Just to warm you up a bit, here are some pictures from last year's archives. You'll have to appreciate me; I've exhumed them out of the stygian darknesses of my laptop (:P) So rewind to Zealicon 08:
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Zealicon is Back!
Gear up folks! The JSSATE Annual Technical Festival, Zealicon is back!
Just to warm you up a bit, here are some pictures from last year's archives. You'll have to appreciate me; I've exhumed them out of the stygian darknesses of my laptop (:P) So rewind to Zealicon 08:
Just to warm you up a bit, here are some pictures from last year's archives. You'll have to appreciate me; I've exhumed them out of the stygian darknesses of my laptop (:P) So rewind to Zealicon 08:
Monday, February 9, 2009
Upcoming Activities
Happy New Year to all Lingua Franca members!
First of all, I would like to welcome all the first year students into Lingua Franca. I sincerely hope you enjoy your membership in the society and have a good time. As the title reads, I’ve dropped in here to talk about the upcoming events this semester.
Vocab Workshops
Ritika and Shubhangi set the ball rolling by conducting the first vocabulary workshop of the semester.. Sadly, I couldn’t make it that day. I am sure they did a wonderful job. More vocabulary workshops are lined up for the coming weeks.
Basic Grammar Workshops
Meghna has been consistent with her workshops on Basic Grammar and public speaking cum confidence building workshops. Although participation has been average, we’ve seen a loyal set of audience to these sessions.
Movie Club
After having failed to kick-start the movie club twice, we’ve decided enough is enough! Shashank and Abhishek along with some more second year fellows have been given the responsibility. We have received permission to screen movies in the seminar hall twice a month, on alternate Saturdays. Over this one semester we hope to show a series of quality English flicks. We encourage members to come up with suggestions. Yes, you heard that right! We will try to accommodate your requests. Write in your suggestions as comments to this post.
Boys’ Hostel Book Club
Vivek has been working hard on this. We have prepared an extensive list of over 200 books (both fiction and non-fiction), which has been forwarded to the Principal via the Humanities Dept. Members may note that we already have all the necessary permissions in place. Once this list is approved, the college authorities will procure the books and hand them over to Lingua Franca. Hostlers will then be able to issue these books just like they do from the library.
Other Events
We are thinking of interesting Debating formats like Parliamentary Debate, and other innovative forms of public speaking competitions. Other events like Group Discussions and Extempore are also lined up. With the Annual Fest - Zealicon also coming up in March, it looks like an exciting semester ahead.
First of all, I would like to welcome all the first year students into Lingua Franca. I sincerely hope you enjoy your membership in the society and have a good time. As the title reads, I’ve dropped in here to talk about the upcoming events this semester.
Vocab Workshops
Ritika and Shubhangi set the ball rolling by conducting the first vocabulary workshop of the semester.. Sadly, I couldn’t make it that day. I am sure they did a wonderful job. More vocabulary workshops are lined up for the coming weeks.
Basic Grammar Workshops
Meghna has been consistent with her workshops on Basic Grammar and public speaking cum confidence building workshops. Although participation has been average, we’ve seen a loyal set of audience to these sessions.
Movie Club
After having failed to kick-start the movie club twice, we’ve decided enough is enough! Shashank and Abhishek along with some more second year fellows have been given the responsibility. We have received permission to screen movies in the seminar hall twice a month, on alternate Saturdays. Over this one semester we hope to show a series of quality English flicks. We encourage members to come up with suggestions. Yes, you heard that right! We will try to accommodate your requests. Write in your suggestions as comments to this post.
Boys’ Hostel Book Club
Vivek has been working hard on this. We have prepared an extensive list of over 200 books (both fiction and non-fiction), which has been forwarded to the Principal via the Humanities Dept. Members may note that we already have all the necessary permissions in place. Once this list is approved, the college authorities will procure the books and hand them over to Lingua Franca. Hostlers will then be able to issue these books just like they do from the library.
Other Events
We are thinking of interesting Debating formats like Parliamentary Debate, and other innovative forms of public speaking competitions. Other events like Group Discussions and Extempore are also lined up. With the Annual Fest - Zealicon also coming up in March, it looks like an exciting semester ahead.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Reporting (not)Live from the Basic English Workshop
I solemnly promised Deepak I’ll post ( hence I am! ).
We have been rather active as a society recently. Counting, this semester, we have conducted
1) Crossword
2) Essay competition
3) Inchoation (2.0!!!)
4) Turncoat
5) Basic English Workshop
6) Vocabulary Workshop
Not to mention we tried really hard to start off the Movie Club (twice!) but couldn’t (due to unavoidable circumstances, to put it nicely).
