At Ten !!

I finally turned ten and contrary to my dad's hope and expectation of relinquishing his ghost blogging duties, I think I will saddle him with those forever. (Just like no kid wants to be on the same social network as their parents, no kid wants to blog about topics that the parents think are interesting to kids.)

So, what are the noteworthy things that happened in the last year?

I have the usual dizzying list of extra-curricular activities (When will we Palo Alto-ans stop the "Keeping up with the Cupertino-ians" race?). My current list of extra curricular activities are Basketball, Ice skating, Skiiing, Math Olympiad, Lego robotics, Music, Invention convention, Giving Squares and Book Reading Club. (I think the approach is akin to a popular corporate strategy I have heard be described as "throw things against the wall and see what sticks"). (My dad said that I am preparing for real world work with constant context switching and being stretched too thin. I better enjoy the 9 hours of sleep while I can get it now. I am also nailing the "stretched too thin" part literally as well).


I am more or less done with my tantrum phase - I stretched it out a couple of years longer than normal, but now it is wearing a little thin. So, I am rapidly transitioning from those crude tantrums with high-decibel verbal outbursts to nuanced emotional expression and leveraging and arbitraging my parents' weak points to my net gain (Don't know what this "emotional blackmail" thing is that my dad mumbles to mom in hushed tones). (I need to find out where to audition for a teenager, I think I can already play the part well).

I also stopped constantly fighting with my sister for attention and adulation. (I won that battle).

OK .... since my parents have this grand plan that I will relish all these digital memories when I grow up and look at my childhood through sepia-tinted, warm nostalgia, I should probably add more details. (I have to wonder if people will know what blogs are a few years from now .. and I hope Google doesn't go evil and make all the linked photos and blogs inaccessible or require people to sign up for G++++ or something like that in the future). Anyways, more details below ....

Travel: We continue to travel as much as possible. I am racking up the number of visited states in the US. (I am at 25 now .. yay ... though I wish my parents don't ask me to remember the capitals and other "fun" facts about states).

Last summer, we had an awesome trip to the East Coast, the 100+ degree weather notwithstanding. We covered NYC, Boston, Philadelphia, NJ, DC  and surrounding areas in about a week. It was a lot of fun. (New Jersey was nothing like the jokes that my dad makes ... ). In NYC, we did all the touristy things - Empire State, Statue of Liberty, Freedom Tower and we also enjoyed July 4th fireworks there. The trip to Massachusetts was special as it was my first trip there since we left Massachusetts (when I was just two and a half) to go to California. Obviously, I did not remember anything from my childhood but my parents took me around and pointed out all the old places of significance - our old house, my first day care, my pre-school etc. We also went on the Duck tour in Boston which is always a hoot (or is it a quack?). To get a respite from the heat, we hit the Ogonquit Beach in Maine and we also went for a nice hike. Maine is certainly very charming. Trip to DC and Virgnia was also nostalgic for my parents as they lived there for many years - we went to Univ. of Maryland and checked out all their past favorite haunts around the campus. We rubbed Testudo the Terrapin's nose ostensibly for good luck.

Last winter, we went to Dallas, New Orleans, Houston and Austin for a nice road trip with my cousins. (Texas was nothing like the jokes that my dad makes ...).

(I think this "xxxx was nothing like the jokes my dad makes" is going to be a recurring theme).

Nine+

Nine

I finally turned nine last week (but save the stereotypical jokes about being on cloud 9 and all that - ever since my dad joined "The Punnery" group on Facebook, we have had an overdose of PJs and  our conversations at home have gotten more "meaningful")

So, as partially captured in this blog, it was quite a journey to 9 years...

     

I had a nice birthday with just the family - we got two cakes ("so I can have my cake and eat it too") and went to see the movie Oz, which was a lot of fun.

Nine is certainly an awkward age (especially to blog) - since I am not a baby or a little kid (or even like my kid sister Anukha who still pretends to be a baby) who  have a wide latitude for what is considered fun and interesting to others. I am mostly in my own world of school, friends and activities and have very little extra time to be interesting.

