Scarlet Writes

It was 7p.m. when she reached home. She unlocked the door to her apartment and hung the key on the keyholder above the shoe rack. She carefully put her shoes in the bottom shelf of the rack and took out her indoor slippers from the top. She put her handbag on top of the coffee table and went to the kitchen. She washed her hands before she put a cup of water to boil on the stove. She added a spoon of tea leaves. She opened the door to the verandah and went out to pick some mint leaves from the flower pot. She rinsed the leaves and put it into the water boiling on the stove. She poured the tea into a mug and carried it to the living room. She lay a tea coaster on the table and put the mug on top of it. She unbuttoned her pants and unclipped her bra and sighed as she sat down on the couch. She looked around and closed her eyes for a moment to enjoy the taste of mint in her mouth and silence surrounding her. This was a rare moment for her.  Usually, she picked up her son from his schoo...

During our family trip to Jhapa back in December 2020, chora was diagnosed with pneumonia and had to be hospitalised for about 5 nights in a community hospital in Birtamode. I was scared, shocked and more than a year later, I am finally gathering some courage to look back at the whole event and refelct on many life lessons that the whole eposide taught me. Let's begin with how our day exactly started on the day of his hospitalisation. Chora woke up mulitple times at night but had no fever. I remember at one point telling my husband that he was breathing very fast. He was fussy but otherwise, he had no other alarming symptoms. He had a runny nose the day before and that was that. He woke up in the morning and vomitted all the milk as soon as he finished drinking it. His respiration wasn't normal and we took a tempo and rushed to a local community hospital. The hospital had one pediatrician and around 20 to 30 patients waiting outside. It was crowded, people weren't wearing m...

 Dear Chora, You are soon turning 3 and the most adorable thing you say these days is 'I love you'. You love to hug us tight and tell us that you love us. I wish you always learn to tell everyone you love how much you love them. I am writing this letter about labor today. I hope that I am able to teach you how important hard work is and that there is no alternative to hard work in life. Somebody very close to us, when he was a kid, would come home from school, keep his dirty clothes in place, wash his hands and feet and complete his homework before he'd do anything else. He'd always put in his best efforts into his work and I always wished that I'd be able to raise my kid to do the same. The level of commitment that he showed for every task he performed was awe-inspiring. Hard work doesn't necessarily mean toiling hard physically. It means to respect our work and our responsibilities towards it and to do it sincerely most days of our life. Of course, we all have...

  Dear Chora Last night when we were reading 'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein, you said that the tree was sad. I never explain the texts for you or translate it for you to understand because I think it is important you learn to interpret what you read and add your own meanings to it so when you said that the tree was sad, I was very pleasantly surprised because it meant you were starting to understand the emotions of the characters in the books that you read. I may do a lot of things wrong but I know for sure that deciding to read to you everyday has been the best decision in life.  I am writing this letter about books today. I started reading books when I was in high school. I started with Sidney Sheldon and other crime thrillers. It was a good start for me because it kept me hooked. Then when I was in college, I started reading Paulo Coelho and other books that my brother would buy for me. I'd borrow some books from his shelf and read them. It is only after college t...

 Dear Chora It is such a joy to see how you fond you are of Pumba. We are so glad that we decided to bring Pumba home. You two share a wonderful bond and we hope it continues to grow and two of you become the best of buddies.  I am writing this letter about love today, the kind of love that helps us grow, prosper and that helps us stand up when we tumble and fall. I was reading a book by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie where she'd written about how it is important to love someone and be loved in return. And I hope that's the kind of love you seek for in life. When I say love, I don't necessarily mean a romantic love affair. Well, that's also very important but I am taking about all forms of love that we experience in life. To love someone for me means to find someone who makes us feel safe and valued. We love our friends, we love our pets and our family members and they love us in return. There's nothing like one-sided love. If you like or love someone but that person does...

The first year of teaching online was challenging and there were moments when I felt like a failure but along with it, there were also a lot of opportunities to learn and grow myself personally and professionally. Towards the end of last academic year, I spent some time reflecting on my classroom practices and how I could make a greater impact in this new academic year. While exploring some learning ideas on the internet, I came across this four weeks’ course on edx titled ‘ Deep Learning through Transformative Pedagogy ’. I signed up for it and although it took me more than four weeks to complete the course, not because the course was not planned well but because I had other commitments that sidelined the course, I am so excited to share what I have learned from this course with you all.  While waiting for my final grades, I thought I would write this post because there is no better way to learn than through peer teaching. In this blog post, I will summarize some of the key lear...

I just finished grading the last paper for this academic year and now I think is the perfect time to reflect upon the academic year that's almost over.  What a year! I remember the initial days of how we transitioned to online classes so suddenly. So unaware of the fact that this was going to last longer that we'd imagined. I was very nervous and excited at the same time. I was nervous because we'd never done this before and I didn't know how I'd fix the many technical challenges that lay ahead of me. I was excited for the fact that I very well understood teaching online opened up new ways of engaging students and I wanted explore these ideas and activites.  I attended a few trainings to get some knowledge and skills applicable for virtual classes and it often felt like I was completely new in this profession and I had to start from the scratch. We were making lesson plans differently and finding new ways to assess students and giving feedback. Not all ideas worked....