learning and growing

Am I perfect? No. Are you? No. Nobody is. We make mistakes. More importantly do we forgive ourselves for those mistakes? I find it difficult. I have not been able to forgive myself for something I did in the past ,something terrible only to realize later, that it was not all that terrible after all. Despite realising it, brooding over it and crying endlessly for doing what I was not very proud of, I haven't been able to completely forgive myself. I am definitely no more that person who made that mistake three years back but I am still not over it. Do I deserve to feel this heavy all the time? No, I suppose but I can't help and I know I am not being kind to myself. I should be though. I am definitely more kind to my health now ( as a teacher, I often miss out on drinking enough water because of continuous classes) but I am definitely more careful than I was towards my health three years back. I try to take small breaks despite the heavy routine. I write whenever possible. I take...

That phase in my life where I was not settled and was ready to unsettle and resettle all the time, I never realised it was me trying to escape from the reality. I always wanted to escape from what made me uncomfortable. Trust me, I did that for a long time till I could not do it anymore and ultimately when I faced it all, together, it was not easy. I was severely upset and was in my survival mode. Then something in me told me that the way I was feeling won't pass away till I dealt with it, faced it and came up with my own set of solutions. I did not have the mental courage but I started making small changes and taking small steps.  At every point I just realized how badly hurt I was since 2017 and how much of it I faced pretending I was okay. The first small change that I made in my routine was to take care of myself. How did I do that? I started taking care of my hair and skin. To many of you it might sound awkward because many of you probably do it three times a day if not more (...

Lately my  mother had been complaining about her tooth. It does not pain her unless touched but the gum area in and around her tooth had swollen. Two weeks back I took her to a dentist and she had her scaling done and for sometime the problem subsided. However it resurfaced again. The gum is swollen again and the dentist wants to remove the tooth now which is all very natural for I saw how brown and rotten her tooth looked on the inside. With her growing age she continuously seems to complain about something or the other. I find it irritating sometimes considering the busy schedule I have. Then I tell myself that if the responsibility has come on me then I have to commit to it. It is a little difficult with baba not being there but you gotta do, what you gotta do. So, despite the busy schedule and physical and mental exhaustion I try to do the household chores as much as I can. Today I woke up early to finish my school work so that I could take my mother for the booster doze of the...

"What advice will you give someone who is aspiring to crack a job like yours?" I came across this question somewhere on the internet last month. Since then I have been wanting to write on this, on my blog. Well, to start with, I don't have a glamorous job. I am a teacher and there are different opinions on and about this profession. I have heard people say that when one does not get any other job they become a teacher. Some say, it is the easiest job on earth. Some say, there is too much studying every day in this profession. Some say it's a very conventional branch for female candidates. Once my cousin brother told me that one must be really 'chatty' to excel at the job. I say, one must be knowledgeable and talk sense and deliver even more sensible things with practical examples to excel at the job. I did not obviously expect an 'engineer' to not give importance to experiential learning.  Also, teaching is not the only thing that teachers do as a part...

After two long years, they sat for their exam. Two years back was when I invigilated for the first time as an assistant superintendent in one of the schools in Haryana. I was an external in that school and I remember how I was thoroughly nervous. There are way too many rules in CBSE. To stand for three hours straight and execute every part of the job minutely, come what may, is not an easy task.Then the pandemic started. Everything was online. Every class required twice the effort and thrice the grit. All I wanted was for this period to pass asap. Last week I invigilated two times and strangely I was happy to execute all those minute details despite the fact that it was not so delightful or pleasant to execute all of it, in the summer heat. To see students write their paper in person was a sight of joy. To see them think, struggle and write their answers and leave the examination room with smiling faces and discussing answers was an elated feeling after two long years. All nerdy talk. ...

Local markets are a thing.I often ask myself how do small vendors and shop owners manage? They work hard and that's an undeniable truth. It's not like the normal 'go-go-go' of people like us who are blessed with a regular service. It's a different sort of rush and effort on their part. Chance plays an important role in their day to day work, relying heavily on the number of customers that one would get in the mornings, afternoons and evenings. It depends on the number of deals they strike with their customers.They do it every single day. A no working day obviously attributes to a loss, if not a huge loss. For example, a shoe maker makes shoes and sells them. If we assume that the price of a pair of shoes is around Rs 500 and Rs 40-60 it's cost of production, then his profit is around Rs 450,for every pair that he sells. So selling around ten pairs in a month would hardly earn him around Rs 4500. So that's his monthly income. Yet so many people from all aroun...

 Day before yesterday, while praying to God, I told God, I would like to meet him and then laughed at the mere possibility of it. Yesterday morning, a man knocked on our door. This man was sent to us by our neighbor who call him ' Halim chachha' . So he came to take away a worn out induction heater,some other worn out gadgets and broken umbrellas. The moment he entered our house, he smelled so bad( a truth is a truth). As my mother was helping him with all the things, he just said that he does this work not out of need but just to keep his mind sane because both his sons work abroad and he can spend a lovely after 60 life, if he wants to. I was listening to him and I caught his reflection on one of the framed portraits that we have of God near the stairs. He was adjacent to the portrait and it reflected his image somehow. So that was definitely God telling me " Hey,there. " ( I would like to believe that).  The story does not end there. So after this was over, I got b...

There is something that I had missed out on, in my previous blog. I will dedicate this blog to that something. So, a month back, my youngest student came to me with an old pen case. By a pen case I mean the plastic pouch/box inside which pens are kept in a shop. I hope I have been able to convey the idea properly. So these plastic pouches also have a transparent plastic sheet right on the top that gives the customer a glimpse of the pen that's inside. Why am I telling you all this? Here's the fun part. So this student told me that she had kept her pet inside it. And I was very keen to find out what pet it was? So, she showed me a black carpenter ant that she had kept inside the pen pouch. It doesn't end there. She also told me that she would love to have another black ant to make sure that it can give company to the other ant that was inside. She showed me the little hole that she had made for the ant. The hole was more like a ventilator for the ant according to my student....

 I am here because I just realized I have not written in a while. I also realised that I did not write any 'goals accomplished' post last December or a new year post this January. It's the last day of January and I promised myself yesterday that I will write today and here I am. So I will just try to fit in all that I did not write and also things that I want to write today in one post. But before anything, a very happy new year to all,reading this.                   I can go on and on with the number of things that I had learned last year right from completing one professional course to managing home and giving tuitions and getting to know the work culture of my home state in a whole different light. However, if there is something that I really pride myself for, I would say it's how I learned to take care of my mental health. I learned to sum up the courage to say NO to a lot many things that were no more serving the purpose. I placed h...