the lithiumhead

Here is a speech that I thought of delivering at one of the closing ceremonies at Institute 2015. But it did not work out, so here it is for all eternity. What? How can we continue building the Culture at Teach For India and take it forward? Why? - We don't tell enough stories ... - ....and when we do, most of us leave our emotions out of it... - ....We need to become vulnerable to each other if we are to let them help us heal in our moments of despair. - Not enough focus on empathizing to building lasting relationships with others around us : especially non-TFI staff of the school - A reminder to strive to be more consistent - Instilling a sense of brotherhood among the new cohort - collective action - Also Kiran Bir Sethi's famous lines "Inspiration has a shelf life of only one week", so I hope  this get the new cohort all fired up and raring to go. How? A possible speech at the end of closing ceremony for Institute 1 2015 Good evening Institute 20

You know why Ragini is so tall? Because she has gotten so many hugs over her life from so many people and that obviously stretched her out. The latest barrage of hugs is from TFIers (fellows, staff and supporters) who want are all determined to giver her some sweets (i.e. increase her height by 5mm) after reading her 10 tips piece for incoming TFI fellows. Like Ragini, I am a happy person and a 2014 TFI fellow. But I am also an engineer and I love building and improving stuff. I look at fellowship as being thrown into the ocean with minimal swimming lessons. You are expected to learn to swim and build a beautiful yatch around yourself from the shambles of stuff that isn't working anymore. And while you are at it, you may as well build yourself a better you as well. There are two kind of people who enter the fellowship - those that are fresh out of college, and those like me who have worked in the IT/Corporate/XYZ sectors and years of professional experience behind them. Rag

As far as cleaning goes, there is nothing as good as the lint free swabbing done using microfibre cloths. Get a 7 of these and you can use one everyday of the week for tour your daily cleaning then wash them all together on the weekend in your washing machine. Make sure that you don't mix generic cotton cloths with the microfibre ones or else the cotton ones would unleash a volley of lint on your unsuspecting microfiber babies and render them as futile as themselves when it comes to swabbing. A few months ago, Scotch Brite started selling these flat mops made of microfibre cloth. Needless to say, your life becomes easier with these babies. As is common with Indian households, people usually first sweep the floor with a broom and them swab it with wet dusters. Well if you get your hands on these mops, you can forgo sweeping and directly use these mops to round up all kinds of dust, hair and spilled liquids. Its a dream come true for cleanliness freaks like me.