So what have I been doing?

Believe it or not, I feel a lot of pressure to use my time wisely.  I feel almost accountable for my time and I'm afraid of wiling it away.  I've debated whether to post this or not but finally decided to go ahead with it. Here's what I've been doing.

1) I joined  S& R's school PAC (Parent Action Committee). Initially I was overwhelmed with the expectations and keeping up with all the emails but now I've fallen into a rhythm. It's nice to be recognized by the school staff, the principal and other parents unlike before when only S&R's teachers recognized me.

2) I started Hindi lessons last week. I've had two classes so far and I'm pretty happy with the teacher, he's balancing between teaching me some basic grammar along with teaching me some basic sentences. Although it should be easy for me to pick up Hindi because I know one Indian language, it's not. For the most part, I don't translate from English when I speak Telugu but with Hindi, it's not easy to steer away from that. I have to remember where to place the verb and all the other words in the sentence and it's not intuitive. This weekend, as part of my homework, I had to construct a number of sentences and I needed quite  a bit of help from Prasad.

3) I'm waking up at 6AM to take tennis lessons. I'm not a morning person so it's a bit of a struggle to get up but it's well worth it. I'm enjoying the classes and you just can't beat the convenience of having a coach come to your complex..

4) Photography lessons. My classes start next week, the goal is for my SLR camera to be demystified.

5) I'm putting together a children's play for the Diwali program at our complex. I'm not sure what I'm getting into, I have to manage 10+ kids every week for rehearsals but I've been wanting to do this since last year so this is my opportunity. I want to keep it simple since I'm  not very artistic and don't want to get into making sets and elaborate costumes but I think it will be fun for the kids to perform.

6) We're planning some trips in October and December  so I'm currently researching the locations. 

7) Volunteering in the reading program in Rushil's class. I made it only once last year so I'm glad that I'll be able to go every week this year. In general, my involvement in the school activities has increased tenfold so at least for this year, I don't need to tag team with Prasad and can handle most of the activities myself.

Although I have a number of items on my list for the upcoming year, the biggest one that I have  yet to close on is where to volunteer and what should my involvement be. I wanted to get involved with an English medium school meant for lower income families but I couldn't find one in the area.  I've contacted a number of organizations but I'm still not sure which one to commit to so the search goes on.