My Journal-1: January 20, 2010

January 20, 2010, Wednesday. Due to frequent disturbance in sleep, could get up only around 6 a.m. Eagerly await the arrival of summer.

After morning coffee, switched on my PC. Opened my mailbox.

First, an email alert from Library@KVPattom:

I have been a subscriber to the Email Alert Service of Kendriya Vidyalaya Library, Pattom, Kerala (They also provide SMS Alert!). I have never been a student of KV; but both my kids were KV students. Further, when I visited their blog, I was so much impressed, I signed their email alert service. A school in India running a wonderful blog, which contains a lot of useful services for the students and is updated regularly (Unlike some government portals which are updated once in six months or a year or sometimes never, with the result you see the names of retired and dead persons still on roll! Service-orientation is an uknown thing to these govt portals) is something very novel.

The first thing that caught my eye in the blog was the list of New Arrivals. They have a very good collection of books and keep on adding to them. They display the cover page of recent additions of books and journals.

They welcome the visitors in a very friendly way to get a complete picture of all offline and online sources and services from the Library. It is all very impressive and one should be really lucky to have been a student of KV, Pattom!

Then I saw I was visitor number 619,095! So popular a blog!

Next there was the Online Network of Library – LIBRARY JUNCTION.

They have sample question papers for Classes X and XII on their downloads page, in addition to Question Banks.

They have Tutorials for different subjects.

Their index page gives you an idea of what you can see from the archives. For example, they have Karan Thapar Interviews. You have Links to useful portals like NASA videos, Aids to Netsearch, Educational Portals, Libraries Online, Online TV. Ebooks and Ejournals.

Mr.S.L.Faisal is the Librarian. Kudos to him and the school authorities for their exemplary service. One wishes that other schools and colleges emulate them and provide such commendable services to their students.

You can take a look at the blog for yourself:
http://librarykvpattom.wordpress.com


Second, Harper’s Weekly Review of January 19, 2010:

The one item that impressed me from this weekly review has been:

Scientists find that watching four hours of television a day raises the risk of fatal heart disease by 80 percent.

Third, the official newsletter of Jan 20, 2010 from Sierra Club, devoted to exploring, enjoying and protecting the planet:

It links to an interesting article assessing the first 365 days of Obama in office and how much of his clean-energy agenda he has been able to accomplish from San Jose Mercury News by Paul Rogers and an entry in Sierra Club blog by Carl Pope, Sierra Club’s Executive Director ((http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_14218053?nclick_check=1)http://sierraclub.typepad.com/carlpope/2010/01/the-invisible-environmental-president.html). The Paul Rogers article lists specific achievements. The conclusion is Obama Administration has undone many damages of the past eight years and and the best year on the environment by any President. Highlight was the announcement of the Obama Admn of Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits of $2.3 billion to 183 clean-energy manufacturing projects. Great!

Fourth, Botany Photo of the day from Daniel Mosquin, University of British Columbia:

Botany Photo of the Day is a project of the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, British Columbia Canada. UBC BGCPR is a department of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems within The University of British Columbia. The January 19, 2010 photo is Coryphantha scheeri var. robustispina. (http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2010/01/coryphantha_scheeri_var_robustispina.php). A write-up of useful info about this rare plant.

Fifth, Internet Evolution Update Newsletter from United Business Media, New York:

The link provided to an article by Tom Nolle, software engineer and founder of CIMI Corp., on “How Gadgets could change the Internet” interested me. It discusses how the increasing number of wireless and personal gadgets like smart phones and ebook readers are replacing browsers for Internet access, and their repercussions.
( http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?doc_id=186829&f_src=ieupdate)

Sixth, email from Sasha Xarrian ( sashax@outrageousmastery.com) :

I got some interesting statistics from the mail:

Facebook has 350 Million Members.

Youtube visitors are viewing 13 Billion Videos a month.

Linkedin has over 15 Million Business people networking.

Twitter is growing at over 40% a month.

Digg and Delicious are driving millions of visitors to websites every month.

Thank you Sasha!

Seventh, email from Sierra Club.org –

Daily Ray of Hope: Your images and inspirational words from the Sierra Club.

I get an inspiring quote from Sierra Club. Thank you, Sierra Club!

Eighth, Newsletter from PoemHunter.com:

I get daily an interesting poem from them. Today I got a poem, “Sea Fever” by John Masefield. I felt Priya may like it and hence forwarded it to her. Thank you, PoemHunter.com.

Ninth, Google Alert for Books:

I set up an Alert for Books in Google and hence I get from them daily alerting me about books. Thank you, Google!

Tenth, mail from TED:

As a member of the TED Global Community, I receive mails from them about updates. Today’s mail is about TEDMED, a new partnership of TED. This is the beginning of TED's reach into the vital realm of medicine and wellness. The first talk is by David Blaine, How I held my breath for 17 min. Thank you, TED!

Eleventh, Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor, the newsletter from American Public Media.org
(newsletter@americanpublicmedia.org): Today’s mail has a poem, “Hitchhiker” by Galway Kinnell (audio version of the poem is also available!) and intimation about the Birthdays of filmmaker Federico Fellini and novelist Susan Vreeland. It also provides links to know more about these two. Thank you, American Public Media!

Still there were some mails. But I had to stop as I had other pressing duties.

After bath and breakfast, posted:

a picture and a quote in my blog, SURiMOUNT (http://surimount.blogspot.com/)
a devotional song about The Holy Ash and a Quote, both in Tamil in my Tamil blog, SURIYODAYAM TAMIL (http://suriyodayamtamil.blogspot.com/).
About Library, Kendriya Vidyalaya, Pattom in my blog, IDEAL EDUCATION (http://surimounteducation.blogspot.com/) (under the caption, Blog of the day. Actually the first part of this journal reproduced as a separate post there).

10 am to 12 noon – Power Cut.

Read a chapter each from ‘Thousand Windows” by Sathguru Jaggi Vasudev and “Lessons from Experience” by Sutha Murty of Infosys Foundation (both in Tamil).

Then went to Bank to withdraw some money from ATM and to BSNL Office to pay the Telephone bill. Got some periodicals from the Bus Stand Bookstall.

Watched TV Programs.

After lunch, some rest.

Downloaded books from World Public Library Association of which I am a paid member, mostly pertaining to literature and education.

Afternoon, nap.

Finished the journal of the day and now you have it here in my blog, SURiMOUNT.

Post Script:

After posting, I watched the video from TEDMED mentioned above. Wow! What a wonderful experience! I sat glued to the monitor for 20 minutes watching the video. I am sure you would also enjoy it. Here is the link:
http://www.ted.com/talks/david_blaine_how_i_held_my_breath_for_17_min.html