SILC: Weekly Digest (12/18/11)

Dear SILC Students, Parents, Teachers and Volunteers:

Thank you for participating in the "Be the match" drive yesterday.  Let us all hope that the little baby Rishik finds a match from one one of us. As Kristine Reed educated us,  all the participants participated in the drive yesterday will be part of the registry. Knowing that you are there to help someone in need gives a warm feeling. Thank you for your participation.

Please note that we do not have SILC for the next two weeks (christmas and new year break). We will be meeting again on January 7th in the new year.

Saturday, January 21st is the Annual SILC mela. The SILC Mela (Fair) features the chaos of an Indian Mela with lots of fun for children in the form of games, fortune telling and other activities. For adults, there is a Silent Auction inside the Cafeteria.

If you have gently used or new books, DVD's, CDs, Indian clothes, decorative items, etc, please consider donating them for this event. Donations can be brought and handed over to Sunita M on Janury 7th or 14th or on the day of the Mela.
 
DO consider donating/getting a gift card for the silent auction, If you have any service/business or know of any business/restaurant/grocery store. Please contact our Assistant Principal Sunita Mannamkunnath (sunkun1@yahoo.com) for further details.

Please note: If your donation is valuable and you do not wish to sell it for garage sale prices, let us know so we can have it in the Silent auction area.

Watch for more details in the upcoming weekly SILC digests...

Answers to last week's Quiz:
[Q] In Mumbai, what do the people employed as dabbawallahs do?

[A] Dabbawallahs, literally meaning "Person with a box" - deliver home-cooked food from homes to the offices using a network of bicycles and trains.  From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala, "In 2002, Forbes Magazine found its reliability to be that of a six sigma standard. More than 175,000 or 200,000 lunch boxes get moved every day by an estimated 4,500 to 5,000 dabbawalas, all with an extremely small nominal fee and with utmost punctuality. According to a recent survey, they make less than one mistake in every 6 million deliveries, despite most of the delivery staff being illiterate.^[6]"

This week's Quiz:

[A] What is Golden Quadrilateral?

Happy Holidays

--

Regards

Siva Jasthi

Director - Communications

School of India for Languages and Culture

http://www.silcmn.com

(mobile) 612.217.4821

SILC: "Be the Match" for Rishik

Dear SILC Community

We have received a request from "Be the Match" organization to help out an Indian family in desperate need of blood (bone marrow) for a little baby named Rishik.

On behalf of SILC, we would like to hold a drive where people will have an opportunity to give a cheek swab for matching purposes.  Please see the note below from Kristine Reed from from "Be the Match" organization. She will be available at SILC on the upcoming Saturday from 10:30 to 12:30 to educate and guide and to answer any questions you have on this drive.


--
Regards
Siva Jasthi
Director - Communications
School of India for Languages and Culture
http://www.silcmn.com
(mobile) 612.217.4821

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Kristine Reed <kreed2@nmdp.org>
Date: Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 12:19 PM
Subject: Be The Match - Local Southeast Asian baby in need of a marrow transplant
To: Fatema Pachmerhiwala <fatema.pachmerhiwala@gmail.com>, Hasim Khorakiwala <hasimak@gmail.com>, Sruti Velamakanni <svelamakanni@gmail.com>, Ramprasad Vijayagopal <ramprasad.vijayagopal@gmail.com>, Parag Shah <parag.shah@prodality.com>, "Atul Wahi (WiseSoft)" <atulwahi@wise-soft.com>, GOPAL PAUL <gkopaul@yahoo.com>


Hello –



Dr. Shashank Vats, a local cardiologist at the U of MN, contacted me today asking for help.  Dr. Vats has a 2-month old baby boy, Rishik, who is in desperate need of a marrow transplant.  Little Rishik is suffering from a rare auto-immune disorder called HLH and needs a marrow transplant in order to survive.  Dr. Vats has another son who is 3-years old but unfortunately he is not a match for Rishik.



Dr. Vats and his wife are consumed right now with Rishik’s care (they are currently in Cincinnati, Ohio with a HLH specialist) and they have asked me to recruit Southeast Asian donors to the registry as quickly as possible.



Can you please assist me with organizing recruitment drives with the local Southeast Asian population on behalf of and in support of little Rishik?  Suggest some places to hold them?  Help me promote them to your friends and/or help me at the drives?



Please let me know soon.



Much thanks.



~Kristine



p.s. I’m waiting to receive a picture of Rishik from Dr. Vats and his wife.



