#110: REPORT

Have you ever struggled for something and failed? How did you respond? Have you experienced a feeling of disappointment and dissatisfaction of yourself?


I hated seeing that B- every time I went on Netclassroom. It was a constant reminder of my failure. I felt like a failure, after all, I had worked harder on that Experiential Math and Science report than I had ever done before. I spent hours going over it, trying to word my information right. I've never worked that long on a writing assignment, not even for English. My reaction was instinctive. I was angry. I didn't see how writing an essay format-type report was ever going to help me, or anyone else for that matter. Why couldn't we just write all the information down in bullet points? Wouldn't it be more sensible and practical for me or anyone who wanted to read my report? I then realized who was at fault. My teacher, or so I thought. He was a Math teacher. He had no right grading my writing. I hadn't ever thought of him being that great at English, and I found it unfair that he could grade me on something that he didn't seem good at either. My reactions changed. My anger and blame was thrown upon so many different people and factors, except me. I guess I didn't want to believe that I hadn't produced a good piece of work after all the effort I put in. My whole perspective changed after I had a meeting with my teacher. We went over my work, and I read it again. My work wasn't great, it wasn't good, it was very... average. I read it again and one by one, I could see everything that my report was missing. Ultimately, I was to blame. I hadn't felt that bad in a long time. I saw no point in working during that class anymore. I didn't want to change my paper for a better grade. I was scared that attempt would in the end, be futile. I've always found it hard to deal with disappointment, and I didn't want to deal with it now. My mind was swimming with "what if?" questions. "What if?" questions are always complicated, and the possibilities are always scary. What if my actions will lose me a great opportunity? What if I study for a test but my grade doesn't improve? This moment of disappointment helped me overcome my fear of "what if?", not a lot, but just enough to get me through this problem. I've decided to do my report again, because not taking a risk in this situation would be the biggest mistake I could make. My word document is open right now and I'm doing my report again. I don't think I'm going tot be disappointed this time.

#63: Melinda Mae.

Discuss an activity, interest, experience, or achievement in your life (this could be a book, movie, or an activity or experience at work, home, or at school) that has been particularly meaningful for you. (University of Florida)

I've always loved Melinda Mae. Melinda Mae is the title of a poem and the main character of the poem. I read it when I was 6 years old, in Shel Silverstein's book, Where the Sidewalk Ends. I know the poem off by heart, and every now and then, I look at the illustrations in the book. There's this very tiny girl sitting on one end of the table, with a huge whale in front of her. When you turn the page, there's the same girl as a wrinkled, old woman with a big platter of bones. The small girl sitting on the table in the beginning of the poem has reminded of the same lesson over and over again. When I was 6, the poem taught me to never give up on any task as impossible as it might seem. I'm reading it again right now, 16 years old, and the poem reminds me to never give up on any task regardless of how impossible it might seem. Over the course of ten very long years (at least for me), Melinda Mae sends me the same message. It's hard to not give up a lot of times, especially for sports or any sort of physical exercise-type thing because I've always been bad at anything to do with running. When I'm running or doing anything very tiring, I find it very comforting and funny when I think about a small girl eating a whale till she's 80 years old. Exercising doesn't seem so hard after that. Sometimes, I think about how hard it might have been to swallow blubber and all the other weird internal organs that make up the whale. The whale wasn't even cooked. I thought about this when I was younger, (a lot younger), and life and anything that it throws at me doesn't seem hard anymore. Any hard task I've done till now also takes about a maximum of a few hours. Melinda Mae spent almost her whole life. The thought makes me feel a lot better. Melinda Mae has also taught me to not always believe everything others say. People told her she wouldn't be able to eat the whole whale. It didn't seem impossible anymore looking at the next page with the bones. If we were to listen and obey every person that tells us something is impossible, we'll soon have nothing to do. We can't live life like that, because we're not exactly living a life anymore. 

The tale of Melinda Mae sums up in just eleven lines life as it should be lived. Risks, determination, and in some cases, ignorance of people around you can lead to great things, or so I think, and I think Shel Silverstein does too. 

