Doctor Kinjal Ahir

A very soft and sweet sounding voice answers my call. I was pleasantly surprised that she took the trouble to find out how to properly pronounce my name and throughout the 10 or so minutes that we were on the phone she remained soft spoken and friendly, chatting with me in a way that probably wins over the hearts of her students. Having discovered her liking for Economics in college, she begins her year taking the 40 hours she spends with her students as a challenge to make her favourite subject an interesting and exciting one for them as well. Hard to imagine anyone bunking her lectures.

Apart from teaching Economics, Dr. Ahir also conducts classes in Spoken English and this is not surprising considering how charming she sounded on the phone especially when she spoke about her son Aditya. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing her at TEDxSabarmati and believe that her talk which refers to "You'll See It When You Believe It" a book by Wayne W. Dyer will be worth hearing.

The Countdown

Starting tomorrow, there are exactly 10 days to the 28th of May, to the day that Team Eureka is waiting for, to the day I have been writing about, to TEDxSabarmati.
It was decided at today's meeting at a cafe on Judges Bungalow Road that the next ten days are going to be dedicated to our speakers with interviews, info, photos and an update on what's happening behind the scenes.
One speaker a day until the 28th of May.
That begins tomorrow.
Today, I'm excited to post a talk by physicist Leonard Susskind, a friend of the well known scientist Richard Feynman, a Nobel Laureate  ("Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965" - Wikipedia)  and the author of one of my favourite books 'Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman.'

For All The Time You Spent Scratching Your Head Over Physics

Yes, just one exercise to go... So how annoying is it when you've been working on the first and easiest problem for 10 minutes and it seems like you're getting nowhere? Very? Well, here's what you do. Get up from that table, hop around a bit to rid your feet of that weird tingling sensation ( I just found out it's called Paresthesia), go to your "sleeping" laptop, open Google Chrome and  type http://www.khanacademy.org/ into your address bar. Voila, if all goes well, you're back at your table, ready to face that problem and more in under 20 minutes. Unless, of course you decide to sign into Facebook, which means all other books will have to wait as you grin with anticipation at the sight of 26 notifications only to discover you now have to delete 26 spam videos from your wall.

Anyway, Khan Academy is one of the reasons you should thank God for the Internet. They have videos and exercises covering arithmetic, physics, finance, history and that's not all. Give it a shot. Here's a video on Newton's First Law of Motion..

If you liked that, or even if you didnt, you can watch Salman Khan, the name behind the Academy talk at TED2011...

Look What I Found

Aha! Read Aastha's status update on Facebook. Tune in to 94.3 FM to listen to daily updates on TEDxSabarmati. Sweeeet. The train is racing along..

One Day At A Time

I am glad to be alive. Honestly, today was quite an eye-opener. Ever been trapped with 6 other people in an elevator meant for five with the watchman away on holiday? No? I thought so. Well, that's exactly what happened to me today and boy, did those adrenal glands go into overdrive. Though I was quite calm mentally and was praying, physically, my legs were tingling. Getting out of that lift unharmed and wiser made me realize how much we take for granted our safety. 

If that wasnt enough to make me grateful, I was also witness to a car enveloped in flames. What a day! Anyway, valuable lesson learnt. Even as you count the days to 28 May, I say Hallelujah for every day that was, is and is to come.

Game Time

http://www.seenandshared.com/circle-the-cat.htm
Hmph, you never got back to me on how you liked the previous game. Anyway, here's one more for you to play..

Meltdown

It's summer time and I'm getting more tanned, thirsty and tired each day. But then again, every passing day brings the 28th of May a little closer. I'm pretty much zapped and raise your hand if you become bad tempered and moody when you're exhoausted but I've got everlasting love that keeps me going and stops me from becoming a monster, and yes, I'm talking about the love of Christ here so please keep those imaginations in check.
Anyway, I've just jotted down a few tips to defeat the heat.. Yeah, I know "beat the heat" sounds cooler but it's been so overused..
--- I got one word for you - HYDRATE
--- Go get sunscreen. P.S. - buy the most appropriate one for you.. dont let those rashes remind you how sensitive your skin is.
--- Try to go out more in the evening than in the morning..

Yeah, they're basic and plain common sense and you probably hear it every summer so this is just a little "DO NOT FORGET" note..

Attention! Call to all Language enthusiasts..

If your favourite book of poetry was ever wet with your tears.. Or if you have more than one collection of poems other than your school literature textbooks.. Or even if you have a Literature textbook at all.. This post is for you....

