How I felt during Covid through Quotes
Let the ‘Corona Begin’.
INTRODUCTION
Corona Virus started in December 2019 in the Wuhan District of China which created a global pandemic around the world. It entered India on March 15, 2020, where the Central Government declared a National Wide lock down for 21 days.
The lock down began much earlier for me. My current job entails me to intervene with schools to increase the student learning outcome through activity based learning for classes III and V. I have completed 9 months. To see where our interventions are making a difference on the students, we conduct an Assessment.
6th April marks 30 days of my roommates and I sitting in our hostels.So while my friends don’t ‘physically’ have to go to work, they work from home, and if they are lucky they have their parents.
I on the other hand, have been homesick and wanted to leave, that’s when Corona made an entry. I have decided to spend this time to write about the phases Corona that I have been through.
This post was inspired by a three and a half hour conversation with a close college friend of mine that made me “Feel Good.”
Feature Picture Credits :https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/2198246/libya-confirms-1st-coronavirus-case
Wan, the last motorable village, Chamoli Uttarakhand
Tribe of Mentors : Book that could potentially change your life and your career
5:32pm, Thursday,3 October
‘Tribe of Mentors’ written by Tim Ferris, the author of the famous, 4 hour work week never fails to astonish me. Every page open that book, I fall in love again. Well, now I ain’t going to try to convince you to why this best should be in your ‘To read list’,but Timothy has something to say for himself
” To explain why I wrote this book, I really need to start with when. Two thousand seventeen was an unusual year for me. The first six months were a slow simmer, and then, within a matter of weeks, I turned 40, my first book (The 4-Hour Workweek) had its tenth anniversary, several people in my circle of friends died, and I stepped onstage to explain how I narrowly avoided committing suicide in college. * Truth be told, I never thought I’d make it to 40. My first book was rejected 27 times by publishers. The things that worked out weren’t supposed to work, so I realized on my birthday: I had no plan for after 40. “
Tim Ferris
I mean look at that honesty, uff it grips me. He continues to say that he had several unasnswered question such as
” Were my goals my own, or simply what I thought I should want? How much of life had I missed from underplanning or overplanning? How could I be kinder to myself? How could I better say no to the noise to better say yes to the adventures I craved? “
Tim Ferris
So one fine morning he decides to get off his bed, write down all his questions, as overwhelming as it can be, he randomly decides the following,
“What if I asked 100+ brilliant people the very questions I want to answer for myself? Or somehow got them to guide me in the right direction? Would it work? I had no idea.”
Tim Ferris
He then made an extremely ambitious list of people he wished to incorporate in his book such as Dalai Lama, Neil Gaiman, Jimmy Fallon, Bear Grylls, Brene Brown.
Tim continues, ” I sent an identical set of 11 questions to some of the most successful, wildly varied, and well-known people on the planet with “Answer your favorite 3 to 5 questions . . . or more, if the spirit moves you.”
It’s one of the most beautiful things I will read, since whenever you do read it, you will be in a different headspace, so it never gets old. Some of questions mentioned in the book, I have written here
In the last five years, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?
What advice would you give to a smart, driven college student about to enter the “real world”? What advice should they ignore?
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
My next post will be about my favorites passages in the book.
The Digital Web We All Live In
We all live in the digital age, where we spend most of our time on Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat. We follow accounts that shows us memes, hilarious of course, but ones that maybe damaging to one’s own self. Usually the ‘Relatable memes’ of our generation come down to three things being drunk, fat or depressed. And of course, at one or more point in life, we have all been able to ‘relate’ to it. So yeah.
I mean the amount of people we follow, the post we come across, the adverts that tell you which university they think we ‘must pursue’ your Masters or Graduation makes this harder for anyone to develop critical or even independent thinking skills, which boils down to questioning all ones life decisions.
After my graduation, I went on to go pursue something that made me ‘feel’ something. The combination of the city and my own self damaging behavior made numb & of course ( Instagram had nothing to do with this). All I wanted was some peace from the world, make a difference mainly in a mountain.
That’s exactly what I did for four months. I worked on sustainable waste management for the mountain ecosystem and my life, well it was made.
Days, weeks, even months flew by, I lost track of time. For once,time didn’t matter, since work as well as fun happened throughout the week. While in the city weekends was all I waited for, to go out and ‘feel’ something, which basically usually led to hangovers.
Instead I like few others of this generation took a bold step to unfollow the rat race of the best college, how our bodies must look, the over-do peppy accounts of success and start to live according to our own standards.
Life after that has been pretty boring, but you get used to it, and you go on realizing your mood improves, which is the best gift you can give yourself now.
Feature Picture credits : https://moishacruz.wordpress.com/2016/02/22/social-media-as-an-instrument-for-change/
How the village interactions shaped me as a person?
While travelling through a village you most often get asked these questions ,”where you come from, How many siblings do you have? What language do you speak at home? You’re parents let you do this, they must be brave. We left the village to work in the city, while you come back to the village. What makes you come back?”
