Simple Snippets

It’s been nearly two months since Saboor started school at Cathedral and just yesterday he got his complete uniform set. Every day he either wore a set of regular clothes or the full white uniform which he’s wearing in the picture above.

I remember when Saboor and I went to give his measurements in school, there was a very irate woman who ranted on and on about how Cathedral really delay giving out uniforms. I thought she was exaggerating a bit. But it’s true. First, in all the time I studied in Baldwins I never saw so many new students joining. And then I never saw any new student without a uniform for so long! I mean, new students would come wearing the uniform itself. We were always made to feel that tolerance level for those who came without uniforms for whatever reason was absolutely nil.

Anyway, I guess each school is different. So far I’m happy that I put Sab here because he seems to have made friends easily enough and there’s so much possibility for free play.

Also, one more point in favour of Cathedral is that all the teachers have treated me with utmost respect. Don’t get me wrong, but in St. Pauls too, all the teachers were extremely courteous towards me. Why I’m making such a big point of this is because there’s a certain manner in which burkha clad women were viewed in my school. I’d often see teachers being a little snappy towards my mother whenever she came to school and it would hurt me quite a bit.

I don’t know how things are in Baldwins now but it gladdens my heart to see that there are other good schools who are not bound by prejudice of any sort.

Anyway, enough of that discussion. Here’s Saboor wearing the school uniform for the first day.

So, I finally figured out a way to send an email to my blog from my phone. This is just a test post to see if it works!

Okay. So I’ve gone and done it again. Bought a new phone I mean. This time I’m back to nokia and am I glad! Plus this phone is so cool with some really cool features. Everytime I thin this is it…this will be my final phone but I soon get bored and start looking around for something else. But this time it could really be it!

Just imagine! I don’t need a computer to surf the net or to write my stuff! I think that’s the coolest thing about this phone! I know that everyone is probably thinking ‘yeah right’

It’s been a very busy Monday for me, and I am really tired..waiting to hit the bed. But before I do, I need to take Az to the toilet again or he’ll pee on the bed because its so cold. I usually get up twice in the night to take him to toilet so my sleep is still not undisturbed. And people, I haven’t slept a full night’s sleep since March 2006! (

Anyway, the day began as usual, with me taking Sab to the pick up point where his bus arrives. Got back home and got Azhaan ready. Then, we went to drop him to his playschool,got back home, had breakfast, went to see Sajida chachi, went to pick up Azhaan from school, got back home, went to moms place, dropped Az at home and went to Saboors school to meet his Hindi teacher because some of the pages in his text book are blank. Got back home and had lunch, got down to work, gave Az his milk, sat down to work again when Ammi took the kids out…worked, worked, worked until i finished everything and then, came back to Koramangala, gave kids dinner, put them to sleep and now, I’m shutting down my laptop and going to sleep! Whew!

Sometimes I’m too lazy to open links that people send me through email or messenger. Maybe its because I fear I will be drawn into it and I will ignore what I am doing currently. Well, today, Biji sent me a link and for some reason I went ahead and opened it. And yes, I’m not able to concentrate on anything else since then. But I don’t really care now. This affected me personally and I hope that you too will take the time to open the link and read it.

http://themadmomma.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/the-vbac-gone-wrong/

Tomorrow (ok, technically, it’s today as 4th June has begun) is Saboor’s first day at Cathedral High School. I’m nervous as well as excited for him. I feel he’s lived a different kind of sheltered life all along as far as schooling is concerned. And now all that is going to change.

I sincerely pray to Allah that he makes good friends there, the kind who will stick by him and not lead him astray. He’s a child who has so much joie de vivre in him, and I really hope that this school helps him find his potential, and doesn’t strangle any creativity that is there in him. And I also hope that I made the right decision by choosing this school.

Gosh…I’m sitting here blogging about this and Mansoor is sitting and watching the T20 match on TV with hardly any concern. I think we women worry on their behalf also!

And as for Azhaan. It was his first day of school and he went very happily until the gate. There he looked a little bit uncertain and then the ayah asked him to go with her and he refused. She carried him and went away and he bawled and cried and screamed and I got to hear that he did throw up, just as I had feared. It will take a little time for him to settle down. But it seems strange to admit it, I hardly felt any separation pangs when he went away inside. For Saboor, I now remember that I felt like crying myself. But I guess i’m a bit hardened now.

Ok, it’s time I went to sleep. At last the summer vacations are over!!!!!

I had built up quite a repertoire of posts in my earlier Yahoo 360 blog and I had to let go of them when I switched to Word Press. I had no idea that Yahoo 360 was shutting down for good and when I got an email from them asking me to shift all my stuff, I was feeling saddened. When I had made the switch to WordPress, there was no option to import posts from Yahoo. So, I had made a new beginning then.

But today I got to know that they were allowing us to import all our posts into WordPress from Yahoo. And I went right ahead and did it! So now, all my older posts are intact and safe. I was just reading a couple of old ones from the Yahoo blog and laughing like anything, reading about Saboor’s antics! I had started that blog sometime in 2005, and man, four years back, life was SO different! I’m glad I started the Yahoo 360 blog (Sowm, I have you to thank for that!) because all this part of my life would have gone undocumented.

Anyway, all my friends out there who had Yahoo 360 blogs, its time you did the same unless you haven’t already done it and I’m belatedly crowing about this!

One more thing, I had no idea you could do so many things with Gmail. See, what I mean is that I never check my Yahoo mails. They always take ages to load and I don’t have the time for them. But recently I learnt that I could download all my Yahoo mails into my Gmail account through POP and label it separately. So what I mean is that if I hadn’t done this, I wouldn’t have read the Yahoo mail about Yahoo 360 shutting down (although it’s still way off in July) and I might have lost all those posts forever! Yay to Gmail! And to Open Source software like WordPress which gives us so much freedom. (I’ve got Jun to thank for this interesting analysis of all things related to software on his blog which he has given the unlikely title of Ruminating Muse)

Ciao till then! It’s a lovely Saturday and <groan> I have to be at work! <sigh>

Yes, May is thankfully drawing to a close. It has never been one of my favourite months from quite a few years for the simple reason that having Saboor around at home, all day, every day is not an easy task. There are other memories also associated with May that are not entirely what I want to remember, memories from when I was a teenager etc.

So, June is just two days away and Saboor’s school starts on 4th June while Azhaan’s starts on 3rd. I am sure that Azhaan is going to kick up quite a ruckus about being away from me and I have no idea how to deal with it. Will bother about it when that happens I guess. I am also a bit worried about Saboor because he will be the new kid in class. I hope he can make friends easily there, and become one of the crowd.

Then, we got Saboor’s books and everything and we have to cover them as yet. I still have to buy his shoes, socks and other accessories and his uniform might apparently be delayed by a few days so I have no idea if its ok if he goes in his regular clothes.

Soon, these lazy mornings are going to give way to a mad rush in the morning when I have to make breakfast and lunch, pack it and get the kids ready before sending them off to school. But the peace and quiet that follows will be fantastic I hope! Will get much more of my work done in that way.

By the way, I was planning on writing this and kept putting it off and then I saw Anamika’s post on it and thought I’d better write what I was thinking too!