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RECENT HAPPENINGS....

2012-05-03T01:27:00.000+05:30

Both the kids and I are heading towards Chennai for a short visit with my dad this week. I wanted to share some of the photos of the our recent days...

My son is enjoying a cup of cappuccino. Yep! He seems to love coffee on rare occasions like this one after a long day at the U....

DD programming and playing with her graphing calc during a break at the U...

DS and I spotted these squirrels race over this mesh screen in the University campus. It was quite entertaining to watch them.

Here is a picture of two squirrels, there were a couple of them on the top and a few more at the bottom which was not captured in this shot. They were REALLY racing:)

They would climb all the way to the top and then flip over to the other side; and then they would continue the race again on the other side by running down to the bottom, lol.

While doing all of it, they were chattering away! Wonder what they talked about?

Here is the guy who took a break watching the others race over the mesh screen:)

Cute looking Spotted Doves on our Drumstick tree.

Apparently my son caught this one on a quiet weekend early morning, in our neighborhood apartments, overlooking our garden in the backyard! Both these pigeons were very busy!

We visited a village near Tamil Nadu - Karnataka border sometime ago.

Photos of the visit below:

These statues are Guardian Deities, and the age old belief is that they protect the villages. This is usually built outside of the village. These are fierce looking deities, aren't they? :)

This depicts a snake charmer playing the Magudi(snake-charmer's pipe), charming the cobras. I have seen them in action while growing up, although I have always been doubtful about the treatment of these snakes by these charmers.

Here is a video of a snake charmer. And, if you are inclined to watch the documentary on Snake Charmers, you could watch the series on You Tube.

We visited a farmer's family that lived in a hut. The farmer's son and his wife worked as teachers. The family owned a small land, which they used for growing flowering plants along with a small self-sufficient vegetable garden. They seem to lead a very simple life. This is their daughter below.

This is the outdoor stove made of mud used by one of the village families we visited.

Common sight in village homes. A brooding hen!

I wish my son had a close-up picture of these drying Tamarind. There is a huge tamarind tree in their yard. We got a bunch of tamarind to eat them raw...They taste sweet-sour....

Crazy, eh? :-)

All the musicians on stage on our recent concert...

ELEPHANT BOY

2012-04-26T15:31:00.000+05:30

Kids and I had a lovely Friday evening last week catching a free screening of the 1930s B&W movie, Elephant Boy, directed by Robert J. Flaherty and Zoltan Korda, starring Sabu Dastagir, as a 13yr lad. Its based on Rudyard Kipling's short story, 'Toomai of the Elephants'. Sabu was the son of an Indian mahout (elephant driver), who only spoke Urdu before the movie and so was trained extensively to speak in English.

I had no idea about this movie or the venue- NGMA (shame on me, that despite having lived here for the past year and a half..cough cough, I was not aware of this beautiful modern art museum) until someone sent in the info on my local birding group. And, I am glad we made it to the movie ahead of time to find seats, as it soon became apparent that there would be only standing room for the ones who arrived late. There were quite a few young kids in the auditorium, which made me wonder a bit about the possibility of not having a peaceful movie viewing, but to my surprise the entire audience, young and old, were mesmerized by that short movie.

The movie itself is shot like a documentary, but done in a lovely way nevertheless. It was quite interesting with respect to the setting of the untouched, untainted Mysore. I think we even spotted a temple that looked like Chamundeshwari temple in one of the scenes. There were a few things in the movie that were unsettling to my 'American' kids. Given that it was taken in 1937, the movie strongly depicts the class division of Whites and Indians, which my kids could not relate to.

Sabu in the movie.

The characters speak Brit English but in an Indian way, except for the Brit characters, so that's something my children have gotten used to understanding the diction having been here for the past year and a half. And then comes the plot itself in which the goal of Sabu is to help his White Master, Peterson, to trap a large number of wild elephants. The sounds of cries of the wild elephants for a continuous 5 mins or so towards the end of the movie was something I could not handle given my noise sensitivities, and I would think a sensitive kid would have an issue with the 'act' of trapping 100s of wild elephants by humans. Although there was no harm done during those scenes that we could see, the elephants do run around wildly here and there on the screen in confusion; and we could see some of the cute young ones hanging around their parents too. The relationship between Kala Nag, the huge majestic elephant, and Sabu is done very well. Sabu has a youngish speech and seem to be having a grand time making the movie which is very transparent in the movie and quite infectious to the young viewers.

All in all, a lovely movie to watch and discuss the British Empire, pre-independence period with history crazed kids. My son loved the movie for those reasons. There is also a short-lived TV series made in 1973 on Kipling's short story called Elephant Boy, although we have not watched that series. The Elephant Boy movie is available in the public domain for free download.

HIGHER LEARNING FOR FREE!

2012-04-22T00:19:00.000+05:30

I am always on the lookout for high quality online resources that are FREE in addition to regular outsourced classes through university and/or mentors for both my kids to fulfill their need for a variety of brain-food. They seem to enjoy learning things from different resources be it lectures, videos, documentaries or scientific papers / articles.

We use quite a bit of TED talks, OpenCourseware and videos from Documentaries site for higher learning. You will find a LOT of info on the OpenCourseware here at Openconsortium.org, in addition to the listing at the bottom of both this link on e-learning and this one here in the Online University Courses. And of course, the new Udacity and Coursera courses have not only made the learning challenging, but also offer a even wider selection of Sciences, Math and Humanities courses.

Udacity is an outgrowth of the free computer science course that was offered through Stanford University last year, and it was founded by Sebastian Thrun and David Evans. There are currently 6 courses offered and there are discussion forums for some of these courses I'm aware of that were started by the students to help each other in learning the material. And I have been eyeing the Coursera site for a while now, and my son is super excited about their new Humanities and medical course offerings.

My kids have been trying to work on the Cryptography, Game theory, Programming a Robotic car courses from Udacity, but their schedule has been so busy to participate in the forum discussions. My son is signed up for quite a few of these courses through Coursera for the next few months until Late Fall. It is going to keep him very busy in addition to his other online learning and projects. Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Theory ranks very high on his interest list for the past year, and he has been devouring many massmedia books and online lecture videos on them. He is a bit frustrated with the courses that are available for him to do, as he finds them not getting to the depth of Quantum Theory or Mechanics as much. He is constantly coming up with questions and discussions, and is on fire some days tiring his dad and his sister out :-). I realize that some of his higher needs will be met only in an university campus or a mentor. For now, his dad tries to keep up with an interactive learning and discussion by looking into online resources together with him. I will be checking out some of the Quantum topics lectures next, and I will post what I come up with here when I am done.

Below are few 'other' learning resources that my kids have been enjoying. They are resources of online videos, video lectures, scientific journals/articles, courses etc. And there is more such resources on science/math in this blog on the Science Magazines post.

Pick The Brain is all about self growth and self help but only in a broader sense. We enjoy some of the interesting articles in varied topics.

PLos is a public library of articles and research on science and medicine. We head to this site for many answers to questions on science, health, and medicine and also for project ideas and to extrapolate existing ideas by integrating into various sub-topics.

Sciverse access research literature, quality articles on sciences.

SETI talks We miss all the cool SETI talks in the bay area that we used to attend regularly, but we catch up on some of the talks on the You Tube channel.

Futurity An online research magazine with fabulous resources on Earth Sciences, science and technology, environment, health, medicine, etc.

Highwire from Stanford University. An excellent database of full text science articles and many of them are FREE.

Video Nobel Lectures from Nobel Prize. org

GelConference Gel, short for 'Good Experience Life' is a conference that brings in people of varied disciplines such as art, business, technology etc. Videos on the site are quite interesting from people of different disciplines.

LiveScience latest science news, research and videos.

Pop Tech brings in group of innovators together from varied fields. The videos or popcasts on the site are quite interesting, inspiring as well as informational.

Muppet Labs free tutorials on programming and more.

PEOI The Professional Education, Testing and Certification Organization International offers access to a wide range of course materials here, covering topics like biology, botany,

Forum Network TV PBS site for lectures on genetics, astronomy brain science and so on.