As Neha and I walk back tirelessly from Maya Bazaar, one of the many smaller constituencies in the village of Wan, Uttarakhand I said , “I feel that the people in the city have a conversation without a soul, they are missing the meaning.” I said this with reference to the questions we are asked about in the village. Neha point blank disagreed. She replied, “We all , watch films, read books and newspaper, so we can have a wider range of topics to discuss.”
I agreed to disagree, “I personally feel more alive, when the locals ask me about me. The locals look at your character, they say you’re powerful and at the end of the day that counts.”
Neha further adds, “Well Payal at the end of the day if you’re happy with yourself and the work you do, and if you can sleep at night, then, well to me your sorted.”
6 Quotes that summarise my love for Travel
“Travel does not exist without home. If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.”
Josh Gates
Everything adds up : The Job Hunt
Nothing prepares you for the real world.
It’s hard when you’re heart doesn’t settle for mediocrity. I want to find something, that gives me meaning, purpose.
My first job/fellowship,I’d loved waking up, segregating waste, going to meet the locals, money just came. I never had to check my balance.
Now with that money I travelled for a week to Dharmshala (my own mini vacay.). Before I started my second internship a little head of Kullu.
I didn’t particularly enjoy it. I was cold, partially cause I didn’t carry warm socks/shoes. I cried, I was miserable.
This made me realise, it’s no point working in the mounatins, for the heck of it. I need a jobs that makes me grow. A job that doesn’t make me look at my phone, makes me want to wake up, makes me want to make iniatives.
This was a huge learning experience for me. It made me realise, how grateful and lucky I was to have a perfect first job/Fellowship.
My Lil Thoughts on Climate Change
“Don’t be afraid to speak, there are past generations supporting you, there are future generations wanting to join you. You are never alone.
L.E Bowman
I think that’s what we need to remember, when we dicuss Climate change. We always think it’s useless, that our once action doesn’t make a difference.
But it does. If we collectively reduce our bad habits, it makes a huge difference.
How I began the Color Intervention in rural schools of Uttarakhand?
Tucked away remotely lies a Himalayan village named Lamabagar,which derives its name from early Tibetan lamas that moved and settled across the river sides known as Bagar, getting its official name ‘ Lamabagar’.
It resides within the Kapkote Tehsil of Bageshwar district. A 45 minutes treacherous drive from Kapkote you reach the Lamabagar, a village with no more than 60-80 families. What makes Lamabagar stand out in most places in Kapkote is the network connectivity. There’s no connectivity. If you have a BSNL sim and time to roam around you might be able to find network.
Living in a village makes you appreciative of the little things in life. Initially when I had visited the school a couple of times, I considered the roads as a ” treacherous path” but living amongst them for 21 days I began to view things with a new set of eyeballs. I learnt the roads came just 8-10 years ago. The locals were happy with the road, I considered treacherous.
The Government Primary School Lamabagar had a total strength of 19 students, one Headmaster and a teacher, I knew we had lots to work on. Upon arriving to
the school I was greeted with children that never stopped dancing and smiling.They beamed with happiness. They added color to my life. And thus the color intervention was born.
A three day intervention where the students of Class II & III learnt the names of colors,how to identify them in and lastly create pictures using the colors.
Class III
I began my intervention with students of Class III which had a total strength of four students. I brought crayons with me. I asked them what colors they knew about first? ‘Lal'(red), shouted Rahul, ‘hara(green) shouted Usha, peela (yellow), shouted another. I was happy they knew a few colors in their language. I then began my lesson, “Today we’ll learn the English words for these Colors.”
I turned to the white board, and wrote GREEN, I looked behind, and they spelt out the letters.I was happy, I said GREEN means ‘Hara’. Before I could turn around and write my next word, Mayank yelled from behind, ” Ma’am the marker is a green.” Something I hadn’t closely noticed myself. I was glad they were paying close attention.
I wrote down yellow, black, blue, orange,brown white,purple when someone said ‘Ma’am you forgot to write PINK. I was happy the kids took an initiative with my idea.
IDENTIFYING COLORS
After the interval I brought down the steel glass and asked them to identify the colors, and around the classroom
They began moving when Mayank ran to a chartpaper hanging on the wall, saying ‘Orange’ jumping to reach it, while I laughed said Yes. Rahul ran behind the whiteboard and pointed at Red. Usha found a blue box.
After that I requested them to open their notebooks and make three columns English, Hindi and Colors. In the colors column, they had to pick up a crayon and color a box. They were excited with this activity. While they were busy with this activity I created new games for them to recall the names of colors such as Fill in the blanks, match the following.
INTERVENING WITH CLASS II
Yuvraj, a student of class II, ” Ma’am we want to draw as well.” I smiled, amd said definitely. I asked the students of class II to pick students of class III student to sit with. I put down the steel glass with the crayons and told class III ,”This is a peer learning activity, teach your students well.” They enthusiastically began, class II sat patiently while class III picked up a crayon and said this is LAL means RED, while the Class II repeated in unison.
ACHIEVEMENTS
The school bell rang, the day thus had come to an end,
students formed a line to go back home, and began reciting the usual days of the week when one of my students said, lets do colors. They began moving, with Rahul standing besides, them saying RED, Red and the little ones from class I, II, III,IV &V were saying it along.
