social networking...

This morning on the news I heard this - Thieves robbed a house after seeing a Facebook post that the homeowner is going to be out for the evening. The robbery was captured on camera and when the homeowner showed it to her friend, the friend recognised the robber to be one of their Facebook friends whom they had not seen in 20 years.
Of late, there have been too many incidents where people post too much information. Be careful about what you post. It might come back to haunt you later. We have created virtual identities and put our best pics for other people to see. Recently a friend of mine said to me " Oh my God, you have 'X' # of friends ". It made me realise how the world has changed. People judge us by the number of friends we have or by how active we are on these networking sites. I used to play farmville ( yes, i admit) I was obsessed with playing this game and one fine day I just stopped. Thank God I did. Now I am more productive in my free time. I have reconnected more with old friends. Anyways, this piece is just meant to make more people aware about protecting their online identities.

weekend

On Saturday, March 20th, 2010 we visited the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden. After a really long train ride on the 'D' train we got off at the Bedford Park Blvd station and walked another 10 mins to reach the Botanical Garden. The weather was really nice. It was the 1st day of spring. We decided to see the Orchid Show first and when we reached the Conservatory there was a really long line. We stood in the line for 30-45 mins ad finally got in. The theme was "Cuba in Flower". The flowers were beautiful. They even had a desert plants section. I think we spent more than an hour inside. I'll post some of the pics soon. I was so hungry by the time we came out. There is a cafe inside the Garden where we had French Fries and some juice before we started our long commute back home.

Food

Yesterday I watched Jamie Oliver's new reality series called 'Food Revolution '. what Jamie is trying to do is change the way people eat especially kids....it was really interesting to watch as public schools in America feed their students Pizza, Chicken nuggets, flavoured milk, etc. in other words JUNK.....I am so glad someone thought of this....I personally know lots of people who feed their kids the same things....When I was teaching in a school in India, I witnessed the same thing....children would bring for lunch chapathi with sugar or jam, bread with jam, pasta.....just sugar & refined flour....no vegetables at all. Can you imagine handling 30 kids in a classroom on a sugar high ?? Parents need to make time for preparing healthy, nutritious meals for their children. When the child is young, it is important to instil in them the importance of healthy eating.
I recently saw a young girl who could not have been more than 6-7 years old guzzling down a can of Red Bull, the energy drink. Why does a young child need a energy drink ?? Red Bull contains 80 mg Caffeine per can. Children naturally have a lot of energy....why give them energy drinks, sugary colas ??
I remember when I was working a parent of one of the children would send amazing food for her child. She would make upma and put them in cookie cutters of different shapes and then slightly bake them. The end product would be so interesting to look at...I wish more parents took interest in what their children put into their mouths.

Woman's Day

On March 8th when I opened my Facebook page I saw only various posts wishing all women Happy Woman's Day....the same week I read an article in TIME magazine that female American soldiers did not drink water after 7 pm to avoid going to the bathroom in the night....further reading led me to understand why....female soldiers are often raped by their male counterparts when they went to the bathroom at night or went out for a smoke....it was absolutely shocking to read this...if these women reported the assault they might be demoted...it was the end of their careers. A female soldier in Iraq is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. I just could not believe this kind of thing would happen in a developed country and that they were sweeping it under the carpet...the following week Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman in the world to win the Oscar for Best Director....for every 10 steps we take forward looks like we fall back 5 steps...I really don't see the point of celebrating International Woman's Day.