How To Geek wide variety of nerdy topics and help.

Facing The Future curriculum and learning resource for

Biomimicry all about biomimics- conservation, environment, etc. Curriculum available as free download as well as for purchase.

There are SO MANY choices these days to help educate a motivated, curious learner at home. Or one can even motivate a bright or bored kid to think further and come up with questions using these resources. Though my kids crave for outsourced interactive learning environment through university classes or mentors or tutors, these online videos and lecture materials give them an interesting perspective into some of the unusual topics that are outside of their comfort zones, an idea of current events and research, and a wider knowledge of many different fields, some of which are their ancillary subjects of interest. And it keeps them up-to-date on some of the science and technology research outcomes while giving them interesting new questions and ideas to think about and explore in an integrated fashion.

REVISITING GERMAN

2012-04-18T02:18:00.000+05:30

I have been wanting to write this update on DS' German language lessons for a long time now. I have posted here about DS' lessons through OSU German program in the past, and he still continues with it even today. He has also been working one-on-one with a German tutor of his choice for the past few weeks, designing his own lessons the way he wants to learn; and, those lessons have been going pretty well so far too. We lucked out in finding this great German tutor when we weren't even actively looking for one.

Last Dec, DS and DD gave a concert in a German Church for a small German community in our city. One of the gentlemen in the community introduced himself and his family consisting of his wife and 2 boys to DS, and congratulated DS on his excellent violin playing. That's when DS surprised them by speaking a few words in German and expressed his interest (somewhat obsessive fascination) in German language. We came to know that the gentleman's wife taught German to the students whose first language was German in one of the top International Schools. She was thrilled to have met DS who was learning German as a second language, and agreed to tutor DS when he asked her about the same. We of course, took our time to have a trial class with her before we hired her. His goal was to learn grammar, conversation at an advanced level, and also to write freely in German as opposed to just translations, the latter of which he has been doing for a while now.

German Church

DS playing the violin

I have to admit that I am pleasantly surprised at the level of energy and enthusiasm this German tutor has brought into my son's life. I wish I had done this sooner. He is an introverted kid and is usually on his own independently working on something or the other. I have never seen him waste away time(well, if concocting varied stories and composing away for hours together on his laptop is considered wasting time---at least it is so to his Dad---then YES, he does waste time that way). But I think he was missing this valuable interactive learning of speaking and writing in German with an instant feedback and corrections from a knowledgeable tutor.

OSU has weekly conversation tutoring or practice based on the workbook/ homework materials, and one could call more than once a week if need be to have such a practice over the phone. DS had more such conversation practice when we were back in the US. The huge time difference after our sabbatical has put a dent on his time with his tutor in the OSU program. Plus, he wanted feedback on things other than what the OSU program was offering, such as his writings of short stories, essays, speeches etc in German, and he is getting this need filled by the presence of his wonderful tutor. And since she has two boys of his age and with common interests, it only adds up to his language learning and conversation fun on varied topics. Unlike many language programs where there is quite a bit of English strewn all over the courses, there is no English used in the sessions with this tutor, and DS considers that to be a huge bonus.

DS with his German tutor asking her to quiz him on vocab and grammar :-)

I remember DS taking a short story and an essay written by him for his first class which surprised the teacher very much. She spent time going over his writings correcting it while explaining the reason for better grammar and vocab which DS found to be incredibly exciting and useful. He continues to take German writings or speeches to every class. Recently I had a chat with her on his progress, and was quite thrilled to learn that he had surpassed the levels she expected of him initially, and that he was like a sponge absorbing everything at a speedy rate. She also said that his energy was infectious. She adores his unusual interests and questions, which are beyond just the basics of learning the language, which apparently pushes her to pick up the German-English dictionary often or online web searches to find the appropriate answers. She also said that she has been finding resources on culture, history, politics, geography etc based on his request to learn in addition to the German language.

Past two sessions were pretty interesting to watch because DS had expressed interest in learning about Kitchen vocabulary such as, cooking terminologies/terms, gadgets/appliances used in the kitchen, temperature conversions, timer set-ups, recipes etc etc in German. The tutor though was quite taken aback by his request, managed to give him a fabulous time in the kitchen teaching in German using her recipes from her favorite German cookbook. He has learned so much more in the past few weeks with her by means of designing his own lessons. He does proofing of German passages, writes his own sentences in the language using new vocabulary/grammar, coins essays/stories, converses more frequently and learns by making mistakes. He writes quick notes during his class sessions in a 'rough' notebook and then jots down with more elaborate terminologies and sentences at home in a 'fair' notebook.

DS' class scribbles.

Recipe in German for German Chocolate Cake :-)

In addition to the tutor sessions and OSU program, he has also been enjoying Children's Movies and Documentaries in German. His tutor carries a wonderful collection of these videos in German and she lets him to borrow weekly for some fun viewing.

If videos are of interest to you, do check the following links that I came up with doing a quick search. I am sure there are plenty more available online if you do a further search.

Learn German; a video based German lessons.

German films and festival guides around the world.

Some German animated movies. Pls preview.

Book Box.com has some cute animated short German story books. Do check out the other languages too :-).
YES German Online has some lovely lessons on German.
German Documentaries online. As the title says, German Documentaries.
Best German films for German learners. Check out the wonderful list of cool movies.
Do a search on the You Tube site for children's movies in German. Here is Ice Age 3 in German. And, Lilo and Stitch in German.

PAPER STITCHING AND EMBROIDERY THERAPY

2012-04-06T22:39:00.001+05:30

My kids and I have are currently very busy with our 10 day national orchestra workshop, which will end on a fabulous concert on the 10th of April. And the workshop and concert is happening in our home city, Bengaluru, for a change :-). DD's long distance friends are here for the workshop, and she is quite excited about meeting new friends from India and abroad. Both the kids are involved in long hours of intense practice, while getting to enjoy their time with friends. The oldest has univ exams and a paper presentation after this concert, and she has to prepare for those while finding time to socialize during the break hours of the workshop. And I am enjoying myself volunteering my time to help out the out-station musicians, providing snacks, networks, and support as needed. It is like one big family-reunion of some 150 musicians from varied parts of India and neighboring countries, different ages, abilities and instruments, all under one roof!

It's quite a party! :-)

Anyways, I am not sure if I will find time to blog for the next couple of weeks. But I wanted to share some of our paper embroidery, paper stitching work we did a while ago. I was getting ready to (re)teach embroidery on fabric to my children, and we just began with paper just for fun. But my kids liked the paper stitching so much more that they ended up doing more projects on paper than on fabric :-).

There are literally tons of resources online on Paper Embroidery. Try a search on You Tube site for some wonderful videos as well. I am just listing a few resources here.

Embroidery on Paper some nice history along with sample work as well as patterns.

Paper Embroidery tutorial from Deviant art. Deviant art is a fabulous resource for artsy kids, wherein many artists of varied abilities and ages share their work here and get feedback. And one can ask for tips and notes from the artists too.

Save the Stitches has a nice info on paper stitching, curve stitching and embroidery, with math sites and resource links.

Bottled up expressions has some lovely tips on serious, but fun, easy to understand and with pics to help in learning paper embroidery. Check out the cool work at the end of the page...

Embroidery on Paper.com has excellent tips, resources and patterns for paper embroidery.

Terryfic Times has an extensive links on all sorts of paper embroidery..books, tutorials, samples etc.

The work we have done below is mostly freehand, free stitching forms, more than embroidery. There are some imperfections in our end products. But my kids liked it that way. If you are uncomfortable using freehand drawing and stitching, you could use lids and such to draw your circles and rectangles, or unusual odd objects found around your home for outline of patterns. We recycled old invitation cards, greeting cards, drawing paper and card papers to make the following designs...but the thinner the paper, the bigger the holes would be and it can also tear easily.

