Thursday, October 07, 2010

Jispa and me

Imagination
Jispa loves her silly bands. Among the others, this one is her favourite. Why… it represents two animals

Did you get the two? One way is the rabbit; the second is a penguin/duck kind of a bird.

Competition
Jispa did well in her swimming. She now got into the advanced class. There was a big trial and 6 kids were selected to progress. I think Jasmine was tense, or should I say eager. I was eager but to a lower level. Probably I was fooling my self by pretending to not care. I wanted her to make it but I did not want any pressure from me wanting it. not on myself and not on her. But I am so happy. The competitive batch trains for competitions and demands focus and dedication. This is something that I want her to learn at an early enough age. To focus well and learn well.
Here are the anxious mothers at the selection



Stunts
This is Jispa doing her stunts. She started climbing walls.


I clicked a snap and Jasmine got into the act to click from her camera. Very cool. I warned her that she would look silly if she got too excited. I know myself well enough to know that whenever I do something interesting and there is an audience watching, I invariably make a fool of myself. She started climbing and bang… she hit her nose against the pelmet of the door. Only now she is old enough to laugh at it. that’s my girl. She got hit hard but realised the fun of it!
Tables
I am taking this genetic thing too far. But I can’t but notice the similarities. Jispa now has math tables to do. So it’s me and her in the car learning tables. Four one sa four, four two sa eight.... I was really bad at it and I regretted it my whole life. But I only regretted it and did not do anything about it. for Jispa I am keen to get her to learn them. She got the 2,3,4 and 5 tables easy. Like me she got the 6 times table till 6X5 after which she fuddled. Same thing with 7. I still struggle with anything beyond 7X5. so with her I am learning them myself. Sure I can count fast enough to say them but the fact is that I count, while the magic is to know them by heart. She misses the identical ones that I miss 6X7, 6X9, 7X6, 7X8. These are the nasty ones. I don’t know why I miss them and why she misses them as well. Even what I struggle to a lesser extent – 6X3, she does the same. The only reason I know 6X3 is because I struggled with it and I have burned it into my head. I still need to think. It’s painful. Entrance exams later in life need one to get the tables right. I cant understand how I can get 99% in my math and still struggle with tables. Outside of tables math was my favourite table. Possible that was the only illogical thing that you have to learn by heart in an otherwise highly logical subject. But I keep at it everyday in the hope that it will make her do well. Its justa question of burning it in her head isn’t it

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