The Last Day....

Hello, my fellow friends! How are YOU, yes YOU, on this lovely day? All well, I hope! I am about to tell you a bit about myself. I, yes I, a 13 year old girl studying in the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious est school in the world, The Somaiya School, am about to tell YOU a bit about me. And even though I am obsessed with talking to my friends on the phone for hours and hours together (and get scolded by my mom for that for hours and hours together), I am going to keep this short. Six words, to be precise. Here they go: I am obsessed with Time Travel. See, I am done! Six words! But I am sure, I do need to explain as to WHY in the world am I telling YOU this.

Because…….. That is exactly what I am going to do in this blog. Time Travel, I mean. So here we go! Let us travel to 20 years in the future…….

2036

I am in a small, cozy room. I am sitting on the couch with my friends: a pen and a notebook. I am a fairly successful author, who writes fiction for young adults. Presently, I am writing a book titled, “The High School Adventures of a Teen Girl – Based on a true story” and you guessed it, that girl is ME! I am writing about the successful completion of one year in the Best School Ever. This is what I am writing: On the Fourth Day in the Third Month of The Sixteenth Year in the Twenty-First Century after the Birth of Christ, I was SAD. I have completed ONE year in this school and now feel like starting all over again. I remember I was extremely reluctant to leave my previous school and join another school that was alien to me. No, wait! Don’t blame me! After all, I had spent almost a decade in the other School! I felt anxious, a new kind of anxious. Not the type you feel before you write an exam. Nor the one you feel when you are about to see your mark sheet. Nor is it the type that you feel when you are a nervous wreck, a shivery cat with stage fright and have to go on stage to give a complex speech written by your English teacher. (After all, there are many types of anxieties in the life of a self-respecting teen student!) Finally, I decided to not think much and change schools. Verdict: That was the best decision of my life!

So, getting back to the point, I was sitting in my classroom, with my friends, and talking about random stuff in life. A girl announces,”Half an hour more for the academic year of 2015-16 to end.” Translation: Half an hour more in Grade 8! OMG, NO!!! I don’t want Grade 8 to end! I picture myself holding onto a life-size rubber 8, tugging with all my might, only to find it firmly pulled away by an archaic, bald wizard with huge glasses and evil, supernatural powers. “NO!!” I blurt out. This surely can’t be true! Why, I remember, just yesterday had I walked out of my house, a cheerful smile on my face, waving goodbye to my mom, on my way to The Somaiya School for the first time in my life! But my reluctance to accept the fact that School was over only made me dread the bell ringing for the last time. But all my willing, prayers and hopes couldn’t stop the bell from ringing…. ttttrrrrrrriiiiiinnnngggggg!!!!! Waaaaaaaaaaah! All my hopes are dashed and ground to dust! Noooooooo!! This can’t be true! Grade 8 is over! Most of the girls in the class were reduced to tears. But not me. No, no, no. No crying for me. Well, the crying didn’t last long, because an announcement made by our class teacher brought all of us back to reality. This miraculous announcement was, “All the best, students, for your exams. Study well.” Right, we forgot about the exams. A period of darkness and gloom in every student’s life.

Back to the present.

Well, dear readers, that is all I wanted to say. I better get going and study for my exams. Maybe, if I had hoped harder, time would have come to a standstill, and I would be able to relive Grade 8 again, but no amount of hopes can stop exams from approaching at break-neck speed! Goodbye, and enjoy your life!

Mumbai: The station that will make you halt forever and ever....

Hello, Everyone!

So, I know that I haven’t been writing anything for a really, really long time. So you might wonder, what is it that compels me to pick up my laptop and start writing again, and that amazing, wondrous, marvellous, fantastic, magical, outstanding, awesome, fantabulous thing is the one and only, ANNUAL DAY!!!

Now you might wonder, what is so very special about some Annual Day? For starters, the Annual Day was all about the best city in the world, Mumbai! And because it was about the best city in the world, it was the best performance with the best storyline and the best everything ever! It was a super duper hit with the audience, and we were overloaded with oodles of praises!

