Mark Morris Dance troupe at the Power Center

Have just returned from a dance performance by the Mark Morris dance troupe. Its been my first experience at such a performance - the dancers had fluid movements - perfect balance which was displayed by various ballet like poses and forms. They moved about like nimble fairies in the park and yet were so firm in their grasps.
There were a couple of separate performances each with a different theme - there was one that was based on a lullaby, one called the candledance and a last was the grand duo. I was totally impressed with the near perfect balance and precise movements. although it was described as romantic waltzes, I could see traces of ballet, jazz and sometimes even forms of the Indian bharatnatyam.
I am glad i could make time in the midst of all my other activities to attend this performance. The last performance that i attended at the power center was a theater production that was called the Disappearing Number. I was totally awed by the Inidan mathematician Ramanujan - it was based on hs life and his discoveries and theories. Could not believe that they actually spoke about convergent and divergent series in the show. I wish they had tried to prove how the sum of the infinite series of nautural numbers tends to -1/12!!

There seems to be so much happening at the University - so much to do and so little time - learning how to prioritze seems to be the key in surving grad school - can't believe that the weekend is half way down so soon - and I am still at the top of my to do list aawwww.

Another birthday another year!

This is that time of the year when I feel homesick the most - you really don't know what to do on certain days of the year - days which were dedicated to be spent with family and friends. Its my sisters crown birthday and I wish we could be together and share hugs and kisses and eat loads of cake and beef pattieses and mom-cooked 'birthday' food. This year also happens to be my brothers 21st birthday and again I will miss being at home terribly.
Besides the significance of being born on that day does it mean anything else in ones life? I personally don't feel much emotions on my birthday anylonger- actually eversince I celebrated my 18th or maybe the 21st I began dreading the day. I realised that its not much fun growing older. You can now do all the things you wanted that were not allowed when u were a child - remember the closing argument - "you can do it when you grow up"

Well right now my point is that do we need to celebrate birthdays only once a year? This not an argument for people who forget the birthdays of the significant other in their life - but seriously isn't every day as important as the other? Why do we take the other days of our life for granted? Wht take life for granted? So it means we should be happy to be alive and accept that growing older is just part of being alive!
So then since we really don't need to celebrate birthdays on the day we were born, I keep telling myself that when I go back home we can all celebrate our birthdays in family together on the same day - by cutting one big giant cake. I guess just being together calls for a celebration and eating cake is just an excuse for indulgence.
Now this what I call experience that is gained over the years!!

Home is where the Heart lies...

Somedays the pangs of being away from home are the most agonizing. The scent of my mothers embrace, my granny's toothless grin, my dogs lapping up onto me with the familiarity bark, the scenic sight of the river and the deliberations of whether to bathe in it or not...bantering with my siblings over trivial issues, teasing my younger brother for no reason at all, endless arguments with my father which would begin over the dinner table and continue even after the dishes were cleaned and dried!
How I miss being at home - our achivements in life are proportional to the amount of things/benefits we give up to get them. This is so very true on my case.
I am in one of the best programs in the world and could not have asked to be anywhere else but the images of home flashing between my mundane chores tear my heart apart. the sight of families coming together to receive eucharist in the church makes me yearn so much to be with my family.
For now its back to my loads of assignments and readings. My next class begins in 10 minutes from now!!

Whats in a name?

So why do I have an English name with a Spanish last name that ends with a 'S' and not 'Z'?

This has been the best conversation starter - and I am quite surprised to know that people actually ask that to me - so much so that I now voluntarily give an explanation when introduced somebody new!

So I come from Goa a tiny state in India that was colonised by the Portuguese; while the whole India was a British colony. Now India gained independence on the 15th of August 1947 while Goa got liberated from the Portuguese only on the 18th of December 1960 - infact the rumour was that Goa was in its way to become a country of its own.
So the Portuguese influenced the culture of Goa in more than one way - introduced Christianity, loads of churches - the most famous being the one in Old Goa that has the body of St. Francis Xavier a Jesuit priest whose body has not decomposed.
So that's the reason why we celebrate Carnival for four days before Ash Wednesday, why we have all those delicious desserts like Bebinca and Doce and Marzipan's. Also the reason why we have so many people speaking Portuguese, also the reason why we have families with last names like Furtado, Dias, Norhona, Coelho and Lopez; and also the reason why me and my whole family have English names!!

Multi-lingual anyone?

So how many languages do you speak?
Three.
Three?? WOW!!

Whenever i say this to people here in the US i find amused and enquiring glances and often gasps in amazement. This is part of a typical conversation that I have here in the US - can't say the number of times it has been repeated - the response below has now turned out into a well rehearsed answer.

On an average every Indian would speak three different languages.
Every Indian utters his first words in his mother tongue which is invariably related to the state/region that he was born in. In school he then learns the national language Hindi so that he can converse with any other Indian in any part of the country - the common thread in the midst of 15 diverse languages. And finally English the medium of instruction in most schools. Some kids are fluent in more that one regional language and some even take up foreign languages like French and Portuguese in school.
Such an amazing feature of Indian education I had taken for granted until i came to the US. I wish I had picked up more languages when in school. There was this study that my sister once spoke about in psychology that links cognitive abilities to language skills. Right now the two topmost languages I would love to speak would unarguably be Chinese and Spanish - in that order!