Read this verse by Lewis Carroll. See if you can spot what makes it unusual....

Did its peculiarity elude you? Never mind, now read it "down" instead of across... Clever, yeah?

90s All The Way!

How cool was yesterday's Google page(s)? Yup, they had a different doodle each time you refreshed your page. About 16 different doodles on Mr.Men and Little Miss characters, I think. Anyway, I realized that I had almost forgotten about these and numerous other "favourites" all us 90s kids share..  Thankfully, pages like this one bring back memories of the good ole times..This is something I found on Facebook. Not my work. Just sharing. 
These are the links : 

http://www.wegrewupinindia.com/ http://www.facebook.com/WeGrewUpInIndia Please do read..

Shout Out

I know that it bothers me when I don't get quick replies to my texts. Perhaps worse is not getting a reply when you really want one. That stings a little more than Dettol on a fresh wound. It has happened to me more times than I know. Seriously dude, the only person I can rely on for always listening and replying is Jesus. I can hardly expect such perfection from humans so sometimes I have to check my phone every other second when I'm waiting for a reply from someone. And I know you do it too, not all the time and not for everybody's replies, but it's one of those things that happen to every teen with a cell phone and a SIM, yeah, a free message pack helps too.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I would like to hear from you reader(s). Feel free to let the world, the part of it that reads this blog, know how you liked one of the talks or a particular post or even the font I'm using. Your literary effort should be published as a comment so we can all read what you want us to know. Hoping for a quick reply.

The Wait

Now that you know exactly how many seconds you're going to be waiting. Here's a fun game I picked out for you to help pass those apparently endless minutes. And yeah, dont let those surprisingly easy 8 rounds in the beginning fool you into relaxing those grey cells. It's pure mental aerobics once you hit level nine. All the best.


Red remover (Puzzle game) | Play more games

Tick Tock

You dont need to cross out the days on your calendar anymore. Thank God for technology.

Ticket to TEDxSabarmati

Haha, yes! The much awaited and talked about ticket to TEDxSabarmati is finally up for you to grab. Here's a sneak peek at what it looks like.

Btw, the hand holding the tickets belongs to the one whose mind is one of the few behind the event. Ladies and gentlemen, Aastha Kankariya.
The face above the tickets is the one you'll be contacting for information about your passes. Put your hands together for Zubeen Agrawal. And yeah, you can also use those hands to dial 08000802125 and book your invites.


Looking forward to being there.

Breaking News

We're in the news!

Yesterday's Ahmedabad Mirror featured an article about Ravi Shekhar (Kumar), one of our speakers. The very one I had written about a few days ago.

Ahmedabad Mirror : May 4 2011

An article introducing you to our distinguished speakers. 

Ahmedabad Mirror : 20 April 2011

Awesome Things

Team Eureka met at Reading Tree today. I wasnt there but "Reading" is what I'm writing about today. Before that, just one more video for you today. An introduction of sorts to the name behind http://1000awesomethings.com.



An awesome website that talks about the little things that make you say AWESOME! (Looks like two 'awesome's in one sentence is one 'awesome' too many to be awesome). Now how awesome was that last sentence? Hehe, raise your hand if you're sick of the word that I better not mention again [in this sentence]. Anyway, 1000awesomethings is a sort of daily pick-me-up, a heartwarming blog that causes the people in the same room as you to tolerantly shake their heads as you quietly chuckle at your screen. I think it's a great (aren't you happy that I didnt say awesome) read. Honestly, Neil Pasricha's blog makes me close my eyes and say a big Thank you to Jesus, the #1 Awesome person in my life.

Goodie Bag/Blog

Yes guys, you can smile now. I'm back and I have a goodie bag, well, blog with fun(ny) and interesting videos hand picked for you.

What are you waiting for then? You know how much time videos take to buffer. Happy watching!

Wasn't that just simply supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? In case you've never heard that word before, here's another video for you.
P.S: Do not watch the video if you dont want the song to play over and over and over again in your head. And yeah, if you find yourself humming this today, don't say I didn't warn you.

Here's another talk for you showcasing some technology that I think is definitely worth the wait and the weightlessness (Typing that word made me feel as if I was making it up) of your pocket after it hits the market. That was just for pun guys (muahahaha), I think it's going to be quite affordable.

Now Im going to gesture what I call the 'Good bye wave'. I wonder if that shuts down the device, hehe.

Well then, borrowing the words of a famous grey bunny, "That's all folks". (No no, dont cry. God willing I will be back tomorrow)