Consider this: 10 days to prepare, a two-hour play script to write, about 250 students of all shapes, sizes and mental capacity to manage and cast, and to ensure that every single prop and costume is in tip top condition to bring about the feel and essence of this great city…… Sounds impossible right? And, on top of that, to live your life and try not to go insane….. No child’s play for sure! But the impossible was made possible by the one and only, Amishi Ma’am!!! By the way, to the unassuming, she is our speech and drama teacher, and we look up to her for inspiration for almost each and everything under the sun, moon and rainbow!

Mumbai is the city that never sleeps, Mumbai is the city that never stops, rain or shine, life must go on… This was precisely the message brought out by our super-duper drama. The audience had goose bumps throughout the play and were anticipating the next move in each and every scene. Amishi Ma’am had beautifully displayed what Mumbai actually is. The people in Mumbai are driven to work, dream and believe and never stop striving and toiling for their goals till they become achievers. Mumbai is the city that no disaster can stop, and Mumbaikars are the people who no obstacle can stop.

Every dialogue, every song, every dance, every scene, every character and every second of the show carried the essence of Mumbai. The end made each human sitting in the auditorium proud to be a Mumbaikar. The “high” created by the entire show was so great, that I don’t think that anyone would want to leave this palatial city for anywhere else in the world. The whole thing was a magical experience, and seriously my friends, the Mumbaikar who hasn’t seen this show hasn’t seen Mumbai at all! Right from the hustle and bustle of the local trains, to the very ironic fact that the billion dollar home of Mukesh Ambani, Antilia (which also, by the way, is the most expensive private home in the world), overlooks Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum, each tiny detail, that makes Mumbai what it is, was kept in mind while framing the play. Bollywood, a film industry even greater than Hollywood, has its home in Mumbai. The fact that hundreds of people come to this land in the hope of fulfilling their dreams and the Never Say Die attitude of Mumbai have developed Mumbai as an emotion. The play did full justice to the spirit of Mumbai, and it seriously made every Mumbaikar sitting in the auditorium introspect and be grateful for being a part of this special city that does not simply live life, but it celebrates life.

Well, before the entire world starts thinking of moving into Mumbai and wrecking havoc with any population control measure, I will seriously stop getting philosophical about the greatest city on earth and bid farewell to everyone. Goodbye, and have a nice day!

BEAMS Rocks!!

The Science of today is the technology of tomorrow.

-Edward Teller, theoretical physicist, ‘Father of the Hydrogen bomb’

Science is indeed the greatest power given to man. You are science, I am science. The cities are science, the countries are science. The mountains are science, the oceans are science, and the plants are science. Food is science, art is science, and music is science. Nature is science, our life is science. The planets, the galaxies, the universe… Everything is science.

Well, enough of the philosophy. Lets get down to business. (I don't mean to sound like a kidnapper asking for ransom, so don't think of me like that. I am just a harmless 13 year old, trying to boast about the best school in the world. On second thoughts, I don't think I need to try and boast about it, as it IS the bets school in the world.) We, the students of the greatest school in the universe, celebrated this power with a whole day (or month, because we had been preparing for it since a month) dedicated to….. (The One and Only) … SCIENCE!!

Right from the second we awoke in the morning, to the second our eyes shut at night, just one thing was on everybody’s mind – BEAMS. Since the past one month, the standard answer to the question, “What’s up?” was BEAMS.  We devoted all our energy, each spare moment and all the neurons in our brains to, you guessed it, BEAMS.

Some of our innovations...

Our sacrifices didn't go vain. We learnt umpteen things while researching for BEAMS and I don’t know whether we could have learnt otherwise. We got the opportunity to meet new people and improve our social skills by talking to them about our respective experiments. But most importantly, we had a blast on Science Day!

I got the opportunity to stay for both – the morning and afternoon shift, and believe me, those six hours were the most interesting hours of my school life till date. I turned into a total nerd, and asked many questions, because in this case, curiosity certainly did NOT kill the cat. In fact, it enriched the cat with opinions and suggestions of her own!

Our group had decorated the room that was assigned to us with bright and colourful charts with eye - catching slogans and jaw – dropping illustrations. It really intrigued the visitors and they hung around for quite a lot of time. The thing that was very well appreciated by everyone were big wooden structures that were beautifully painted by us in every corner of the room. They received a lot of praise and admiration, and the adults were nodding their heads and talking to each other about the talent in us in their quintessential adult way.

