make sentences

today i spent 2 hours helping my neighbour's son with his school homework. he was learning new words and had two words with the letter 'h', the words being 'hawker' and 'hurry'.

and it took me a whooping two hours to be through with the sentences. i tried my best that he understood the meaning and usage of the words and also had to ensure that the sentence was of the level for a grade 2 kid. some observations

- is 'hawker' a word fit for a grade 2 kid to learn.

- how is the kid going to make sentences when he is not aware things called noun / tenses /verb / articles etc.

- the kid had absolutely no motivation to study. he just wanted to be through with his homework. he also knows that students cannot be made to repeat classes in primary section i.e. no student would fail till class five. you cannot tell him that you will fail if you don't study.

- he was not interested in concentrating on learning, his mind kept on wandering.

after the 'class' i wondered how i cleared my school in straight 12 years. may be thats what you call Grace of God.

Triple Filter Test - True/Good/Useful

Today the Parish Priest shared a small story during the homily. Found it very meaningful. The theme for today's liturgy was 'What comes out of a man is what defiles him'. Here is the story i got online

In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC) Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said
"Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?"
"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."
"Triple filter?"
"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"
"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."
"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"
"No, on the contrary..."
"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"
The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.
Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"
"No, not really"
"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor Good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?"
The man was defeated and ashamed.

Independence Day Speech at Chruch

Was assigned today to give a short speech in hindi and english on the occasion of Independence Day. Jotted down some words, not sure if I really meant them. But still, the speech was delivered.

Today we are celebrating our 66th Independence Day – 65 years of striving for progress, development, equality – trying to make a respectable position for India in the world order. There have been high points, there have been low points as well,  but overall the journey has been fulfilling

Be it exemplary production of agricultural production in the last fiscal or our improved performance in sports, it sure did bring a smile on each Indian face and made our hearts swell with pride. On the other hand, we also witnessed some unfortunate events like natural calamities, civil unrest, economic crisis. But we as a country have overcome all these obstacles to emerge as a stronger nation.

Our growth might have been slow at times, but it has been steady, bringing us to a vantage point from where we can accelerate for higher growth. India's 1.2 billion population striving hard for a better tomorrow, trying to make India a better place to live.

The government has been playing its role in the process of growth and development. Some of its measure and policies were successful while some failed to achieve their purpose. India also witnessed strong agitations and demonstrations against corruption and malpractices in the system. But all these have made the Indian Citizen more aware and demanding.

As responsible citizens, we should try and play a more constructive role in building and strengthening the nation. We need to rise above the limitations of cast, creed, religion and work as one nation – its time we put 'India First'

As the ancient proverb goes – we have not inherited this earth from our ancestors but have borrowed it form our children – we need to channelize our efforts and capabilities to build a better nation for our future generations

Long Live Independent India.

‎​INSTALLING HUSBAND.....

got this forward from the boss. really funny.

A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy..

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewellery applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0,MONEY 3.0 and CRICKET 4.1 .

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system. Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5..3 to fix these problems but it just doesn't seem to work.

What can I do?

Signed,.......................

.

Reply...

DEAR Madam,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0 update.If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5..However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Beer 6.1..

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crash Husband 1.0.To summarize - Husband 1.0 is a great program You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Hot Looks 7.7.

Good Luck Madam!

IT SUPPORT DESK.....

DIY #Tips4Love

courtesy @KEYAsMamma

• Love yourself first

• Start each day with a hug

• Praise ur spouse for his qualities. Make sure you are honestly doing that.

• On Weekends serve breakfast in bed.

• Say "I love you" every time you part ways

• Compliment freely and often.

• Appreciate and Celebrate your differences.

• Live each day as if its your last #tip4life

• Write an unexpected letter or just a small note.

• Plant a seed together and nurture it to maturity.

• Gift his/her fav. Flowers Without any special occasion.

• Plan a date without kids. Once in a month.

• Spend weekend gardening together.

• Kiss unexpectedly.