#32: People

Sartre said, "Hell is other people," while Streisand sang, "People who need people are the luckiest people in the world." With whom do you agree? (Amherst)



People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. At one point or another, we all try to convince ourselves that we don't need other people. We think that needing people is considered weak, and being overly dependent on others. That's not it at all. Most of the time, people need other people to not feel lonely, and loneliness is something we can't prevent most of the time. Yes, everyone needs some time alone to think, but being alone over a long period of time can be unbearable and depressing . We don't want to feel lonely and we don't want to need other people, but it's just human nature. We can't stop these feelings, because being with someone also means being happy in some cases. Happiness can be found in a lot of things, but it is most often found when we're in the presence of others. Depriving ourselves of a social life means depriving ourselves of happiness. It can't be helped. We need people. If not for happiness, at least for knowledge and learning. Our world is connected so densely, through the internet, social networking sites, newspapers, and so many other resources. This connection has allowed so many of us to learn from, and teach others. Learning would be impossible without people. As Euripedes once said, "The same men cannot be skilled in everything, each has his special excellence." This is true, because if it were not, we wouldn't need to work with other people or even work under people. One person cannot know everything, but if a group of people were to depend upon the knowledge of their colleagues or friends, they could know almost everything they need to know. It would be a totally different case if everyone knew everything, and we wouldn't need specialized jobs at all. Life wouldn't be like it is today if we didn't need each other. 

#19: Amusement Parks, Fun, and Friends

Write you own essay question and answer it. (Kalamazoo College/93)


Of everything in the world what would you like to be doing today? Where would you like to be the most? Who would you prefer to be with for this day? 
(I just changed a few words in question 106 to fit it with my blog post) 

There is water everywhere. In fact, I'm drenched in water, and my sticker-type ticket is faded and tearing. The ride slowly comes to a halt, and I push off against the metal bar that was just, a few moments ago, pressing me against the back of my seat. Holding my stomach, I turn to see my friends in the same sad-looking state as me, and my laughs get louder. We make our way to a bench on the side of the cement path that lead to many other rides, spread out all over the park, each scarier than the other. The metal bench has absorbed heat from the sun high above our heads right now and feels hot through our wet clothes. We've been at the amusement park since it opened up on today, and it is noon now. 'I'll always remember this day', I think, as I see my two best friends trying to wring the water out of their clothes.

They're different right now. I am different right now. Very different from what we always are, burdened with school work and all the problems that seem to take so long to solve. It's like we're free from the real world, even though this feeling of freedom is most probably temporary. We've forgotten about everything, or rather, squeezed it out of ourselves for this special day, just like the water that drips off of us, leaving a trail of dark grey blotches on an otherwise clean, almost white ground. We go eat something, anything, because our stomachs feel empty right now, or at least, mine do. Lunch is followed by a "siesta", or a time when all we do is sit, lie down, and just talk. Amusement parks have always been one of my favorite places, so I doubt that our rest time is my idea. I'm guessing it's their (my best friends) idea. One of my best friends is always sick with motion sickness during long drives, and I think it's probably a good idea, right about now. These rides are most probably going to be harder on her stomach than the long drives. My day can’t fit a dirty, vomit-smelling me or my other best friend.

 Almost an hour passes, and we've finally decided to get rid of the lethargic feeling in our bones. Walking towards all the rides we haven't gone on, I realize that we haven't taken any pictures yet. We stop at the gates in front of the ride and I take out my camera, which my friends find funny and ironic, since I dislike having people take pictures of me. I see the irony in it myself, but today is a special occasion. It is not a special occasion that needs to be recorded, just in case I forget this day in the future, but an occasion that is captured for just one second. This picture, I hope, will capture the happiness in the smiles we'll have on our faces. It'll be one perfect moment, which I hope there will be many of in the future. It might even be one of very few, but this rarity will make this day just the more special.

 The ride is about to start, and we hurry to get ourselves seated. As we rise higher and higher above the crowd and the other rides in the park, I feel the fluttering in my stomach increase until we stop on the top. We stop for just a few seconds before we're plunged down and the fluttering has changed to tickles. I couldn't smile wider than I'm smiling right now, and I alternate between laughing and screaming for the whole ride. The ride has ended now, and my excitement has just grown. I can't wait to go on ALL the rides. We go on one ride after the other, until we're tired. It is around 5 PM now, and our adventure is about to come to an end. I'm not as happy right now because I know today's almost over, but there's still a little bit of happiness in me. We sit around again, going over everything we've done today, recalling the funny parts and laughing. We've been laughing and smiling all day, which could explain the almost compulsive use of the word throughout this writing. Our laughs sound so different from each other, yet so together and beautiful, more beautiful than any masterpiece Mozart or Bach have ever written. It's time to leave now, and we all separate. We're all going back to reality now, and I can already see small nostalgic smiles on their faces. I'm glad they feel the same way. We've all gone our separate ways, and I can't see them anymore.