Anyhow, Deepak is forcing me to report the Basic English Workshop, so that’s what I’ll do now.
We have been planning to conduct English Classes for the last year now. The reason being, when we ask students to join Lingua Franca, we tell then it will help then improve their English. Now the people with a reasonable understanding of the language can take part in our events and improve themselves through the process of preparing for the event, participation, and by observing others taking part. However, a large chunk of the college population is abysmal in the language, and thus the events aren’t as much help to them as the rest. For most of them, taking part is nothing more than a fantasy. The idea behind the Basic English Classes was to improve the level of such people was to an extent that they can express themselves and hence move to the next step in the process, i.e. participation.
Last year, the president gave Meghna and me the responsibility of conducting classes. I came up with a few ideas, but admittedly, that’s all that I did. Meghna, in classic Meghna fashion, went ahead and planned lessons, study materials, techniques and God knows what else. Then, semester exams came up and everybody forgot about all besides cramming, cramming and cramming. As soon as college reopened, she started working on the idea again, and by the time our tired bodies and brains got over the orientation, she was ready.
Finally, the first class was scheduled for this Tuesday lunchtime. Meghna is one of the members of the rare breed of people who don’t like to miss classes, so what could have been more irritating (and funny) that the teacher for her toughest subject scheduled an extra class on the aforementioned lunchtime! Grudgingly, Meghna missed her extra class and stepped into the shoes of a teacher. We were concerned about the number of people that would turn up but our worries were put to rest as 15-20 people appeared on time. Our confidence was further boosted as more and more people kept turning up, even after half an hour into the class, sometimes arriving in groups herded in by Vivek, making me wonder if he caught every first year passing by and forced them into the class (which, by the way, he assures me he didn’t ).
The class started with Meghna discussing the various aspects of the language, including the structure of sentences and the various parts of a sentence. However, she soon realized that the students were clear about the basics and what they lacked the most was confidence. Infact, some of the students did not need to attend the class in any sense, and she turned them away. Hence, the rest of the class was spent on confidence- building activities. The teacher even awarded the first student who stood up in the class to give a discussion with some toffees (:)).
We distributed worksheets and study material, and as far as I could see from their faces, most students went back thoroughly satisfied and will come back for the next class.
PS: Here you go Deepak, you see I do listen to you sometimes!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Fear Factor
As promised, I'm here again on Tuesday. I apologize for the delay because I was stuck with some work in the morning. Anyway, I'm here now and without wasting any more of your time and attention I'd like to address a very important issue. The fear of speaking in public.
It is very easy to go into that shell and it usually happens at an early stage in life. As you grow, you realize that you lack the confidence for speaking out loud in front of a group of people when everyone's attention is focused on you and they're listening to what you have to say. The frequency of these situations will only increase as you move ahead in life. So you have to break out of the shell as soon as possible. It looks like a difficult job, but if you follow a few simple rules it's a piece of chocolate cake.
Rule no. 1 - TRY
What is the worst that can happen? There are some people who might laugh at you for stammering or stuttering (personally I despise the type who do) and will forget about it by the next day. What you gain from this is a sense of accomplishment. You TRIED. That's the only thing you need to do.
Rule no. 2 - TRY AGAIN
Imagine yourself standing beside an escalator that is going up. When you try, you step on to the escalator. A failure is the equivalent of taking a step back on the rising escalator. You are still going up, it is not a setback, it is a lesson that will help your climb.
Rule no. 3 - THEY ARE JUST NORMAL PEOPLE LIKE YOU
The group of people you are addressing are just like you, humans who can see, hear and speak the same way you can. They aren't any reality show judges passing judgment on every vibration emerging from your vocal chords. It isn't the end of the world if you fumble or falter, they would too, anyone would.
Rule no. 4 - IT'S OK TO BE NERVOUS
Confidence and nerves are inversely proportional to each other. The more confidence you gain, the less nervous you will be. You might be the captain of the Debating Team but you will still be nervous on a big occasion. Your nerves will get used to it soon enough, just follow the simple rules.
I'm looking forward to a forum where people can put forth their problems and help us help them.
Until next time, keep trying.
Sid
P.S. - Congratulations to the Lingua Franca Team for a hugely successful orientation program. Hope it gets better and better.
P.P.S. - I am slightly disappointed by the lack of posts on this blog. People other than Deepak should also contribute. (Nice template Deepak, well done)
It is very easy to go into that shell and it usually happens at an early stage in life. As you grow, you realize that you lack the confidence for speaking out loud in front of a group of people when everyone's attention is focused on you and they're listening to what you have to say. The frequency of these situations will only increase as you move ahead in life. So you have to break out of the shell as soon as possible. It looks like a difficult job, but if you follow a few simple rules it's a piece of chocolate cake.
