Humour

May 23, 2019

When in a Preschool, be talkative

My research as a doctoral student is with preschoolers. What this means is that I spend a ridiculously (and yet fabulously) large amount of time in preschool classrooms for data collection. Following are a few of the best conversations I have had with tiny humans, and my take on the same –

  • The one where the kid can’t believe I just come to their school to creepily stare at them for hours, and call it ‘work’ (Part 1)

Kid, sitting on the grass in the playground, staring at me: “Why are you here everyday?”

Me, taken by surprise: “Oh, I do some work here. And I come to meet you all”

Kid, looking supremely unconvinced: *gets up and walks away to play*

  • The one where the kid can’t believe I just come to their school to creepily stare at them for hours, and call it ‘work’ (Part 2, with a different kid)

Kid, looking at me curiously: “Why are you here all the time?”

Me, used to this question now, confident of my ability to answer: “I do work here, and I get to meet you all and see what you’re doing”

Kid, slightly confused, but look of understanding dawning on his face: “So you work for the school?”

Me: “Kind of”

Kid: “So you’re here all day?”

Me, realizing this explanation is getting messier: “No, I also have to go work at my own school after I leave from here.”

Kid, confused again: “So you have 2 jobs?”

Me, relieved at the easy culmination of the conversation: “Yes”

Kid, walking away, murmuring mysteriously: “I also have two different jobs”

Me, wondering whether to follow up, or accept that a 5-year-old believes he has two jobs: *shrug, go back to collecting data*

  • The one where the kid is sincerely worried about these adults being responsible for the world

Kid, at housekeeping play centre, making pretend food: Here, I made you a burger

A visitor to the classroom, the recipient of the food, enthusiastically engaged in pretend play: “Oh yum! This is great! What all’s in here? I wish we had some ketchup to go with it. Also, do you know, there’s a restaurant nearby which serves a burger which is kind of like this. Have you ever been there?”

Kid, with the most concerned look on her face: “This isn’t real food, it’s plastic”

Me, looking away, trying not to burst out laughing, then turning back, and kid staring at me with a concerned ‘is-this-guy-for-real’ look on her face

  • The one where the kid is concerned about my mental health and leads me to an epiphany

Me, walking into the classroom, having just heard a joke and still smiling about it: Hi, M! *smiling at M*

M, with a broad smile: “You’re actually happy today!”

Me, aghast and confused at what emotion she thought I’d been exhibiting every day in class before this: “Am I not happy everyday?”

M, shrugs, walks away, conversation over

Me, to myself: They know about my resting bitch face. Also, it apparently looks like my whole life is just sorrow…what have I been looking like?! *cue existential crisis*

  • The one where I am rechristened (multiple times, and counting)

Kid: “Are you leaving now?”

Me, packing up: “Yes, I am. I’ll be back next week!”

Kid, calmly, and happily: “Okay. Bye Amber!”

Me, stopping in the motion of hitching my backpack onto my shoulder, and looking confused: “Who?”

Kid: “Amber”

Me, looking at teachers, lost: “Amber?”

Teacher, smiling and rolling her eyes, to kid: “This is not Amber. It’s Sanchari”

Kid, supremely unconcerned, looking at me: “You’re Amber now. Bye Amber!”

Other kids at the table, chiming in: “Bye Amber!”

Me, coming to terms with the inevitability of the situation: “Okay then. Bye!”

(Note: I have also been called Rachel and Claire)

  • The one where the kid reminds me to be in the present moment, and chill out

Me to the kid who comes up to me, hugs me (I hug him back), while teacher is calling everyone to the carpet for group time: “Hi. Thanks for the hug. You need to go sit on your spot now”

Kid, fascinated with my papers: “I see?”

Me, showing him the sheet, then getting his attention again, while teacher continues to try to get everyone to the carpet: “You need to be on the carpet now”

Kid to me, still looking at my papers, with a lot of gravitas, holding out his hand in a stopping motion: “Woah. Wewax (relax)”

Me, once again trying not to laugh out loud: “Okay. But you still need to sit on your spot”

  • The one where I got a much-needed reminder of why I do this stuff

Me to kid B, doing one-on-one activities with kid A, while kid B proceeds to climb onto my back, hugging me from behind: “Hey, can you go play somewhere else for now?”

Kid B, moodily: “Why?”

Me: “Because I don’t want (Kid A) to get distracted while she’s doing this activity”

Kid B, emphatically: “But I love you!”

