A Letter to my Professor

Recently, one of my professors commented about how he too had once been on this side of the wall, and that he had gone through more than 20 years of academics to reach the other side. He further went on lecturing us about how we cannot and should not try to outsmart him when it comes to studies, assignments, exams, marks, etc. He further, rather subtly, threatened that he could, in all his academic glory and further glorified education values, set an examination paper which would bring us(the not-so-sincere students) down to our knees.
He must be in his 40's. Which means, his twenty years of schooling/college must have happened close to 15-20 years ago. This is a letter I would perhaps like to send to him, though not sure when.


Hello Sir,
I wanted to speak to you about your claim of knowing what it feels like to be a student, and it's possible you are right. I have my own thoughts on this subject, and I hope you can see them with an open mind.

Rather than jumping to judgmental conclusions about your claim, I request you to examine this point a bit more deeply first, through the following points.How much can the world, and especially the students' arena change in 20 years?
1. This is the twenty-first century. The world is changing so fast that the US Department of Labor estimates that today's learners(Grad/Post-Grad) will have 10-15 jobs by the time they celebrate their 38th birthdays. This is in direct contrast to the times in which you studied. In your time, to get one permanent job, with job security, was the ultimate dream. It ain't so anymore. The aims and aspirations of this generation are vastly detached from those of your generation.
2.Many of today's college majors didn't even exist 10 years ago, and the one I am enrolled in is so new that it's first batch is yet to pass out. Further more, the top 10 in-demand jobs of 2010 wouldn't have existed in 2004.
3.The amount of exposure the 21-year olds(Grads/PGs - Urban) of your current class have had is exponentially more than the exposure you yourself would have had when he was 21. A normal student in your class would have seen more than 10,000 hours of television and would have spent more than a thousand hours surfing the Internet, and atleast a few hundred hours on video games.Apart from this, they would have recieved more than 20,000 e-mails/text messages, and are members of various groups/communities online.
4. Google alone gets 3,000,000,000 searches per month. To whom were these questions addressed before Google? The point here being, the students of today not only have the liberty of asking questions but to get and make the answers as well.
5. The amount of technical information is doubling every two years. And this time period will only decrease. How much information can a human brain be expected to retain? And you take great pride in announcing that you are only teaching us what you yourself learnt during your days of college, your point being you enjoyed your college years and see no point we shouldn't.By the end of 2010, the time period for the doubling of technical information is expected to be less than a month.

A few more searches on Google and we'll have hundreds more of such numerical facts which will strengthen my own claim: A professor today was a student yesterday. But that doesn't mean he can understand what it means to be a student today. He cannot, for, Shift happens. This shift just cannot be stopped. We are currently preparing students for jobs and technologies that don't yet exist. They'll be solving problems we don't even know are problems yet. How can they be expected to have the same thought patterns as a student of pre-globalization era India?

Albert Einstein said,"We cannot solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when creating them", and this pretty much sums up my feelings for my professor's thoughts. There is a generation gap, and we have to accept it and modify accordingly. It is ridiculous to keep fooling yourselves that the world hasn't changed from where you stand. It is though, ironic that it is sheer economics that drove us to Liberalization and Globalization, as a result of which Indian students have way higher access to all those things that my professors blame for the students' so-called degradation - Internet, Video Games, I-pods, Laptops, PDAs, etc.

On the other hand, the field of education is fast becoming stagnant and redundant - Nintendo invested more than 204 million US dollars in their Research and Development; The U.S. Federal Government spent less than half that amount on research and innovation in education. Any guesses on how much India spends on changing the way education is imparted in it's schools and colleges?

The stubborn-ness on the part of the people on the other side of the wall to see this as plain, neutral change, rather than to label it as rot, social crisis, spoilt-brats-phenomenon, etc. will help a lot in decreasing the student-professor communication gap. The tutorial/classroom environment is a thing of the past. A student can learn economics on his computer listening to Pink Floyd, while getting updates on his personal interests from his internet feeds. He'll be learning on his own terms. The student of today will learn what he wants to learn, but does not generally want to be taught what he doesn't want to learn. The professors want to teach us what they learnt, but they have to realize that we want to learn something else.