• Seek out beautiful sunsets together.

• Be forgiving.

• Apologize sincerely.

• Read out ur first letter together.

• Remember the day of ur proposal.. and recreate it.

• Watch a Romantic Classic movie.

• Say "I love you" with your eyes.

• Be your spouse's biggest fan.

• Let her/him cry in your arms.

• Laugh at his joke. Even you know the joke.

• Play childish games. Like snakes n ladders or ludo. Spend time together.

• Give the love you want to receive.

• APPRECIATE her/his inner beauty.

• Do something Arousing.

• Encourage wonderful dreams.

• Commit a public display of affection.

• Walk barefoot on the beach together.

• Remember the vows if you have wrote any...or the promises you made .

• Respect each other.

• Have a picnic indoors on a rainy day.

• Put Him/her first in your prayers.

• Involve him/her in a serious discussion and plant a kiss on lips unexpectedly.

• Kiss each other goodnight.

• Express your love.

• Remember birthdays of your spouse's close ones.

• Cover a warm blanket when he/she is sleeping.

• Plant a kiss on his/her forehead when asleep.

• Read a poem together.

• Show interest in your spouse's hobby.

• Make a single cup of tea and share it together on a rainy day.

• Whenever you think she is looking beautiful Click a pic.

• Learn a guitar. Learn a song for her

• Never forget your anniversary.

• Remember His/her friends name.

• Take an appointment at a spa for both of you on a day before your anniversary.

• Don't allow the phone to interrupt imp moments.

• When he/she compliments - a sincere "thank you" is the only response required.

• Spend less time in discussing 'who's right' and more time deciding 'what's right'

• Praise in public.

• Criticize in private.

• Always compliment your spouse when he/she is ready for a party.

• Keep ypur promises.

• When your spouse hugs you let them be the first one to let go. #Tip4life

• Teach your kid to respect Each of you equally

tips for buying house for investment

got some real great tips from my cousin G about investing in house for capital appreciation purposes

• a good construction company makes re-sale easier
• its better if the construction company has other projects in pipeline. they wud like to keep the current projects in 'green' to avoid negative impact on proposed projects
• the price of the house wud go up if the construction company is more or less on time and is about to start  a new project
• project at 50% completion is a good time to sell. u can also wait on closer till project completion.the art is not being greedy and not over-wait.
• sell before possession is offered. you can save on sunk cost like registration charges etc
• expected appreciation in price coz of nearby projects must be considered
• you can think of going in for a bigger house size as u do not plan to hold on till the end and need not pay the entire amount. plus the builder wud be paying more attention to the bigger units. also its better selling proposition for re-selling, you get little higher appreciation
• if u have a good friend, pool in the resources so that u can avoid the loan. home loan EMI have the highest load in the first year as most part of the interest is paid in the first couple of years, then the principle repayment starts
• you can get really good price in pre-launch offers
• a builder can give upto 7-8% discount, a dealer 3-4%. they work with these minimum margins
• bargain as much as u can, there is a lot of scope to negotiate. if not he price, then include the additional charges like parking / edc/ idc / club etc in the bsp

office outbound to jim corbett

had an office outbound trip from 29 feb to 2 march. almost the entire vmc and elh teams went for the trip to jim corbett.

took some time for it to actually sink in that we were going. on some previous occasions, such trips had been canceled and seemed to be jinxed. but i guess march is the month for me for a getaway every year. maybe except for 2008, every year since 2006, i have got an opportunity to get away form delhi for a welcome break.

we stayed at solluna resort - beautiful place with amazing food. we had several fun activities like cricket, rock climbing, rappelling, beach volleyball, crossing the river etc at the resort.

went for the jungle safari as well. cud manage to see some deer, wild boar. our guide for the safari told us that gate no. 2 had higher probability of tiger sightings. 

2 of us broke off early for an office meeting at rudrapur.enjoyed that trip as well.

stopped at tadka dhaba while returning for some awesome food.

clicked lots of pics. had refreshing 3 days.