Kristine A. Reed, Account Executive

Recruitment & Community Development

Be The Match Registry - Operated by the National Marrow Donor Program

3001 Broadway Street N. E., Suite 100, Minneapolis, MN 55413-1753
Office Phone: (612) 617-8389

Work Cell: (612) 616-6534

Fax: (612) 627-8118

Leukemia survivor and bone marrow transplant recipient since 1999.  Please support my efforts:  http://www.tinyurl.com/KristineReed

Be-the-Match-R_CMYK.jpg

http://www.marrow.org/images/email/facebook.png     http://www.marrow.org/images/email/twitter.png     http://www.marrow.org/images/email/wordpress.png     http://www.marrow.org/images/email/youtube.png

SILC: Weekly Digest (12/11/11)

Dear SILC Students, Parents, Teachers and Volunteers:

Khaana, Khareedna aur Khel (Food, shopping and games)
Save the date...

Saturday, January 21st is the Annual SILC mela. The SILC Mela (Fair) features the chaos of an Indian Mela with lots of fun for children in the form of games, fortune telling and other activities. For adults, there is a Silent Auction inside the Cafeteria. What is a Mela without food? Indian lunch will be available for purchase.

We also use this opportunity to celebrate recent SILC Birthdays with community-cutting of a large cake involving all the birthday kids! All this goes on in the SILC Commons Area, while the Silent Auction takes place inside the Cafeteria. Please bring friends and family to this annual event.

If you have gently used or new books, DVD's, CDs, Indian clothes, decorative items, etc, please consider donating them for this event. Donations can be brought and handed over to Sunita M starting next week or on the day of the Mela.

We need volunteers on Mela day to run a booth, to run a game, or help distribute the food. So please sign-up. Sign up sheets will be available starting next week.

DO consider donating/getting a gift card for the silent auction, If you have any service/business or know of any business/restaurant/grocery store. Please contact our Assistant Principal Sunita Mannamkunnath (sunkun1@yahoo.com) for further details.

Please note: If your donation is valuable and you do not wish to sell it for garage sale prices, let us know so we can have it in the Silent auction area.

Watch for more details in the upcoming weekly SILC digests...

Answers to last week's Quiz:
[Q] Who is the only person in the world who wrote national anthems for two countries?
[A] Rabindranath Tagore is the only person in the world who wrote national anthems for two countries - India (Jana Gana Mana) and Bangladesh (Amar Shonar Bangla). For the history of how it happened, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amar_Shonar_Bangla

This week's Quiz:
[Q] In Mumbai, what do the people employed as dabbawallahs do?


--
Regards
Siva Jasthi
Director - Communications
School of India for Languages and Culture
http://www.silcmn.com
(mobile) 612.217.4821

SILC: Weekly Digest (12/04/11)

Dear SILC Students, Parents, Teachers and Volunteers:

Hope you are all staying safe and warm.

1. Snow policy: In the case of snow, it is possible that SILC may be canceled on some saturdays. Please watch out the email communications, web site updates and phone messages from your language teachers. If you have any doubt, it is also encouraged to call any of the SILC board member.

 

2. We are in the process of creating a SILC directory where the details of your family with home address will be published. If you do not want to have your details published, please let us know by Dec 16, 2011

 

3. With the onset of winter, all of us come to school wearing heaving coats. We request you to keep all coats and personal effects in the North West corner of the cafeteria and keep the tables in the main hall free for snacks

 

4. The SILC mela has been pushed back to January 21, 2012. We will have regular classes on December 17, 2011. Please stand by for more info about the SILC mela.

 

5. We are sure that you enjoy drinking the hot tea served every SILC school day. The preparation of tea and other ancillary activities require a lot of volunteer driven effort and we alway welcome more folks to pitch in to help. SILC is a volunteer driven organization and we welcome you to join us for providing assistance wherever you can. We would definitely love to have more folks volunteer for preparing the tea / washing the tea thermos, assist in laying out the snacks, cleaning up and carrying out  other ancillary activities. Please see any SILC board member to volunteer

6. Of late the SILC board has been getting requests from new families for enrollment of their children. We would like to draw everyone's attention to the SILC policy that registrations close within a few weeks of open enrollment. We do this to make sure that the progress during various classes is not affected with the addition of new students mid way during the school year. If you have family and friends who wish to enroll in SILC, please advise them to watch out for the next round of registration in August 2012.

7. Help Nisha Grayson

Nisha was adopted from Goa, India 25 years back. She will be traveling to India in search of her birth mother and this journey is being made into a film.  Nisha is trying to raise some funds to support her travel to India and to get the last bit footage of the film.  Please see her appeal and visit these links to help her.

www.youfollowthefilm.com

http://www.indiegogo.com/YOU-FOLLOW-A-Search-for-Ones-Past

 

============== appeal from Nisha Grayson ======================

Hello, how are you doing? I am Nisha who is the subject of this passion project. I am also helping out with the production side of it a little. Thank you for taking the time to check out our fundraising page. If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to send me an email through facebook or my personal account nishagrayson@gmail.com. If you would like, you can also view our website to learn about our progress so far www.youfollowthefilm.com.

Thank you again for your time and I hope that you enjoy your holiday season!.

