Thursday, March 24, 2011

Of Graduation Days and Emotions

So during the week of organizing International Women's Day event and taking ownership to lead the Women's Diversity Group at work, there was yet another day when I was doing some kind of hosting, addressing the crowd and generally glowing in 2 two seconds of fame :-)

You remember I wrote about N's first school in life a while ago and how I loved it? Infact I think I wrote several posts on her at that school (check here and here). Well, they called me to *ahem ahem* be the chief guest at their graduation and annual day this year. I was shocked to say the least since this has never ever happenned to me before. I mean chief guest!!? Really? Am I that old or distinguished enough? Or am I famous or well connected enough? They surely have mistaken me for someone else I thought. Or maybe they couldn't rope in anyone on their A list and so I was their fall back option. So I tried telling them they should get a more influential person and what not but they wouldn't budge. They wanted it to be a parent, someone who knows the school more closely and thought I would be best since I had always supported them over the last couple of years.

So there I was! Supposed to come up with a speech, address the crowd, watch the cute little babies perform on stage and hand over graduation certificates to the cute little ones. I was touched. Ofcourse I wanted to do it. So I thought and thought about what I could tell these parents, grandparents and relatives who will be attending that day and most of whom I was sure would be older and wiser than me. Did some research online...just looking for graduation day ideas and came across this beautiful song that inspired me to pen all my thoughts down.



I decided that THIS was going to be my key message. I took inspiration from Sheryl Sandberg's video that I posted here since I was to give a talk without looking at any powerpoint slides out here. There would be no fancy conference room or a laptop going through my slide deck or anything. So I had to say what I had to say as if coming to me naturally and fill it with real life incidents. And I thought Sandberg did a great job at that in the video. Not easy for me to do this after spending years and years in the corporate world doing presentations with the aid of slides, notes or powerpoint decks. Kinda reminded me of school days when we would "by-heart" our poems or speeches and have to narrate :-) What would life be without technology....sigh!

Anyways, I digress. So I wrote and wrote till I poured my heart out on paper (well...electronic paper I must say) and decided that I'd end my talk with this above mentioned song. I'd let them listen to how beautifully it describes what I was trying to say and let their eyes moisten up too like mine did when I first heard it.

But then there came another contestant. A song that I have always, always loved and has never failed to make me teary eyed. A song that is sooooooo appropriate for a parent to sing for his/her child....that talks about our aspirations, hopes and prayers for our children. A song I have always wanted to sing for my daughter.


Sigh...not just the words but the picturization is also sooooo touching. Tough choice I tell you. I played both these songs for my little N over the week, slept on it, tried to reach a decision on which one I should tailor my talk towards and which one should be the conclusion of my talk. Finally after a lot of listening to these over and over again....on my laptop...on my ipod...in my sleep even...I decided I'd stick with the former...the song that started it all. After all that was the song that got me started on my writing and helped me put together a very nice message for the audience.

So that's what I did on the morning of March 12. I got up bright and early, got ready, kissed my lovely daughter and hubby goodbye (they had plans to spend a nice lazy, cozy Saturday morning at home) and took the ipod and ipod dock to Kinder Kare Playschool and immersed myself in the children. I had such a good time watching them perform without the anxiety of waiting for my little one to come on stage and worrying whether she would look at me and cry or dance! I was amazed to see that not a single one cried this year unlike last year when my lil N was doing the performance on that same stage but burst into tears when she was being handed over the graduation certificate. Too emotional I tell ya! They then welcomed me, said some really nice words about me and a small girl maybe 3.5 years old welcomed me with a lovely bouquet. It was such a pleasure spending the morning with them very unlike how I spent my own daughter's graduation day this year at the other Montessori she is going to. That was a nail biting, tear wiping, stressful event and is probably matter for another post in itself. After spending months practicing her dances at school, the little child was in tears when she was finally put on the stage on their Annual Day. And I don't really blame her coz the kids were taken to a totally different venue, a brand new place and room, a brand new stage where they have never been before and asked to perform. With NO prior mental preparation whatsoever. How would you expect a 3 or 4 year old to do something as humongous without any mental preparation whatsoever? This same child of mine performed much better last year when she was at here at Kinder Kare though she was 1 whole year younger! It is all about preparing and conditioning these little ones I say. Anyways, many other small things that could have been paid more attention to. But that was just Annual Day. There are other good things that this Montessori is doing very well which is why I am happy she is going there for another year.

