Domestic dreams

In films, Tamil films anyway, the men have grand dreams
Changing the world saving people whacking bad guys
And girls have domestic dreams
Of getting married finding true love having kids
All inscribing in people on what kinds of dreams children should have

Gendered dreams

Even Hollywood... girls dream of the perfect wedding
Makes me sick

Secrets

How hard it is to bear secrets
What secrets have I borne
My secondary school teacher married his student
I knew but never told my parents
Didn't matter I thought. They didn't need to know

Now I bear secrets too
Two friends whose sons have jumped
And I am bound to keep the secret still

Why

So.
Deep breath
God feels I am ready
To take in support and grow
Special individuals with broken bits
K with her hurt and expectations
P with her anxious reactions and high strung expectations
M with high functioning brain and cranky outbursts
K with her sky high expectations and low self esteem
N with her lack of sck and laziness and desire to grow a little
V with her desperate pain and clarity of whom to work with and not

Killing me

Look in a fight I appreciate when people step to reflect on the part they may have played in the mishap.
I get the feeling she's just placing all blame squarely on p.
P is no Angel. I get it.
But you aren't either! So used to being thangifined you can't take not knowing or looking stupid.

Sashti

Hi.
Did sashti viratham this year
Also last year
Am very happy God helped me keep it. The first day was so hard I though I would not be able to this year. Coz I had a headache from the not eating. Or from other things I don't know
.

But have mixed feeling too if i want to be completely honest
1. Am I doing it out of a sense of devotion? Or a wish to lose weight? Both?  A need to test myself?
2. Do my intentions matter? Yes. Not that one is better than the other but purpose is key to anything
3. I do and did feel a great sense of happiness and pride esp on Sunday when I sang sasthi kavasam at the temple and didnt eat till 8.45! And i truly wasnt hungry that day! Most of the days I can't wait till 5pm!
4. That's another thing. I set  my own fasting rules. Which seem very lax now to me.
Fruits and milk and drinks ( coffee tea mocha Milo juices) and even the occasional nut or two. Until 5 pm. After that other than rice and chocolates I ate everything! Even chips one day! How ah? Counts as fast? Is time too short? Is the coffee and tea and milo all too indulgent?
Comes back to purpose right? I don't believe in following a fast for the sake of doing so or for appearing pious. It's personal. I want to experience amd practise restraint . I want to use that time to think of God.  I want to be aware of the feeling of hunger which so many millions feel. I want to be appreciative that this fast is a choice while for others it's not. I want to know that hollow day I've read about.

5. Then  during the fast I didn't give up other treats. Like reading and watching movies.  I just sang/ listened to sashti kavasam day and night.  I guess if my purpose was to be one with God truly and know God and think only of God I shouldn't be reading and watching movies? But I'm okay with it haha! As in I feel life is a balance between giving in to impulses and restraint. And during the fast I restrain myself  a little. With food. By saying prayers before I do things which means less time for watching movies and reading.
Anyway. Will figure it out I guess.

Water will come

1. Hurricanes like roulette
2. Sea level rises 're shaping our world. Let me visit Maldives before it vanishes
3. 13 feet of sea level rise in a century will be catastrophic. Has happened before
3. Prediction now is 3 meters by end of this century as of now
4. Ice sheets collapse coz of melt water beneath the ice
5. Real estate price goes down for estates near coasts. Affects overall economy
6.  By building dykes raising streets etc. Only temporary.
7. Need to be creative about our relationship with water. A need to be flexible and affordable
8. No city is an island
9. Ice cube in heat melts. Same thing with world.
10. Can raise the naval base elevate it. But what about the roads leading to it? Can we raise the whole world ?
11. Climate refugees. Where will the 10 million people displaced by water in Indonesia going to go?? .?
12. Don't need new technology to deal with water. Just new ways of thinking. Walls may not work
13. Cut carbon pollution fast. How?
Electric cars
Destroy coal factories.
Invest in clean energy factories
14. Make risk transparent to everyone. People need to know. Despite economic implications
15. Retreat is inevitable.
16, need to reinvent our use of energy. Clean energy is getting cheaper. So will change.
17. Thawing of permafrost
18. Not too late?
19. We are in the river with climate change. Curtains have gone up. We can affect the trajectories of this change.

He's been with Obama.  And Kerry. And Paris. And going to Antarctica. Privileged to hear him

Climate change wiped out dinosaurs. It will wipe us out too. World as we know it ending is inevitable. Just matter of time. How? Worth it? To try to postpone it?

Trouble is,.. We are small. Like ants. Hard for us to see the world as a whole.

Human enemies are easier to fight than nature . Like day of the triffods . . E will make unmake remake ourselves eternally. Who will survive? Who will succumb?

