Weekly Wellness Blog: July 31st, 2019

Conquering Jet Lag

How was your summer? Where did you travel? Are you still feeling a bit jet-lagged? Here is an article with 11 helpful tips on conquering jet lag this year. My personal favorite tip - get some natural sunshine everyday! 

AFO - Daily Breakfast 

It is our first day back on campus for All Faculty Orientation! We hope that everyone is able to catch up with old friends and meet our new colleagues. Please remember that breakfast will be served every morning during AFO in the FAC Cafeteria. (Wednesday, July 31st breakfast will be in the FAC Foyer).

Wellness Academy

Are you interested in applying for a position to teach your colleagues a special skill? Please see our Teacher Application post for more information and a link to the application.

Wellness Committee

Would you like to become more involved in all things Wellness?! Thank you to those of you who have already expressed an interest in joining our Wellness Committee for the 2019-2020 school year. We will be reaching out shortly to plan our first meeting. It is not too late to shoot Keeley an email to join.

Covelong Point: Surf. Yoga. Music. Festival:
August 23 - 25th, 2019

The Covelong Point Surf.Yoga.Music. Festival is arguably one of the coolest festivals so close
to Chennai every year! Check out their website to see the schedule of yoga classes, music concerts,
and surfing competitions. You can sign up to join the surf competition - or you can sign up for beginning
lessons! There are also venders on site, selling everything from clothing to momos.

Are you interested in carpooling with colleagues? After checking out the schedule of events that are of most interest to you, please leave a comment here in order to arrange shared transportation or plan on doing some yoga classes, listening to music, or watching surf competitions together.

Community Whatsapps: Reminders & New Groups

Please remember that we have WhatsApp Groups open to our community on a variety of topics - click to see a list of QR codes to join the open groups. We will be updating these groups throughout the year. If you have a special interest and would like to invite your colleagues - please let me know so that we can add your invite link to our list. New this week: a Squash players group!

Upcoming Things to Do in Chennai 

Vegan Long Table Dinner - Pumpkin Tales

August 1st, 2019

7pm onwards

Pumpkin Tales Restaurant, 37/20 Bheemanna Garden St, Alwarpet, Chennai, India 600018

*Reservations needed: 9841507557

By Hand, From the Heart - Makers Market

BY HAND FROM.THE HEART - MAKERS MARKET

August 2nd and 3rd 2019

10 a.m to 9 p.m

Hanu Reddy Residences; 41/19 Poes Garden, Teynampet

The SOUQ (Market) at Kalakshetra 

August 2nd - August 11th, 2019

10:30am to 8pm

Kalakshetra Foundation; Radhakrishnan Nagar, Thiruvanmiyur

Poker Night at Jason’s

Wednesday, August 14th, 2019

5pm - 10pm

Jason’s Apartment, 1C Ceebros Apartments, 4th Seaward Rd,, Thiruvanmiyur

**Please sign up via the Google Doc linked above to play

Covelong Point: Surf-Yoga-Music Festival 2019

https://www.covelongpoint.com/2019/

The Covelong Point Surf.Yoga.Music. Festival is arguably one of the coolest festivals so close to Chennai every year! Check out their website to see the schedule of yoga classes, music concerts, and surfing competitions. You can sign up to join the surf competition - or you can sign up for beginning lessons! There are also venders on site, selling everything from clothing to momos.

The festival run from August 23 - 25th this year. 

Which day(s) might you attend? Are you interested in carpooling? 

Please comment on this blog below to find other colleagues interested in the same timings as you in order to arrange shared transportation.

Wellness Academy - Teacher Application

Teacher Application - Wellness Academy

If you are interested in applying to lead an activity for Wellness Academy, please click on the link above for more information and the application. The link will take you to a view-only Google Doc. Please make a copy of this Google Doc in order to fill in your personal details. You can submit your application to the Wellness Coordinator via email or in person on or before September 2nd, 2019.



*Please note that AISC staff members who currently have a work permit will be considered for the Wellness Academy positions and stipends. We are unable to offer stipends for trailing spouses at this time.

Weekly Wellness Blog: July 24th, 2019

Welcome Home!

“Home” is a word that can have so many simultaneous meanings, especially to international educators. Some of us just went “home” to visit our families and friends over the summer. Some of us just returned “home” to our familiar bedrooms in Chennai after weeks on the road. And, some of us are creating a new “home” as new faculty and staff here at AISC. Take a moment to mindfully think about all of the places that you feel at home. We hope that the American International School of Chennai community comes to mind in one of your personal definitions.

101 Things to Do in Chennai

Whether you are making Chennai your new home or have been living here for many years, have a look at this link to 101 Things to Do in Chennai. How many have you done? Comment on this blog with your own opinions of what is worth doing, seeing, and eating here in Chennai!