Overall, this one incident of me going back to her previous school made me think how much I miss staying connected with her school. If I were in the US, I swear I would be so much more involved with her school. It is so normal and kind of expected for parents to stay involved in running the co-operative schools there in the US. I mean everything including volunteering to coach football (or any other sport) or leading a committee to organize other co-curricular activities, etc. Whereas in India, in most schools, parent involvement is neither offered nor encouraged. Pretty sad isn't it? What do you think?

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Divs, You got a beautiful blog..I am one of you new readers :)

Hetal said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hetal said...

Great Divs!! Proud of you and even I love those songs!! I had forgotten about "let them be little" After reading your post, I went back and heard it after almost 8 years and even today it made me emotional. I had heard it when Ishaan was born and now that he is 9, I can connect with it even more. I want Ishaan to slow down. I feel like I have not had enough of his childhood. VP still believes in 'let them sleep in the middle.' He is up for it whenever the boys want to sleep in our room.
You are right... we do have a lot of opportunities here in the US to be involved in the School. Last year I was the Chairperson of the Environmental committee at my kids' school and boy did my kids love it or what! This year I had taken the back seat coz of our plans to move to CA but I am still involved indirectly i e w/o holding any positions. It is fun esp if you have time and creativity to come up with diff projects. I know so many Moms who practically live in the school volunteering.
All the best to lil N and a big congratulations to her and you! Enjoy lil N!!

Divs said...

@weourlife: Welcome to my blog. Glad you like it. I will visit yours soon.

@hvp: Thanks HVP. Yeah those songs do make me emotional each time I hear them. The "sleep in the middle" was my favorite part of the song too :-) It is the coziest feeling on earth I'd say and me and hubby are suckers for that too! And I am soooo glad you can stay so involved in the kiddos schools. I wish we had the same system here in India. Though there are some newer International schools that encourage parent participation I hear but not too many.

Divs said...

BTW HVP, Ishaan is 9 already? Wow!!! Yeah soon he'll be a teenager and you'll want another baby to cuddle. How about that? ;-)

Simran said...

Oh Divs!! This is so cute, the videos made my heart go awwwww! Loved them. And might be sharing them on my blog too :) N, my son, has been so comfortable in his current play school but he will be starting his new big school in june and that makes me wince... start all over again. Hopefully he'll take it better this time.

Divs said...

Thanks Simran. Feel free to use them on your blog ofcourse. I love the 2 songs dearly. And good luck to lil N and his mommy for the new school :-) I'm sure he'll do fine. I am curious as to which school he goes to and which will he go to though. Maybe you can send me an email?

womanistan said...

Beautiful writing!

Divs said...

Thanks womanistan. Visited your blog today - you've done a good job there.

rokaa said...


شركة مكافحة الفئران بالمدينة المنورة شركة مكافحة الفئران بالمدينة المنورة
شركة تنظيف كنب بالمدينة المنورة شركة تنظيف كنب بالمدينة المنورة
شركة مكافحة الصراصير بالاحساء شركة مكافحة الصراصير بالاحساء
شركة مكافحة الصراصير بالمدينة المنورة شركة مكافحة الصراصير بالمدينة المنورة
وايت شفط بيارات بالرياض



_____

شركة تنظيف شقق بالمدينة المنورة شركة تنظيف شقق بالمدينة المنورة
شركة تنظيف منازل بالمدينة المنورة شركة تنظيف منازل بالمدينة المنورة
شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالدمام شركة مكافحة النمل الابيض بالدمام
افضل شركة غسيل خزانات بجدة افضل شركة تنظيف خزانات بجدة

Anonymous said...

Casino Web Review | Is the Casino Web Site Worth Your Time?
The Casino Web クイーンカジノ site offers an attractive web site for mobile 카지노사이트 users that don't have any issues with their mobile devices. The web site 1xbet has a