Indian Thread

[mercurysquad]

<p>Try Sonali Bendre…
I ususally don’t discriminate based on nationality :p</p>

[astrix]

<p>and i have way more than 30% left…</p>

[cooldude]

<p>And still you have time to post that on CC :p</p>

[primitivefuture]

<p>how many indians here are going to major in politics?</p>

[mercurysquad]

<p>You guys are online? Somone come on yahoo I’m so depressed…</p>

<p>primitive: that’s a U turn.</p>

[primitivefuture]

<p>what do you mean? do you have AIM?</p>

[mercurysquad]

<p>Nah I uninstalled it…</p>

[CC_Admin]

<p>Hi you guys, I’m new to this thread (how the **** could I have missed it?) but I had some questions, directed to Akash especially:
I’ve seen that you do a lot of research and seem to be ahead of others in math and science fields. I will be going to college in the fall (thank goodness the hunt is over) and I want to improve my math and science skills tremendously over the summer. Any tips? </p>

<p>Also, I would like to do some research but I won’t have any American universities nearby. What can I do? Is it possible to conduct this online with professors? Even better, is it possible to do publishable research by oneself?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>Displaced Punjabi of '09</p>

[sucharita]

<p>no astrix I’m not talking about the manage your account page, I’m talking about the Admitted Students Page where I basically got a rap across the knuckles for trying to get my decision early :p</p>

[adides]

<p>Hey Ritz…have u seen ‘legally blonde’?? i just saw a magazine article bout reese witherspoon n wondered if the admission committee discussed ur cookin skills same way as they did it in tht movie…:p</p>

[adides]

<p><a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4361563.stm[/url]”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4361563.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[sucharita]

<p>OK so the message is quite clear- guys stop chewing gum :p</p>

[neha1]

<p>hahaha… :D</p>

[sucharita]

<p>no such restriction for us obviously…what do you say neha ;)</p>

[shash_rao]

<p>A miracle has occurred : </p>

<p>

When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that’s a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events - the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broke just there - that must also be a miracle. Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.
- Terry Pratchett, in ‘Interesting Times’

</p>

<p>

'it is not so, nor ‘t was not not so; but, indeed, God forbid it should be so.’

<strong><em>Please…don’t bother to read this post – it is more for preserving my sanity than to serve any real purpose.</em></strong>

If failiure had no penalty success would not be a prize.

</p>

<p>Into each life, some rain must fall… </p>

<p>I have finally gotten over MIT, if only for the sole reason that I no longer hold any options. After one night of crying my heart out, followed by a fitful 5 hours of ‘sleep’ filled with nightmares, and another night of brooding and considering “what if” s, I have come to the conclusion that since I no longer hold any more aces up my sleeve, I must join the rat race – the rat race know as the JEE. There will be time enough later for wallowing in self-pity (Although I guess a guy called Shabin is more deserving of it than me). I gave it my best shot and failed miserably. There is nothing more or less to it. What I need to focus on is the job at hand: A post-mortem of the fiasco called MIT can come later. </p>

<p>

Only in our dreams are we free. The rest of the time we need wages.
- Terry Pratchett

There are no amazing strokes of luck, no magic solutions, and the good people don’t win because they’re small and plucky.
- Rincewind, in Terry Pratchett’s ‘Interesting Times’

And don’t even dare saying I am committing a crime by doing so, as

I run, therefore I am; more correctly, I run, therefore with any luck I’ll still be.

</p>

<p>If I had gotten into MIT, then the class ring would have become a family heirloom. Since MIT decided on giving me a scrap of paper called the rejection letter now, that shall become a family heirloom instead. One day, when I win the Nobel prize, I shall look onto this letter and smile; and then I’ll consider calling up the local Reuter’s guy (and Bill Watterson, if he’s still alive then – it’ll probably make a great comic strip).</p>

<p>As I write this excruciating account, I am listening to Savage Garden’s ‘Crash & Burn’ for the umpteenth time today, along with Westlife’s ‘Flying without Wings’ and Enrique Iglesias’s ‘Hero’. Oh, and Yanni’s ‘Aria’ (my life sucks, doesn’t it)</p>

<p>

The house always wins. You play long enough and never change the stakes, the house takes you, unless, when that perfect hand comes along you bet big, and then you take the house.

