Music Videos, Goldman Sachs, and More

     Last weekend was one of the best experiences I’ve had so far at SB.  On Saturday, I went to Hosur with the choir to help them film their music video, and had a blast.  The kids got up early in the morning and dressed up – the girls looked great, and I tied the ties of almost every boy because they didn’t know what they were doing.  

Choir group pic before leaving for Hosur! 

 A pic for the boys

Men in Black

Once we got to Hosur, they must have performed the song (If You Lead by Carole King) at least 40 times over the course of the day, shooting at various locations throughout the city.  When I say ‘various locations,’ I don’t mean secluded parts of Hosur that were made for a large group to gather together and sing; instead, we inserted ourselves right into the middle of the city and made some bold moves to get the unbelievable shots that Yazmany, the filmmaker, wanted. 

     We started at the Hindu temple overlooking Hosur, then moved on to another temple whose entrance was the mouth of a lion.  

Couldn't ask for a better view

In front of the lion's mouth

How many bunny ears can fit on one head?

Me and Anjali!

     We took a break for lunch, when the girls decided that I deserved to be tied to a tree with their dupattas.  I went along until I realized they were actually tying the knots tightly – it took me about five minutes to work my way out of there.

#bollywood

The dupatta around the neck was pretty intense

Apprehensive

     Later on, we moved into the actual streets of the city, grabbed a cow which was passing by, and put it into the video.  We also filmed on a statue of Gandhi and blocked traffic in the city square for what seemed like a half mile. 

A day in the life

Staredown

Turns out filming in the middle of an intersection will cause a slight traffic issue...

     Right as we finished singing in rickshaws and then a random corner shop, my camera finally died, so I unfortunately don’t have a picture of what might have been the best moment of the day: on the way home, we stopped at a village to sing, and one of the old village women, who must have been at least 75, came up and started dancing with the volunteers to the song.  Hilarious?  Yes.  Awesome?  Most definitely.

Singing in rickshaws!

Swerve.

The soloists taking over a corner store

     Sunday was another great but exhausting experience, as the OSA (on-site administrator) Mohit and I went to Bangalore to do interview prep with SB grads who are currently in college.  I’m taking them (along with the current 11^th and 12^th grade business students) to the Goldman Sachs office in Bangalore this upcoming Saturday for a series of workshops and a golden opportunity to walk into the laps of HR and hopefully get some internships.  Since this is such an unbelievable chance for them, we spent a solid seven hours drilling and practicing interview skills with the grads, and have been doing similar things on campus for the last couple of weeks.  One of the grads from SB’s first graduating class, Stella, just started working at Goldman Sachs, so she brought a really valuable perspective that helped us figure out what message to send the kids.

     On another note, she and another first batch graduate, Shiba, who currently works at Mercedes-Benz, were two of the most impressive people I’ve ever met.  Coming from where they did and turning themselves into the incredible people they are, opening the world up for themselves in the process, is truly inspiring.  They were pretty quiet throughout the day and took a backseat to Mohit and I because we were running the session, which felt a little weird – in reality, they and the other SB grads who are going on or will go on to do big things in the world are real-life heroes to me.

     Anyway, I can’t wait for the Goldman trip on Saturday, because not only are we taking them to GS, but afterwards we’re surprising the 11^th and 12^th graders with KFC and Krispy Kreme donuts, which will be a huge hit; I can’t wait to see their faces when they realize what is going on.

     To shift gears a little bit, teaching has been going well, but my 11^th grade kids still don’t have books for econ and commerce so that makes it a little more challenging, especially when it comes to giving them homework.  For now, they need to focus on Goldman as well as school, so it’s not that bad, but hopefully the book order comes in soon otherwise it’s going to be really hard for them to study for their upcoming monthly tests. 

     That’s about all I have for now, but I’ll definitely be writing later this week with news about Goldman and more updates about general SB life.  Lastly, as if this post wasn't picture-heavy enough already, here are some more miscellaneous shots from the past week!

#misfits

   

 The kids go on a hair braiding rampage

Auntie Annie, potentially the kindest woman in the world

Long Overdue Update - weekend trips, pizza, and more!

     It’s been a while since I last posted – things have been really busy around here for the past week.  My 12^th grade kids have been in trouble because they spent a good part of last year slacking off instead of studying, and are now really behind in some of their subjects, especially accounting.  It’s not easy to see them get disciplined, especially when it involves yelling, crying, and punishments that don’t always seem fair, but tough love is sometimes the only thing that works.

     Speaking of tough love, I gave my first series of monthly tests at the end of last week.  My 11^th graders did relatively well, but the 12^th graders have some catching up to do, and the pressure is mounting on them as time goes on.  It was definitely an interesting experience being on the other side of testing – writing, proctoring, and grading an exam has a different set of challenges that are hard to appreciate without going through it.  Teaching has gone well so far, especially in econ – having TA experience really does make it easier because I already have ways to explain econ concepts that have worked in the past.

     As always, the kids are amazing.  It’s hard to have a bad day around here because even if something happens that would normally put a damper on the rest of your day, you’ll get a smile, a laugh, a joke, or even just a hello from one of the kids and it will put a grin on your face almost by default.  Two of the girls in 11^th and 12^th grade have started making me goodnight cards on most nights, and they are the most adorable things I have ever seen.  It was one girl's birthday today, and she wrote me another card about how I made her birthday special. It’s impossible to come back to my chair at night and find cards like these lying on top of my stuff without thinking to myself about how lucky I am to have a chance to help these kids.

