From the Desk of your PCA Team .....
The week also has been a busy, busy week! We have had a City Trip to GRT, a Technology Training and the New Parent Coffee. A theme in all of these, and I copy Andrew in this, Anthropology. We studied the local culture in the City Trip. We studied our School culture in the Tech Training and we talked about the multiple cultures around us in the New Parent Coffee.
The PCA City Tour was attended by nearly 40 people who toured four floors of GRT’s Thanga Nagai (meaning GRT’s gold jewelry shop). We started the morning with a welcome from the GRT team and quickly proceeded to the Ethnic jewelry. Pieces ranged from typical bridal jewelry to the temple jewelry that Tamil Nadu is known for. We went from there to the second floor, of silver items. These included puja items, marcasite bangles and gemstone sets, to toe rings, and to anklets to name a few. Each piece has a reason for buying. The biggest reason for purchases of these items, apart from adorning the women in your family, it was a savings for the family. If times were bad, then these items could be sold and cash could be gotten immediately to help the family. If you are interested in seeing all the pictures of the GRT Tour, click on this sentence. We ended the tour with being pampered at the GRT Radisson Blu at the airport for lunch. We had a brief cooking demonstration from their Executive chef on how to do salt cooking in their signature restaurant Salt. To see all the pictures for the lunch, clickon this sentence.
The next day, was a busy day with Tech Training. If you would like to see the presentation that Kevin Crouch had gone over in the training, please click here. As we are an electronic friendly campus, we went through our Student Information System, Skyward, which houses our student grades and our contact information. We covered Moodle, which is our Learning Management System, which is a manner by which homework and class information is passed to grade 5-12 students; Essentially a hybrid classroom model. For the younger than 5th grade students, Kevin went through Edmoto. A high impact session to learn about how the school sends out information to all of us.
The afternoon was an informational meeting for Grade Level Reps for the upcoming year. Much of the work that the Reps will be doing is to facilitate information. They will be working directly with the Principals and the PCA to deliver information about principal meetings. When the Arts department has ticket selling requests, or there are numerous events such as the R.I.S.E. Events, the PCA Grade Level Reps sending out emails to inform parents. For the ES area, Classroom parents will be doing what they have traditionally done. Most parents, work under the direction of the teacher to organize social events for the kids. Many parents can organize reading sessions and invite other parents to come for the event. Traditionally, most room parents are known best to organize the themed room parties. We look forward to all the parents working together to make this a memorable school year.
This morning we began the weekend with our New Parent Coffee. Andrew, was quite eloquent and appropriate in stating that when one moves as an expat, it becomes an experience. We need to let the experience become us, not try to fit the experience to us. If we do this, we will have memories for our lifetime. If you would like to see the presentation from the morning, please click here.
Tomorrow kicks off the Welcome Back Throwback Picnic starting at 1p.m. It should be great with food, activities for the kids to do and just fun in the Chennai sun! Stating that, make sure to hydrate often, bring a hat if you can, and lots of suntan lotion. It should be a wonderful event.
Tomorrow kicks off the Welcome Back Throwback Picnic starting at 1p.m. It should be great with food, activities for the kids to do and just fun in the Chennai sun! Stating that, make sure to hydrate often, bring a hat if you can, and lots of suntan lotion. It should be a wonderful event.
We look forward to seeing you all there.
Signing off for this week….
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Open Positions
There are still open positions on the PCA. We are looking for energetic persons whose goal is to enrich the lives of their kids through parent sponsored activities. We have open positions for Vice President and Treasurer on the Executive Team.If you are interested, please do give us an email at pca@aisch.org. To see all open positions, please see the side bar link of PCA Volunteers.
Upcoming Events
August 25th, 2015 - UN Day Planning meeting - in Breezeway Conference Room, 8:45-9:45
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Community Events
The following week hosts the Overseas Women's Club Flea Market sale at Tryst Cafe. They are currently working with about seven different charities. It ranges from orphanages, to old age homes to helping mentally and physically challenged individuals.
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Jokes Corner
DON'T LAUGH PLEASE!!!
In Japan they invented a machinethat catches thieves;
They took it out to different countries for a test.
In U.S.A, in 30 minutes, it caught 20 thieves;
UK, in 30 minutes it caught 500 thieves;
Spain, in 20 minutes it caught 25 thieves;
Ghana,in 10 minutes it caught 6,000thieves;
Uganda in 7mins it caught 20,000thieves,
In India , in 5 minutes the machine was stolen.
I told you not to laugh?
If you laughed then share this.
Cockroach Theory
A beautiful speech by Sundar Pichai - an IIT-MIT Alumnus and Global Head Google Chrome:
The cockroach theory for self development
At a restaurant, a cockroach suddenly flew from somewhere and sat on a lady.
She started screaming out of fear.
With a panic stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping, with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach.Her reaction was contagious, as everyone in her group also got panicky.The lady finally managed to push the cockroach away but ...it landed on another lady in the group.Now, it was the turn of the other lady in the group to continue the drama.
The waiter rushed forward to their rescue.In the relay of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon the waiter.The waiter stood firm, composed himself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on his shirt. When he was confident enough, he grabbed it with his fingers and threw it out of the restaurant. Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, the antenna of my mind picked up a few thoughts and started wondering, was the cockroach responsible for their histrionic behavior?
If so, then why was the waiter not disturbed?
He handled it near to perfection, without any chaos. It is not the cockroach, but the inability of those people to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach, that disturbed the ladies. I realized that, it is not the shouting of my father or my boss or my wife that disturbs me, but it's my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbs me. It's not the traffic jams on the road that disturbs me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam that disturbs me. More than the problem, it's my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.
Lessons learnt from the story:
I understood, I should not react in life.
I should always respond.
The women reacted, whereas the waiter responded.
Reactions are always instinctive whereas responses are always well thought of.
A beautiful way to understand............LIFE.
Person who is HAPPY is not because Everything is RIGHT in his Life..
He is HAPPY because his Attitude towards Everything in his Life is Right..!!
Jokes for our younger kids
Q: Why was 6 afraid of 7?
A: Because 7, 8, 9.
Q: What musical instrument is found in the bathroom?
A: A tuba toothpaste.
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Pizza.
Pizza who?
Pizza really great guy!
Q: What do you call cheese that's not yours?
A: Nacho cheese!
Q: What do elves learn in school?
A: The elf-abet.
Q: Why did the boy bring a ladder to school?
A: He wanted to go to high school.
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Interrupting, squawking parrot.
Interrupting, squawking parr-
SQUAWKKKKKKKKKKK!
Q: Where do pencils go for vacation?
A: Pencil-vania.
Q: Why did the girl smear peanut butter on the road?
A: To go with the traffic jam!
Q: Why do bananas have to put on sunscreen before they go to the beach?
A: Because they might peel!