</p>

<p>Well, I bet big, and I lost. Time to consolidate what’s left and win the Nobel (and clear the JEE, of course)</p>

<p>The most important question each of us will ask ourselves 20 years down the line is: What if I had gotten in? Well, A profound question does not have a general answer. The bottom line will be that we didn’t get in, and nothing can change that. This would have definitely affected at grass root level – but then again, what is ‘us’? Who is ‘us’? It is who we become, a function which depends on where we were, who we met; who we befriended and who we hated; what we did and what we didn’t; and most importantly, it depends on if the life we lead is relevant to our capabilities and our ambitions. The rejection from MIT has changed all the equations, but then again, so has everything else in my life.<br>

When I was a boy, my ambition was to become and engine driver. As a young man. I had dreams of ambassadorships. Arrived at middle age and grown reconciled to the fact that I had’nt brains enough for the Diplomatic Service, I thought that I could at least be a simple country gentleman. But fate decided otherwise. ‘No, Buckstone,’ said Fate, ‘I have other views for you. You shall be the greasy proprietor of a blasted rural doss-house.’
- Sir Buckstone Abbot, in P.G.Wodehouse’s ‘Summer Moonshine’

History isn’t like that. History unravels gently, like an old sweater. It has been patched and darned many times, reknitted to suit different people, shoved in a box under the sink of censorship to be cut up for the dusters of propaganda, yet it always – eventually – manages to spring back into its old familiar shape. History has a habit of changing the people who think they are changing it. History always has a few tricks up its frayed sleeve. It’s been around a long time.
- Terry Pratchett, in ‘Mort’

</p>

<p>I guess I need to just take things as they come.</p>

<p>

Destiny was funny stuff, he knew. You couldn’t trust it. Often you couldn’t even see it. Just when you knew you had it cornered, it turned out to be something else – coincidence, maybe, or providence. You barred the door against it, and it was standing behind you. Then just when you thought you had it nailed down it walked away with the hammer.</p>

<p>He used destiny a lot. As a tool for his plays it was even better than a ghost. There was nothing like a bit of destiny to get the old plot rolling. But it was a mistake to think you could spot the shape of it. And as for thinking it could be controlled . . .
-Terry Pratchett, in ‘Wyrd Sisters’

or, if you prefer Wodehouse,

Fate is odd. Rummy. You can’t say it isn’t. Lots of people have noticed it. And one of the rummiest things about it is the way it seems to take a delight in patting you on the head and lulling you into security and then suddenly steering your foot on to the banana-skin. Just when things appear to be going smoothest, bang comes the spanner into the machinery and there you are.
- P.G.Wodehouse, ‘Eggs, Beans and Crumpets’</p>

<p>

As for documented precedent …

It is the opinion of most thoughtful students of life that happiness in this world depends cheifly on the ability to take things as they come. An instance of one who may be said to have perfected this attitude is to be found in the writings of a certain eminent Arabian author who tells of a traveller who, sinking to sleep one afternoon upon a patch of turfcontaining an acorn, discovered when he woke up that the warmth of his body had caused the acorn to germinate and that he was now some sixty feet above the ground in the upper branches of a massive oak. Unable to descend, he faced the situation equably. 'I cannot,'he observed,‘adapt circumstances to my will: therefore I shall adapt my will to circumstances. I decide to remain here.’ Which he did.
- P.G.Wodehouse in ‘Almost entirely about flower-pots’ of ‘Leave it to Psmith’

</p>

<p>Unfortunately though, the burned child fears the fire. I hope that these are just knee-jerk reactions and that I can live with it, and apply to MIT for grad school without this at the forefront of my mind.</p>