The entire school was looking festive and inviting. There was not an inch of empty space, because we had simply swathed the walls with charts and decorations. There was a huge model of a tyrannosaurus rex near the entrance, to welcome everybody in with a fierce grin. There was a lot of noise as people were yelling out to each other. (This would have been otherwise unimaginable on a regular school day!)

There was a room called, ‘ZooPedia’, in which there were various domestic animals, some of them being doves, geese, new born chicks, rabbits, white mice, fishes, baby sparrows and parrots. To our delight, we could hold the small animals and have our parents click photos of us! That was so exciting, and we rushed with our friends to see the small fluffy chicks, rabbits and white mice!

It was really amazing, looking at all our hard work and perspiration finally pay off in the form of praise from our parents. All our efforts, may they be large or tiny were duly noted and appreciated. We felt really proud, showing off our experiments and models and receiving looks of genuine interest and involvement. We enjoyed BEAMS 2015 thoroughly. We wish everybody on earth gets at least one opportunity to visit BEAMS and start Being Enthusiastic About the Magic of Science!

Science is Awesome!!

Science Day (BEAMS) is on its way to The Somaiya School!!

As I must've already said a hundred thousand times, The Somaiya School, the abode of learning and the paradise of fun is the best school in the history of mankind. Because I study in the best school on the planet, all our celebrations and events are totally rocking, and interest and intrigue even the most disinterested and benight of souls. This blog is just a glimpse into the crazy, amusement-(fully equipped with the most stomach lurching and adrenaline surging roller coasters)parkish adventures that we had during the all-wonderful BEAMS!!

To the unassuming, BEAMS stands for:

Being

Enthusiastic

About the

Magic of

Science!

We had been divided into 9 groups (Aaah! I was not grouped with my pals... Sad...) and we had to get everything ready VERY QUICKLY! The awesome groups were:

Innovations and Ideas

Physics around us

Food Science

Art in Science

Conservation

Myth-a-Magica

Water

Sound

Games!!!

Apparently, my teachers thought that I was very innovative; they put me in the group 'Innovations and Ideas'! 

Each group had a Main Teacher (our teacher was a very awesome and brainy teacher who's name is Lakshmi Ma'am) and some other teachers. On the first day of preparation, Lakshmi Ma’am introduced us to the other teachers. She explained to us that our group had to invent stuff like new gadgets and appliances to make our extremely tough lives a little bit easier. Basically, we had to do a bit of social service and try to ease the pains of the harsh realities of life.

We were so very excited and started work immediately. Because of our overwhelming enthusiasm and proficiency, (of course, we are so talented!) we finished the work with two days to spare! We were extremely excited because we had some amazing surprises and super cool ideas up our sleeve, for the final day! Because sitting idle when BEAMS is approaching is a sin, we decided to make some takeaways for all those lovely people who come to see us.

Because of our group’s theme, we agreed upon making some fun catapults that we had invented ourselves. We had to make around 400 catapults in just two days!

Working at breakneck speed, we managed a whopping 350 catapults!

One thing that really surprised me (um… not quite; the correct phrase would be ‘something that was very touching’, but whatever…) was that people of all the groups, regardless of friendships and animosities, came up to help us in making the catapults. Without them, I really doubt that we would have been able to accomplish such a large amount…

Okay, enough of the philosophy, let’s get on, because at the pace I am going, its going to take ten more blog posts to tell you readers about BEAMS. The appliance that I was going to present was called “ENJOY WHILE YOU WORK!” Essentially it was a bicycle that was attached to a work table, so you can work and pedal and exercise at the same time. We had modified the bicycle’s machinery a bit and fixed it in such a way that the bicycle did not move forward.  I loved the idea and was very eager and enthusiastic to present it to the people on THE day!!

We had a lot of fun getting everything ready. We enjoyed the whole experience a lot because we were not quarrelling (big surprise!). Instead, we were working together in peace and harmony and displaying excellent teamwork and cooperation. I am sure that the collaborative efforts of teachers and students are really going to make BEAMS 2015 a great, grand SUCCESS!!!!

My First Post!

Hello World!!

Hi, I am ZenCrazy, a student from Mumbai. I like zentangling, quilling and reading. I also like Social Science, traveling in cars and eating chocolate. I aspire to be a writer when I grow up. 
This is my first post on my first blog! I am very exited to be writing a blog. In my blog, I will be writing about my experiences at my awesome school.

So stay tuned!!