Kiran desai thoughts

I live in a bubble

What makes us hate ourselves? Feel shame for what we do what we are
What makes me keen to stress I am not from India?
What ofdd struggles there are for acceptance for feeling above the rest

Fear that we become what they say we are

Privateness of human condition
Literature has the right to interfere in the affairs of the  state
Should replace
Brodsky acceptance speech. Wow.
Wow
Choose our leaders based on the book they read

Identity that is non reductive
Secret to peace

Opportunities for reinvention

Loneliest makes for happiest stories and reading

Less structured more valuable

Allegiance to flags. What value? Problemitises immigration

're read Edward said
're read inheritance of loss

To belong we must exclude
Problem lies therein
Past is a home to all of us
Journey for home undoes the home

Amitav ghosh  essay on diaspora

Somehow one who has read dickens can't be cruel to a dickens like character

Story can lend meaning to landscape

Books borderless

Time is living me

Italio calvino trees

Did I say too much

I can be quite comfortable talking to him

Lit Launch vs EL Launch

I don't like the idea of me sounding like I'm bragging, even to myself
but if I don't even say it to myself, who will I say it too
So let me just say it here okay

I'm glad teachers found the EL Syllabus exciting. and that they say the launch is better now that it used to be, with the use of videos

but.. but but but...

I felt our lit launch had more oomph. It was a gala affair. grand collaterals, interactive elements, music for writing, quiz shows, video blitz, resource blitz, show of support from the four pillars of curriculum, q and a,

No wonder people asked us, why do you need 4 hours to launch a syllabus - isn't 1 hour enough? If we are doing it like this, the EL, then yes, even 1.5 hour seems too long to be talked at, or shown videos at!

everything seems so downplayed here = largely frontal delivery - actually, all frontal delivery which we know doesn't work! so why do it? why not break it and get people to interact?

Anyway, there it is. I've said it.

even our kids video seemed better than their kids video, our eye video seemed better than their overview video,  Their future workers video was good. But the other two - meh. No story. That's the problem. English is just abstract without a text to root it. Our Eye video had a pirate narrative. our kids video had kids making meaning of a poem - something they can do in their classes.
Here JJ had to tell them to applaud for the kids in case they didn't - coz it was just so made up - who goes around coming up with a detective game to demonstrate the 3 foci? is it that difficult to do that you can't do it with your usual EL lessons? What's a great EL lesson for me? I dunno.

sigh. I'm so glad I'm in Lit. and maybe my personality rubs off a bit - I was pretty insistent on things this time - the interactivity, the reading of the syllabus during the launch, the write about a line in the workshop - you have to hit them with things make them see stuff they could not have otherwise seen, otherwise why come all the way here?

maybe wonderful things are happening at the working sessions now - possibly.
everything just seems so downplayed and serious, even with the video involving a game. same people - pei yong, Joo Jin,  - different leadership styles perhaps? more messy but more involved is mine. more clear and laid out is Angie's. I even found Leonard rattling away! but Vani found him very clear. I dunno, am I just prejudiced? maybe some were utterly bored at our session too.

Also, they didn't really take up our suggestions -there was not touch and feel of the syllabus, no interactivity at all. grr.
but I can't comment unless I've sat through the whole thing so shall shut up and get on with my guide now. 

Poem for Dell draft 8

Thank you Ms Chong,

For your personable nature.
No matter where we meet
your office, the corridor, the pantry
you always have a dazzling smile for each of us.

For your patience.
You go the extra mile to nurture and
connect with us,
reassure and comfort us.

For your guidance.
You take time to explain things,
you share your ideas and knowledge
even before we know we need it.

For your gift of language.
You plant seeds of hope in us
and inspire positive change, showing us
that we can and should uplift the human spirit.

For your inspiring speeches.
Every time you speak to us,
your words go straight to our hearts
Who can forget Anne of Green Gables?

For an oasis of calm.
Our work here can be crazy
but you keep it real,
grounding us and protecting us.

For short and sweet branch meetings.
You bring us together and
win us over with your
sense of humour.

For the stylish look of ELLB.
You rock those Louboutins,
exuding elegance, class and beauty.
Yet you stay so humble and down to earth.

Has it only been a year?
We feel we’ve known you for so long –
for all this and more
we thank you, dear Ms Beatrice Chong.

Poem for Dell draft 7

Thank you Ms Chong,

For your personable and approachable nature.
No matter where we meet
your office, the corridor, the pantry
you always have a dazzling smile for every one of us.

For your patience.
You go the extra mile to nurture and
connect with us as a group and as individuals
and reassure and comfort us.

For your guidance.
You take time to explain things,
you share your ideas and knowledge generously
even before we know we need it.

For your gift of language.
You plant seeds of hope in us
and inspire positive change, showing us
that we can and should uplift the human spirit.

For your inspirational speeches.
Every time you speak to us,
your words go straight to our hearts
Who can ever forget Anne of Green Gables?

For an oasis of calm.
Our work here can be crazy
but you keep it real,
grounding us and protecting us.

For short and sweet branch meetings.
You bring us together and
win us over with your
sense of humour.

For the stylish look of ELLB.
You rock those Louboutins,
exuding elegance, class and beauty.
Yet you stay so humble and down to earth.

Has it only been a year?
We feel we’ve known you for so long –
for all this and more
we thank you, dear Ms Beatrice Chong.