gaelikaa's diary

Part I   Introduction Lecturer:   Christina Maria Schollerer MA The course will be given through Video lectures, creative tasks and quizzes. It deals with the elements of storytelling in literature, drama and films. We  will to into the area of characters, setting, plots and inspiration. Creative tasks will be given as assignement, But the course is not about grading or judging. Unit 1 - What is Storytelling? Lecturer: Christina Maria Schollerer MA Telling a story - how do we define it?  There were inputs here from guest lecturers. Guest Lecturer Robert Pratten - CEO of Conducttr and Transmedia Storyteller,suggests sequences of or  pieces of information, which we as humans try to connect and make some sense of, under a controlled system of delivery.  Robert feels that good storytellers know their audience and know how to convey a story so that the audience can relate and  do some of the work Themselves. Maria Grau Stenzel:  Project Manager at at Honig Studios, Ber

This week's Loose Blogger Consortium post is entitled RETRIBUTION, suggested by me. Back in the day, when I was this housebound young mother with two young children, I was definitely over-protected.  Yes, it's dangerous being a foreigner, when you're as vulnerable as a young mother can be, with small kids, but still!  I hardly ever got to go out as my husband, with his busy daily commute, had no time to take me and the kids.  Living in a combined family in India, having come out of Ireland, things were very different for me than they would have been back home.  Here, all the shopping was done by other family members.  All I had to do was stay at home and look after babies.  Which was great a lot of the time, but somewhat monotonous at other times. Of course I broke out of that gilded cage after a while.  I'd have gone crazy otherwise.  I remember one or two incidents that happened along the way which made me feel helpless and angry. A saleswoman for a well

This week's Loose Blogger's Consortium topic is mobile telephony, suggested by that prolific blogger from Pune, Rummuser I'm only fifty years young, but I remember a time, not so long ago, when telephones were as rare as hen's teeth in my neck of the woods. i'm talking about Dublin back in the seventies. It was quite the status symbol, having what is now known as a landline in your house.  I remember that there was great excitement in our house when I was just a teen and my mother applied for a telephone.  Our delight was somewhat dampened by the fact that we were told that we would only be able to get a phone when the Posts & Telegraph workers were working in our area - which, apparently, wouldn't be any time soon.  Until then, we had to use our neighbour's phone in matters of dire necessity, or failing that, the public telephone nearest our house, provided it was working. Eventually, our number came up and we got our phone.  I still remember our f

Because India is in the far east and is technically what is known as a developing country, westerners find it very hard to believe that many people here live in unimaginable comfort.  There are kids who have laptops, access to modern educational aids, smartphones, pizza delivery, digital television, even a fancy vehicle to move around in - you name it, they have it. The very same kids often live in homes where there is flagrant use of child labour.  I kid you not.  Because of the profusion of dust, the harsh climate and a cooking system which is still quite labour intensive, pressure cookers notwithstanding, a housewife's work is never, ever done.  So for those who can afford it, domestic help is a must.  Ideally, one should employ a mature adult woman to do one's housework and cooking.  However, mature adult women are at a distinct disadvantage.  They have husbands, children and mother-in-laws to look after. They can only come for a limited time every day and they always

My greatest fear is that of entertaining fear. I was haunted by lots of fears when I was younger.  Fear of failure, fear of not being good enough, fear of not being attractive enough, fear of rejection.  When I got married and had children, my fears were all for them.  Would they come through the birth all right?  Would they be healthy?  Would they be safe?  And so on ad infinitum. I read the Bible a lot when I was younger, but I read it without understanding.  When I got older and more discerning, I started noting what the Bible said about fear.  My daughter was worried going to school one morning and we looked up the Bible for some guidance and we found the following verse in Psalm 34: I prayed to the LORD, and he answered me. He freed me from all my fears.(Psalm 34:4, NLT). Whenever fear and worry knocks on my door, I remember the following verse: Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7, NIV). The Bible tells us one interesting thing about fe

TALL MAN, SMALL SHADOW is a work of fiction by Indian author Vipin Behari Goyal.  It's published by Cyberwit.net and is internationally available on Amazon as an ebook. It's the most thoughtful piece of fiction I've read in ages.  Short on dialogue and long on thoughts. The narrator/main character is a family man, husband of the chronically unwell Sulekha and father of the young, intelligent and marriageable Aalya.  The main character (hereafter designated 'the MC') doesn't introduce himself and we only come to learn his name towards the end.  So I'd rather not reveal his name to potential readers. It's not an excessively long read at 150 or so pages, but it's not the sort of read you devour in a free afternoon either.  Well, it wasn't for me.  I had to stop reading every so often to digest the story. Not that I didn't find it an enjoyable read.  I did.  It just gave me a lot to think about. The 'tall man' is an enigmatic you

This is my weekly post for my blogging group, the Loose Blogging Consortium (LBC).  The word 'weekly' is proving to be a trifle ironic as I haven't been posting with the LBC regularly for some time now, owing to the fact that (a) I am not very organized and (b) 'real' work takes priority in my world, be it the housewifery stuff of cooking, cleaning, looking after the kids, operating the washing machine and hanging out the clothes on the line to dry (and running to grab them back in again the moment a monsoon shower starts.  Yeah, never a dull moment here in India.  I knew I had some particular reason for loving this country.  Lucky I have someone nice living nearby who does my ironing for a reasonable fee.  That's just about my only luxury) or the freelance work projects I take on from time to time. I made a promise to myself recently to refuse to be bound by guilt about not reaching all my targets.  Feeling guilty is something I do rather well owing to my RC u