feel, smell paper to read"   As for the first, I guess if you can't afford it, you just can't, but if you are the type that buys books worth a few thousand rupees every other month, it makes sense to just buy the e-reader.  Another relevant advantage is that you can hold your entire library in your handbag - this is good for us in particular because we have four cupboards full of books in four different places and maintenance is a bit pain.  As for the second - you don't know what you are missing.  The e-reader is so comfortable to hold, lightweight, and can be carried anywhere without hassle. Bboth dude and I seem to read a lot more than we did before the  e-reader.

The book I am currently reading is "Her Royal Spyness" by Rhys Bowen.  A very nicely written who-dun-it, with just the dash of stiff upper lip humour that goes so well with me.  Before that was "You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Coffeeshop" by John Scalzi.  It is written from the perspective of a professional writer and being one myself (on a reduced scale, albeit), it did strike a few harmonious chords.  Apart from his breezy style of writing - he is a perfect example of  the ten thousand hour rule -  his no-nonsense attitude comes out well in the book. Among the many points that resonated with my own beliefs, the best was that when you choose writing as a profession, it is not really as romantic as it is imagined to be.  With a deadline that has just passed, all I can say is "Amen ! Brother". Not that I don't enjoy writing.  But it IS hard work..much like any other profession. 

I have an aversion to science fiction, which is weird considering that I am supposedly a "science writer", but I might try Scalzi's SF, at least for his writing style.  But then, he also blogs (Whatever), so the inertia to surmount the SF-phobia may be harder to break.

That's enough deadline-hangover.  The house is a mess. The clothes have been lying on the couch,  awaiting the female folding touch. And kid just said "Can't we spend time together?" So, I'll leave at this for now.

Dictionary

mid·life (mĭdˈlīfˌ) noun pl. mid·lives (-līvzˌ)adjective: Of, relating to, or characteristic of middle age, the age when ghee-floating chakkarai pongal at koodaravalli reminds one not of Andal or joy or sweets, but of cholesterol.

Sigh !

Gems by a seven year old

Seven-year old to father:  How does amma's stomach know that you and she are married to produce a baby?

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"I hope  when I grow up, petrol gets over.  I want to ride a horse, not a car".

 

Customer Service

Why does an automated voice tell me "we are eager to speak to you" when I am put on hold?  Who is eager to speak to me?  The machine?

2011

Earlier, I believed that new year resolutions are humbug, artificial, pretentious etc.  Now I suspect that they are humbug, artificial, pretentious etc. I make them nevertheless because it gives me an opportunity to look at areas in my life that need improvement.

So far, I have kept a few resolutions - e.g. no smileys in blog posts (I am not sure if it was a new year resolution, but it was a resolution alright), no yelling when angry (no, really, I did keep that end up, and now I don't even get angry too often, touch wood) etc. and broken a few (do surya namaskar every day, cut down on coffee etc.) When I analyse them,  I realise that those I have kept have mattered to me very much and those broken are not really THAT important in the large picture.

I think resolutions help make habits and habits become your character.  While there is no sanctity of a particular date in which to make them, it helps some people who are particularly scatterbrained, to have a socially accepted reference point.

2011 will see me do the following

a. Stop worrying.  I have been, as my daughter says, a worry wart all of last year.  It reached a point where I had migraines and perpetual stomach cramps.  Just logical thinking tells me that worrying does not do much other than killing you (and making all your hair fall out), and I read somewhere that worry is the interest on the loan you never took.  I will not worry about things that I have no control over.  I don't have any more hair to lose.And for things I can control, why worry?  I am not going my mom's way of ulcers that came out of (a) constant irrational worry (b) food indiscpline.  In a way, it is ok to accept that que sera sera and go on with life.

b. Get in touch with my spiritual side. Perhaps it is a sign of middle age. Perhaps it is a rediscovered spirit. Whatever it is, I seem to find immense peace in my own spiritual practice. I hope to dip into it more. Start meditation, go to temples more regularly and be more sincere with the daily prayers, for a start.

c. Accept people the way they are.  I used to be like that. But of late, I have started finding too many faults with people.  This can only lead to homophobia, which I don't propose to entertain.  People are nice. If they are not nice at any instant, there is probably a reason. Ignore the bad.

d. Do surya namaskar regularly (at least this year?)

e. Don't cut down on coffee.  Yes, DON'T.  I went to a family meet today and discovered that a cousin, not much older than me, has started showing signs of Parkinsons.  It is scary because it proves that there is a rogue gene in my family gene pool that codes for Parkinsons -  I already lost an uncle to the disease, and another one is in his final stages.  This is the first time someone from MY generation has fallen prey to it.  I know coffee helps avoid or at least delay Parkinsons. I will keep my dose of coffee without feeling guilty about it.

So there,  I have my resolutions in the open.

Happy New Year to my visitors here.  Thank you for all the ego boost you have been giving me and I hope I will keep meeting you here this year as well.