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Saturday, May 10, 2014

Getting paid for blogging

Dayre is a mobile application which is being rolled out selectively to bloggers from all over the world. They sent me an email a few days ago; they have asked me (like thousands of others) to blog exclusively from their site for 3 months beginning June 2014. If they find that my blog fetches many eyeballs and followers, they may select to grant me a blogging scholarship running into thousands of dollars; even if that does not happen, they can still grant me a small honorarium at the end of three months. How cool is that? I have decided to write on a myriad topics ranging from fitness to food to lifestyle ... and I request all my readers here to visit my blog on Dayre whenever you can and follow me ... but hey, hold your horses. This does not happen until a few weeks later. At that time, I will post a link and you can then visit my blog either on your smartphone or on the laptop/PC. Getting more followers is the key, and hence this is a humble request. 

What is in it for you? LOL ... when you read the blog and enjoy it, please consider that as your legitimate reward. When the money comes, if it comes, sure, I can host a party at that time. Will let you know the details. Thank you.

Okay, so Al Muwayh is quiet. It is my third weekend on continuous call, and as of today, I do not see any relief, but I have requested my Medical Director for a few days' leave next week so that I can rest for a while. In other news, my studies are at a low level this week as the internet is fractious here and my colleagues cannot add me to their discussions. 

I am learning about a few things online. Both my online study courses have completed or are completing 2 weeks and it's been a great experience. The course on Engaging India has students from all over the world, with 40% of them from India itself. It seems that Indians also want to learn a lot about their complicated nation! The forums are exhaustive, and to some extent, exhausting. The guys out there are so well-read on matters Indian that I feel like I am a sort of caterpillar emerging out of pod of peas in front of them! The lecturers, both Australian, are certainly well-versed with their subject. They have both spent many years in India, so they should be knowledgeable about ground realities as well. And they are. To an extent. 

The other course I am doing is Community Change in Public Health. This course is also very interesting. It is about how health workers, NGOs and other committed beings and entities can transform communities from being helpless into being competent enough to take matters into their own hands and chart their own territory to improve their own health both individually and collectively. Building up on the principles of Primary Health Care (Alma Ata, 1975), the course goes deeper into how we can bring about such change and how we can measure and follow up with the progress of these interventions.

What else is happening? Well, I am visiting India from mid-June until the end of the month (for 15 days) in order to attend a training course for MRCPCH in Bangalore and also to meet my family and complete certain pending tasks. My leave permission letter arrived from the Health directorate on Thursday, so the vacation is ON. 

I also wanted to share something about a TV serial that I had downloaded on my laptop and which I have been viewing episode by episode since the last several months. It is called BREAKING BAD. It completed its story over 5 seasons (approximately 70 episodes) and after viewing four of these five seasons, I can say that this is a must-see serial. Download it and watch it, guys. The main protagonist is a mature actor, and acts very convincingly. His wife, his handicapped son, his work colleague, etc. are all well-chiseled characters. The story itself is compelling viewing.

That's it for now. Right now, of course, all Indians are restlessly awaiting the announcement of the results of the general elections - with Narendra Modi predicted to carry the day and become India's next Prime Minister and his party, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), the party forming the government. I am following the news on Times Now, and it is, sometimes, even more gripping than all the other TV shows combined. At other times, though, crass politics and name-calling makes the viewing offensive, nay, unpardonably unwatchable.

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