School gave me a bad handwriting

 

The other day, I had to participate in a class room training. Nothing good comes when a room full of grown-ups are asked to behave like children. Then are given chartpapers, sticky notes, and sharpies, and asked to come up with ideas. This particular session I was mandated to be in, was about design thinking. I thought that fad was over and out. Turns out, upper management still likes doing these kind of trainings and sessions.

Pretty soon, I was asked to scribble and draw on our group-acitivity sheet. And that is my ugly secret came out.

I have bad handwriting. Like, really really bad. Sometimes I have trouble reading my own writing. Its a miracle I have made it so far in my career, with people having to decipher my scribblings.

But here is a fact. At one point, I actually had nice, legible writing. The letters were evenly spaced, and even those with bad eye sight could read my writing. This was upto class..hmm…6 or 7 ? In fact, I had such good handwriting, that I was routinely asked to write on school charts, and whiteboards. I used to gleam with pride and joy whenever I was whisked away from class to write a section in the monthly notice board chart. I considered it the only gift I had, the gift of good writing.

And then, it all came tumbling down. And it was not my fault. You see, I was still writing in what was called ‘block letters’. This is the style one finds today on whiteboards, where each letter is separated and clear and legible in a word. The pen/sharpie is lifted after every letter.

It was not cursive writing. Cursive is the style when the pen is lifted only after every word, and all the letters in each words are connected. Like this:

 

I know , I know, this looks better. Brings in a sophistication, like its written by a Post Graduate in English. Like a Duke or Prince. Got it. Well I did not write like that. And some-one in my school decided that this was the only way to write. And that henceforth, every student had to write like this. In what they called ‘running letters’. What the hell is that ?

We were all given cursive writing books, you know, with those dotted sentences already printed, and asked to write over those letters. This was intended to ‘improve’ our ‘writing’. Also, it was supposedly faster, as the writer saves all those precious micro-seconds otherwise lost in lifting the pen between each letter.

It was an easy sell, not to mention, mandatory for all of us learn the new style of writing. Also, we were supposed to write only with fountain pens. Ink-pens. Aaah, those were the days, every body had fountain pens. Every student had little pieces of clothes in their pencil boxes, to absorb the extra ink that may spill from the pens. Some of use also used to carry those little ink bottles of black , and blue inks. There were ink blotches all across the classroom floor. Some even on walls. And definitely on our white uniform shirts. And what does one do, when one forgets to bring that piece of absorbent clothe ?

We used our ties ! You see, we had to wear blue ties as part of our uniforms. And that was our backup ink-absorbent.

I wrote and wrote and wrote. Hundreds of pages. Then proceeded to write the same way on every test paper. For a while, there was improvement. I could actually write faster, if not prettier. But my teacher used to ‘cut marks’ for handwriting. Pretty sure it was illegal, but who knew that ? So , in an effor to further improve my beutiful writing, I went over-board with the cursive writing stuff.

And destroyed it.

Now my writing was a gibberish mess. One could make out the words, surely, but it took more effort. After 1 hour of continous writing on school tests, my words would start to tilt and tumble. My F and T became the same. And my u, v and w were now identical triplets.  g and y used to swap places.

By 10th grade, I had degraded my beutiful writing to cursive gibberish. Until I was one day told they no longer need me to write on the school board.

Ouch.

And I have paid the price for my had handwriting ever since. Pretty sure I lost a lot of marks in college because they could no decipher my handwriting. Definitely sure some of my meeting notes were spat on in my team. But by that time, we had computers. So I could now just type out my e-mails, and it would turn out pretty and legible on the other end.

But life is not perfect. Every now and then, I have to write on a whilteboard, or chart-paper. And then my secret would be out.

So I curse my school. And my class teachers who wanted to ‘improve’ my writing.

 

 

 

 

 

Scientists Discover Hidden Asteroid Crater Under a Mile of Greenland Ice

 

Scientists have discovered a colossal impact crater hidden under a mile of ice in northwest Greenland, according to a new study in Science Advances that could have major repercussions for several scientific fields.

This is exactly the kind of news we need, but the mainstream media simply does not cover. I found about this on the radio today morning, none of the print media here or in India mentioned it. The crater was actually first detected in July 2015, but only now have scientists been able to verify the discovery. It’s the first time that a crater of any size has been found under a continental ice sheet. The enormous cavity is bigger than London and ranks among the 25 largest impact craters on Earth.

The crater stretches for 31 kilometers (19 miles) underneath Hiawatha Glacier, and was blasted into existence by a mile-long iron asteroid that unleashed the equivalent of 700 one-megaton nuclear bombs of energy upon impact. It is the first impact crater ever detected under Greenland’s ice cover, and ranks among the top largest 25 impact formations known on Earth.