I'm going over my whole day, and I think, wait, I actually say out loud, "The only thing I would want to be doing today, or any day for that matter, is going to an amusement park, having fun, with one of the most important people to me; my two best friends. It's true. I want be doing this everyday with people I value as much. This day was most probably a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, and I remember a quote by J. M. Barrie (author of Peter Pan) that I've written down before: "You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by; but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by." This quote reminds me of this day, and I can't find a logical and rational connection at this moment, but it just does.

That's all there is to it, and I don't feel the need to search for some sort of semblance either. I know exactly what I'm going to do when I go back home. I'm going to send the pictures we've taken throughout the day, to both my friends, and I have an intuition that they won't be posting these pictures on Facebook today, tomorrow, or in the future. We don't need the world to know how much fun we had today, because all that matters is that we remember, and that we know. And that's what makes it special.

#12: My neighbourhood

Tell us about the neighborhood that you grew up in and how it helped shape you into the kind of person you are today. (Yale and the University of Chicago)

They celebrate Diwali, Independence day, and even Christmas. The people in my neighbourhood shape my memories and feelings about the place I live. Where I live, you can always hear cars honking. Cars from other places, all going to the Dentist, who lives four houses away. You can always see people in the park, at any time of day. There are the elderly people in the morning, circumambulating around the grass and the small playground in the middle. During the day, gardeners can be seen pulling at the weeds or sitting in the shade of a banyan tree, eating their lunch. Evenings in the park are loud, as children coming back from school drop their bags on the grass and run to play cricket. Almost every day of the year, this neighbourhood is lively, but there are always exceptions to this description. For a week every year, the people fall into a silent spell as they gather under a temporary tent set up in the centre of the neighbourhood. Sitting cross-legged on the red carpets on the floor, the people, including the children, bow their heads and pray for a festival that I don't really know much about. One festival after the other, the neighbourhood is decorated for the majority of the year. On Diwali, you can hear the fireworks and see the small clay lamps placed on the balcony. On Independence Day, elders and children alike are decked up in green, orange, and white, the colours of the Indian flag. Even the tiny bangles the girls wear are arranged in a specific order: orange, white, green, orange, white, green. The most entertaining of all is Christmas, for a reason that only I have. A dressed up fat man comes in as Santa Claus, with a limp bag of gifts that he gives out to the children of the neighbourhood. I've always found Santa Claus' beard funny, the way he hastily slips the elastic bands around his ears when it falls off. The thing that makes all these events and celebrations so fun for me is because of the people. Our family has always stood out because of the fact that we're Buddhists, and we don't celebrate any of the Indian festivals the people of my neighborhood celebrate. This minor, or rather, major difference has never made me isolate myself from all the diversity in my surroundings. In fact, these differences have attracted me to everything around me. Living in a neighbourhood with people from completely different religions, cultures, and backgrounds has helped me accept things that are foreign to me, and pushed me to learn about things that I might necessarily like, but are part of my life in my neighbourhood. 

Differences don't always set people apart. They can bring us together as we teach others and learn from them too. My descriptions of everything in my neighbourhood are from the eyes of an outsider, and that was what I had always been before. Now, I sit outside on the benches in the park, watching the life and daily routines of people who I've been living around since I was three. I've become a part of my neighbourhood, and my neighbourhood has made me who I am today.

#23: Slow Down

If you were to write a book, on what theme or subject matter would it be based, and why? (Stanford/93)

The world is too fast. In fact, so are our lives. One moment you're struggling to understand a concept or a process in biology. The next moment, you're doing a test on it.  They say time is money. They say it's a resource. Sometimes, time is nothing. A resource cannot be used if it is only being stored. A resource cannot be considered a resource if it's being consumed with no benefits.  In an attempt to "save" time, our world today is too fast.

Thus, a book about slowing down would be ideal for our world. Many people today rush through their daily routines and fail to stop and think, "What is the point behind this?" Students read textbooks and write endless pages of notes without understanding anything they've read. What is the use of copying down endless words and diagrams when all that we can think about is finishing something just so that we can move onto our next piece of work? Maybe, all we need is time. The number of pages we've written or read are not what show the growth in our knowledge, but rather, they're the things we remember and apply to life.

