BACKLOGS Part 2 - The Adventures.

The last time I had told you guys about Ithaca I remember I had mentioned that I had presentations and a festival to attend and etc.

Well first the presentations..

As a part of our training program , the international students went through a special 1 hr International Teaching Assistant Development Program. Our instructor works really hard to teach us idioms and other stuff like idioms and more idioms and some general pronunciation mistakes, intonations (and idioms). Somewhere in between we had to give presentations. Short . 8-10 minutes( i took 15 i think) and well basically your objective was to teach your own classmates.

Pretty tough and very different from all previous presentations I have ever given. Firstly there your main objective was to completely confound the audience and after striking their chord once to let them know that you were talking about something they should know about, if you could end on a note where no one really knew what you said but were too shy, embarassed or overawed to say anything, then you would win the competition. My imagination was always one of the best, and I won the competition once..!!! Here it was different. The audience.. was supposed to actually understand me this time.. and if they didnt I had to make them ask questions! This was new territory. And till one night before my presentation (as always) I had no clue what I would be presenting on.

After contemplating on topics like Ayurveda, Chocolates, Neurotransmitters, Stoichiometric Laws, Reaction Mechanisms and Even Basic Molecular Biology I decided to stick on the one subject that till now has not let me down. The one and only subject I demanded respect back in the old times in DU.... OSPEC!! For you.. who does not know Organic Chemistry, yes you, the little teeny weeny insignificant one I am talking to.... OSPEC - means Organic Spectroscopy.

After a late night encounter with Organic Chemistry by Clayden, Greaves Warren and Wothers and Spectroscopy by Pavia, Lampman, Kriz my presentation was ready, written like a script of a movie, as taught by our Microteaching Instructors. It had every possible teaching theory mentioned..Cold Calling, Humour, Blackboard and PPt together, Audience Interaction, Action, Drama, Romance (only with the subject), Fantasy (by using the imaginary compass) and well guess what.. it was a hit!! It was.. although I personally believe some of my classmates did a much better job than I did but then everyone liked mine and I happy about it! :) The instructor actually said my students would love me and that I was born to be a teacher.. well.. exactly the words I wanted to hear! :) considering that teaching has always been a kind of a dream profession!

Anyways.. later that week, there was another presentation to be made. This time in front of the our Microteaching Experts. Now mind you these guys were the real thing. They were the ones who reserached on teaching theory. They studied statistics to find out what made a good teacher and believe you me I was being videotaped while I was making my presentation. We all were.
And after presentations were over we were showed these videos and asked to judge ourselves. it was quite funny to see that funny lanky fellow with a dumb grin always on his face and realise its me... and then not finding anything good about my own presentation. However other people liked it. So maybe there is an inherent misconceptions we have about ourselves. I know. I know. some of u wise asses out there are shouting "the problem is with you, not us". I rest my case.

Anyways. that went well too . So did a debate on surrogate mothers. Those who have seen me debating would know how it might have turned out. And well I was the one with the laptop and therefore with all the information and still our judge thought we werent good enough because apparently we werent convincing enough. But then I didnt mind. I liked the debate and it was fun. In between, one of us, the one who was the moderator, actually got very angry on the fact that we are only discussing surrogacy with respect to Male Homosexual Couples.

"I mean why are we discussing them all the time". You should have seen his face. Anyways that was quite funny. But it was a good week.

And it ended quite well. Friday afternoon we had a lecture on Sexual Harrassment. About how all people who sit or stand on the other side of the teachers table in a classroom are not potential dates in any way! :) It was informative. But at the end of the whole lecture the only take home message that I got was... when in trouble call him .. him being the guy who was giving the presentation. Because we were not trained to handle such problems. Im sure we arent !! :)

Later, our group, that being the international group, decided that we shall go for a movie. As it happened that my roomies also wanted to go for a movie and somehow they were really excited about it releasing that day...and I had no clue what they were talking about even after they told me the name of the movie. But when they explained to me that the Dark Knight was Batman I realised I somehow had missed the hype before its release. And so 9 of us watched the movie together..

