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Pi Day!

March 16, 2008 – 11:43 am

Of course we celebrated Pi Day this year at school and at home. Breck and Alea have been singing all the Pi Songs they can remember. For those of you who might have forgotten, March 14th – 3.14 – is Pi Day (get it?). And of course, as a middle school math teacher, I do all sorts of Pi stuff at school and it has kind of rubbed off on the kids. I let my students earn some extra credit by recording Pi songs or videos: here is a link to where I parked a few of the audio files as well as some I’d previously found on the net. We had our annual digit memorizing contest – this year our high scores were 95 and 83 – both were by 6th graders!

Breck’s Soccer TeamSaturday was a full day at school. Dave got up early to go in for middle school girls’ volleyball practice (no, he’s not playing on the team – he’s coachingthe team!). Breck’s indoor soccer season then wrapped up this weekend with a tournament that afternoon at the school. The kids played hard and stuffed themselves between games on all the food parents had brought for the pot luck dinner. Alea got to go swimming during some of the matches, as one of her friends was at school (also to watch her brother – who was on Breck’s team – play in the tournament). In the end, his team ended up with a 4th place trophy, lots of smiles all around, and some standing invitations for play dates.

We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing around the home with friends from Kiara as the temperatures start to soar. We plan on getting the pool opened up and going for a dip this afternoon. The ACs are running full time now, and we can only sweat and anticipate what April and May are going to be like!

New links added today:

By Dave | Posted in Alea, Breck, Dave, Life in India, School | Comments (0)

Loose ends for the weekend

February 7, 2008 – 9:35 pm

I’ve added a few pages to the website, but never got around to listing them here, so if you are among our readership (which I think is now somewhere between 3 and 5 people per week), here are some of the random new pictures and all you can visit this weekend:

Anyways, hope that is enough to keep you busy over the weekend. I know it has been a chore from this end (labor of love, yeah, yeah, yeah).

By Dave | Posted in Breck, Dave, Family, India, Life in India | Comments (0)

Happy Birthday, India (aka Breck’s Day of Star Wars)

January 26, 2008 – 8:51 pm

breck.JPGToday is Republic Day, the biggest (secular) holiday of the year. Everything is shut down, and the country sits back to watch a huge parade held in Delhi. We had been in the city when preparations were under way in January, but we had to content ourselves with seeing bits and pieces of it on TV today.

It was like something straight out of the old school Soviet Union displays of military prowess: naval marching bands, goose-stepping army formations, and the latest/greatest tanks and missiles rumbling past bleachers full of (bored) leaders. The snap salutes and all-too-serious facial expressions on the paraders were straight out of the Cold War playbook, as were the newspaper editorials about how it is even more important to show the world how powerful the Indian State has become.

The only real difference was that the USSR – to the best of my knowledge – didn’t have parade participants riding on decorated camels, unlike the Rajasthan border control corps were (followed by people picking up the camel poop scattered across the street).

Ultimately, however, we all know the true reason for the hoopla: India was really out celebrating Breck’s birthday! (This year he was unfortunate enough to have it on a Saturday, but next year it is on Monday and we will even have a day off from school for him!!)

While people were dancing in the streets of Delhi, we were putting the final touches on our house done up in a scheme we call the Force Finest. We had a Star Wars table cloth (courtesy of YiaYia), a crossed lightsaber cake, a “pin the lightsaber on Darth Vader” game, the computer showing pictures from all both trilogies, and music from the movies playing all day long.

Things got off to a great start when Breck opened his first present – a huge Lego AT-AT (that is a Star Wars vehicle, in case there was any doubt). Much of the morning was spent starting to assemble it. Dad and Breck took a time out in the middle of the day to go to the school for a weekend soccer league, and we got to play speeder chase in our rickshaws (dad had planned on driving, but since our driver quit over Christmas, and we don’t really use our car at all, the battery has gone dead) to and from the school.

When we finally got around to actually having the boys over that Breck invited (2 from our same building), they played the Vader game, tested Dad’s force power by blindfolding him and attacking him with lightsabers, stuffed themselves with pizza and cake, opened up Lego sets and minifigure Star Wars dioramas, and closed out the evening to “The Return of the Jedi,” the favorite of the younger set because of those (infernal) Ewoks.

What a day, and what an evening. And tonight, there are going to be fireworks. It sure doesn’t get much better than that! Happy Birthday, Breck (and happy republic day, India)!

UPDATE - Check out all the action at Breck’s Birthday Party!!

By Dave | Posted in Breck, India, Life in India | Comments (0)

Eid Mubarak

October 14, 2007 – 9:33 pm

Eid celebrationWell the kids are in bed, but the fireworks are just starting to go off all over. It is Eid, the end of a month of fasting for Mulsims, and our neighbors downstairs are gearing up for a big party tonight. I wonder how that will compare with the Oktoberfest party we are planning for next Saturday? Many of the drivers at school are Muslim, and most have been fasting, so the afternoon rides home – when they’re feeling the effects of a full day with no food – have not been for the faint of heart!

It is pretty interesting to live in a place where all these different festivals coexist so well. The Ganesh season just wrapped up and there is another Hindu festival happening now too (with however many hundreds of god there are, it is no surprise that there always seems to be a party going on). And the Christians have… Halloween right around the corner!! (let’s see how many hackles get raised with that comment!)

Elementary soccer teamHad the big elementary school soccer tournament today – last day of coaching for me (yay!). We went 2-0-1, but the team we tied won on goal differential. Oh well, it was a fun day in the sun. The tough part about it was that Breck wanted to be on the team, but there were only 12 allowed (and 63 went out). Kind of a rough deal to have to make cuts in grades 1 through 3.

Anyways, after swimming with the kids, we all spent a quiet afternoon getting ready for Monday. We will be going to an Eid celebration tomorrow too, so will be interested in seeing how that goes.

By Dave | Posted in Family, India, Life in India | Comments (0)