Rule no. 1 - TRY
What is the worst that can happen? There are some people who might laugh at you for stammering or stuttering (personally I despise the type who do) and will forget about it by the next day. What you gain from this is a sense of accomplishment. You TRIED. That's the only thing you need to do.
Rule no. 2 - TRY AGAIN
Imagine yourself standing beside an escalator that is going up. When you try, you step on to the escalator. A failure is the equivalent of taking a step back on the rising escalator. You are still going up, it is not a setback, it is a lesson that will help your climb.
Rule no. 3 - THEY ARE JUST NORMAL PEOPLE LIKE YOU
The group of people you are addressing are just like you, humans who can see, hear and speak the same way you can. They aren't any reality show judges passing judgment on every vibration emerging from your vocal chords. It isn't the end of the world if you fumble or falter, they would too, anyone would.
Rule no. 4 - IT'S OK TO BE NERVOUS
Confidence and nerves are inversely proportional to each other. The more confidence you gain, the less nervous you will be. You might be the captain of the Debating Team but you will still be nervous on a big occasion. Your nerves will get used to it soon enough, just follow the simple rules.
I'm looking forward to a forum where people can put forth their problems and help us help them.
Until next time, keep trying.
Sid
P.S. - Congratulations to the Lingua Franca Team for a hugely successful orientation program. Hope it gets better and better.
P.P.S. - I am slightly disappointed by the lack of posts on this blog. People other than Deepak should also contribute. (Nice template Deepak, well done)
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
New Logo!
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the new logo of Lingua Franca. We did not have good quality copies of the previous logo, so i remade it keeping intact the theme of the mediating man. I've changed his body though, given him a more masculine frame (a shield for a chest) and golden color for body. The new logo has been used in the identity cards and the certificates that we've got printed.
By the way, i've never quite understood the meaning conveyed through the logo. What does the meditating guy stand for? Anyone has any ideas?
Inchoation 2.0
After having been made to believe that our orientation program is jinxed, the relief of having conducted a successful event can’t be put down to words. But more on why the event almost got canceled later.
We started our preparations about a week back when we got to know of our event date. Since every society in college wanted to conduct their orientation programme before others, there was a clash amongst the presidents and dates were ultimately decided through a lottery system of picking up chits. And when it’s left to luck, you know what happens. Hell, something had to go wrong. We ultimately had a choice between two dates – 3rd(which was too early and possibly a holiday due to Ganesh Chaturthi) and 18th(which was a bit too late).
No marks for guessing, we took a blind chance and started preparing for 3rd. Special credit goes to our president for that. We christened the event Inchoation 2.0 (Thank you Aastha for such an peculiar name, it’s irresistible and Thank you Garima for giving it a techno-savvy feel) Here’s one more compliment, the Dean said – “I claim to have a very good vocabulary, but I have not heard this word before..”
So we began with the basic publicity. And then started deciding the events we were going to have. Somebody came up with the idea of launching a movie club at the orientation programme. Nandu prepared a fun Crossword, other rounds like Voice Recognition, Dubbing Scenes, Picture Quizzes were also finalised in the next few days. The idea was to keep the event simple, and host it well.
I must mention the second year students, especially the girls who toiled away days and nights to make sure the event is publicized well. Little did we know that the event was going to be such a success.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
No Reservations
Hi everyone. I don't know how many people actually read this blog but if there is a blog then it demands that you write stuff in it! An un-updated blog is as good as attending class just for the sake of getting attendance, there is no point to it. So to help change that I'm going to try and post on a weekly/monthly basis (depending upon the time I can spare) and I'm going to call my column "No Reservations".
For those people who know me I don't need to give an introduction, for those who don't know me, my name is Sid and that's about it. I'll share my experiences with you about stuff that I think would have helped me if someone would have told the same to me when I had certain reservations and was generally a shy and quiet kid. Coming out of that mould isn't as hard as it looks. But as with all journeys, the first step is the hardest.
So let's embark on this journey together and see how far we can go. But remember I can only show you the door, you have to enter it (yeah I'm a Matrix fan).
Cheers
Sid
For those people who know me I don't need to give an introduction, for those who don't know me, my name is Sid and that's about it. I'll share my experiences with you about stuff that I think would have helped me if someone would have told the same to me when I had certain reservations and was generally a shy and quiet kid. Coming out of that mould isn't as hard as it looks. But as with all journeys, the first step is the hardest.
So let's embark on this journey together and see how far we can go. But remember I can only show you the door, you have to enter it (yeah I'm a Matrix fan).
Cheers
Sid
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