Making friends with a little bird

This little noise maker is only about 3 or 4 inches in size but makes one heck of a noise. He's been keeping me company everyday, caught here sitting on my bougainvilla plant outside my kitchen. Right below that is my compose heap for yard waste and you can see the healthy green heliconia in the blurred background.

Since coming back from Ahmedabad (pronounced as Amdavad) last wednesday, I spent about a day with my sisters, brother and in-laws who came to visit (to see my new house). Then it was off to the beach again for another weekend workshop, this time on university-community engagement or projects. There's always new things to learn and new connections to make and new ideas to pursue. We learnt that there is community service (at the basic level), moving up to community outreach, then to community engagement and ultimately engaged scholarship.

And since coming back from the workshop I have been on looong vacation leave until next year. Ah, if you must know, I am just having lazy days (Omar said that my "inertia" will inspire the others), making friends with the little bird, reading (Thomas Friedman's "Hot, Flat and Crowded" and Ghandi's Autobiograpy bought at the Ghandiji Ashram), refusing to take phone calls, going bicycling at the padi fields, gardening of course and ... cooking!

I facilitated my group's discussion with this concept map. But when it comes to the presentation, they preferred the powerpoint's linear, point-by-point style.

This is what we call an "energiser". After sitting and listening passively for 2 hours, all our blood sinks to our bottoms so we need a "rush" to wake up our brains. I thought that quite a few participants were not very comfortable doing the energiser.

Me in my jeans and T-shirts with slippers. The chairman said I was too informal. Well, next time don't bring us to the beach. When I saw the picture displayed on the screen during our group's presentation, I suddenly realised I have lost a lot of weight. The secret? Oats in the morning, brown rice for dinner, vegetarian for lunch (with half rice), cut the sugar wherever possible and ... etc.

My daughter Vivian wanted yam cake so we went to the market this morning. Its not difficult really but it's been a long time so we tend to forget the proportions. Turned out OK though. Could do with a little more salt and perhaps a little more rice flour (note to self : 650-700 gms of flour to three-quarter water in 12-inch diameter 2.5 inch high tray).

I know, I have not written on Ahmedabad yet. Will try to do that tomorrow.