Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Squaring life's circles

"You never know you are ready unless you go out there and try it." said She, The Ortho Surgeon who gave me my legs back last summer with an ACL reconstruction.

My third point playing, I am feeling good, about having scored the first I played and making an assist in the second.

There is a turn around by the opposition near our endzone. The woman handler on our team picks up the disc. I set up the deep run and cut back in. Running in the path of the white disc in an Attempt to reduce the distance I make haste like a person with a rapacious appetite having been kept away from his desert by the waiting staff.

I leap in the air off of my right foot towards the last few yards. Because now running is too slow. I am wolfish and my need is not just get it but to absolutely get it faster. I grab the disc mid flight, and land on my left foot a few milliseconds before my right is slated to land and support the weakling leading the charge.

In those milliseconds , an impact worth three times my body weight jars my left knee into submission. trying buckles inwards and I hear a snap nay..a crack of a whip and I tumble like a house of cards.

Instinctively I roll after the tumble. A roll that took me through a state of paranoia try to comprehend what had just happened. A knee that buckled inwards and a cracking noise. Is it the case of the cruciates again. I pushed my self off my hands dropped the disc and jogged off the field. I convinced others, and myself that no harm was done. Aah but the paranoia will it haunt me forever every time I get out on the field.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

A Year Inflection

Its almost over. It started of full of hope. The New Year, my first real winter, with a crazy storm. Spring was spent in anticipation of summer. Summer brought memories of home - and felt really long. I moved to a new apartment, at a time when I felt the change was much needed. The second half of summer and fall was the best I have had in a long time. It still feels like fall with the temperatures as warm as ever for a December in NYC. It could just be my body's reaction to the cold is much better this time around but why take all the credit , a round of applause for mother nature.




I got to see my first college football game in a stadia. And what a game to catch !! The Nittany Lions playing at home in their last game of the season, in the same week the Jo Paterno controversy broke out.















It was a very lean year for Ultimate Frisbee for me. I played no tournaments, the only one I had intentions to sign up for got snowed out, but not after I had already blown it away in my head. Again I would stick with attributing credits to mother nature.

I am looking forward to be back to Kodai, in 2012 and play what has been rumored to be Bryan Plymale's last Fly Baba before he leaves India. Mr.Plymale is by far the chief indicator of all things good about the Indian Ultimate spirit and Kodai Fly baba would always be yardstick for any Indian ultimate tournament.

The intention , originally, of this post was to share some photographs I have take over this year. I will come down to that by the end of this post. But the mind meanders as I type and I like where it is taking me.

Work has been a source of constant challenge this year. More than I ever could have dreamt off, but taking it on has been a lot more easier. There is a resonant frequency that my team has swung into. The best I have had over the past four years. I sense belonging, an eagerness to challenge each other and willingness to shoulder responsibility.

Thanksgiving this year unlike last was planned in advance. A cottage in the woods up in Michigan with couple of High school buds over three days couldn't have asked for more. (well got more than I asked for. Ask me about how a wild hunt for a garbage can in the wee hours ended up in a mini road trip around Manistee. )
















Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Training the Tutors : New York's Tri Library Volunteer Tutor Conference

This past weekend (April 9, Saturday)I took the 7 local from Jackson Heights to Flushing's Main Street. Two very distinct neighbourhoods within the city of the world - the city of New York. It was the first sunny day New York had seen since Christmas'10.The signboards, the shop signs , the billboard ads went from a mix of Hindi/Bengali/Punjabi to Hanzi/Kanji. Its amazing how the city has these culturally diverse yet segregated pockets around varioius neighbourhoods. Crossing Jackson Height's 74th street also called Indian Street is a totally different experience from walking down Main Street Flushing. I don't wan't to go Segwaying, but here is another one. I got my first close up view of the Citifield. This a day after New York Mets' openning day. The night before I could see its bright and humming neon signboards and ad signs far on the horizon from my apartment window.

