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Archive for January, 2014|Monthly archive page

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Reflections on Parenting

In Field Notes on 6 January 2014 at 4:02 am

As a participant-observer in the parenting tribe, Rushabh Mehta from Mumbai reflects on his three years’ experience as Poppy to his daughter Kavya. 

Kavya and her Poppy

Kavya and her Poppy

Kavya is already three. For first time parents, there is always a feeling that there was an era before parenthood and after parenthood. Before parenthood, life is much simpler. With a child around, the amount of activities suddenly explodes.  Also if you are someone who is not used to anticipating and planning, you can quickly get behind the task list, that just keeps on extending. Read the rest of this entry »


10 Ideas for Simple Fun Party Favors

In What on 5 January 2014 at 1:05 pm

You’ve already done everyone a favour by throwing a party.  Warm goodbyes are a fine way to see guests off after a party.

Stuff …

Stuff …

Why distribute stuff that simply contributes to the expectation that people are supposed to get stuff at a birthday party?  Anyway, balloons are bad for wildlife, noisemakers make, well, noise, and plastic boxes and trinkets clutter the house and ruin the environment.  All just more stuff – as in the Story of Stuff. Read the rest of this entry »


2013 in review

In News & Notes on 5 January 2014 at 12:00 pm

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

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Following

In Poems on 5 January 2014 at 11:55 am

Following my meditation on the implied reader of the if-then statements proposed in Dorothy Law’s poem Children Learn What They Live, I recognized that the doubt I encountered as a child, peering into the gap between the apparently interlocked puzzle pieces reached to the heart of inference itself. 

Only much later I found my kindred spirit while reading Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations.   Read the rest of this entry »


It’s Called a Party Favour!

In What on 5 January 2014 at 11:55 am

Time for Amma to step upon the soapbox for a topic on which she has had to bite her tongue on many an occasion.  No longer!

Please note:  there is no such thing as a “return gift.”    You may have heard this phrase and even used it yourself, but to quote to higher authority, “These practices are no less vulgar for having become commonplace.”  Miss Manners is talking about practices such as gift registries and continues,  “There is no polite way to tell people to give you money or objects.[1]”

Calling something a “return gift” indicates that you expected a gift in the first place. Read the rest of this entry »