The needles we used were a bit stout for the papers we used, but we liked that fact that the visible holes added some charm to the end result. But if you prefer, you could use the thinner needle, but be aware that the thinner the needle, harder it is to thread it through the eye of the needle. Also, the thickness of the paper and the type of thread used makes a huge difference in the resulting product.

Reg the thread we used, we have used plain and simple sewing thread to lovely fancy silk thread and embroidery floss. We have also used the knitting thread in some of our designs. These are lot of fun to make and quite addictive too. And they go pretty quickly once you begin the project.

What do we do with the finished products?

Well, we have created them as handmade cards. We also plan to use them as art display using a simple frame. We are currently using my parent's, aunt's handwritten letter copies to make some of these designs, which adds to beauty to the design itself while also creates a sentimental pieces to hand over for my kids when they leave home for college. You could do the same with aged book pages, old parchment papers and such. You could also stitch handwritten messages in similar manner...

Have a ton of fun if you choose to try some of these projects!!

I will update this post with more photos of the work we have done once I find some time.

Simple hexagon

Simple Teardrop pattern

Free hand cutting and threading to make this pattern

Heart and flowers

DD's paper therapy

A mathematical free stitching by DS

A flower with yellow/cream leaves(lack of green thread),

with a center crystal bead

Oil lamp by DD

Circle/Wheel

DD's first paper embroidery

Diamond made using same building blocks

BAKING MANIA...

2012-03-30T17:21:00.000+05:30

Lots of cooking, beading and crafting happened in our house during univ mini-breaks in the past couple of months. I have blogged about beading here in the past. My daughter took to an intense week of baking also during her university break. She has been looking into my FB friends' mouth-watering baking results, and she was determined to put our 'rarely used Onida convection microwave' to the maximum use. She also got her brother interested in baking! ( Hehe..should I say that FB has its positive points this way). The challenge at home is to bake with no eggs, as we are a lacto-vegetarian family! and we also try and stick to organic produce and ingredients as much as possible :-). I am quite pleased with the fact that my oldest has come up with a few interesting baking recipes on her own by purely experimenting with various organic and healthy ingredients. Check out photos of few of their cooking/baking experiments below.

My kids have enjoyed cooking in the past, but the difference now is that they can independently do baking / cooking projects without needing an adult's assistance or supervision; AND they also seem to *enjoy* the entire process that way! I think we have reached a point that DH and I can depend on both my kids to whip up some quick dinner without getting to the kitchen! THAT is something!

Oh the clean up? Well, as long as the maid is here, we have no issues with it. My kids strategically plan their projects around the time of our maid's visit to our home. Clever, eh? :-). But when we return to the US, my kids have to do a bit more independent cleaning, but I am sure that when the opportunity presents itself, they will meet up to the challenge. Hopefully!

Chocolate-Vanilla biscuits with a hint of cinnamon

Vanilla Chocolate Marble bundt / Ring cake

(baked on Pi day instead of a Pie:))

Home-made Vanilla ice cream in the freezer

Ice cream is being set in the store bought ice cream balls

(from Arun Ice creams; reused :). Nostalgic memories)

Banana Walnut bread

Surprise full-fare, healthy, organic lunch of Falafel

made from scratch (hummus, falafels, tahini sauce and the pita bread) for their DAD!

DD making Cabbage/Carrot/Beans/ Peas south Indian curry

Carrot Halwa

DD making ginger tomato rasam, while DS assists

HOGENAKKAL TRIP

2012-03-26T14:47:00.001+05:30

DH's decision to stay home every Wednesday to spend time with the kids on their projects or on field trips has been working out great. One of those days, we took off to Hogenakkal Falls, also known as the Niagara Falls of India :-). It turned out to be a fantastic idea to take advantage of a weekday to do such a trip, as the Falls was not very crowded or noisy. This was my second trip to the Falls, but after a very long time. My previous visit was when I was in middle school.

We went on a coracle ride for 2hrs, which was the highlight of the trip! Kids enjoyed it so much, and DH and I were like kids, getting excited each time the Coracle man took us close to and right under the waterfalls, getting us all wet...:). The falls were not at their peak as they would be during and soon after the monsoons, but then the coracle rides do not operate during those seasons. But we could imagine the beauty of the spot quite easily. The thing which we all remember is the absolute peace and quiet that we felt being on the coracle, except for the sound of the waterfalls when we were close to them and some occasional bird calls. Otherwise, it was absolutely beautiful silence.

Apart from taking a scenic drive through the forests and villages to get to the Falls and back, we also stopped by one of the villages and visited a total stranger's mud house and spent some time talking about their day to day life in the village. That was a wonderful experience for both kids and I.

Check out some of the pics.

Coracle guy carrying the coracle down to the river.

We climb down the steps to get to our coracle...

On the coracle and off we go...

Passengers from another coracle getting under the waterfalls

Under the waterfalls

DH enjoying getting wet while DS waits for the coracle man

to turn the coracle around..

DD anticipating her turn...

Oh wow, there are coracle mobile snacks available too!

(Our immediate concern was that the river would be polluted with plastic bags and bottles in no time, but I was told the seller does the cleaning of that as well).

Fellow passengers on the river :)

OLD and NEW: MOVIE TIMES

2012-03-18T14:48:00.002+05:30

We miss our late night movie outings to the close by theater that were so frequent as part of our homeschool life back in the US. Here, we have to drive quite a bit to get to a good theater and then there is too much of a crowd to deal with in addition. There are days when we are mentally prepared to take up that challenge and enjoy a movie outing, but most of the days, we wait for the movies to come out as DVDs and then rent it from the local friendly rental store. Some days kids rent and watch DVDs on their own while DH and I get to watch some Indian movies. But recently we watched couple of Hollywood flicks as a family and had a few memorable evenings.

Pls review the suitability for your own family.

Real Steel

(This turned out to be a surprisingly fun movie).

Hugo

(Lovely movie).

Back to the Future

(Kids' first time watching this one and they liked it)

The Artist

(Have this one at hand, but waiting for the kids' holiday break to watch this one)

We are also thinking of watching the Tamil silent movie, a romantic comedy, that came out in 1987 called, Pesum Padam (also Pushpak/The Love Chariot); directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao.

BIRTHDAYS and PI!

2012-03-14T11:53:00.000+05:30

(from Supporting Gifted Learners page)

It is Pi day today! It is also Einstein's 133rd birthday today!

Many math/science geeks around the globe celebrate the day in a special way, either by baking pies, or watching movies on pi or Einstein, memorizing pi or making pi songs, arts and crafts.

I have posted about Pi day and Einstein's birthday here, here and here in the past.

I love looking into all the fun things about Pi, Tau and what not :-).

My mathematician daughter thinks this to be an overrated celebration and argues that not many true mathematicians would care much for these celebrations, and that she does not have the time to indulge in such celebrations.

And I go, "Ouch"!

Well she is a Purist, a super busy one at it; but she bakes great pies, lol.

And I try to convince her and her brother that it is all just for fun!

Anyways, they are up for movies and baking, so we will be watching Einstein movies sometime today evening, while eating our pie baked by my kids :-).

And my son would be playing some of his compositions that his dad loves hearing repeatedly.

Apparently, it is also Akira Yoshizawa's 101st birthday. Look at this cool google logo below crafted by Origamist Robert Lang :-).

It will be too much to include an Origami session today, but we would probably look into something about Akira Yoshizawa, Father of Modern Origami.

Here are some links about him.

His Peace Tree project in 1955 in Amsterdam.

His cool instruction on folding a Butterfly.

Some wonderful information about him at Origami Maniacs blog, with some exquisite pieces created by him.

Watch Origami instructions of Akira Yosjizawa

demonstrated by Mrs. Kiyo Yoshizawa.

Many links and resources on Origami here.

I am listing a few additional resources on Pi day below. Enjoy your day!!

What is Pi and how did it originate? A wonderful old article from Scientific American.

Look at this cool article about Stonehenge and Pi and learn about stone circles.

Read about the way Princeton celebrates Pi day and Einstein's Birthday as Geek Freak Weekend. Check the video link at the bottom of the website.

