Life in Apr 25 - June 12

Wow, i can't believe that i missed the life in series of May. No, it is not that i have not been late in updating this series in past, but so much happened in May and once i was almost thinking of updating life in series when it was just3 weeks past. Anyways, welcome to the current installment of life in series. A very eventful time period in my life.

Went to audium - Sound Sculptured space http://www.audium.org/. The idea is that sound also has a spatial dimension, one that we often ignore. At Audium, a specially crafted room is set (in a spiral setting) with speakers surrounded. Dusing the show, there is total darkness so that one can concentrate only on the sound. Then, the sound comes, sometimes from here, sometimes from there. Overall creating a sound journey through time and space. Unfortunately, i could not achieve that feeling, i went to Audium on a friday night after work and was too exhausted to concentrate. Moreover, the sound were natural sounds instead of music. I didn't enjoy as much i had expected, but overall, a good experiment.


Volunteered at Spruce elementary - As part of wmart now, i volunteered for Junior Achievement program at Spruce Elementary. The idea is to spend a day with kids and teach them about something. Two people are assigned to each class, i was given grade 1 and our task was to teach kids about families, jobs, difference between needs and wants, how families help each other. There was a packet filled with activities for kids (and instructions for us). Activities included putting things over a map, coloring , drawing a need/want object, stickers, and more. My co-teacher for the day was another wmart employee and she was amazing. We took turns in teaching, whenever she was teaching, the whole class was quite and attentive, whenever my turn came, they were noisy, all over the place :). It was an awesome experience to see how schools function here. Things that striked me was that there is a great paucity of funds to these schools, they were struggling to afford markers, which was quite sad. Other thing to note was how well the teaching practices have evolved, there is a gesture to bring silence to the room. No yelling, no loud voices, a small gesture by teacher and everyone is silent with eyes on teacher. And also, how active you have to be to manage these kids, seeing them all the time, giving attention to every kid. It is an amazing job to pull it through.

From Mixed bag.

I bought a new tv. I thought about buying one on a friday and then went and bought it on Saturday. Impulsive buying, the power. Initially i just wanted it to be a a moderately prices, may be second hand tv. But when i went to frys, seeing the models there, i just wanted a bigger one. There was a deal on frys on this one and i just bought it. The link is this.




Yellowstone trip - should go to a different blog post.

A song of ice and fire. Book three done. Should go to a different blog post.

Cooking experiments: Egg weekend. Megan gave me eggs from their home bred chicken. I also had eggs from before. So together, i celebrated an egg weekend.
First, there was spinach, mushroom, cheese, omlette



Then, egg curry with peanuts


And finally, the experiment to do, one of the best snacks on this planet - The Egg PUFF


But the egg puff was a disaster. The coating was bad, or may be i just didn't knew how to use it. But a very eggy weekend.


Finished my stuffed egg in knitting. Since then knitting has been on hold.

Board gaming still goes on every wednesday evening, missed some weekends.


Movies:
Last month's camera club screening was Project Nim - a documentary on a chimp called Nim who was taken by researchers in Columbia University to make him grow in human surroundings. It is made by James Marsh, the man who made Man on the wire. It is only due to the magic in James that this topic can be made into a movie and presented in this way. On its own, i would never have seen this movie, but loved watching it as part of camera cinema club. One of the animal lover who helped Nim a lot was present after the screening, a nice conversation followed. I would recommend you to watch it just because it is so different, but it is not that fun to watch it.

Masala movies - Fast five with Ankur and Varun Krish. X Mel first class. Hanna with Amrinder. Green hornet as a test 3D movie on my tv (horrible movie). A wednesday again.
And now since i have a tv, i am enjoying watching already watched movies again. I don't know why but i am.

Also watched Too big to fail on HBO. Loved it. A great documentary, very very well made on the role of govt to pass the financial bail out, chiefly focussing on Hank Paulson. Highly recommended for people who love documentaries.

Dancer in the dark. Rented from netflix after hearing the awesome song - "I've seen it all" It is a total director's movie. We see what he wants us to see. A very bold cinema experiment and as all Lars films, a difficult to watch movie.

Watching videos daily on JerrySeinfeld.com. everyday he releases 3 clips from his previous recordings, a delight same as Calvin and Hobbes for every morning.

Went for hiking to Mt. Diablo with a meetup group. Small hike of 8 miles. Enjoyed the change of scenery. Need to go again, it is a big mountain.