04 May 2020
There are all sorts of people around us. The intelligent, smart, wise, proactive and also the frustrating, toxic, nagging. We often imagine to try to be our best, better than others or at least try. It’s something which we naturally do. Everyone wants their niche. Everyone is better at something than someone. The surroundings are wavy.
This process takes a long time. Long long time. We discover new information every day and with more data, we learn. We often reach at same conclusions at different points with varied information and it’s often astonishing how sometimes very little information and more information can yield similar conclusions whereas in the between there’s something else going on.
I like to think of it as layers of clouds. Everyone has their layers of clouds and they hop up, down and around in time. The cloud denotes the ideas and perceptions we believe in. It takes us time to realize the breadth of thinking people may have. Some people go on to judge people quickly and it’d be irony for me to say that they’ve to still mature. While one can derive conclusions with a fixed set of instructions, it’s often those good perceptions if not right are subjective.
People are on different clouds at different times, a subset of it being on a different ‘page’. People should be judged because that’s how we decide how and whom to interact with. But after considering that they’ve gone through the required ‘learning pages’ in their life and jumped through those clouds enough. We like to interact with people who understand us, relate to us, make us feel better and give us something to learn and look upon. In the emotional terms, I think it’d be right to say that this forms the basis of emotional intelligence of our social interactions.
I don’t know if the analogy makes sense. I don’t like analogies because I believe that making unnatural connections for explanations isn’t how it should be. This one doesn’t seem that bad. There are few which are very naturally connected. I think I’d talk more about people and thoughts sometime later, hence the title. It’s interesting, both the width and depth.
03 May 2020
Oh, how many times have I thought of writing a blog. I was often bogged down by the commitment I had to give to it. I’d started a blog when I was 14 but it soon dissolved away. Then I started writing in my diary, just because. Well, that faded too.
This quarantine time reminded me that I should start writing. For myself. And maybe also for those very few friends of mine who read and appreciate it. If you’re reading this, I’m yay-ing. It was best to have it theme-less, more like a personal thoughts blog. Even though it’s public, hardly anyone would read everything. Do we write to validate ourselves? In a way.
I’d talk about anything I came across and found interesting or just about my day. A lot of interesting things keep happening throughout my day, no drama.
It’s 20:42 on 3rd of May. Of course, it’s 2020.
Writing is helps me articulate better. Thoughts flowing in my mind turn into words. I think and wander off. In the pursuit of all characteristics which define my success and how I contribute to the world, it helps me to be at peace with myself. I hope it helps me open up more in terms of thoughtfulness, and I don’t ever run down the path of supposed cringe or cliché. It’d be a sin. I think this is a good short start post. I sound so serious, sheesh.
There’s music and there’s breeze. I’m alone in my room, and it’s a wonderful evening. See you.
04 Mar 2020
Originally answered on Quora to “How does JEE feel?”
How does JEE feel? JEE is an experience.
An experience of hard work, challenges, goals, aspirations, emotions, failures, fleeting success, learning, overcoming and realizing along with all those little moments of triumph sandwiched in the overwhelming experience of everything.
It’s not just an exam, it’s all of everything which stems from it.
A simple search about JEE puts up why, how and where one should prepare for JEE. An important point in a high-schooler’s life. Some learn of it only later but there is are many who start their preparation way before. “I want to get into an IIT” is a dream of many. Lakhs aspire, dream and hope for it. Everyone in their different way, what their surroundings allow them to. There are those born with luxuries and comfort of all resources on hand and then there are others who have to work their way up. Support of family, friends and teachers make a huge difference. It goes underestimated at times. Everyone knows the sheer competition but we all experience it at different points in time. Tests over tests put us under scrutiny. We learn. Different parents react differently. We adapt. Adapt to our results, our position or just the reality. Other exams exist in way, but JEE still holds the utmost importance. We fall down numerous times, but a lot fight and don’t give up.
Your JEE experience is and will be different than everyone else. It’s one of the key aspects. One could never know what’s going on in someone else’s mind. A task could be equally difficult and easy for students on different spectrums of scale. How you grew up, how your work ethics are, what resources you have and how you make use of everything that’s given to you creates differences. The test is how true one is to self. How one works through their problems and diminishes gaps pulling them down. Everyone has their mechanism, and a plethora of emotions and thoughts throughout. It’s not just working through subjects it’s working through self to keep motivation high, look at mistakes, analyze, learn and revise.