This entire argument leads up to the illusion of a paradox - we have convergence of the world and yet, the students want to diverge. This is the thin fine line between intellect and intelligence. Between knowledge and thought. Between being taught and learning. Let the students learn, and in the process, I am sure so will you.

Yours Sincerely,
One of those usually-absent students.

The Story of Herb Tea Healing Pillows

I wanted to share this letter from one of our customers with you because it includes a surprising formula. I asked permission of Sarah before posting this and she said, "I am honored that you enjoyed my story about the Healing Tea Pillows! You may publish or use my story...I want to share it in any way possible." Here's Sarah's story.

The Story of Herb Tea Healing Pillows

To all those at Long Creek Herbs, I would like to pass along my true story.

I got the news one grave night at a book store. As I rounded the corner I came face to face with my best friend. We had worked together at the sheltered workshop before my frequent panic attacks had made me unable to work.

"My mom died, " she said plainly.

My heart sank; we had been through so much together, including suffering through verbal name calling and abuse from workers at the workshop. I recalled one girl who tried to work there who was in tears her first day.

Later that evening I my mind kept racing back to the many unpleasant incidences at work including one that involved my friend in which she was verbally attacked by a worker. I felt a panic attack beginning.

My heart raced - what could I do? I didn't want to sink into the depths of panic. I immediately thought of making myself an herb pillow. I looked in my herb cabinet and found that all my herbs had been used up in other pillows I'd given away to friends.

I didn't have time to get more, I needed to do something right away. I knew from past experience that once my mind starts racing into panic, I would be lucky if I had five minutes before a full panic attack set in. I focused on what I know about culinary herbs, wondering what could I use for an emergency dream pillow for myself?

I thought maybe something for memory would help and immediately thought of green tea which is supposed to have a reputation for helping with that. And I needed something for calming, too. I saw spice tea on the shelf and took out some of that. Maybe something to remind myself o happy times from childhood would be good, and I spotted some cinnamon sticks on the shelf.

Rapidly I stitched a little pillow together, focusing my mind on the task. When I'd sewn up 3 sides of a little pillow (about five inches by five inches), I filled it with my new-found herb blend, and to help calm myself, breathed in the aroma as I worked. After a few minutes I began to yawn, crawled into bed and drifted off to a soothing, deep sleep. When I awoke I felt refreshed and all the bad memories were gone!

I had no one to pass on what I had discovered, so I decided to give this story and my blend recipe to Long Creek Herbs in hopes it would help someone else. I hope it does not offend anyone, I just know what it did for me.

Soothing Blend recipe:
1 package green tea (I'm guessing this is loose tea)
1 package Sleepy Time Blend Tea (loose tea here, also)
1 tablespoon cinnamon (I'd use a cinnamon stick, broken)

Thank you for your support,
Sarah

Contemporary Interior Design

It is interesting to think of the car as a vessel where the construction of desire occupies a special place in our world. The car as an organism, anthropomorphism definitely occurs in the distribution of objects in a kind of inner space existing beyond the division of inside and outside. Nowhere is this more clear than in the skeleton of its assembly.

Catharsis

Life is so colorful, they say
Mine is becoming darker every day.
Mostly black and white, a monochrome.
with residual splashes of color, thoughts of home.

I walk amidst misery, in silent chagrin.
Screaming like crazy, from horrors within.
Reality tells me, go search the rubble,
My soul, torn apart, is not upto the trouble.

My family's gone, and a major part of me.
Them's all I have, wherever I see.
Tears flow out, breaking the vision.
Till a point where, it's complete submission.

All feelings gone, I cry no more.
Split open my heart, hidden all the gore.
and now, Life's just one big chore.
Nothing in this world matters anymore.


- Dedicated to all the isolated victims in natural disasters ...

Nemesis

Shadows of the mind,
in rays of light,dancing.
Myriad designs,
beyond understanding.

Hollow souls all around,
echoing within.
Contemplation fails.
with emotion ruling.