I have been dabbling in a number of activities (to find my calling, my dad insists but I suspect that it is just an elaborate ploy to keep me occupied while he ensures that no tech / gadget blog remains unread) ("It is a tough job", he said, "but someone has to do it "). Over the last year, I have been doing gymnastics at Twisters (I love it), swimming, skiing, chess, lego robotics and Hindi classes. (As they say, never a dull moment and just in case there are any dull moments, I ensure that I can still throw a nasty tantrum just for old times sake).

We traveled to India last winter and had a memorable trip - I wrote my first travel journal (not voluntarily though - it was part of the homework for missing 1 week of class due to the trip). We went to Chennai first for my dad's college reunion - after I got past the Chennai heat and the spectacle of 40+ year old grownups behaving like college kids or worse - it was a lot of fun. We went to the Guindy snake park and saw more snakes than I could shake a stick at.

We then spent a few days in Vizag with my grandparents. It was a town buzzing with activity and the favorite pastime seems to be shopping as every store we went to was overflowing with shoppers - the entire town must have won a lottery or something. We went to the beach a couple of times - besides the usual beach stuff, we saw cows and goats on the beach itself - not a sight I would normally associate with a beach, but was fun. In Vizag, we also had a large family picnic with more cousins than I could shake a stick at (about 80 cousins, my dad said. I am glad I did not have to remember their names). The picnic was a lot of fun as we got to spend a day in the farm. We also visited Hyderabad to spend time with my maternal grandparents. We visited the Golconda Fort - it was amazing, especially hearing all the stories about the fort from many hundreds of years ago - I only wish people did not litter. We then went to Pune and Mahabaleshwar and had a really awesome time with cousins - India was fun.

Eight+

Eight+

(I am taking the cues for my blog post titles from Google+)

OK - I am relenting and letting my dad run my blog for a few more years (just like he runs my life ... (eye roll)). Moreover, I heard that Twitter is more fun than blogging as one can write only 140 characters. (Also, I heard my dad say "Who wants to be on the same social network that their parents are on?" when he received a Facebook invite from grandpa).

So, let me fill you in with happened since my last blog post - I turned eight in March and much to my parents' consternation, I am continuing my streak of tantrums and naughtiness. My dad wistfully referred to it as the "X+1" syndrome possibly hoping that I will transform next year. (Maybe he should start thinking along the lines of a "Four-ier transform" instead of one year).

I had a ball at my birthday party at Strike Cupertino (Ed's note: Not "Occupy Cupertino"?) bowling place with a  bunch of my school friends.  We had a lot of food and fun - (even my parents snuck away for  some drinks with the other parents). The actual bowling game was also interesting - the bowling places have come a long way in recent years and now they are almost as good as my XBOX Kinect Bowling game. (How did daddy manage gutter balls even with the bumpers up?).

I finally completed my check-box items / table stakes / baseline activities of swimming, skiiing, skating, biking and Bollywood dancing (although I wish my mom would stop referring to someone called Elaine every time I dance). I am also slowly getting interested in science and I seem to have a knack for finding fault with everything or pointing out why something will not work.

Other than my activities, we have been traveling quite a bit. We went to Orlando last winter for my mom and me to see the Harry Potter theme park and my dad to ponder again on the inexplicable draw of these theme parks. And more recently, we went to LA and San Diego along with my cousins who visited us from the UK. They had a funny English accent and kept saying "brilliant" all the time but it was a lot of fun hanging out with them.

At seven

This is probably the last post that I will have my dad ghost blog for me. (A quick look at the log of posts shows the drop in quality and quantity of posts and I am not going to have my digital footprint be tainted... Also, I heard that he has taken his lack to "quality and quantity" to another blog called PRBS.)

So, to fill you in for the last few years - I am now in second grade at Hoover Elementary (Go Hedgehogs!!). My parents have signed me up for a dizzying array of after-school activities (to keep up with the Joneses .. my dad, added. I need to find out who that Jones is that is putting me through this). I do chess, soccer, French, ballet, gymnastics and swimming now and have dabbled with Bollywood dance and a few other activities that I already forgot. I seriously think my parents are overcompensating for their one-dimensionality.

I still have the occasional tantrum but now that my parents listened to that NPR show on deconstructing tantrums, it is not that much fun anymore... Now, they just wait it out and worse ... they started passing wisecracks on my tantrums like those guys in Mystery Science Theater. I have to evolve to a more elaborate form of emotional blackmail now.