Me, on the verge of tears, melting away: “I love you too. You can be here if you’re quiet”

(Note: Kid B was the supposed ‘problem child’ of the class, but became my favourite by the end of the year. She was the one I always got impromptu hugs from, and the one who insisted on spending her last day in school mostly cuddling with me. I miss her.)

June 22, 2016

Late-Night Musings : Trust Issues

Trust Issues are the worst kind of issue to have. Ever. They colonize your mind and seep into your very neurons, making it hard (if not impossible) to open up and give up your inhibitions.

And ironically enough, the only way to get over trust issues, is to actually…

…wait for it…

…trust someone!

(And then keep worrying and getting anxious about whether that person is actually worthy of trust or not, and whether or not you’ve made a royally messed-up decision by opening up again or not.)

Oh the barriers we create for ourselves! How happy we would be if we could set our minds free instead.

PS. This is the most inconvenient thing to begin thinking about late at night.

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(from the net)

December 9, 2013

Debaters Galore

Hello hello! My semester-end exams begin tomorrow, but when you get a good idea for a post, you just have to post it, y’know? Especially if it comes to you a day before your exam. I actually do that a lot. Heh.

Well, I digress, as usual. Exams are a topic I can go on and on about. And I’m pretty much doing all this stuff (see link) right now.

OKAY I’M RAMBLING.

What I actually want to talk about is related to Facebook. So, I joined Facebook when I was 16 and I’ve seen it change a lot. I’ve also met various kinds of people and seen how they are on FB and how they are in person.

In the beginning, when you just join, it was all about making innane statuses and finally building up the courage to start posting photographs. Then you ‘Like’ stuff and comment on what others said or did (wid vry abbreviatd, twistd eng cuz it ws kewl).

Now however, things seem to have gone up a notch.

We’re all grown ups, with numerous opinions (or at least trying to form them) and whenever someone posts something, there will inevitably be that one person who has a differing view. Then, depending on the personalities/free time/interest levels of the two parties, the topic would either be debated upon in detail, with emphatic and vehement production of facts and sarcastic/furious diatribes, or one would just say “Yeah maybe”, and the conversation would more or less conclude. In the middle of it all (especially in the former kind of…’discussion’) there will be some others joining one of the camps or trying to calm down the situation; however, if its the second case, the aspiring peacemaker is usually attacked by one of the ‘adversaries’ for want of a better word.

I, for one, am pathetic at debating. However I do love witnessing well-argued debates and am very happy with myself if I’m, surprisingly, ever able to debate well myself. But my paralyzing fear is that I’ll get into a debate and get stuck in the middle with no way of further arguing my point *shudder*

Now, the key phrase here is ‘Well-argued’.

If the discussion is well-argued and the two debaters support their views rationally, I have no objection to it. However, sometimes (please understand, SOMETIMES) there are these discussions which are held with no requirement for it whatsoever. It’s as if some people have been told that being offended and arguing is the new ‘cool’, and they must indulge in this if they are to be accepted into society. So some discussions turn out to be like the following –

A : Purple is a wonderful thing and socially, culturally and economically, it makes more sense to love purple.

B : Purple is an outrage and we should all denounce it! Orange is the new purple!! And I demand justice!

A : Do you really think orange can bring in a change? There are too many options to show that purple is, psychologically speaking, much ahead of orange and will bring about world peace!!

B : May I remind you that orange is a fruit too? Purple is just purple. So technically speaking, orange is much more versatile and can change the world. We need revolution before world peace!

(Disclaimer : Kindly note, this is not an actual discussion/argument. It has no basis whatsoever in reality)

I got pulled into a debate, much to my chagrin, a few weeks back. But I was relieved to realize that I could rationally put my point across, and the discussion ended amicably (at least so it seemed). My fellow debater, who was against the motion (so to speak), made some points too and there was no scandalous resorting to personal statements to prove our points. That was a relief.

So please don’t get me wrong. I am impressed when people come together and have wonderful, respectfully and rationally argued debates about some current topic; it’s neat, and sometimes helps me consolidate my views too.

But it’s also worrying when you know that there are some people who are nitpickers and begin an argument just because they feel like it.

Do you think all debates are good debates?