The discovery has been in the making since 2015, when lead author Kurt Kjær, a geochemist at the University of Copenhagen, noticed a weird depression under the glacier in maps made by NASA’s Operation IceBridge.

As a bonus twist, the discovery may shed light on the heated scientific debate over what catalyzed the Younger Dryas, a period of sudden global cooling in the Northern Hemisphere from 12,800 to 11,700 years ago. A 2007 study suggested that the Younger Dryas could have been set off by an asteroid impact that plunged the hemisphere into ecological disarray and helped wipe out megafauna species like mammoths.

Rebuttals to this idea abounded, and the Hiawatha Glacier crater could end up being totally unrelated to the Younger Dryas. But for now, it’s one of many intriguing questions that Kjær’s team hope to pursue in future research.

“This study suggests several avenues for further research into both the nature and age of the Hiawatha impact crater and other possible subglacial impact craters,” the authors concluded in the study. “In particular, an improved geochronology for this impact event awaits the discovery and analysis of additional samples, from either within the crater itself or the surrounding area.”

 

 

How the RMS Carpathia saved the survivors

Today I stumbled upon this twitter post, and got lost in history again.

And here are some more stories of awesome human beings.

Carpathia received Titanic’s distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours.

(Californian’s exact position at the time is…controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic’s distress rockets. It’s uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.)

Carpathia’s Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic’s aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it.

All of Carpathia’s lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once.

I don’t know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope.

Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake–prepping a ship for disaster relief isn’t quiet–and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets.

And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support.

Here’s the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms–which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she’d done that, he asked her to go faster.

I need you to understand that you simply can’t push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless–it’s difficult to maneuver–but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can’t do it. It can’t be done.

Carpathia’s absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can’t-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half.

No one would have asked this of them. It wasn’t expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.

They damn near broke the laws of physics, galloping north headlong into the dark in the desperate hope that if they could shave an hour, half an hour, five minutes off their arrival time, maybe for one more person those five minutes would make the difference. I say: three people had died by the time they were lifted from the lifeboats. For all we know, in another hour it might have been more. I say they made all the difference in the world.

This ship and her crew received a message from a location they could not hope to reach in under four hours. Just barely over three hours later, they arrived at Titanic’s last known coordinates. Half an hour after that, at 4am, they would finally find the first of the lifeboats. it would take until 8:30 in the morning for the last survivor to be brought onboard. Passengers from Carpathia universally gave up their berths, staterooms, and clothing to the survivors, assisting the crew at every turn and sitting with the sobbing rescuees to offer whatever comfort they could.

In total, 705 people of Titanic’s original 2208 were brought onto Carpathia alive. No other ship would find survivors.

At 12:20am April 15th, 1912, there was a miracle on the North Atlantic. And it happened because a group of humans, some of them strangers, many of them only passengers on a small and unimpressive steam liner, looked at each other and decided: I cannot live with myself if I do anything less.

I think the least we can do is remember them for it.

Annual Appraisal

 

My annual appraisal. Every year.

Ideas that won’t work in India - Free outdoor movies

Sometimes, a little outside perspective works. Specially if it is you are having the perspective change, instead of someone else giving it to you. When one travels to foreign countires, one sees ideas, projects and movements being executed so flawlessly, one wonders how and why didn’t we think of them in our place ?

I saw some Melburnians organizing and executing one such little idea here this summer. The Govt of Victoria, in collaboration with local partners, decided to put on a show for the people .  A real show. A movie. Movies itself is nothing new to Indians, but here are the key words which set the event apart.

Outdoor. And Free.

Instead of charging upfront and limiting entry, they organize the show outdoors under the summer sky. And keep it free. People have to bring their own blankets, food , and whomever they want, and dogs too. Of course there will be popcorn and drinks stall, but the idea is to get people to bring whatever they want to enjoy the evening.

This is another one of those things people here get around easily. People bring in their blankets and picnic boxes, some even bean bags and pillows. The venue is easily reachable via public transport, so most of them just walk in, but lots of cycles and skateboards and scooters were visible. So many ways to get around !

The show would start after sunset, so there  was enough time to get your favourite place. And although the event was free, they were considerate enough to provide portable public restrooms.

The movie I went to was Black Panther. I had seen it. But it was fun seeing it again in a community. All those little families sitting together in circles and groups, with their pets. Everyone brought their favourite food, lots of picnics !

It reminded me of that bioscope cinema scene of that movie, Swades. The act of meeting and attending socially was more fun than the movie itself. I am sure people would not have minded paying for the event. But keeping the venue open and free just made it that much more fun !