Trading on Beads…

Kids appear to learn the trading very early age. I remember the childhood days when we used to exchange little things like pencils, books and even the lunch / snacks that we used carry to school.

We recently noticed our little one taking her beads to school every day and they were not brought back. We didn’t realize for some time, although there is a restriction at the school that some kinds of toys are not supposed to be taken to the school (like soft toys), and when asked why she was taking out her beads from home, she says:
v: I gave my beads to a classmate “S”
I: hmm… great, but is there a reason why you wanted to give away your beads to her?
v: um… i give her my beads and she will give me the stars – (i thought stars are stickers)
I: so where are the stars?
v: not with me yet, she said she would bring it when i give her all my beads
I: hmm.. thats not good.

Thinking about it, there are 2 pieces to it:
1. it is appreciable that kids learn about trading, and economically/financially it is good cultivate that habit of give and take, so that keeps the transactions straight and no hassles. This reminds me of my own experience that I do, I am good at giving but at the same time not really so good at receiving end, even when it comes to trading if initiated by me. for instance, I ‘m willing to offer my help in all possible ways, but at the same time I am so hesitant to ask for help. I can go help our neighbors or friends or community help out, and when I need some help with either vehicle, or household projects, I am so hesitant to ask that help. If asked, I am sure they would all jump in to help me, but I don’t know how to ask, I would rather do it myself or pay some other business to do it for me. I wish I could learn the art of “asking for help”.

2. Is it too early for her to learn and understand the trading concepts now.  Is there a recommended age for kids brain to grasp the concept and go the right path? Or does it develop a mindset of always seeking something in return for a help provided? for a value provided? Is it good or not so good to have such expectations to get something in return? There are several questions come into my mind, and but should I impose these in her little brain?

Parenting is a great learning to apply various learning into practice.

Is it true – helping others is better than self analysis….

I hve noticed in several instances that some individuals are great in their Creativity while working with other individuals compared to brainstorming for themselves. Some are great coaching compared to doing things for themselves. I remember i had shared a similar thought once before.

so is this true creativity goes exponentially with pair programming or XP, and the quality and productivity increases as opposed to having the individuals left for themselves, specially while troubleshooting issues. Be it a software application or planning for a project.

what do you think?

if so, what are the ways one can learn to leverage his/her own brain for troubleshooting in a better way? I don’t think it is the experience, if that was the case, they would not be able to contribute high while helping / coaching others.

A bike finally arrived home…

It has been a project to buy a bicycle for our little one. Looks like we have postponed it several times for one or the other reason. She was so excited when it finally came to her hand at the store yesterday.

She has been saving her own money to buy this toy. The funds labeled “Cycle Fund” has been in collection for over a year or closely two, i think. Early on, we thought of introducing the concept of money to her, and introduced a little box named cycle fund, ever since she learned bits about money and has observed a lot at the grocery stores when we buy things there. The first thing she does after we step out of the pay counter at any stores, is to request for the bill/slip and count the number of items. She tries to read the numbers there, although she doesn’t know about decimal, but reads the numbers. These days, she appeared to have an understanding of lower and higher number i.e., 100 is greater than 10; 60s are greater than 40s etc. I am not sure if it is money conscious or the quantity, but often, she also comments, “why are buying so many things?” looking at the number of items in our shopping cart.

Back to her “cycle fund”, we started with a “dime-a-day” and started giving her a dime on a daily basis. There were days we had missed out, and made it up by giving 2 quarters in a way (yes though 20cents less there), but that kind of gave her an awareness of “not all coins look alike” – and there are other denominations associated to each coin type.

Anyways, the cycle fund trend has been discontinued for several months now, and I think we need to start again.

One of the reasons we pushed it out so far to buy one could be the winter months and didn’t pay attention until the spring / summer time. We went to several stores and she liked some of them, but we were actually looking for a relatively best fit size, hand brakes options, etc… Anyways, she tried one of these 16-inch bicycles and appeared very comfortable with. We went again 2 days ago, and picked one. She wasn’t although happy that it was going to be another 24 hours to actually pick it up upon having it assembling it at the store itself. We went back the following day, it was about ready, and she was eagerly waiting at the counter to see her brand new bike. There arrives, and before I see it, there she goes – jumped over the bike, and off to the exit door.