The Exploratorium in SF celebrates Pi day in style. Look into some cool ideas for activities on their page here. It is their 24th annual pi-day celebration, and do visit them in-person to join their party if possible and enjoy their pi-day activities and taste a piece of the pi or join them virtually.

Wonderful Pi day information, activities and articles from NCTM.

Teachpi.org suggests some cool ways to celebrate Pi.

Great Pi day activities for Teachers.

Pi day activities for middle and high school students.

And a couple of cool Pi related videos. There are plenty online. Check them out too !

Are Shakespeare's Plays Encoded within Pi?

By Vi Hart

Pi day song: A piece of Pi (Violin music for Pi day!)

BEADING AWAY.....

2012-03-12T15:45:00.000+05:30

We have been beading like crazy for the past few weeks. It was an innocent posting of beaded jewelry pieces created by one of my friends on FB that reminded us of the whole stash of beads in the huge treasure box that we carried all the way from CA !! Both the kids and I got to work right away creating necklace pieces, bracelets and earrings. We bought a few more Indian traditional beads to make some ethnic pieces too. But we are onto creating something entirely different now...mathematical beading and other miscellaneous beaded shapes! It was DD who was into that sort of thing when young, but now all of us are hooked. We have created baskets, flowers, cubes and more out of our own designs. We are pretty comfortable in incorporating our own designs into our pieces by trial and error and coming up with something pleasing that we like ...:-). I will share those photos later.

But first a look at few of our beaded pieces that were created without any particular design in mind when we began the projects....:). If you need further resources on beading, then take a look at my past posts on Beading Resources and Beading the Friendships.

Full Disclosure: My children are creating these pieces with a goal to sell them and support my son's charity work! He is in the process of setting up websites and finding ways to create awareness and publicity for their cause. All of the proceeds will go to the cause completely! I will have a few more details about the charity very soon. Pls stay tuned!

Valentine necklace

(with red and white crystals).

Design is by DD!

This was my first project using drops where I had to create the 'stud' earring too from scratch. After some trial and error, we wire caged the red crystal and formed a stud and DD made the drops separately.

Lemon Orange Candy

By DS
He loves fun elements in his pieces.

Assorted designs made by both kids a few years ago. We are left with just couple of these pieces now :-)

DD beading away....

(taken one of those days of non-stop, intense beading times. During this photo, she had been beading for some 6hrs plus on that one spot. DS and I left sometime after 3-4 hrs and she just kept continuing...:))

Black and Red glass beads

DS' design.

Blues and Gold

Cappuccino :-)

Brown and Cream glass beads with a beautiful ethnic pendant

Valentine Crystals

DD's design.

She actually Upcycled an expensive but unused keychain as a pendant here. Isn't that really creative, pretty and professional?

Moonstone necklace

My daughter wanted me create a funky necklace and I created this multicolor tri-strand.

What do you think?

White glass beads and Gold Beads with a pretty Rajasthani Pendant by DD

My design of peridot beads with an ethnic oxidized pendant

My design ans gift for my daughter.

Pink crystals and crystal embedded rosettes.
(Photo taken soon after I completed the beading but before finishing it off with clasps:))

Amethyst

She LOVES this necklace set!

Blue crystals

I designed the blues, but then my DS suggested the silver metallic beads to accent the and break the blues. It turned out pretty great, don't you think?

HAPPY LEAP !!

2012-02-29T15:30:00.000+05:30

Leap Day occurs once in every four years. My family spent the extra day doing some pre-scheduled activities such as playing violin and Latin, but also arguing some, baking tons (relatively newer obsession with both kids) and playing Badminton. When my kids were younger, we spent some lovely time together doing Leap Year Day celebratory activities.

AND, today also happens to be 220th birthday of Italian composer, Gioachino Rossini!
Google had this rare cool two-in-one doodle below to commemorate both. I hope I am not the only one who gets excited about cool google doodles :-), but I LOVE checking the doodles, especially on the unusual days like today and learn a lot of new things in the process.

Here are some cool links on Leap Year Day fun facts and activities.

Leap Year Day from Project Britain talks about many interesting stories, customs about the day.

29 fun activities to do with kids on a Leap Year Day from homeschool classroom.

Leap Year lesson plan for K-12.

Atlanta Examiner has listed some interesting Leap Day history, fun facts, freebies and activities for kids.

Here are a few cool things contributed by my kids. Enjoy!! :-)

Leap Year is Mathematical talks about the Math behind the Leap.

Tons of interesting math here; Why we have leap days ? from Bad Astronomy blog.

Cool graphical representation and explanation for Leap Years.

And lastly, my kids' most favorite mathematician John Conway's Dooms' Day algorithm here. Here is the shortcut version.
Though not directly related to Leap Day per se, we are reminded of him whenever we talk or play the calendar/date games and puzzles and today was one of those days :-)

What is Leap Year?

RECENT HAPPENINGS...

2012-02-19T09:32:00.002+05:30

I just can't believe that it is almost end of Feb. There is loads to write about, but I am just going to rely on a few pictures to do the job :-).

A few weeks ago, DS attended a lovely talk by one of his favorite writers, Robert Kanigal, the author of The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan. He also enjoyed chatting with the author for a few minutes and was quite thrilled to hear his advice to think of MIT for Science Writing, which is one of the things DS is interested in pursuing.

DS with Robert Kanigal

He also auditioned for the national youth orchestra a couple of weeks ago (thanks to his sis for a much needed push to get him interested in auditioning) and got selected to be part of the orchestra. He was reluctant initially to add on the new orchestra in addition to the city orchestra that he was already part of, but the time management, juggling and balancing multiple interests is something he needs to learn with time.

He has been composing like *crazy*. Some of the tunes he has come up with in the recent weeks are quite impressive. His dad listens to a couple of DS' compositions quite frequently. THAT is a hard thing to accomplish with his dad who is so hard to impress :-)

DD attended the math olympiad camp for fun. She had a great 4 days at the camp in ISI, solving some cool problems ingeniously with her team and demoing them to the other students. The math olympiad team is not as strong as the teams in the US, although there were a few bright kids in the group here. She could not attend the entire camp as her university schedule clashed with that of the camp. While DD was having fun with other math geeks, DS and I kept ourselves busy doing a ton of birding and brainstorming ideas for his next research projects.

Birding photos by DS, Archenia!

Some lovely shots of Green Bee Eater

Funnel Web Spider

Greater Coucal

We had a grand time visiting Bannerghatta National Park! DS was in heaven with respect to his camera moments. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience of spotting some wonderful animals and watching them in the wild.....

Photos by DS, Archenia!

White Tiger

Black Bear

Tiger

Wild Cow

Leopard

His fav, Elephant! He has 'tons' of pictures of these guys :-)

Python

THE GREATEST BOOKS OF ALL TIME...

2012-02-05T21:45:00.002+05:30

I enjoy reading articles on varied topics in art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology etc, in Brainpickings. I found this article, The Greatest Books of All Time, As Voted by 125 Famous Authors quite interesting.

.....

“Reading is the nourishment that lets you do interesting work,” Jennifer Egan once said. This intersection of reading and writing is both a necessary bi-directional life skill for us mere mortals and a secret of iconic writers’ success, as bespoken by their p.ersonal libraries. The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books asks 125 of modernity’s greatest British and American writers — including Norman Mailer, Ann Pratchett,Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, andJoyce Carol Oates — “to provide a list, ranked, in order, of what [they] consider the ten greatest works of fiction of all time– novels, story collections, plays, or poems.”....read more here

I have not read the book The Top Ten: Writers Pick Their Favorite Books By J. Peder Zane as of yet...It sure sounds like an interesting read....

Now onto the list of books: (recorded here for my own reference...). Please preview!

Many of these titles are mentioned already in some of my previous posts on book lists here.

Top Ten Works of the 20th Century:

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust
Ulysses* by James Joyce
Dubliners* by James Joyce
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The complete stories of Flannery O’Connor
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Top Ten Works of the 19th century...