Get Connected - WhatsApp Groups

Community WhatsApp Groups - We have some WhatsApp Groups open to everyone in our community, based on common interests. Please click this link to join a variety of community WhatsApp Groups that interest you! We will be updating this list throughout the year, if you’d like to create and share your own group, please let us know!

The Wellness Program at AISC

If you are a “newbie”, you may or may not have heard about our Wellness Program here at AISC.
The framework of our program falls under four categories of wellness:
social, cultural, emotional, and physical wellness.
As a community, we are able to offer each other various events, classes, and activities in order
to promote wellness.

Wellness Wednesdays - Twice a year, (October 23rd, 2019 & February 26th, 2020) we will be
having an early release day dedicated to faculty wellness. During these afternoons together,
faculty will be asked if they would like to offer a session to share a skill or passion with their colleagues.
We will be able to sign up for various events on campus, ranging from meditation sessions to faculty
soccer matches and beyond. More information on our Wellness Wednesdays will be forthcoming,
if you have any questions or are eager to run a session - please comment below or contact Keeley
directly (tkeeley@aischennai.org).

Wellness Academy - If you would like to offer an activity that goes beyond a 60-120 minute afternoon
session, you will be encouraged to apply for a stipended position to run a class for your peers, for a
minimum of 10 hours. Are you passionate about sewing? Can you lead yoga or zumba classes?
Would you be able to teach Bollywood dancing? What other unique classes might you be able to teach?
Please contact Keeley if you have any ideas, or comment on this blog, below, if you’d like to
gather the opinions of your colleagues.

Wellness Events - In addition to the Wellness Wednesdays and Wellness Academy, we will have
several Wellness Events throughout the year. Some events will be Wellness Funded - which means
they are funded and organized by the school and mostly free to participants. Other events will be
Wellness Sponsored - which means that the Wellness Coordinator or Team Leader will organize and
share information about an event and cover transportation costs but the fees would be covered by
participants. The Wellness Program will also help to promote and Staff Organized events by posting
information to our Wellness Calendar and advertising it on our weekly blog.

Wellness Oasis - We are lucky to have a room dedicated to wellness, which is open every day that the school is open. We have yoga mats, iPads, headphones, massage chairs, coloring books, and some light reading available to our faculty. This special space is dedicated to your mental and emotional wellness; please do not bring work into this zone. It is located next to our Health Center (Nurse’s Office). You can get in by placing your palm over the black keypad and then entering our secret code: 1920*

Wellness Committee - Are you interested in becoming more involved?

Are you feeling excited about everything that our Wellness Matters Program has to offer our community this year? Would you like to be even more involved? Please consider joining our Wellness Committee for the 2019-2020 school year. We will aim to have monthly meetings to discuss our program and upcoming events. 

Keeley Tagtmeyer-Liotard is the Wellness Coordinator this year. While Keeley is on maternity leave (September - February), Priya Venugopal will be taking over. We would like to send our heartfelt THANKS to Beth Rappe, our former Wellness Coordinator and mentor. We have big shoes to fill and we hope to continue growing our Wellness Matter Program with dedication and participation from our community.

If you are interested in joining the Wellness Committee, please contact Keeley directly (tkeeley@aischennai.org) or comment on this blog below. Keeley and Priya will be reaching out to interested Wellness Committee members shortly to set up our first meeting of the year.

Community WhatsApp Groups

Use your phone to scan these QR Codes to join WhatsApp Communities that interest you!

Everyone in our AISC Community is invited to join.

Poker

Join to learn about Poker evenings that your colleagues are hosting at their homes.

Cinema

Join to hear about movies that your colleagues will be attending at local cinemas and arrange to meet up together.

Crossfit
Join if you are interested in working out crossfit-style in the gym at school!

Tennis

Join if you are interested in playing tennis, with a variety of colleagues at a variety of levels. Friendly matches.

Squash

Join if you are interested in playing squash, with a variety of colleagues at a variety of levels. The squash court is not on campus, but it is very close by! 


Board Games
If you are interested in playing board games with your colleagues, please join this group!

Track Fitness PLUS! 
Calley is hosting a weekly Wellness Academy Activity
"Anyone on any stage of their fitness journey can benefit from interval running and weight lifting in a community.  Join us to get faster, fitter, stronger, and have fun."

Book Club

Join our tour of the world through books!  We will explore different regions of the world each month by reading a book set in the region written by an author from that region. We invite all interested to contribute to our suggestion list, as we search for titles to explore. 

Do you have a particular interest and you'd like to invite your colleagues to join you? Please comment with your WhatsApp Group QR Code & it will be added to our list.