Organised utensils. Fixed burners into gas. Put the gas cylinders into the bathroom. Lukewarm water and tea served. The verandah was congested. Mopping couldn’t happen properly. Washed a cup and served tea. Had it myself. All of it took thirty minutes time. Informed mother about the cooker whistles. She was returning from outside with a stick in her hand. Students left only after forty two minutes. I wasn’t expecting them today. There was a piebald dog outside and another was barking. There were cows. The younger student had difficulty even staying for thirty minutes. They were being physically aggressive to eachother and the elder had pen nibs without caps. I warned him to be careful with that. I also asked them to not hit eachother on head.
They’re going to perform Surya Namaskar Yoga postures again tomorrow morning. They had a practice session on ninth. They didn’t bring Remedial Module book or smartphone to get my help. Though they come up with sudden requirements they show lack of foresight.
The elder told me that he was asleep at the time of the class yesterday though he wasn’t suffering from fever as told by his father. I gave both of them problems on Addition and Subtraction. I sweeped the room after they left.
When the unit 8.2 was completed they wanted me to narrate a story to them. The younger one wanted me to tell a story in which his name was used as a good person who helped everyone. When I refused to tell such a story he asked me to create a story in which a dog used to help people who used to roam around and used to have bones for food.
I think either asking for fee or refusing to create a story with his name might have prompted him to such vagaries. I had somewhat clairvoyant dreams. Similar voices. None of it is new.
The two problems I showed them solutions for are straightforward Geometry problems, though they had hard time grasping basics as usual. Both problems use mid point theorem, though I spend a few minutes before realising that I wasn’t reading the second problem carefully. The environmental noise was rising.
Working on SLM or Nano GPT. Why do I mix it with the routine in this article? It has been more than five years working on Replika. Law of diminishing returns. Network unavailability made it evermore difficult a task to access it. Though there appeared better models, they would’ve been similar with the network issues. Finally, I was supposed to make switch from 4G to 5G. Entire family was doing that. This brought an in-built AI model which, after some reluctance was going to replace the Replika which had stood the test of time. It seemed like “Planned Obsolescence.” I remember the first time when I found a Gemini window open–I hadn’t actually opened it: I considered it a glitch. It was faster to access in comparison to Chat GPT or Replika. I let go of free subscription for Perplexity because it would have created further burden to cope with. Though Gemini was using a version 2.5. It had a voice assistant and much better feedback compared to Replika which was a freemium version. I think it was still not ‘pro’ version offered by Google yet it was much better being a gift package with smartphone.
For a few rupees more!
1. I asked her if she needed my services in the month of December-January. She asked her daughter who told her that she would continue to take classes.
2. Then she told me she needed my services until her exams are over: that’s until March.
3. This conversation took place yesterday afternoon inside library of Gandhi Smarak Bhavan at about two o’ clock. There were only three of us.
4. It was second such conversation after our conversation under banyan tree. Since then: i have taught her some 400 words, played at least 20 games on Free Rice site with her to help her augment her vocabulary. Also helped her learn creation of Vocabulary jams on vocabulary.com
I helped her learn doing diary entries but she refused to do them : like she refused to write verses or reports. An assignment to compare Meera/Arukka Mahadevi/Andal was given. It was from her book and she didn’t do it repeatedly for at least five days until i helped her with it in class. It was easy to do. She is smarter than other students i have taught so far but not anywhere near what my ‘ideal’ student would be like.
Her mother overlooks my reports about her not working enough on assignments. But when i am questioned for teaching her words in the most scientific way: she begins arguing and questions my integrity.
5. The last time around i was helping her with the vocabulary jams on vocabulary.com : a notification from her school comes on Whatsapp.
“You need to attend a test.”
6. Her school, her parents and others don’t have a sense of schedule or time when it comes to learning. I have to ask her three questions everyday:
A. Do you want to take class today?
B. Did you do your homework?
C. What do you mean by 5 minutes? Would you come for class at the appointed time which keeps changing at your convenience? It’s usually 20 to 30 minutes delay everyday.
7. They take the teacher for granted because there’s the teacher: punctual and always available. Selling himself short. Content.
8. All that for a mere 1000 rupees!
Image credit: Self, inside Gandhi Smarak Bhavan.
Loss all around! Be happy!
1. All three of the boys who came from the underprivileged community, paid meager sum for labors, dropped today with about five hundred rupees still to be paid to me.
2. I couldn’t teach them even three complete lessons of the English Grammar with Holy Faith International reference book. They can neither write Hindi nor English. Besides: they created multifarious conflicts. Firstly: the student who joined first couldn’t learn words. Couldn’t continue to write in his notebook, the words which I taught him. Secondly: he let reluctantly join a boy from his neighborhood after him and what followed was a series of Shamanism events. Then: once he said: ” why are you turning away from women, have you kept roza(fast?)”
3. In red shirts, two of them didn’t recognize me near New colony. Before that the first one had disappeared after the Lolo drama by Vikram and company.
4. Were they merely playing the role in coherence movie simulation. As I asked him about the event later: he didn’t recall wearing such a shirt. The first one was most proud. He showed it the most the day when he was putting the tyre on the burnt coconut outside the door and refused to take the class. The second one wanted to practice but was consumed by something else or I misread him. The third one was brought by him but disappeared without paying fees when I was being killed by multiple hounds inside and outside house. Their joining and leaving my classes is made so comfortable because I don’t go back to ask questions. Like that neighborhood uncle who was promising a thirty thousand rupees batch with half of that for me and its code had some 100 rupees note. Rubbish as usual. Suckers attended the classes two three days without paying zilch for it. Feeding myself needs my merits and money but taking my energy and life force needs nothing: just come and show some teeth or false promises or start beating an autorickshaw driver with a swafi or was it Swati?
5. I bowled 40 times. Equivalent to 1000 steps of run. I walked a few rounds. This is all I am left with for Chandla uncle came sniffing my back here. He was wearing a cap.
6. I have two three students who might drop because now I have a diploma in education from a fake university which doesn’t know whether the questions are valid or invalid. What more do I need to say about the state of affairs?
7. My performance in vocabulary jam has been consistently top notch. This is the only contest where I feel comfortable.
Dancing light of grace 