Anna Karenina* by Leo Tolstoy
Madame Bovary* by Gustave Flaubert
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The stories of Anton Chekhov
Middlemarch* by George Eliot
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Great Expectations* by Charles Dickens
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Emma* by Jane Austen

You can look up more information on the points earned by top 10 authors and more here.

MUSICAL WEEK in GOA!

2012-01-28T09:35:00.003+05:30

It has been a week since DD and I returned from our Goa trip. We have slowly geared back to the normal routine of university, online, violin, piano, vocal classes and so on. It has been a week of triumph, disappointment, learning, growth and tons of music :-).

DD participated in a national violin competition in Goa; and she was competing with some of the pros who were much older in age and had more years of experience in playing the violin. She came to know of the competition about 2 months back and worked hard on it with a lot of excitement. She knew that her chances of winning were very slim considering all the older, more experienced violinists who were taking part in the competition. Nevertheless, she was determined to participate in it for an experience of being with talented musicians and learning from the pros. Since this was not her first violin competition or solo, there was not much of preparation needed to help her feel comfortable about playing for an audience or a jury.

The new rules of the competition were a bit uncommon. There were two rounds in the competition. In the first round, 10 violinists were selected, out of which 5 of them were from the previous competition winners. This many felt was an unfair selection of 5 members. Because we saw that many who won the competition two years back did not keep up with practice due to many personal reasons and were not stellar musicians. Yet they got to be on the second round automatically without having to compete in the first round. If they had competed in the first round, a few would not have been even selected for the second round. Their playing was not up to the level of expectations. But the rule of this competition is that the 5 winners from the previous year competition get an automatic entry into the second round the following year of the competition. Then out of the 10 selected for the first round, 5 winners were selected to the second round. And finally a public concert of the 5 violinists lead the judges to choose 1st through 5th prizes. The jury was made of some of the accomplished musicians from the music departments University of Nuremberg, Germany.

DD topped the first round and moved onto the second round. DD was thrilled to hear the positive comments about her musicality, her intonation, confidence, her presentation, playing ability of the pieces by memory etc etc from the three judges. They were highly impressed with her playing and preparation. During the second round, she tied with another older player and did not make it. During the feedback, she came to learn from the jury that she extremely close to winning but they had had to choose the older player when it came to a tie-up between an older player and an younger one. She was told during the feedback session that she was regrettably too young to be chosen. And the Jury felt though it was an unfair judgement, they felt they had to work with the stipulations of the committee that organizes the competition. But the feedback she got was particularly powerful. She was told to apply to some of their music conservatories for some serious study and also got invited to their summer music programs and masterclass sessions in Germany, which opened up more opportunities for her that she will be pursuing end of this Spring.

Though DD was disappointed at first, she geared back to her bubbly self soon after. And I loved seeing that attitude of positivity in her. She thoroughly enjoyed the experience of playing at the competition and meeting some of the well known musicians/faculty. She got to play for some of the senior faculty in Goa who were very impressed by her violin playing abilities and musical potential. They want her to come back to Goa to give solo concerts, which she is now thinking seriously about. She also came to know of yet another opportunity that would enable her to play with Kazakh musicians, if she chooses to pursue that route. All in all, it was a fantastic experience for her.

In addition, she infused herself with music all week. She had a fabulous night of a music jamming session in a cafe with and for total strangers and other music lovers, which went on until 2am. People just gathered around sipping wine or coffee or lemon soda, doing sing alongs or playing the guitar or just being a great audience. DD first started off playing solos with just a few people in the room watching her play. But then hearing her play the violin, two other violinists joined her, and then came along two guitarists and couple of singers, all from the crowd that had gathered to hear the music :-). She played Goan, Portugese and Danish songs for the people from those countries in the room. She sang ABBA and Wizard of Oz songs with another Danish singer while playing the violin. THAT was a surprise to me as I had no idea she could guess the lyrics to sing along with them. She made-up accompaniments in her violin on the spot for the Goan and Portugese songs and won everyone's heart in the audience. She was in her element and it was wonderful to see her happy. AND, she found a few wonderful friends who are now on FB, which enables her to keep in touch with all of them :-). It became the most unforgettable experience of Goa for both DD and I.

Considering Goa is very touristy, it was not very surprising to see people from varied parts of the world in the cafe. Goa seems to be a place for musicians both classical and folk. We walked a lot in and around Panjim and took their cute little Goa Rickshaws with 'doors' called 'tuk tuk' :-). We wondered why they had not implemented such doors in the rickshaws of the south. And I missed having my wonderful young photographer son to capture all the beauty and serenity of Goa. And I regrettably forgot to take some of the wonderful photos of DD in her finest dresses that she wore for the competition. Duh! I would have liked to do some sight-seeing and also to get out of Panjim, where we were put up for the entire week. But maybe another time...:-).

Two wonderful people with Business and Psychology
background DD met from US and UK

This is what DD has to say about this competition:

"The competition was a fascinating experience that induced me to develop very much musically. Though I held no expectations with regard to my position in the rounds, I was of course thrilled when I passed-and topped-the first round. I believe that that the best part was the in-depth feedback from the judges that gave me a lot of information concerning my musicality, technique, etc.

Since this competition occurs every two or three years, I am unsure whether I would be able to participate again. But all in all, this was definitely a unique, wonderful experience that I would do again if I could! :)"

And I realized one more very important thing!!

Both my kids write MUCH MUCH better than I...

Oh well, I try!

Check out some cool pictures.

Music all night...

One of the Danish gal singing ABBA with DD

Gals from Denmark on a 6 week India tour.

Immersed in music....

BEST SCIENCE BOOKS of 2011

2012-01-14T08:56:00.000+05:30

Here is the list of some of the Best Science Books of 2011.

From New Scientist:

(Listed below for my own reference).

The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, Robert Trivers

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True, Richard Dawkins

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined , Steven Pinker

Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain, David Eagleman

Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman

Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World, Lisa Randall

The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, Brian Greene

Survivors, Richard Fortey

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World , David Deutsch

Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man, Mark Changizi

Here is another list of 11 Best Science Books 2011 from Brainpickings

(Listed below for my own reference)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot

Highly enjoyed by both my children.

The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World , David Deutsch

Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, Lauren Redniss

The Physics Book: From the Big Bang to Quantum Resurrection, 250 Milestones in the History of Physics , Clifford Pickover

I Have Landed: The End of a Beginning in Natural History, Stephen Gould

The Magic of Reality: How We Know What's Really True, Richard Dawkins

Field Notes on Science & Nature, Michael R. Canfield

Feynman, Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick

Culture: Leading Scientists Explore Societies, Art, Power, Technology, John Brockman

The Man of Numbers: Fibonacci's Arithmetic Revolution, Keith Devlin

Future Science: Essays from the Cutting Edge, Max Brockman

UPDATE and NEW YEAR WISHES!

2011-12-28T09:59:00.001+05:30

My apologies for not having posted much for the past few months. I took a much needed break of handling extended family affairs, meeting new and old relatives, traveling and nurturing my dad back to health from his two subsequent attacks of pneumonia. Thanksgiving and Christmas went by so quickly for us and we spent our time meeting loved ones. We had our house-warming ceremony and DS' poonal function in the beginning of this month, which brought in a lot of relatives under one roof. It was a memorable occasion by all.

Kids finished their university exams a couple of weeks ago and are on a much needed break from routine. But they have been busy with their violin, piano and vocal classes and concert preparation. Their recent Christmas concert at the Church received a wonderful welcome by the Germans. It was surprising to see so many German families under one roof, with some dressed in pretty sarees and salwars communicating in good Hindi :-).

DD is preparing for a very important event in Violin, which will take our family to Goa in Jan. I am excited about making it as a family vacation :-). She has more violin workshops coming her way which will continue to keep her extremely busy next semester. DS' orchestra begins this week and he is very much looking forward to the new experience. He was excited about the lovely response he received for part of his music composition that he had composed for a Ballet performance of Nutcracker last month. He has penned down more poems and compositions since then. Both kids are still busy with their online courses in Latin, German and Lit.