A few of my favorite things are (actually, what I have convinced my parents that my favorite things are) science (nerdy girls rock), French (if only the French can figure out how to pronounce the words they write in English properly), all things starting with an i (iPhone, iPad, iPod), my HKC friends, my ballet and my parents.. (in no particular order :-)

Being a Massachusetts girl, I like winter activities but given that my parents fled Massachusetts, I need to put in an extra effort to convince them that heading to a bone-chilling, snow-clad place voluntarily is actually fun.

My 5 year birthday

Yes - After all the anticipation, I finally turned 5 and I am loving it. I had a small birthday party at home on my actual birthday (March 16 th) and I also cut a cake at school. My parents also had a cool birthday party for me that weekend. We had a pinata, a few games, T-shirt painting and the cake cutting with lots of friends from Stratford School and my old Kindercare school. It was a blast. Pictures of my fifth birthday are here


That's all for now. I should pester my dad to write something more engaging and humorous.

Nearly 5 years

I am nearly 5 years now (1 month short). I don’t reflect back and become all nostalgic (like my parents do) because I don’t remember much of anything before the last two years, but I enjoy pestering my dad to tell me “Aanya stories” – like when I was born on a cold, snowy morning in Lowell, MA (some of the details that my dad includes are generally incredulous, so I am sure he is embellishing some details, but he does tell a great story. For example, I don’t think my parents originally intended to name me “Seven” (from Seinfeld) or “Susie” (from Calvin and Hobbes) or “Alpha” from my dad watching way too many Star Trek re-runs).

I also get him to tell me stories of all my birthdays and what we did for each of them – he sometimes gets carried away and shows me videos as well (but give me a break, who has the attention span nowadays – I am struggling sit through one entire episode of “Ballerina Angelina”)


Just before the Christmas break, we moved to a house in Palo Alto and I have more space to run around and create a ruckus (I view it as more canvas space for my artistic naughtiness – like most artists’ work, it will take some time for my parents to appreciate it). My grandparents are staying with us to help out with Anukha and it is great to have so much activity around the house. We have also been having a good number of people over and that is keeping me totally engaged.


School is going well – I think it is a good balance between learning (1%) and silly naughtiness (99%). I bugged my parents into getting me a Nintendo Wii and I play the sports pack and Wii Music (which I got as a Christmas present – you should see the apprehension I had leading up to Christmas. I was afraid that some of my previously unadvertised exploits may somehow be known to Santa and that would result in “coal” presents. It is good thing Santa’s good/bad database is not very comprehensive. I think I will push the boundary a little more this year). Speaking of Wii, the other day my dad enticed me to go play some “real” tennis (his term) and we got a tennis racquet and tennis balls to play in the tennis court. My performance fell way short of what I was able to do with Wii – they need to make real tennis more “realistic” so I can play it as well as I play on the Wii.

I am bonding well with my baby sister – I generally unleash controlled chaos with jumping and screaming and that seems to keep her hugely more entertained than her silly toys. Moreover, I think she is catching on to what I am doing and repeating my actions. It is so much fun …

I took a break from the Bollywood dance classes and I am going to the swimming classes along with my old friends from Kindercare. Right now, I am mostly splashing around and having a good time, but my parents hope that I will actually learn to swim at some point in the near future.

That’s all for this update.. I am in the “Eagerly-waiting-for-my birthday” mode which has only one downside that my parents constantly threaten to cancel my birthday if I am naughty or whiny or intransigent – so, I fall in line reflexively, but I am thinking of calling their bluff at some point ( I know that my dad sucks at poker)… OK then, next update after my birthday … Ciao

New home and winter break

We moved to a new house in Palo Alto last week - it was a lot of fun to run around in the new house which has a lot more space than the previous house (I think we will have a lot more space once daddy opens the moving boxes and gets them out of the way). I am going to decorate my room with a lot of pink and maybe some purple and mommy promised to paint a rainbow in my room.

I am also on my winter break from school for 2 weeks. It is kind of strange to be away from school for so long and I miss my school friends. But, I am having fun at home with a lot of cousins and friends visiting us.