I was heading to the Flushing's branch of Queens Library that was hosting the 16th Annual Tri-Library Volunteer Tutor Conference. This was a collaboration of the Brooklyn Public Library, New York Public Library and Queens Library Adult Learner Programs and sponsored by the Mayor's Office of Adult Education. I was hoping that either Mayor Bloomberg or the new schools chancelor Walcott would show up to flag it off. Last week had been a turbulent time for the Department of Education as Cathy Black was forced out by the parents and teachers of the city. The Mayor himself had taken a lot of flack, for his ill-fated choice to select her as the schools chancelor. Deputy Mayor Walcott took over the role, and well atleast the Library administrators saw him as a strong support in the Mayor's office for the adult learner program. The Mayor's office was represented by the late arrival of Paul Kim. Oh and the infamous G train took the blame yet again. Paul himself has his roots starting of as a volunteer tutor with the adult learner program.
The conference was a development and continuing education opportunity provided for the volunteer tutors. It was a great platform to share my tutoring experiences with fellow tutors and learn from their experiences. It was a good way to refocus on the basics and pick up a few tips and resources from the library.

For the morning session I attended the "We Are New York" workshop. We Are New York [WANY] is a an award winning TV series that builds communication skills and strengthens communities at the same time also dealing with issues that matter to our students. David Hellman one of the writers of the series and Mark Trushkowsky from CUNY office of Academic Affairs were the presenters. The room was a mixture of tutors like me who hadn't used the series as yet and others who had. The session looked at various pre- and post viewing techniques that the presenters had suggested to use with the material. This by far to me is the most engaging stimuli for a student that I have come across, and I am most certainly going to plan out a few lessons on WANY. They were giving away the DVD and the learning material at the end of the session. For more information visit www.nyc.gov/LearnEnglish . The full lesson set for WANY is available here.

For the afternoon session I attended "Introduction to Numeracy" presented by Gladys Scott and Haniff Toussaint from the Brooklyn Public Library. I hadn't really delved much into Numeracy in any of my sessions as yet, but this was an eye openner to the concept, and showed us how to introduce numeracy to students. Infact the first thing I observed when going over the basics mathematical operations this Monday with my students, was that Numeracy is probably as intutive as verbal communication itself. An adult with no schooling in today's world has a pretty good grasp of the basics mathematical operations. As I was explaining Multiplication and division, I was surprised how my students were able to give me the correct answers even though the weren't able to explain or write down the steps that they had take to arrive at the answer.
Through out the day the raffle tickets were given out to the attendees, and with my luck with these things I had no intention of sticking on for the Prizes and Closing after the long day. I ended up taking a few wrong turns and walking in to the proceedings. I can't say I was disappointed I won a Queens Library Umbrella.

cheers,

Ajay

P.S. Tomorrow Applebee's is conducting a Dining to Donate for Queens Library. So all you people in Queens head out to the Neighbour hood Bar and Grill , while you eat , 10% of your bill will be donated to Queens Library Foundation. Don't forget to take a printout of this flyer http://www.queenslibraryfoundation.org/site/DocServer/QLF_Applebees_flyer1.pdf?docID=1141 .



Below is the mail I got from the the Queens Library Foundation :


Applebee’s Restaurants in Queens are supporting National Library Week with "Dining to Donate" for Queens Library. On Thursday, April 14th, Applebee’s will donate 10% of each lunch or dinner bill to Queens Library Foundation for every customer who presents a "Dining to Donate" flyer. All money raised will go towards Queens Library Foundation’s Buy-A-Book program.

You can help get new books for your local library by participating in "Dining to Donate" at Applebee’s. You MUST present the "Dining to Donate" flyer in order for Applebee’s to make the donation.


Hope you can make it to Applebee's on April 14th and support Queens Library!

Sincerely,

Tom Galante

CEO
Queens Library


Diana Chapin

Executive Director
Queens Library Foundation













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