We have some 7-8 months of time left in India before we head back to the US and we are very much looking forward to new and wonderful enriching experiences of life here. Both my kids have decided to take up full time CC courses after they return to the US and I am not sure if we can be called 'homeschoolers' after that. I hope to share our plans for university admissions and such as we progress through each of those steps to help benefit others who are in similar paths. For now, all I can say is that both kids are branching out in different directions experimenting with new areas of interests and experiences and also trying to individualize on their passionate areas of what they want to see themselves doing in the future. But it is an evolving process of finding happiness, peace and balance.

Our recent Chennai visit was a wonderful one as we got to do a couple of unplanned trips to Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary and Mahabalipuram, enroute stopped by a couple of villages. We also enjoyed our recent visit to Devanarayanadurga near Tumkur this past weekend.

And oh we loved watching MI 4 movie in the theater recently with all our cousins and their families :-)

We wish you all a very Happy 2012 !!!

Few pictures (by DS) of our recent weeks below.

Poonal Pics

Gifts to DS from my bro and sis-in-law in Toronto!

Lunch after the function

DS with the priests

Mahabalipuram Pics

Five Rathas

Arjuna's Penance

Krishna's Butterball:-)

Devanarayadurga Pics

700yrs old Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy Temple

Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary Pics

Drongo

TO LET THEM FLY......

2011-11-15T00:15:00.001+05:30

For the past week DH and I have been getting to taste the life when DD would be away from home for full time college. DD is traveling for the past week playing for a 3hr Italian Orchestra performance and is expected to return sometime this week. She has been independent in the past and have managed her stays in hotel rooms by herself, but had couple of adult chaperones in the background to sort of keep an eye on things as with any situation with minors. But this trip was planned differently by the orchestra which had some specific policies about young musicians to be totally independent with minimal or no supervision. I have felt uncomfortable about it since they day it got finalized, although DD was confident and very determined to play for the orchestra.

She had to meet with the group of musicians at the airport and fly by herself with no parent volunteers to care for the group. This group was also made of adult musicians primarily and with a very few teenage kids, and DD was one of the youngest. She was scheduled to share a room with someone she got to know only in the past couple of weeks (a 20 plus yr old Indian violinist), but has managed to make friends with her in that short time. This Orchestra is made of some 70 musicians, with 40 some musicians are drawn from different parts of India (and some were from Nagaland and Sri Lanka) and the rest are Italians.

She has had some mixed experiences of good and bad so far. She has had a couple of ugly situations with one 15yr old gal/friend, who seems to be equally strong-willed and stubborn like DD. I suspected some incompatibility between them, especially with the differences in culture (American vs Indian), personalities and principles between both kids. But I was hoping that the fact that they both played different instruments in the orchestra and not sharing a room would suffice in keeping things a lot more peaceful between them. Well, I was wrong. There have been many moments of crying, anger, frustrations (along with tons of laughter too) in the past few days for DD. But in just a couple of occasions she figured out ways to keep things under control and also to avoid arguments / clashes with the other gal.

DD being so far away from home, just holding onto the cellphone as a patient listener and to speak out my thoughts carefully, that too only when I was asked for advice or suggestions by DD has been the hardest for me. I was angered by the unfair situation DD had to face at times as she described them to me, but had to remind myself repeatedly that it was her call and not mine. She confidently thought of ways to handle them differently than I had thought of. I had to admit to her several times that I was unable to gauge the situation and guide her from being so far away, and that she had to do her best in making the right decisions on her own and to trust herself. I also had to gulp my ego down my throat when my suggestions (of being just a protective mom) to completely avoid interacting with people but to stay in the room when not playing in the orchestra and to focus on just doing music was vetoed strongly by her. I realized that she was not afraid of experiences or hurt, but was interested in learning to navigating them skillfully and smartly.

I had many occasions to feel proud about how much she has grown into an intelligent and confident young lady. She is growing with a strong independent mind as to how to lead her life and handle her experiences(and some may not be of my taste and style). She is a strong kid, and being so intelligent has faced many ugly sides of life since young but has learned to brush off many of those experiences as insignificant. She is getting to experience making mistakes and learning to correct them for herself being far away from home. And though there were couple of occasions I felt a strong urge to just fly out there to give her a tight hug and get her out of those experiences of hurt, I silently held onto the phone and listened to her cry a bit or spill all her anger regarding a particular situation that was bothersome to her until she felt better. Then she was back with renewed energy to face yet another exciting and challenging day of music playing with her colleagues.

She is loving the 5 star accommodation and great Italian food and dessert choices :-). She has become extremely communicative of her thoughts while becoming a lot more independent at the same time. I received many one word text messages many times instead of phone calls :-), as she had a busy packed day and self-imposed schedules of practice and hang-out times with friends. And DH and I noticed that she has become a lot more open to new friends, hanging out with them, dancing and enjoying some parties too, but that maybe just the teenage thing.....

This orchestra has been a great experience for her so far. She is learning a lot more than music and I realize these are not something she could learn from a book or univ curriculum. And I am glad she is learning them while still living at home, but in small doses of independent life away from home. She has made new friends is having a great experience of making music together with both Indian and Italian musicians. She is extremely inspired by the Italian musicians she has met so far and is bursting with new energy to learn lot more music and also wants to travel widely. She also commented that the Italians have a hard time understanding both American and Indian English :-). She has formed small groups to practice music even during the breaks without resting and on some days, goes for 8-9hrs of intense practice. Her goal was/is to meet new passionate musicians and learn from the Masters and colleagues and she is getting to do that to her satisfaction in this orchestra. She will be faced with Univ and Music exams when she returns home and will get extremely busy. And her other all-adult-orchestra practices would begin the end of this month. She also wants to apply to some international workshops for music and math for extended periods of time next year and hopes that DH and I would let her go for the same.

DS has been busy playing cricket with dad, doing a ton of math proofs, physics, watching Teaching Company videos, playing piano and violin, birding, and now making plans to take up his internship with a wildlife biologist. In addition both DD and DS have to prepare for both violin and piano Christmas concerts / solos and are quite excited about the same. DS is missing his sister very much and so is his sister. But I know they will be back on their path of arguing for every single thing and driving me nuts all day after her return. But I guess that's what happens with siblings who are very close. And yes, I am getting my earmuffs ready.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

A QUICK UPDATE!

2011-10-28T14:51:00.001+05:30

Since I have been getting emails from a few of my readers regarding my absence here, I guess it is time for a quick update :-).

I have been extremely busy caring for my family and dad for the past month. My dad has been ill for the past few weeks, first with Pneumonia and then followed by severe neurological pain episode that is yet to get under control. My dad suffers from a neuro condition(Glossopharyngeal Neuralgia) for the past 8yrs or so, and this is one of the biggest reasons for our sabbatical in India----to care for him. His new medicines are slowly taking effect and we are very hopeful that his pain would be under control with time. My Dad is doing a lot better now.

DD will be writing her first part of her music exam this week and followed by her second part of the exam sometime in Nov. She is also continuing to be busy with her college and online classes. She is looking forward to her Delhi concert in Nov. And DS is wrapping up his semester work and is looking forward to his internship opportunity in the forest in Dec.

We celebrated Deepavali with extended family and had a great time. This year kids boxed and distributed sweets and savories to many friends and families.

Busy packaging sweets and savories for distribution...

Savories..

Sweets...

Sample box...

Diwali celebrations in cousin's apartment complex...

Party time.

2011-09-28T20:53:00.004+05:30

My posts have been dwindling here of late. We have been busy unpacking and settling in our new residence. The move has been faster than our previous move, so I suppose it's progress! Kids are extremely busy with their live and online classes, violin / piano / vocal / orchestras and many other extracurricular activities. Our new neighborhood is lovely. We have a new maid and a gardener. Sorry, no pictures of our new home yet.

