By Anu Dev Well it’s November again, and apart from being the month of my birth, November is also chockfull of other such important events. It’s Remembrance Day on Monday and I remember at QC there’s the Remembrance Day Ceremony where the Youngest Boy and Girl have to march down the aisle to lay wreaths in honour of those who have died for our freedom. All too often, we forget that nations are built on the sacrifices of the generations who preceded us. And it’s for this reason I’ve always…
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Home for Diwali
By Anu Dev “As truth be told, homecoming never gets old” – Hlovate I hadn’t fully realised just how much I missed home until it dawned on me that the reason I was in a fantastically upbeat mood all of last week was because I was going home for the weekend. For a while I worried that maybe I was getting used to the Trini food! Diwali has always been one of the festivals that’s important to my family and me, so I was thrilled that I got to…
Read MoreThe need for scholarships
By Anu Dev Last week I wrote about the importance of writing the CAPE exams because not enough students write CAPE in Guyana. And it’s really not that surprising because CAPE isn’t as well publicised as CSEC is here. I know I’d never heard of CAPE until fifth form, I was still walking around talking about A-levels. And in general, we don’t make such a big deal about CAPE results. We bring out the marching band, the confetti and the red carpet for our CSEC top students, but our CAPE…
Read MoreScholarships Part 1: Why CAPE is important
By Anu Dev It’s always disappointing when things aren’t allowed to reach their full potential. Like how we have all of those rivers in our interior flowing down precipices just looking pretty, when they could be used to generate hydroelectricity, providing our nation with a valuable renewable energy source. We spend our time squabbling about present cost instead of looking at opportunity cost. But even more disappointing, is when our most valuable resource – our human resource – isn’t allowed to reach its full potential. In Guyana, over the years…
Read MoreA solid foundation
By Anu Dev “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.” – Albert Camus I’ve been in school for the past 15 years of my life and having been in school for so long, I have a fair idea of what different types of teachers could be like. Some go about their jobs like they truly love what they’re doing, others seem to go through the day like teaching is an obligation. But no matter what their teaching attitudes or stance, we learn a lot from…
Read MoreWorld Teachers’ Day
By Anu Dev October 5th, was set aside as World Teachers’ Day. Teachers are the persons who pass on knowledge, mould us and prepare us for the future. A teacher’s job is never easy, and it doesn’t end when they step out of the school compound. There are exam scripts to be marked, assignments to be graded, lessons to be planned out. Like surgeons, teachers are always on-call because most of them give us their numbers or email addresses to contact them at anytime. As a student, I can safely…
Read MoreImprovising
By Anu Dev We can try to be prepared for every eventuality. We can do our best to try to figure out what’s ahead, but the truth is we’re not in charge of our external environment. We can certainly try to predict how the people around us will act or behave, but we can never be 100 per cent sure. We have to learn to improvise, or at least be open to the concept of having to make the best of what circumstances we’re in. We have to try to…
Read MoreProfessionalism
By Anu Dev We’ve all had those experiences: going to the doctor’s office, shopping in some store or visiting a travel agency where we probably went through the worst ordeal of our lives because of the way we were treated. It sucks to go somewhere to do whatever chore you’re on and you end up being treated as some lesser being. Call me “melodramatic” but after some jarring encounter with a sales clerk I started paraphrasing Shylock’s speech from Merchant of Venice to myself: “Hath not an Anu eyes? Hath…
Read MoreMountains, first week and public busses
By Anu Dev Well I’ve survived my first week of actual schoolwork! Can I still say schoolwork? “University work” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Sure it’s only supposed to get even more intense from now, but for now I’m just relieved to have made it through my first week. I’m also still adapting to living in Trinidad. Over here I’m definitely seeing why they came up with the phrase “as changeable as the weather”. It’s really lovely dressing to deal with the morning’s heat and then coming…
Read MoreA new home – “Home is the nicest word there is.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder
By Anu Dev Well I’ve finally done it. I’ve taken that big step – I’ve enrolled in university. I’m now a med student at UWI Mt Hope, Trinidad. And I’ve survived my first week here! It’s been a lot to take in adapting to a new country with a culture that’s a bit different from Guyana’s. Their per capita GNP is three times larger than ours – and it shows! It’s a bit different hearing people all around me speaking in a different accent. And they have some different names…
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