It's pouring cats and dogs at Salem. Jet black butterflies with white dots painted in their wing tips are seen in migration in the campus. Classes are bustling with busy teachers, studious (!) children and nosiy feet pattering across the corridors.
It looks like we hardly have time for any other activity like reading or writing. A new professor has come in for the Civil Department. Professor P.M.Kavimani is in charge of the college as principal, since Dr.Ebenezer Jeyakumar is recuperating from the heart attack that he suffered last month.
The first years are going through their tortuous process of settling in, getting to terms with new people and new surroundings, the insects that cause burn-like marks in the girls' hostel and the horror of listening to English teachers speaking only in English. But, I really admire the gutsy first years this time. There are many Tamil medium students, but they are so determined to do well, that most do not mope over the new language. On the other hand, they are determined to give it a go. We also hear stories of children weeping long into the night - girls and boys. But, as we have seen over the years, this lasts but for three months and then friendshipsbecome more important. However, in these three months, we will as usual see a few deserters and lonely wanderers.
Ah well, I must mention that the Alumni meet went off very well. Nothing beats the joy of just wandering among one's favourite trees and classrooms and reliving memories in the auditorium.

It was a day of joyous welcome to the batch of first year students for the year 2007-08. A lot of elaborate arrangements had gone in to make our students feel welcome. The college bus was taken via the new bus stand. There were two students with welcome banners there to receive parents and students.

Almost all teachers were roped in for the certificate verification. An interesting observation is that students with a cut-off of 197 to 178 have opted for our college. And, a majority of students were from rural government schools. I was just thinking that the government subsidies in education are available to really needy students and that the government was doing everything possible to make engineering education a reality at a miniaml cost for many first generation learners. It was a heart-warming feeling.

The children were welcomed at the Principal's desk with a sweet. A sumptuous and steaming lunch was served to the parents, students and the teachers in charge of the duties. I was getting a peek into their mess halls, and hey, the well tiled, clean airy and bright mess halls were good to see. I was also amazed at the manner in which the hostel staff catered to the guests numbering at least a good 900 to 950. It was similar to a wedding lunch. Perhaps, I should tell you the menu...there was a laddu, potato masal fry, cabbage kootu, a fantastic murungai saambar, tangy rasam, appalam, moru and some ( rather a tumblerfull) paruppu payasam. They tell me, children get almost all of these every day. Mmmm...they are indeed lucky.

As said earlier, we are under Anna University, Coimbatore this year on and we are eagerly waiting for the syllabus and other things to get the teaching rolling.

Have come back after a three-day Interantional Conference on 'New and Emerging Trends in ELT' and after a paper presentation there based on online communities and social interaction facilitating language acquisition. Was given about twenty minutes to present the paper. Sadly, however, the system provided at Loyola, the venue of the conference failed and as teachers do, I depended on the good old technology of using the audio system in the speech organs of the human body to do the trick. It was an enjoyable experience and I was even more pleasantly surprised by a memento of a book after the presentation. If I were to get books after paper presentations, I'd present a million.
The conference had many foreign delegates and it was good to know that there were people with common interests in technology to aid ELT,(that is, English Language Teaching). There were many workshops on technologies. I have learnt (something to start with) of video production, use of wikis in English classrooms, blogs in ELT and podcasting. I did not know that Skpe along with another software called Pamela helps students listen to their own recordd voices. I hope that I can do something with these little things learnt at the conference.
P.S: Principal Ebenezer Jeyakumar has suffered a mild attack and is under observation at Coimbatore. May he have a quick recovery and get well soon.