     In other news, they got a special donation last week from TOMS shoes, and each child got a pair of TOMS to wear during school days.  It was an exciting whirlwind handing out shoes and recording sizes and names for everyone at school, especially when kids were confused about which sizes to try. 

TOMS!

     Anyway, last Saturday I went to Hosur (the closest city to SB, about 45-60 minutes away) with a few of the other volunteers.  We saw a Hindu temple, walked around the streets, shopped, and jumped into a tiny hole-in-the-wall corner shop for what might have been the best mango juice I’ve ever had in my life.  The owner of the shop is below, and you should be able to tell from the picture alone that the dude is a boss. 

Swag.




Looking down on Hosur


The Hindu temple overlooking Hosur


Sex awareness on the streets of Hosur comes with a mustached condom...

     We also stopped at a Domino’s pizza to indulge in a taste of home and to place an order for the school, which led to the following picture (one of the volunteers, Emily, dubbed it “The Great Pizza Accord of 2013”).  Yes, negotiations over pizza prices in India do happen.  

President Obama presides over the deliberations

     Unfortunately, when we got back to SB that evening, I got pretty sick, and my nighttime festivities consisted of a fever, chills, and periodically walking into walls as I stumbled to find meds.  Luckily, whatever cocktail of drugs I took when I was half-conscious worked, because after a few uncharacteristically long naps the next day, I was back to normal (almost).  Thankfully, this happened on a Sunday, so I was able to start this week of classes feeling a little bit better.

     Today, the results of the pizza accord came to fruition when the entire school got pizza and fries for lunch, compliments of Payal, one of the volunteers who is leaving this weekend.  Since many of them had never tasted pizza before, it was a special treat.  Their smiles and excitement were priceless, and the novelty was hilarious for the little kids - some of them tried to eat their slice with a spoon before we corrected them!  I took a few pictures before I proceeded to stuff myself with the fries, which tasted like they had come straight from heaven.  

Much easier without a spoon!

 

Rice < pizza

     Earlier tonight, the school choir was rehearsing for a special music video that they are going to film in Hosur on Saturday (which I get to help with!), and I got a part of the rehearsal on video.  It was so much fun messing around while they were singing and making sure everyone was smiling.  It's time like these that put a smile on your face for hours afterwards.

     It’s hard to believe that in a few days my six weeks at SB will be halfway done.  It’s been and continues to be one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had, and I’m sure the next month will make me appreciate SB even more than I already do.  Meanwhile, enjoy the pics!

First Week and School Day Performances

     My first week of school is over, and it culminated with a free day today to celebrate the founding of SB.  Before talking about that, here are some thoughts from the week.

     Teaching here is incredible, frustrating, rewarding, and inspiring all at the same time.  I have a group of nine 11^th graders for both commerce and economics, and they are so earnest that I can’t help but smile even when they’re doing something wrong.  They offer to erase the board for me, ask nonstop questions, and do adorable things like write me the note below (one of the girls has nicknamed me Kit-Kat, presumably because my name starts with a K…)

 

 

 

     I had to discipline them for the first time yesterday – we were playing a review game over the first chapter of commerce, and they got a little too rowdy.  I told them to pick two kids from the class to go apologize to all the neighboring classrooms and tell me when they had done it, otherwise we wouldn’t be playing any more games.  Instead of two people, the entire class came up to me over the next few hours to individually apologize and say they had talked to the other teachers.  It was great to see.

     My 12^th grade group is tiny, only four students.  One of them is struggling and needs additional tutoring, but she works so hard that you can’t help but admire her dedication.  I looked at her desk the other day and she writes motivational phrases to herself on the tabletop; in my public speaking class, she also gave a speech about how she wants to change the world one day to make it better for others.

     Public speaking is really important at SB, and a different group takes these classes every week.  On Wednesday, we practiced extemporaneous speaking, and some of the stuff the kids came up with legitimately made me tear up in the middle of class.  One girl talked about her newfound drive to work hard in school to make her family proud, and one kid talked about his favorite birthday, when he got special food in the dining hall and won a basketball game.  The simple happiness that they take from everything, even the most minor daily events, really prompts serious introspection and makes you reevaluate the things that you worry and complain about on most days.

     Anyway, today was School Day, and the kids had most of the Friday class schedule off.  There was a special assembly with dance performances, skits, and jokes, and we had a volunteers vs. students basketball game in the evening (which we won).  As far as Fridays go, it doesn’t get much better than this. 

     I have about a million pictures to share but here’s a selection of pictures and videos from the day.  One of them is a dance performance I did with a group of girls who were really enthusiastic about trying something new – they were incredible, picking up the whole routine in one night of practice and performing for the whole school today.  Other groups danced to songs like Waka Waka, Danza Kuduro, some bhangra songs, and then the volunteers all joined in for DJ Got Us Fallin in Love Again.  In this case, pictures tell a thousand words, so enjoy!

 

 

 Bhangra at School Day! 

The girls learned this in literally three hours the night before

 

 

Dr. George, SB's founder

My dance crew!

 

 

 

 

The MCs of School Day, Ashwath and Nandini





 No mercy from the volunteers