Nisha Grayson

============== ================= ======================
Answers to last week's Quiz:
[Q] What is the significance of "14th November" in India?

[A] In India, the Children's Day is celebrated on 14 November, the birthday of the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

This week's Quiz:

Who is the only person in the world who wrote national anthems for two countries?


--
Regards
Siva Jasthi
Director - Communications
School of India for Languages and Culture
http://www.silcmn.com
(mobile) 612.217.4821

SILC: Weekly Digest (11/20/11)

Dear SILC Students, Parents, Teachers and Volunteers:

Hope you are all staying warm and safe during the first snow of the season and getting ready for thanks giving. Please note that we do not have SILC next week and we will resume again on December 3rd.

Also note that SILC Mela is also moved out to January 21st. Further details on the SILC Mela will be shared in the coming weeks.

If you are still planning to order $3 pictures from the diwali event, please contact Raj Menon by 26th November. This offer is valid until next saturday only. However, you can order professional pictures until the end of December. Please visit http://legacypics.photoreflect.com to order any pictures.

Thanks to Krishnan Nambudiripad and the editorial team for bringing out a wonderful news letter. If you have not picked up a copy of it on Diwali event or missed coming to SILC on that day, you can access the news letter at this link or http://www.silcmn.com/docs/SILC%20News%20Letter%20November%202011.pdf

Answers to last week's Quiz
Here are three quotes on India. Who said these?


[1] Albert Einstein -  "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!"



[2] Mark Twain - "India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most artistic materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!"

[3]- Keith Bellows (Editor-in-chief, National Geographic Society)
"There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won't go. For me, India is such a place. When I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land, by its lush beauty and exotic architecture, by its ability to overload the senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds. It was as if all my life I had been seeing the world in black and white and, when brought face-to-face with India, experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant technicolor."

This week's Quiz:

What is the significance of "14th November" in India?

--
Regards
Siva Jasthi
Director - Communications
School of India for Languages and Culture
http://www.silcmn.com
(mobile) 612.217.4821

SILC: Weekly Digest (11/13/11)

Dear SILC Students, Parents, Teachers and Volunteers:

Hope you have all enjoyed the Diwali celebrations, festivities and the food at SILC yesterday.

Thank you all - for bringing a dish to share, for dressing up for the occasion, for sharing the experiences about Diwali, for maintaining the order at the professional photography booth and for making it fun and success.  Some pictures of the diwali celebration event are shared here at this link (http://silc1011.blogspot.com/2011/11/silc-diwali-celebrations-111211.html)

Special thanks to Suresh Kalatoor for bringing Kanniks Kannikeswaran as guest to SILC yesterday. As you recall, many of SILC members have participated in "Chitram - multimedia musical theater production showcasing the diversity and plurality of india"  It is a privilege to have him at SILC yesterday.  Please visit this link to view the video of what Kanniks said of SILC.

As is mentioned earlier, photography by the professional photographer is a first in SILC history. Considering the interest and success, we would like to continue this practice in coming years as well. We will share the details of ordering any extra copies in the next digest (as we are awaiting the details from the photographer). Some of you have asked about the logistics of paying for the additional picture / copy you have got at SILC yesterday. You can pay $3 for each additional /copy to Mangala Achar through a check payable to SILC (note that you do not need to pay anything if you have taken only one copy; SILC has picked up the tab for your first picture).

Please note that all the teacher and SILC board member bios displayed on the tri-fold yesterday are also available at this link (or on "classes" link on http://www.silcmn.com).

Rama Vaidyanathan - the world renowned Classical Dancer - will be performing at St. Paul Student Center, Univ. of MN on this Friday 18th at 7 PM. SILC members may be interested to attend this event. For further details, please see the attached for further details

Answers to last week's Quiz

[1] What is Diwali also known as:
 (c) festival of lights

[2] In how many countries, Diwali is celebrated?

Diwali is celebrated in many countries all over the world - where Indian diaspora exists. Diwali is an official holiday in India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Malaysia, Singapore, and Fiji.

[3] Diwali is also known as _Tihar__ or __Swanti_ in Nepal?


This week's Quiz
Here are three quotes on India. Who said these?

[1] "We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made!"

[2] "India is the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most artistic materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only!"

[3]

"There are some parts of the world that, once visited, get into your heart and won't go. For me, India is such a place. When I first visited, I was stunned by the richness of the land, by its lush beauty and exotic architecture, by its ability to overload the senses with the pure, concentrated intensity of its colors, smells, tastes, and sounds. It was as if all my life I had been seeing the world in black and white and, when brought face-to-face with India, experienced everything re-rendered in brilliant technicolor."

--
Regards
Siva Jasthi
Director - Communications
School of India for Languages and Culture
http://www.silcmn.com
(mobile) 612.217.4821

Kanniks Kannikeswaran @ SILC (Diwali celebrations 11/12/11)

SILC: Diwali Celebrations 11/12/11