We also have new additions in our family. Kids brought home four Budgies last week and we are enjoying their company immensely :-). They are VERY lively, noisy and playful, offering us hours of entertainment, lol. Thanks to a fellow homeschooling mom/blogger and my FB friend Annie, we know a bit more about raising them than when compared to when we brought them home from the pet store.

Recently kids got an opportunity to work with a potter in Pottery Town and made a quick pottery project on the pottery wheel. We have arranged for the potter to offer a series of projects for the kids to make. We plan to involve other kids for a fun interactive creative sessions.

Potter Murali getting ready to show a demo...

Potter Murali

DD making her piece

DS is completing his piece

End result

DD is trying out a new Latin online program as opposed to continuing with Lukeion this semester. She loved Lukeion classes and the teacher, but the timing and pace was a bit too much to handle for DD with her already full plate. She is enjoying the new program so far and she may have something to share as a comparison of both programs which I will post here. DS is also trying Latin through Lone Pine and so far has been enjoying the course.

Kids completed their Aeromodelling course last week. They had to learn some woodworking to be able to create their models (as opposed to creating them from pre-made kits). The young mom and engineering mentor who taught them the course was wonderful with both kids and the kids loved both their practical and theory time with her. She had some very interesting things to report about both children at the end of the course. Kids want to go back to doing some advanced courses with her in the future weeks.

One of the models the kids made....

DS is in the polishing the mirror stage of his telescope this month and it has been a very slow process. He also attended a wonderful Advanced Astrophotography talk by an astrophotographer from Germany. Since the star party season begins here this month, DS is very much looking forward to those gatherings. DD is preparing for yet another concert in Delhi, this time an Italian Opera. She is pretty thrilled about playing in the Opera as this will be her first Opera concert. And, DS is looking forward to his Christmas concert this yr for both Piano and Violin.

What else is new? My DS has taken a strong liking to drinking coffee!! Apparently he was consuming coffee regularly during his rainforest trip along with his colleagues(adults). What started off as something to taste from my cup has now turned him begging for a small cup of coffee in the cafes:). Bad parent, you say! It is not a big deal in India where many young kids are exposed to coffee. I began drinking coffee in my elementary years. BUT I had not exposed my kids to caffeine at an younger age with the hope that I could delay their exposure until college years! Well, as my DS says often...he IS in college:). Hopefully he will learn to consume it in moderation.

Enjoying a cup of cappuccino...

We are getting ready to celebrate Golu / Navrathri this week. It will be a simpler affair then the previous year due to extreme busy schedules the kids are carrying this semester. Will post pictures soon....

Happy Navrathri !!

POTTERY TOWN

2011-09-23T09:59:00.003+05:30

We found the time at last to visit Pottery Town during Ganesh Chathurthi, a small town made of just a few streets, where for generations of potters have been-and still are-busy at work creating some fabulous pieces of clay art. Depending on the festive seasons they create--Ganesha idols during Ganesh Chathurthi, Krishna idols during Krishna Jayanthi, Diyas(clay lamps) during Festival of Lights and Diwali season. They create mud pots, flower pots, varied idols, vases, cups etc during the non-festival times. These potters are usually comprised of family members and some are educated in English medium schools and speak decent English. Their homes are filled with clay and art pieces at various stages of creation. Some are left as clay form while others are painted and cured.

Marching of the Ganeshas :)

Ganesha everywhere!!

Ganesha clay form

One of the family members painting the Ganesha idols

Ganesha idols painted and ready to be sent to the market to be sold

One of the artisans spray painting an idol

In Bangalore, they celebrate Gowri pooja along with Ganesh Chathurthi, which is not in practice as much in Chennai(my home-town)

Lovely colors and beautiful dolls

Colorful idols...

We were very surprised at their hospitality, patience in answering our innumerable questions, even taking the time to demo a few items during their busiest season of business...Ganesh Chathurthi. Their homes were swarming with people of all walks of life, even some foreigners taking pictures, conversing with the potters and some buying Ganesh Idols too :-)

My children were saddened to learn that despite the beauty of these Ganesha clay idols, the tradition is to dissolve them in destined water bodies around the city after Ganesh Chathurthi. We, of course do not follow this tradition-the pained Ganesha idols are much too pretty to bear dissolving.

Pottery Town is a haven for photography enthusiasts, which is one of the reasons my son was interested in this visit despite the crowds that he tries to avoid usually...We are sure to be visiting the town again.

RANDOM SNAPSHOTS.....

2011-08-30T16:43:00.000+05:30

DS is polishing his telescope mirror with his colleagues.....

Physics discussion

Part of the beautiful lawn/garden in the new home and crazy-happy DS :-)

Windtunnel, IISC

One of the many visits to relatives' home with the cousins....

DD riding the scooter with her aunt....

One of DS' study subjects....the garden frog in our foyer....

I think this guy was really conversing with my DS....

DD and DS attending one of the concerts....

This one was by a Swiss Violinist and Pianist couple....

DS shopping for texts in the Univ book store.

DD and DS shopping for fountain ink pens with their grandpa

with a bunch of book purchases.....

DS riding the scooter with his uncle....

WE ARE STILL HERE.........

2011-08-30T00:38:00.003+05:30

Wow! It has been 3 weeks since I posted here. There is lots to share from our end, but too little time and motivation to do the posts. It has been a year since our sabbatical to India and a lot of exciting changes have happened in our lives this past year. For one, we are in the process of shifting to a new residence after deciding on extending our sabbatical for one more yr :-). Much of this month was spent on house-hunting and at last we found a home to our liking. Movers will be here next week and we will begin settling down in our new home (with a huge lawn/garden space that my family just loves, if I may add :-)).

Although I still limp a bit, my leg is doing much better. I am back to organizing classes and doing quite a few fun things together with my family and few of the homeschool community friends. Kids have grown up a lot more physically, emotionally and mentally. My daughter has grown way taller than me and is now past her dad's shoulder who is a 6 footer himself. My son has lost much of his baby face and is now beginning to look like his dad's mini-version. Both are double-digits and one is a teen and another getting very close. For the past year, kids have moved past and away from just academic goals and took the time to concentrate on more long term, meaningful life goals, growth and principles, in addition to their passions. There were difficult patches to navigate as a family and wonderful parenting moments of guidance, understanding, support and strength too.

DS came back from his fabulous rainforest expedition trip with 1000s of pictures, great memorable experiences, new friendships/mentors and more appreciation for nature, conservation and wildlife. I AM SO glad to have made the decision to send him on this expedition. I realize that this is something that would stay with him forever. According to DS' wildlife photography mentor, some of his wildlife and nature shots are much more mature and sophisticated that some of the adult photographers. I am sure his mentor is being extremely nice and supportive of DS' interests. Of course, now DS is looking forward to upgrading his lenses and camera, which would require us to shell out more money. But his passion and camera sense is very convincing to me and DH to finance some of his needs. And he has begun broaching the subject of wanting to charge us a fee for his portrait shots of his family and relatives as a way of saving some funds for his purchases(yikes!). I will post the links to his pictures once he gets them all uploaded in his blog. He has become extremely busy with the online and live classes ever since the his return from the trip. He still manages to work on his telescope and he is in the polishing his mirror currently with his dad's help.

DD begun with once a week university classes but now attends 4 times a week. She is trying out a new Latin program at the 300/400 level through Lone Pine this Fall, as she wanted a less intense course that would give her more time to spend on her college courses, art and research pursuits. Also, she wanted a program that would touch upon some history, culture along with translations. We will have to wait to see how this one works out for her. DS has been bit by the Latin bug too. He began his Latin 100 through Lone Pine along with his German through OSU and Japanese through Rosette Stone. DD has also joined her brother in doing a Linguistics course through Online G3 for fun. Both kids have begun their 9 month art course that gives them a wider exposure to various performing, visual and fine art components/ fields. We will have to wait and see how the program pans out and keeps up to its promise. Both were quite thrilled and excited by their Radio Jockeying, Charcoal drawing, and Theater programs so far. Both have begun their Aeromodelling course this month and are thoroughly enjoying the sessions. Origami sessions have ended and it is time to move on to newer interests. We have found a few clay-modeling and Stained Glass studio classes that we would like to try those for the next few months. We are quite excited about spending time with the small potters community in Pottery Town that have been involved with pottery for generations. Kids will get to make their own Ganesha out of clay this week with the help of an experienced potter. Music classes are going way awesome for both kids. And both are having a lot of fun quality time with their grandpa and other relatives :-).