Technology too, joins education in the race against time today. We're constantly surrounded by new cellphones, music players, and laptops, and so many "improved" versions of gadgets. You get a computer, and a laptop comes out. You buy an iPad. The next month, Apple launches the iPad 2.We are always bombarded with new features and improvements, but how can we know how much better an object is when we haven't even had time to use its older version. You will always have to slow down at some point in your life if you want to take in anything. It's very much like breathing and running. You can't take in oxygen when you're running endlessly.

There is so much more that people miss when they hurry through life. There's nature, knowledge, fun, and potential life-changing experiences, all making up a tiny fraction of what we're truly missing. If there is so much that is slipping through our fingers, why don't we do anything to stop it? The answer is simple. Half the time, we don't realize how fast we are moving until the end. We're unconscious to how we progress through life, and sometimes, it can be extremely difficult to change something that we've been doing for what feels like forever. Our behaviors and habits are not the only things that need to be altered; our mindsets do too.

A book about slowing down can illuminate people on a way of life that is different from the usual, but yet a perfect alternative with no harms. A book that can open our eyes to our surroundings and the little things always contribute to our heart, mind, and soul.

Speeding through life qualifies as surviving, but it will never mean living life to the fullest. In the process of trying to save time, the little time used up can only rendered wasted if nothing is achieved from it. Ultimately, time is not saved, but wasted. Slowing down can be time consuming, but if what we obtain from the time spent is important, every second of that experience would be worth it. Almost nothing in life can be summed up or understood in a few minutes, or even a few hours. Some things will always need more time, and this period of time could stretch across days, years, even decades.  As Audrey Hepburn once said, "Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering- because you can't take it in all at once."

Maybe, such a book will make people stop for a second to look around and absorb everything in. You might understand a concept that just seemed impossible before. You might hear music within the chaos in a city or the whooshing of the wind. You might see the ferns dull from green to brown after the monsoon, or the green leaves transform into vivid shades of red, or even the Winterline create a mosaic of cool and warm colors across the sky if you just slow down, stop, and look around you.

# 62: Of Mice and Men

#62: Discuss how something you have read has affected you or changed your mind about something. 

I have, or I had always been the type of person who avoided books that were set during wars or showed the everyday struggle of people that I had seen everywhere. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck, qualified for both cases, but it became one of my most favorite stories of all time.

                Of Mice and Men was a simple story that touched me. It wasn’t like Nicholas Spark’s romantic novels that make people cry, but a story of a whole different type of relationship. It was about camaraderie and friendship; a friendship that was funny, cute, unexpected, and most of all, real. The characters argued, fought, supported, and helped each other. They were so normal that anyone would be able to relate to them, and I think that was the queer charm that the story had. There was the sad girl who was bored of life, the man who would always be discriminated, the friendship that would never be understood, the tension between the characters, and the struggle for survival. I’ve read many other stories with similar characters, but this story showed me how ordinary could be extraordinary. The story created a person with a personality and attitude that I considered a role model. The story was normal, but it was true, and I loved it. It taught me that normal could be good, and the truth could be better than make believe.

                Of Mice and Men changed the definition of “touching” for me. I’ve seen people cry when reading books and movies, all because the boy dies for the girl or something cheesy like that. That is not touching, or very moving when you see it ALL the time. Of Mice and Men showed me friendship, innocence, and true feelings and wisdom that are in everyone, no matter how deep inside. These ideas moved me and changed my ideas of what is important in life. Now, friendship, innocence, and the knowledge we have inside of ourselves can be part of the many things that make a person special, at least according to me. Movies show teenagers (actually, everyone) trying to be mature (or rather, act mature) all the time. This book went against THAT overrated idea.

                The story revealed how writing could be beautiful. Not flowery, full-of-adjectives beautiful, but everyday words that put together all these different ideas so smoothly. Themes such as loneliness, hopelessness, human nature, friendship, and different roles of women are integrated together in a story so simple and typical, and yet, so unique. We’re always being told that how you write makes all the difference. This book showed me that what you write does too.

                I’ve also never been the type to read books that take place during wars or periods like the Great Depression. Of Mice and Men changed my impression of such books and stories. This story was set during the Great Depression, and the time period itself added to the feel of life and troubles the characters were going through. It made the story all the more real, at least to me. Stories of war and survival (especially writings related to American history) are interesting now, and I’ve opened up to books that almost feel like a different genre.

Of Mice and Men led me to another one of my favorite books, The Great Gatsby, by Scott Fitzgerald.