The movie was awesome.. really. I mean I do have it in my mind to dedicate one whole post to all the good movies that I have seen and I have seen quite a few. But I believe it will be an absolute insult to the movie and to the amazing acting done by all three lead male characters.
What really built up the mood however for me to really appreciate the movie was the trailers of some other movies before that. And trust me I felt like watching all of them.

there were two more graphic novel movies coming up. along with Mummy III and Terminator IV. and they had amazing trailers!
Dark knight .. well. it has the speed of a good Hollywood hit, but it surpasses the average style by miles. It has the continued flair of Batman Begins and more importantly it has a villain whose realistic portrayal by Heath Ledger makes the movie wat it is.. a must watch.

Before the movie some of my friends ate at a chinese place.. we saw the movie at the mall. so this chinese place was part of the food court there. After the movie , the same chinese place was selling everything they had for 4 dollars!! trust me. it was a bargain.. !!! with our stomachs now full when we finally left the mall it was about 10:20 and the second to last bus to the univ was due in 10 minutes. And it is then that I realised, people push to get in the bus in the USA too!!!

I come from Calcutta, one of the busiest and densely popluated parts of India. My roommates and friends from class come from Bombay and know quite literally what being "packed like sardines" means!! For us it was a piece of cake. We didnt push. We just stood there. We knew the drill. Being in a crowded bus is like jaywalking for us. It is when we have to enter an empty bus and meet a smiling bus driver everyday and stick to the pavements that we feel out of place! I dont mind the rules ! I rather like them. I am just saying what we are used to ..

Saturday ...was picnic time. And we went to Stewart Park .
I will upload more photos later . Because I havent got a digital camera yet. And my friends havent uploaded them yet...guys.. if you are reading this please upload the photos and send them to me.. please ?

Its a beautiful place , is Stewart Park. This time we actually managed to catch the Farmers Market in time and bought stuff. Mainly food. Food is the safest thing to buy. You spend some money on food. You eat it . Its gone. You are not reminded of the amount of money you spent on it for the rest of your life or the life of watever you bought!! When you buy some other thing..it remains as a scar....a talking one that too.. one that whispers to you all the time.. "Hee hee..You bought me for x dollars . That means x * 43 Rupees. Am I worth that much? Good night....boooooooo"

Anyways.. the picnic was quite nice. Ming kept taking pictures. Me as usual was interested to know more about the different cultures and was talking to Michael, who was from Germany about how different lives are there? Etc Etc. And we had a lot of food with us. So much that we couldnt finish it on our own. And we were 8 of us!! Imagine.

But it was a nice trip. And a nice place. The best part of it however were the swings. Yep. All of us took turns to sit on the swings that were there in the park and believe me it was fun. It was like getting back to that phase of ur life where money and complications and misunderstandings didnt exist. It was like a sudden booster dose of positive energy that u felt like flying..Trust me.. If you have not felt happy for a while go ride a swing. And come back and tell me how it felt

We got back to the bus stop quite early for the next bus to the university and i went back to my usual haunt, the lounge where my roomies hang out !

That was last to last week .

For those who might remember and therefore wonder what about Grass Roots - WELL ... nOthing.. just that the 4 day pass was 95$ and the Sunday Pass was 30$ and none of my friends were interested to spend that much. Fair enough. Bottomline - I told myself I am here for five years. There is definitely one year I will be going for the Grass Roots..

One thing That I did miss in between was probably one of the greatest things that has happened since 1500, Getting the Cornell Acceptance, 15th March, 14th May, 3oth June, 3rd July.. oh alright.. its not right up there. but its somewhere there..in the "great things of my life"
and it is. hold ur breath...

my first check!! yes ... i did get my first stipend. and well ..unfortunately the photograph seems to be deleted..me standing with it!! grinning like a watever!! but ya... that was a big thing .. i also got my ssn. Which means now I am part of the system. the matrix...

thats it for this blog. will write the next one soon...




(ALL PHOTOGRAPHS USED IN THIS BLOG ARE COURTESY RIA SIRCAR AND HER CAMERA. I THANK HER FOR ALLOWING ME TO USE THEM)



PS : Since we both follow south park and simpsons I know you are still reading.. so my cousin brother.. the reason why I didnt say anything about the presentation was because I wanted to write it in my blog so that you could enjoy it more..Can you please take your curse back now ?!!!