Disturbance,
and confusion.
I wander,
a pathless notion.

A song-bird,called clarity,
calls, now, and then.
Adding further,to the
perennial polarity.

A multitude of feelings,
varied as we are,
come and go.
The solitary peace,
continues to elude.

Peace, oh peace.
Ever-lasting peace,
I am afraid,shall remain forever,
my nemesis.

Proper Fucked

That's how the Indian urban roads are going to be once the Nano becomes common-place.

P.S. This is an SMS I got from SBI : "A Nano for every Indian with finance from State Bank Of India.For details, blah blah blah ...". And I know for a fact that we have enough idiots in our country who will take this statement to their hearts.

Dream Pillows Soothe Nightmares of War

The voice on the other end of the phone I�d just answered said, �Hello. I�m Mary. I�m a member of a motorcycle gang, and I want to order some dream pillow materials.�
The caller went on to tell me that her group consisted of several men who had served in Vietnam in the 1960s. Her husband, she said, suf-fered from persistent nightmares from that war and seldom slept through the night without waking in terror. Mary had bought my book, Making Herbal Dream Pillows, at a bookstore, found my website listed and had ordered a dream pillow from my company. �I wanted one from the source,� she said with a laugh.

I was imagining a motorcycle gang, dressed in their leathers, riding the roads on big Harleys, sleeping on the side of the road, roaring through dusty desert towns. How could a sweet little dream pillow fit into that scene?

Without hesitation, Mary began to describe the events that led up to her phone call. She�d ordered the Restful Sleep Pillow, willing to try anything that might help her hus-
band sleep, placed the tiny pillow in-side his pillowcase as they camped, and didn�t tell him. Since the pillows are intentionally made to have a very subtle fragrance, he wasn�t tipped off to its presence.

The first morning after the dream pillow was placed, she said he came to the campfire seeming very relaxed and mentioned that he�d slept through the night. Nothing more was said.
After the second night, she said her husband came to the morning campfire and, as he visited with fel-low road hogs, said, �I�ve slept two nights in a row without nightmares. This fresh air is really good for sleeping!� Mary kept quiet, happy to be seeing results, but not yet certain of the source.

More mornings followed without comment, then on the fifth day her husband said out loud that he�d been almost a week without a flashback nightmare and didn�t know why. Mary sheepishly said it was the dream pil-low she had placed in his pillowcase five nights before. He didn�t believe it, and Mary said, �I�ll prove it,� and dragged his pillow out of their tent. She directed him to fish around in the pillowcase and bring out whatev-er he found as their friends watched.

He was dumbfounded. �I have no idea what this is,� he said, �but it�s amazing and it works, so keep it in the pillowcase.�

The reason for Mary�s call was to say that the six other Vietnam veter-ans in the group all wanted their own dream pillow, and she needed to order materials to make dream pillows as they traveled across the country.

My Restful Sleep Pillow recipe is good for soothing nightmares of all types, and it�s fairly simple to make. But remember, never use any oil, fragrance or essential oil in a dream blend � they make for a very unpredictable dream blend. Always wash the cloth you make the pillow from, as the dye and sizing can cause headaches or nightmares. Finally, use the best, well-dried herbs and flowers (not ones that have been stored with other fragrances).

Restful Sleep Pillow (from my book, Making Herbal Dream Pillows, Storey Publishing, $14.95, available from http://www.Long CreekHerbs.com).

1 tablespoon rose petals (any color as long as they �re fragrant and not chemically treated)
1 teaspoon mugwort
1 teaspoon marjoram
1 teaspoon hops (broken up a bit with your fingers)
Fabric
Thread
Fiberfill

Mix herbs together. Sew previously washed cloth to make a 5-by-5-inch pillow, into which you�ll place some fiberfill, herb mixture and a bit more fiberfill, and sew the pillow closed. To use, simply place the pillow any-where inside your pillowcase � it doesn�t matter where since most people move their heads around during sleep anyway.

Jim Long is a contributing editor to The Herb Companion magazine.