We went out for swimming this morning leaving her bike at home, and it was disappeared from the spot it was placed when we arrived back. For a split of a minute, her face turned red, eyes full of tears, lips just about to crack open to a loud cry for not seeing the bike at the spot. I then realized, my wife might have taken it inside to perform pooja (as we often do on a new vehicles/items), and indicated the little one to check inside waiting for a pooja. She was somewhat convinced (‘coz she has heard about this concept often) and went inside. Her face blossomed with a big wide smile and still tears-filled eyes and jumped over the bicycle.

It is interesting how emotional the kids get if they don’t see their favorite item even for a second. She tried it around our house later, and seemed to enjoy being a bike-owner.

July 4, Fireworks

We had been to a friend’s place on Saturday (4th) evening – met with couple of other families over dinner and walked down to watch the fireworks. It was a perfect spot to watch and was fairly closer compared to the other fireworks I had previously been to. Apparently, we are not allowed to light the fire crackers ourselves in our area, so was a good thing that the city organizes such events.

Here are some pictures captured during that 20 minutes of fireworks show…

I am yet to learn about night and light shots on our Canon ES camera, and I was not prepared to take good pictures for this event. It wasn’t enough time at that moment and I just turned to one of the pre-programmed options and clicked away a handful of pictures, and realized they weren’t really coming out the way I wanted.

 

bing, google the synonym of Search?

Interesting video on college humor site, on googl(search)ing with Bing.com

watch here http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1915736

Nothing… Art of Pre-Kindergarten kids responding to their parents

I don’t know if it a natural form of response that kids normally provide, or at times also think if it is for anyone. I have heard a coworker saying that her 5yr old son would not share anything on way back home from school and parents would have to ask several questions to even know his daily activities.

At times we have had the same experience with our 4 year old daughter. Once we pick her up from the school, here is how our conversations go:

V: daddy, how come so soon, i still haven’t had a chance to play with shakthi, or so and so
I: hmmm.. ok… looks like you have enjoyed a lot at school today
V: < no response>
I: what all did you do today?
V: nothing
I: did you eat your lunch? <i would check her lunch bag now>
V: yes although her lunch box is still half full),  (however, the days she would have eaten all, she would volunteer herself and with all the excitement, says – ‘Daddy – naanivaththu ellaa khaali maadbitte” (i have finished all my food today)
I: Great, what else did you do today?
V: nothing (or the standard answer would be I played, I painted, not really specifics)
I: did you play? did you have a circle time? did you share your stories? songs?
V: no, nothing
she would then open up all her daily stories rest of the evening

When I had a conversation with one of her teachers some time ago, she suggested me to not talk about school activities right away, at times kids of their own ego and not really open up at that point. Better to diver their mind from school and talk about something else instead. And then bring the school topics in a better way so kids would open up. Kids certainly want to share all their excitement, mischieves with parents, but we need to give them an opportunity without questioning. And Questioning would take them to defensive mode.

I think I have realized that off late, for tasks that I request her or tell her or ask her to do, when she is just about to do that task anyway, she responds “I know that, I was going to do just that” – well, I think i can relate to it. I normally don’t like to be told, if I am already aware of it and just about to get that task done or get started with.

for this summer, we have enrolled her in a different school for Pre-Kindergarten, and they have a pretty neat way of igniting conversations with the kids of school – CarTalk – this is a cool little note related to the tasks they would have performed through out the day. CarTalk note is just a cool little hint for parents to strike up a conversation and discuss about things on the way home. Like wise, we not only engage them in conversation, at the same time kids tend to volunteer with their daily activities. It was worked ok so far for me when we walk from her school to our house.

About summarizing all at once as soon as they picked up – I realized, how often at the end of the day, that I remember all the tasks I performed during the day at work. hmm… not really, unless i had kept a note of every activity. However, if I just spend some time recalling, i would certainly remember all those over a perid of few minutes or hours. Well, then how can we parents except little ones to summarize as soon as they meet us after the school – hmm… makes sense !

<update>
just a few days ago, I came home after a presentation/class about HAM radio, and started browsing through some material. My wife and V came to me, and the conv goes..
L: How was the class?
I: good
L: what did you do at the class?
I: nothing
L: was there something ineresting?
I: nothing

this is when I myself realized, if I learned these answers from V or if a. this is a natural human tendency to answer as nothing on a first go
b. a tendency to answer this way when you are not in mood to answer the questions.
c. or, some individuals just choose to take their own time and not discuss much soon after they get home; and share all the excitement or the learnings / activities a little later when not asked… people tend to be not questioned but willing to share if not being asked and the topic comes up.

