12th July, 2011
Hello,
I hope all of you have been well. Life has improved significantly for
me since I organised it. I now feel like I have a sense of purpose and
direction and I’m able to radiate positivity !
Since I last wrote to you, I have been boating twice! The first time I
went from Huntlosen to Wardenburg (12km, in 5 hours) with one of the
India friend’s labgroup. The weather was beautiful; cool breeze, blue
skies, and the scenery was a mix of forest with wild birds and
farmland with sheep and cows in the distance and the ducks with their
ducklings adorably swimming close to the banks and across the river.
All green beautiful land. I had to take an extremely hot shower after
that to ease the aching in my arms and slept for 11 hours straight as
soon as I had eaten something. Partner coordinating is very important.
There needs to be a sense of understanding and communication and
accepted positions of leadership and following. It was difficult at
first to establish this with my friend because he seemed to be used to
leading, but so was I. But after initial bumps, the rest of the ride was fine.
The second time was just last Sunday when the Indian group went to
Badzwischenahn (it is a lake just 18 km away from Oldenburg). We
split into two groups: while the friend I canoed with took a pedal
boat with his wife, I went row-boating with the other couple. I was
so eager to row that I took over whenever they seemed willing to give
their position up. Rowing is a lot easier than canoeing because the
oars are attached onto the boat so your arm doesn’t need to act as
axis point as well as lever. We were out on the water for an hour and
a half. It was pleasant and fun!
It is one of my labmates birthdays on Saturday so there is a tentative
idea to go canoeing again! I would absolutely love to!
Meanwhile I have also been writing many translations to Tamil songs. Even
my labmates are enjoying Tamil songs now because they are able to understand
the words:) My blog, reached 1100 odd viewings in all and most of it was in
late June and July since I started translating.
Here are some samples: Malarnthum Malaraatha
(which my dad was very impressed with)
and one from the 1990s: Ennavale adi Ennavale
(which has a follow up post explaining some uniquely Tamil words).
I also asked for more work to keep me occupied until the technical
problems are solved so I feel better about my work. And I have been
reading a book called ‘Feeling Good’ by David Burns which I recommend
to EVERYONE. It will help us understand the relationship between how
we think and how we feel. It is a revolutionary book in Psychology and
very popular among therapists (they use its material as home work for
their patients :)) and has been shown with experiments to be a therapy
tool in itself. I wish there was Indian language versions of this
book. It would really help a lot of people without needing to seek
counselors for milder depressive problems.
Reply when you can. Live every moment!