First Tutoring experience - In adult literacy Projects .....

Hmm.. today had my first tutoring experience and met my first student, Mr. P. It was a complete 1.5 hrs tutoring experience. Today's batch had around 10+ students and few students were coupled together bcoz of lack of volunteers, but i got one student and he gets the privilege and can be tagged as "my first student". He is pretty old and except name, we both didn't share any other personal info. He was keen to know my country but we are not supposed to share those info and hence i grinned for that question :)

I felt myself and Mr.P are the two people who laughed a lot during the class, may be its because i am the youngest tutor among all.. yes... you read it right, i am the youngest tutor there. Oh ya.. how can i forget it.. he told me, i am his gud teacher and i was almost spell bounded when he called me as"Mam"/ "Teacher" :). May be someone calling me as "Teacher" for the first time..He also added that i shud be really patient to teach him English, i m very much impatient in personal life but n professional life, I am totally patient. But today, i was really patient..At the end of the class, when asked by the Pgm Coordinator regarding the rapport b/w myself and my student, Mr. P replied directly to the Coordinator that i may not like him since i ended up teaching the basic spelling in English for him. My last sentence before leaving the place was " After all that's why i am here and he is doing really Gr8 !!!" .... :) :)

At the end of the day, a perfect self-satisfactory 1.5 hrs teaching experience... and looking fwd to go there weekly once

-S Ak

GMAT - My Typical Syllabus and Study materials

I have started again with my prep for gmat and came up with the materials to be covered. Below is my detailed syllabus -

Quants:
- Manhattan Books ( for 4 topics), OG Series, GMAT prep bank - with 175 + 75, 199 and 99 Questions collection ( didn't work on ths in my prev attempt)

Verbal:
SC
- OG Series, Manhattan SC, Adam Johns Notes, Psahil, Spidey Notes, GMAT Prep - 175 ques bank

CR
- CR Bible, OG Series, LSAT Logical Questions for practice

RC
- Manhattan Edition ( not so gr8), few RC Tips, OG Series, LSAT Practice Question ( didn't work on it n my prev attempt)

FLT
- MGMAT Series - 6 tests
- GMAT Prep - 2 + 2

With the above, yet my score was not great as expected - not even to the mark. Am i missing something ???.... Am i lagging somwhere or lacking sumthing... The biggest prob i had is, either in CR or in SC, i was always confused b/w 2 choices and was not confident on my correct ans. That would be the biggest problem, may be i am not strong on the concepts.. may be more revision.. Phew !!! With all this said, started with my prep again and looking for real gmat very soon for 3rd time - i really wish that would be my last attempt :) :) ...

- S Ak

Registered for my first project with Hand-on Charlotte

Well, in my last post have informed about the registeration with Red-Cross and Hands-On Groups. Had my orientation with Hands-On last week and BC was cleared, hence eligible to sign-up projects with 'em.

When i was looking for my area of interest, Literacy is one of it and so signed-in for tutoring a student at CPCC - Central Piedmont Community College. Core subjects are Maths and English. I am looking forward for weekly once schedule, starting this week. Called a best buddy of mine to inform about my sign-up 'thing' and got a response back in a typical male voice " Is that something gr8 for you to be excited ??????-- "..Ugh................ !!!!!!!...May be its not something gr8, but i m kinda inclined towards it.. thats all.. Lets see how it goes !!

I, coming to Red-Cross part, have showed up interest for projects such as Fundraising, Youth Education regarding disaster services awareness. Online orientation is still pending from my end and waiting on BC results. With that said, Red-Cross have pretty challenging projects like Ambassadors and many more which requires mandatory training and require lots of tours. So with my daily work schedule and horrifying gmat lol, other projects with 'em would be a tough call.

Oh ya, a cousin of mine with his friends, have adopted a village near chennai and I came to know about that recently, showed up my interest and now waiting for them to get back.

- S Ak

Crave for Volunteering and Community Services !!

Since my college, more precisely during my stay at Chennai, I always wanted to do something for the society or kinda community services. Have planned many visits to Blind schools and Old Age Homes in Chennai, but all those were just plans and nothing was executed other than the donation through CRY and Other Charitable Organization - a mere donation

After spending a year in Charlotte, sometime in Oct 2007 heard about Susan Komen Race for Cure - Fund Raising for Breast Cancer Survivors and Research Activities - typical 5K Run. The Race is scheduled during October - once every year in Charlotte. Started my first run in Oct 07 - was able to raise upto 125$. Since then, every year used to run for the Cure. More details are at Komen Race.

For past couple of months, was looking for a volunteering oppurtunity in Charlotte and had checked out possible sites but ended up in vain because of my GMAT prep ( No offence to gmat lol ). Thanks to Nikh, a friend of mine from work, who suggested me to join in American Red Cross Org, and provided me with all the possible links today - guess he knows i am lil lazy :) in searching net. This time, decided not to think more about it and not willing to waste more time :

- Registered in Red Cross Programs - almost 8 different volunteering activities for Charlotte area. Details are in Red Cross Volunteer. Waiting on Orientation Session dates from the Org

- Registered in Hands On Charlotte - Non-Profit Volunteer Service Org - Hands on Charlotte - Getting Started . Have also scheduled my orientation session for May 17th. One can start volunteering activities only after orientation session and background check ( which may take 10 business days) through this Org. Volunteers should volunteer atleast 12 times per year.

After doing some gud deeds for the day, I am feeling little satisfied for accomplishing step 2 on my community services [ step 1 is the desire to do it :) ] Cool eh !!

- S Ak

TED - Ideas Worth Spreading

I am back after 2 weeks almost.. Well came across a video of Shashi Tharoor for TED Conference about emerging India and about Soft Power. One can have many conflicting ideas regarding this but at the end of it.. a nice 19 mins TEDTalk.

So One Day 1 Pound = 50 paise ????...



- S Ak