June 26, 2013

Such Joy

The absolute satisfaction (and cramped fingers) when you succeed in turning 10 metres of this…

1

…into this…

IMG-20130626-00394

rainbow beautiful

*Happy sigh*

In other news, I just realized my blog has now got a 101 followers!! Wow! Thank you followers! This is so fantabulous! Thank you for sticking around! *hug*

What awesome stuff did you do lately?

P.S. WordPress tells me I’ve been ” wordpressing since 2 years! Woohoo!!

P.P.S. Ohmygawd what happened to the WP dashboard? Why is it all black?! 

[EDIT to P.P.S. : I got to know here]

March 7, 2013

Hello. Do I know you?

I got this message on Facebook a few days back :-

unknown FB msg

Now, the sentiment expressed is perfectly fine. Very romantic and angsty and all that.

But this is from a person who I didn’t know existed till I saw this message. So I’m slightly puzzled as to whether he’s confused me with someone else, or he just likes asking 20 questions to every stranger on Facebook. Mysterious, yeah?

October 30, 2011

You Just Can’t Hate ‘Em

It was with ill grace that I started peeling soaked almonds on the evening of Bhai Dooj. We were going to have a family get-together of sorts and by chance, a lot of my mom’s cousins were here in Delhi. Hence this meant that there would be a lot of people here for Bhai Dooj. I’d been pretty excited about the whole thing because I was going to meet many people after a long time, especially a lot of cousins. But all this was driven out of my head when I was woken up from a delicious afternoon-nap and handed a medium-sized bowl full of evil, brown nuts.

Basically, my thought process went something like this – what was this whole event other than a chance for people to come and ravenously wolf down food, talk amongst themselves and then go? What was the use of all these ‘get-togethers’ and all anyway? Was it going to help me hold on to relatives even if I wasn’t too fond of them or vice-versa? So why on earth did we have to go through this whole charade? Why?!

This mood continued till the time I was peeling those bloody almonds (do not, EVER, voluntarily take up the task of almond-peeling. It’s tedious, irritating and in the end, you wish you could ask Hermione for that spell she gave to Neville so that he could get all those frog-guts out from under his fingernails, because you’ll most probably need it, though not for frog-guts). Then, thankfully, I could go get ready and sit pretty till ‘the guests’ (yeah I was still slightly pessimistic) arrived.

And then, my mood changed.

You know, when you meet people you love after a long time, that first look hits you with so many memories. You remember the good, bad and best moments and you think, it’s so great seeing them again! Being surrounded by family is just so beautiful. I feel sorry for those people who have the chance to be surrounded by a loving family, but refuse it because they feel it’s overrated or unnecessary.

I, being an only child, feel the need for cousins ever so much more than many others. And I feel blessed to have cousins who love me, maybe almost as much as they love their own siblings. So how could I ever think they were coming only for the food? As my closest cousin sister chatted away with me at top speed and her younger sister followed our ‘big sister conversation’ carefully and added certain points at times, the smaller ones either got pally with each other and ran all around the house, or followed me around to complain about someone or ask me for something or just be with me. I’ve never missed out on playing the elder sister, thanks to all this. And need I say…I love every bit of it.

Coming to the uncles and aunts, most of them have seen me grow up from a newborn baby to the twenty year old girl they see today. They still reminisce about my baby days and take an active interest in my future life. Not everyone is as warm, kind and loving, but majority of them love me. And that’s what counts.

Utterly ashamed of having harboured such negative feelings about people I love so much, I threw myself into all the work to be done and helped all I could. And in the end, even though my mom, dad and I were left with piles of plates to sort out, lots of leftover food (because my mom insists on the fact that there should never be less) to store away, we were happy and upbeat. We talked about how this cousin had suddenly shot up in height or how that tiny baby had picked up the phone receiver and said “Hewo” into it, and who all we had to thank for some things they’d brought along. In short, we had loved it, in spite of all the work to be put in, before and after.

So, when’s the next get-together? :D

October 5, 2011

Here I am, unsurprisingly

After spending some quality time on two previous blogging sites, here I am!

Fellow bloggers who know me, must be labelling me fickle-minded. I myself feel like a leaf blowing in the wind, getting diverted with the slightest apprehension. Actually, the reason for these changes is the fact that while one site started  acting weird and unmanageable, the next one is more a site for sharing already-published stuff and was hence, I felt, stifling my urge to write. And now I’m here.

I think I’m gonna stick to this one. Especially since people will ostracize me otherwise I’m getting fed up of my own frequent blog-hopping.

Hello all!