Hard work pays...

All these spelling tests that me and dad did, was a good experience.

Recently, some guys from MaRRS came to my school to conduct an inter-school competition.
The first round was done to select the children who would go to the next round...

I think I did well....
They gave me a certificate for it.

Daddy was told in the PTA that I will need to participate in the next level next month.
We will cross the bridge when we reach it, I guess :-)

Spelling test

These days, I am fascinated with spellings.

I must say that English is a funny language. I recently learnt that the word 'documents' is spelt the way it is...I thought it was 'do q mens'.

But since English is a language that you cannot do without, I have decided to put in some effort!

One of the ways I usually evaluate my performance is by putting myself through a rigorous testing process. So I enrolled daddy to prepare the test.

And quite a test he prepared, I must say!!
I had to really sit down, think carefully before I got started...

I was a little worked up initially, but then settled down as I gained confidence after attempting the first few words. I have a feeling that daddy was kind enough to throw in some easy words before increasing the difficulty levels...

As you would notice below, the final results were satisfactory...

This time, I surprised daddy by not asking him for an ice-cream, or a donut.
Instead, I asked him to read me a few books :-)

This was just a way to spend some quality time together...

Post script by Daddy: Apologies for this late entry. This test was attempted a few months back, but daddy procrastinated suitably and sat on this post suitably well...

Ganesh Chaturthi

We decided to install the Lord for the second year in succession.
I was quite excited and was all ready to usher him in... shampooed and all!

This time, I had to multi-task a lot!

I was the CDO (Chief Delivery Officer)

...the CD*O (Chief Decorating Officer)

...the CPO (Chief Praying Officer)

...and pray I did!! Very fervently.

The Lord was happy :-)


And so were we :-)

Daughter's day

It was daughter's day yesterday.
I decided to really dress up for it...and carried my handbag as well. Ladies stuff, you know.

Me and daddy went out for a 3 hour adventure in the alleys of HN, Powai.
There was a quick stop at the Donut shop, to re-charge myself and get some saccharine into my system. Gave me some time to quickly think of a strategy to spend the evening optimally.



We then cycled our way to Crossword, where I was able to 'influence' daddy into buying a daughter's day gift for me. He had nowhere to run :-)

Had a good time!

A lazy evening with Daddy

It had been a long time that me and daddy had ventured out...without an agenda.
This weekend, we managed to steal some time and decided not to sit in front of the idiot box!

We took an old rag, cleaned the cycle and took off.

It helped that I was wearing my fairy wings...helps in the aerodynamics.

A day at daddy's office...

The director of L&T Financial Services, Sivaraman, was facing some major issues related to LTF pricing, and was not sure on how to derive ‘fair price’.
I (along with Dora the explorer) were summoned for the same.

Since the query was a bit complicated, I opened my workbook and had my quota of milk to get the creative juices flowing...

I did some quick calculations…

I had to ask a few pointed questions to folks like Sreedev, Viraj, and TSV.
They were a little confounded, but did give some logical explanations. I was able to use all this info and was able to find out the real issue…

All that was required was a simple extrapolation of some key figures, and there we had – the fair value staring right at our face….


Post that, since I had some time on me, I spent some time helping out Jennifer. She was looking for some fresh ideas on compensation structuring.

Had a working lunch and was able to bring some solace to her as well. You know, I have recently learnt addition and that helped.


Before I left office, I also spent some time colouring. It’s my way of de-stressing myself


I also enjoyed playing ‘statue’ with everybody.
Also learnt some jive moves from Lawrence.
The girls were nice, and they took real good care of me. Thanks ladies J

Let me assure you that whenever there are critical problems to be solved, I will come.
That’s a promise.

Ever felt like Pavlov's dog?

Since it's vacation time, I chose to spend some time on Wiki to understand human behaviour.

Read a bit on 'Classical conditioning' and found that Ivan Pavlov had done some interesting research on dogs, where he found that if the conditioned stimulus and unconditoned stimulus are repeatedly, eventually the two stimuli become associated and the organism begins to produce a behavioral response to the conditioned stimulus.

To cut the long story short, when you ring a bell, and if the dog associated the ringing of the bell with it getting food, it starts salivating.

Humans too, seem to be using this technique quite efficiently.
Just because of me performing well in school, Daddy took me out for a lot of ice-cream treats!

Got me thinking big-time!! Does it mean that I will have a need to perform, because I might start associating good performance with ice-creams?


But, what the heck! I got my choice of ice-creams!!

I am sure Pavlov's dogs were happy dogs.

I am!

Report card for Junior KG

It was one of the world's best kept secrets!
Mom n Dad had no idea on what to expect when they came in for the report card distribution for the pre-primary school kids.

Well, suffice it to say, I did well!

Out of the 4 categories, I won first prize for recitation and also for colouring. The medals were quite nice :-)

Guess the report card speaks for itself.

The medals were accompanied with certificates!

Overall, a very satisfying experience!

Guess the party begins...

Taking Math to a higher level

I must tell you that I was a little unsure about able to add numbers. But a systematic approach helped. I started adding numbers (please refer to my earlier post) using my fingers. That became easy after 4-5 practice tests:-) But daddy had different ideas in his alabaster head. He wanted me to count numbers higher than fingers on my hand. Here, I had to really struggle and rack my brains for ideas. The Eureka moment came one afternoon, when I was looking for options. I used my pencil to draw lines, which denoted numbers. Different lines for different numbers. Then it became easy to add. After a few practice sessions, I went through the final test!! Results were as usual, predictable!! 5/5 (100%) Daddy was happy, and he asked me if I wanted to top this test with the mother of all tests!! At this young age, I am a huge risk-taker! So, I said 'YES!!"

Daddy, again, was true to his word.

I got my ice-creams. Two of them!!

My first test paper

Daddy & I have been working on arithmetic these past few days...The focus has been on addition. We would ask each other complex questions on additions, using fingers to denote numbers... Then daddy made the mistake of challenging me to take a test! A tough one! I was a bit skeptical, since I had no previous experience, but decided to take the plunge. Have a look at the test! I am sure that you will agree that it was a tough one for an four and a half year old...

But I kept my calm and took it one question at a time. As you can observe, the results were good. I could see daddy's jaw dropping, which ensured my happiness quotient went up :-) Do you want to know why? Because we had a bet :-)

The bet was that if I answered all the questions correctly, I would get an ice-cream of my choice!!

Well, since my daddy is a gentleman, he kept his word, and I got an ice-cream of my choice (which is hardly a choice... Henry Ford used to say 'I can give you a car in any colour, as long as it's black'. I use a similar example to share my choice on ice-creams!)

For the intellectually challenged folks, I had a strawberry ice-cream. Duh!!

Well, the happiness did not end with one ice-cream. I pushed my luck, and asked him for one more with an expression I usually reserve for tough situations :-)

Needless to say, the idea worked & I got another one!! This time, I chose alphonso.

Nice :-) I am looking forward to more tests! Daddy has been recently certified on the MBTI. I may take that soon...