I think I need to observe this factor with few other people to understand the behavior , hehe

Review: Th!nkTweet

As I had commented on Rajesh’s blog before, Rajesh had probably started a similar concept even prior to Twitter came into existence in the form of mini-Sagas; however Rajesh clarifies that the frequency and speed of feedback is much faster in Twitter where twitters tweet the tw(f)eedback tw(qu)icker for 140 letter thwoughts.

First, Thank you Rajesh for forwarding a copy of Th!nkTweet. I started reading your writings ever since I was directed to your Change This! manifesto “25 ways to distinguish” and started following your blog – all those mini-sagas, quoughts, etc and including your interviews on itsdiff.com

As I started making notes while reading this book, my thoughts wandered towards writing only appreciations or only critique it. When I think about my purpose of reviewing a material, it is not that only look for positives or look for only negatives, but i think,
1. as a reader and potentially author material in future, it helps me see how my writing will be perceived so I can self learn now
2. my mind certainly goes to the appreciations on this book and all the positive notes mentioned below.
3. and that said, wear critique’s hat and see what I can derive and learn from it
4. or apply few pointers from the book and share about my personal experience? I think this would fantastic if I share my day-today experience applying the concepts from the book, eventually that should be my goal too.

Overall, this is a great twincredible material a Must read and realize or sharpen the values and principles they live with. While writing this, I wondered if i keep my observation to 140characters or to 140 words:) , anyways here it is.

1. Th!nkTweet is a tw(f)antastic one liners every page sooo (tw)easy  to read – with large fonts and two messages a page
2. A great reference book to keep it handy and share the thoughts
3. Several of Th!nkTweets here, as the title go, makes you th(w)ink more and some are like goldmine and eye openers if one tries to understand and apply them in their life scenarios;
4. I certainly see author’s thoughts on “book in your heart” and gives the confidence for any one to be an author and bring out their experiences and share with others, so they can relate to the stories and learn from the stores.
5. It reminds me of the concept of 4 quadrants of feedback mechanism, where 4th quadrant is about reading books to understanding ourselves.

Certain points, I would see could be different: (I know it is easy to pass on the critiques than doing it, but I would still want to mention for my own notes)
1. from the way the tweets printed, I would like it to be a smaller pocket book so it could be handy, and I see a lot of paper space wasted. I am not sure if it was because of the standard book size or if it was something else.
2. Showing “Book 1” on the cover page indicates there will be further updates to it. I think it would be great to provide author’s future ideas around Th!nkTweet as it is now ambiguous that
                 a) will there be another part with more thinkTweets?
                 b) will there be another form of thinkTweet after this book?
3. Agreed for the tweets and feedback, without relating to twitter/tweets, I am trying to understand how different is this from the books we find with “Quotes of <name your favorite individual here>” is it a different name (ie., branding?)
4. From pages (slides?) by tweets 9, 28, 81, 101 and 134, I thought they would probably resemble chapters, but not necessarily, I am not sure if I found the relevance in the tweets of respective sections.

having said these, here is what I personally thought and how I am going to use these tweets (as appropriate)
1. several tweets that made me think on my current situation
2. some of them were really helped me realize my shortcomings so I could back on track.
3. I will use some of them to build my speech topics at the Toastmasters club I am part of
4. I will share about this book with possibly everyone I come across. I know it is a must read and keep it handy for reference.

I like the way you have set up Tweets on your site.

ps: these are just my personal observation – and i haven’t reviewed this write up before posting it here.

Movies and violence …

I was at the Movie Transformer 2, 2 days ago. Apparently, this time, I made it at about the right time. Most movies I go, although, it is very rare, would have the house almost empty, and it is easier to find the last row, that i usually prefer. Or perhaps, we usually go earlier than this time. Anyways, although it was on time, it was not really on time for the movie to start, but just on time before the trailers began. Managed to find a seat on row 5 from the last, I never prefer to go to the front to watch move, although i see some people prefer to sit on row 3 or 4 from the front and some at row1. When you go to the Sony Digital screen which is about 45 to 50 ft tall, and sit at the front, I can’t imagine the stiff neck you would have when you get out of the theatre.