<p>to be continued…</p>

[shash_rao]

<p>As for me and the IITs :

It is not about beating the system. It is about knowledge. And making the most of the system, even if it has flaws.
-Chetan Bhagat, in 'Five Point Someone"

</p>

<p>And

It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.
- Gandalf the Grey, at Elrond’s Council in Rivendell, in J.R.R.Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of The Rings’

</p>

<p>however, the problem is going to be : </p>

<p>

Without capital, enterprise is strangled at birth.
- P.G.Wodehouse, ‘Eggs, Beans and Crumpets’

but then again <see ‘at=“” the=“” end=“” of=“” day=“”>
(By capital I don’t mean financial only, but also intellectual.</see></p>

<p>And I don’t blame any of the adcoms for screwing up my mind by rejecting me either, as</p>

<p>

When a doctor makes a mistake about his patients, do you at that moment in so far as he is mistaken call him a doctor? or do you call a man who makes a mistake in calculating an accountant at the moment of, and in respect to, his mistake? No. I fancy thet is only our way of speaking. We say the doctor, or the accountant, or the writer made a mistake; but really, none of these, so far as he is what we call him, ever makes a mistake. To speak precisely, since you are for being precise, every craftsman is infallible. He who makes a mistake does so where his knowledge fails him; that is, where he is no craftsman. As with craftsmen and wise men, so with a ruler; he is always infallible so long as he is a ruler, although in ordinary language we all say that the doctor made a mistake and the ruler made a mistake. I precise language, a ruler, so far as he is a ruler, is infallible, and being infallible he prescribes what is best for himself, and this the subect must do. So that to do what what is advantageous to the stronger is just.
- Thrasymachus, in Plato’s ‘The Republic’

</p>

<p>And at the end of the day, </p>

<p>

When one wants a thing one gets it. If you fail at the large things it means you have not large ambitions. Concentration, focus - that is all. The aptitudes come, the tools forge themselves. ‘give me a fulcrum and I shall move the world’ - but only if the desire to move the world is there.
-Dr. No, in Ian Fleming’s 'Dr. No ’

and

There are no medium sized trees in the deep forest. There are only the towering ones, whose canopy spreads across the sky. Below, in the gloom, there’s light for nothing but mosses and ferns. But when a giant falls, leaving a little space … then there’s a race - between the trees on either side, who want to spread out, and the seedlings below, who race to grow up.
But sometimes, you can make your own space.
- Terry Pratchett in ‘Small Gods’

and

I am in all affected as yourself,
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of philosophy.
Only, good master, while we do admire
This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you;
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
- Tranio, The Taming of the Shrew (William Shakespeare)

</p>

<p>………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………<a pause=“” for=“” dramatic=“” effect=“”>……………… …………………………………………………………………………………………………….</a></p><a pause=“” for=“” dramatic=“” effect=“”>

<p>

And yet … somehow … life goes on.
- Calvin’s Dad

P.S. </p>

<p>1) There is also a school of thought which says :

Losers always whine about their best; winners go home and date the prom queen.

I don’t entirely subscribe to that view.
2) This is my longest post yet – and hopefully my longest forever. This is why -

[quote[Genuine anger was one of the world’s great creative forces. But you had to learn how to control it. That didn’t mean you let it trickle away. It meant you dammed it, carefully, let it develop a working head, let it drown whole valleys of the mind and then, just when the whole structure was about to collapse, opened a tiny pipeline at the base and let the iron-hard stream of wrath power the turbines of revenge.
-Terry Pratchett, in ‘Wyrd Sisters’

[/quote]
</p>

<p>(I hope you didn’t read the whole damn thing)</p>
</a>

[sucharita]

<p>can’t say I didnt try…</p>

[gandalf]

<p>shash…I think you’re finished with chem :)</p>

[bruno]

<p>Neha: Have you applied to Nanyang?</p>

[astrix]

<p>bruno, congrats on the acceptances. that is </p>