I was of two minds when I thought of extending our stay. Kids and DH really do miss their US home and life and would prefer very much to return to their life back there sooner. And DH's sabbatical extension beyond Dec' 11 isn't something very clear at this point, and kids very much wanted to be back in the US if their dad was unable to extend it for another yr. But then DD realized it would be best for her to finish up her UK music board diploma exams while here, along with some more in-depth Indian and western music learning and exploration. She is also interested in trying out couple of research projects in the math/CS field. DS wants to work with couple of mentors on his research projects and out-of the box interests, which he would not probably have a chance to explore back in the US. He is also interested in going back to the rainforest for an internship with the wildlife biologist, which seems to be one of his current interests. We are just in the process of finding something meaningful to our entire family to spend our time on helping and volunteering which is quite exciting to us all. I felt some more time with our immediate family here was imperative and just one year spent on handling the chaos of settling in was just not satisfying enough :-).

We are having a wonderful time in India with all the good and bad experiences life brings us here, and we hope to spend another few months here before we head back to the US. And isn't that all life is about? --- Taking it all in the stride and enjoying every bit of life that comes our way, while growing, learning and evolving together to be better living beings? I think we are getting to understand the meaning of life and goals better as days roll by.....and quite excited about what the future has in store for us......

MORE OF MYSORE....

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Bandipur National Park is known for its important Project Tiger reserve, and was one of the destinations in our mini-trip. We decided to take a Safari, which turned out to be a fun one, even though it was very disappointing to see the terrible condition of the buses that were run by the Karnataka Forest Dept...The seats were extremely disappointing (see pic below). The safari tickets have pre-allotted /reserved seat numbers, and the bus is big enough to hold up to 20 members.....

The next time if we were to do a safari such as this, we would probably go through a private safari through Jungle Lodges, which takes at the most 6 people in their jeep. I wish we had planned to cover the Mudumalai National Park in Tamil Nadu and Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala while in Bandipur, as the Bandipur National park connects both these parks.

We did not spot a Tiger of course, but plenty of other wildlife such as Wild boar, elephants, spotted deers, macaque monkeys, Gray Hanuman Langur --black face monkeys, Sambar deers, ....even spotted a few birds .... Nilgiri flycatcher, peacock, hornbill, storks, vultures.....

The condition of the seats in the safari bus run by the Karnataka Govt....

No one was issued a ticket to sit here...nevertheless, it is pathetic that the buses are not maintained as much for the price we pay per person....

Mysore Palace....all lit up :-)

Lovely Photo by my son, Archenia.

I have no idea how he managed this one...impressed with this.

Inside Mysore Palace...

We had a lovely, knowledgeable, experienced tour guide...

St. Philomena Cathedral

My son was overflowing with ideas for creative photography and was quite addicted to take pics of this fabulous architecture...

RANDOM SNAPSHOTS...

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Pics from our recent Mysore road trip.

Mausoleum of Tippu Sultan...

We had a fabulous, extended boat ride in Ranganathittu, with a very knowledgeable guide. It is a bird paradise as my son calls it....We have way too many pictures of this beautiful bird sanctuary, but I am posting only a couple of pictures here. It was an unforgettable experience.

At Ranganathittu....

We were really close to the crocs....

Painted Storks....

Swallow nests underneath the rocks...

Our memorable trip to Channapatna Toy factory and showroom...Read about the eco-friendly, wooden, non-toxic Channapatna toys. Here is an interesting tidbit info on Michelle Obama's purchase of Channapatna Toys to adorn the White House :-).

Colorful array of toys...Colors by usage of vegetable dyes...

More Toys and display items..

Even more...

We came home with tons of colorful hand-made, wooden bangles:))

And of course, not without couple of old fashioned spinning TOPS:-)

Our visit to the Channapatna Toy factory took us by surprise...There are just a few artisans at work in a small one-room 'factory', with very old-fashioned tools and equipments, busy creating these fabulous pieces at ease. Way too cool, eh?

The factory...

Milk wood used in creating these toys..

Drive towards 700yr old Himavad Gopalaswamy Temple...

Picturesque mountain ranges...

The temple is situated at the ht of 1454 mts above sea level and is always covered with fog most of the time of the yr...

Temple covered with fog :-) It was extremely windy too...Oh, see the dung on the steps...? That is Elephant dung! ...It indicates that a wild elephant was around here sometime ago:-)

The temple and the area surrounding the temple is frequented by wild elephants...

Mother and baby elephant near the temple...

ART, MUSIC, MOVIE and SOME NEWS!

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I'm not being very creative with my post-titles....:(

....... Kids are having a grand time with their cousins who are visiting us from the US. My immediate family members are getting together with us in India after 8 long years! Kids took their cousins for a taste of art classes here and of course, my sis got lured into making her own glass painting project :-). We even managed a mini-3-day-road trip to Mysore and had a fabulous time. I will post pics of our trip soon.

Cousins having fun with Lego Mindstorms....

Programming...

At Sangam in Srirangapatna...

ART: The new art work came back from the frame shop last week. We have done so much of art this past year that we don't know what to do with all the framed pieces. The thought of giving them away as gifts to loved ones did occur, but each of us feel special about some of the art pieces that it never works out to give them away, lol. Kids hope to allot a space to create an art museum sorts to display all the pieces. Since we intend to create more art, it is becoming an issue of storage too. For now, all of our art pieces are neatly placed in the Puja room....

My Glass...

My first Tanjore...I am pretty pleased with the outcome although I can point

out some imperfections in my work below.

My glass...(with other framed art behind ..:))

DD's Tanjore...

This apparently was her first Tanjore, albeit a simple one.

Music: DS has been composing music like crazy of late. When one of my friends asked him if he would compose something for her Ballet Opera performance, he was so excited that he has been on a roll with it. It is going to be an interesting experience for him as he is learning to compose to a situation by learning the background, the story, the emotions and such situation of the play / dance for which he needs to compose appropriately. I am so glad my friend offered this chance to him as he is SO psyched about creating music for a purpose :-). He began piano classes to help with his compositions and the classes are way awesome. His music teachers are his first admirers of his compositions and invariably feel very moved and teary eyed when his compositions are played. He found a way to compile all his compositions digitally.

Movie: Kids were waiting impatiently for their cousins to get here to watch Harry Potter with them in the Inox Theater. It was a wonderful dinner and a movie experience for all. My kids were quite emotional about the last HP movie. They want to do a HP movie marathon again in the next couple of weeks.

News: A lot of exciting changes are happening in our family of late. Our family has decided to extend the stay in India for one more year !!! And, we are house-hunting.....looking for a new home to move into this month.

DD will begin her university classes at the Tata Institute while DS will begin his internship in the Biological Research center this August. DS is taking off to a Rainforest Expedition with his National Geographic photographer-mentor this August as well. Both kids are also beginning their ...ahem.....dance lessons this month!!! Yep, my kids at last found the perfect dance classes, so we are all quite excited about their new lessons :-). I will post an update as the classes evolve with time.

DD has yet another violin concert coming up in November. She will be playing for a 3hr Italian Opera performance and she is super excited about the new pieces she will be learning for the same. And DS is preparing for his own solo performance scheduled to happen in October.

AND....I am getting so much better with my mobility and leg movements. I am able to walk a bit without the walker too :-). I am hopeful about walking 100percent without the walker in a few weeks. Can't wait for that to happen :-)....

We restart our birding activities this week and it has been a long time since I joined my birding friends. That will be my first test of walking outdoors in a nature trail after surgery....

....Hope you are all having a fabulous time as well!