Anyways, being right on time for trailers, sometimes, I like the those trailers being a great preview. But at times, it makes me think whether all movies made these days are of violence in nature? Or do trailers follow the path the main movie is labeled as? in this case it was Transformers. Following trailers were shown:

9.9.09 – some sort of violence
The airbender – about destroying one individual (but appears to have lots of stunts)
Search: 2010 –> about world ending in 2010
Gamer: – about army and slayers – though a video game, but the players are real
<and few more>

I probably feel it this way because of not watching many movies, and me going to a theatre is once or twice a year. or well, I am not sure if such movies has made me not to go watch them.

well, I am also aware, that at the end of the day, me talking about violence movie doesn’t mean anything in general.

Now, coming to the part of Movie I watched : “Transformers 2: the raise of the fallen” –> it was a great movie. Great graphics, great direction. Although, I personally felt, if I missed the sequel part of it for not watching the part1 of the movie. but yesterday, one of my colleagues, said: not necessarily – as they are not completely connected or disconnected. so even without watching part1, you should still be able to grasp the theme. I guess my understanding was very isolated to part2 alone.

Overall, the movie was entertaining, funny, though some violence, but not in a way that living characters get hurt. I know some viewers have that kind of notion that as long as living characters are not hurt in the movie, it is entertaining. So movie characters involving into violence were mostly autobots. I liked the movie, and it was also interesting to note the movie was for over 140minutes, it is is not that often that we notice English movies being that long.

Where is my wrist band? I don’t know but I will look for it…

My 4yr old girl wore a wrist band that I had given her. One morning she was playing with this and with few of her other toys. Later that afternoon, while we were out to one of the stores, she borrowed the one I had on my wrist. Later on in the evening, few hours after we were back home, we both went on a walk around the community. I remembered about the band, and I asked her for the band and the conversation goes:

me: “Sweety, where is my wrist band?”
V: are you asking about the one with purple, green color?
me: yes, the one you had taken from me this afternoon
V: remember that is with a bunch of my other toys put on a ring
me: which one?
V: the one you helped me this morning with.
me: well, that was your band that I had given you yesterday. but how about the one you had taken from me at the store this afternoon?
V: this afternoon?
me: yes, at the store, near the counter when we were about to pay for other things.
V: I don’t know
me: sure? try to recall.
V: I don’t know
me: (not satisfied with her answer), sweety, you had taken it from me, and I think you need to remember to return it.
V: but I don’t know where I have kept it, but I will look for it.
me: (with somewhat, guilt feeling in my mind, at at the same time, satisfied with her answer, although she said she didn’t know, but she was also willing to look for it), sure, I like your answer that you are willing to look for it. thank you
V: thank you, I don’t know where I kept it, but I will look for it. does it sound ok appa? (dad?)
me: sure buddy, thank you
(now, the conversation shifted and she started humming a kannada song for which she had danced several months ago, and we reached home a several minutes later)

After we were back, we were still playing around and then I came over to the Kitchen to take my tablets. She got disappeared for a few minutes. She came back to me and handed over a wrist band. I heartily took it and thanked her for that band. I didn’t question anything further and we both got into other games or conversations. Later, she and her mom did a nail coloring sessions for few minutes, and we both read a Kannada book (Aesop fables) and she slept. I came upstairs later that night to go to bed, and noticed her bunch of toys where I had tied her wrist band together with. Now, I am flattered, that she sacrificed her band for losing my band, I felt so guilty, went back to the car and noticed it was there on the floor carpet by her seat.

There are several things that we indeed learn from children. looks like, children are great teachers than our own experiences most of the time, especially with respect to attitude.

Appa, please drive slow….

Our 4yr old daughter has acquired this awareness that if I ever drive a little faster, she would realize and tends to caution me. I am not sure how she got this attention these days, it is probably because she has observed a lot and started noticing cars pulled over the shoulder, and she has started recognizing the cars with a note “Police.”  She appears to be more concerned about 2 things:
a. be cautious so not hit anyone or anything
b. (in her words), police will come and take you away

We, as good parents, started explaining her the role of the police officers and not really have the false fear. Be proud of having those officers around who help the community be safe. The role helps the community, the children, the people around be safe from any adversities and accidents. Help people around if they need help on roads.

I believe she has started to have the sense of awareness and building up the sense of being cautious and go by the structured rules or lay out a plan/structure along the way. Well! I must admit, these things are only by her own will and not necessarily apply for everything, like throwing the play toys, books, and beads all across the house, until I say I am going to pack all these stuffs and put them in the garage.

Other cautious things she observers while driving:
a. mommy/appa, we should not drink (in our case water ) while driving
b. daddy are you looking at front while driving? please do not turn towards me while driving.
c. I don’t want to bump to another car or a curb.
and so on…