JEE is often the first thing in students’ life which prepare them for the life ahead. It’s an excellent teacher. Some don’t like to recall their times or are neutral but there are those too who look back and cherish. I cherish on my JEE times however they were. Not because I haven’t moved on to better things in life. They certainly weren’t sunshine all days. But even failures give hope, however clichéd it may sound. JEE advice is being given so widely that all of it sounds almost the same. But we all know what’s to be done. Will to work makes wonders. Experience also teaches us to be smart to tackle anything that comes along. Some cry over the fact that they aren’t naturally smart. “Not everything can be achieved by working hard! I work so hard.” It’s either an excuse or they don’t know their potential yet or they really aren’t smart enough to understand that happiness in life doesn’t come by crying over something not in one’s hands. Part of it comes by maximising your potential. Learning to be at peace with what comes and knowing how you played your role in it. How high you’ll rise is determined by how well you think.
But in the end, even if not pleasant, JEE is one different phase.
02 Mar 2020
Originally answered on Quora to “ow can I stay motivated during JEE preparation?”
Sucking at anything is a depressingly easy thing to do. If you don’t like pulling things apart until you can see their fundamental structures, you’re in trouble.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with losing motivation and going into a downward spiral during JEE preparation. Many other things are at least as hard, and easy to give up on. The world is full of terribly difficult pursuits. Most of the people who excel at these pursuits are deeply and intrinsically motivated to them.
A JEE aspirant hears on a daily basis that the skills required to excel in JEE, one of the most difficult exams out there, are acquired. Innate talents do play a major role but not more than the former do. One can surely be born with a mind that works well, just as one can surely develop such a mind through diligent effort.
The problem is that, thanks to the media and more uprising to coaching classes, a thundering herd of otherwise perfectly talented people have decided that qualifying JEE and getting into IIT would get them a great (or at least stable) job and oodles of money. These people are extrinsically motivated, and while there’s nothing wrong with wanting a decent job that might make you an unlikely bazillionaire that wanting isn’t going to make you a competent aspirant or even a great engineer if you get in. The situation every year is like Christmas in September for coaching classes with dramatically raising enrollment figures and lakhs of students giving up at one point after they get in.
Of course, there’s this problem: most of these students can’t handle the tough and often stressing environments that are central to success in JEE. The students themselves are rarely motivated to throw themselves into these problems: they just want to clear an exam any way, not see it as an intellectual challenge, and while that works for a small percentage of students, most fail.
You are reading this because you got yourself in to do this, right?
The irony of all this is that it’s at best a sideshow to the people who’re inexorably drawn to really work hard and get in. Those are the people who drive progress even in future and have successful careers; they are the people whom the thundering herd seeks to imitate. They’re still signing up for this, they’re still relentlessly improving themselves, and they’re still doing the vast majority of important work.
Convince yourself to do it first. The devil is of course in the details.
05 Jan 2020
I switched to Linux
I finally dual booted with the latest Ubuntu 20.04 alongside my pre-installed Windows 10 and it’s been a smooth ride ever since.
I had specifically bought a USB 3.0 thumb drive a year ago so I could switch right then but the drive partitioning and boot problems scared me. I was also lazy, having heard that problems may occur during install and it could take a long long time. I wasn’t even much convinced back then to force myself. My extensive interaction with ubuntu occurred in college’s CS labs. 19.04.
And then this summer while working and learning, there were several things which made me want to switch to linux. Fed up that I didn’t want to use WSL or run Linux on VM, I finally downloaded the iso file. Burned it and live USB was on. The ‘Try’ feature is one of the best things. I still wasn’t ready to dual boot. I tried to install it on another external HDD to made it a portable system but failed twice. I then searched and brought out an old 32-bits laptop in my house. Its windows had been corrupted and there was no other OS on it. So I downloaded i386 Lunbuntu and Ubuntu, tried them and installed Lubuntu while wiping off all of what was left of windows.
I was now brave enough to install Ubuntu on mine. I searched and read about drive partitioning, problems that could occur and how I could partition that partition while installing. I went through few reliable websites and was ready.
I partitioned a generous space from my main c: drive carefully. Happy with my first successful step, I booted the live USB and chose to install. Now was the scary partitioning the partition. I had enough space so there were no distribution problems. The steps aren’t difficult to understand or execute, it’s just that one small mistake could be potentially hazardous. With more basic options selection, I was ready to install.
It didn’t even take half-hour to install. It was installed under 15 minutes along with online downloads and updates. I hadn’t anticipated it to be this quick! With some brief changes in the boot order in the BIOS menu, everything was ready. I finally dual-booted into my laptop’s Ubuntu.
Ah, the classic aubergineIt looked beautiful. The boot time was much faster than windows. It also worked faster and with lesser lag than windows. I could directly open the terminal and install applications of my choice. Very satisfying. The simplicity made a lot of tasks easier. Overall less clutter. The default desktop design has now become my favourite.
DON’T EVER DO THAT
With some basic settings and installations, I was ready to go. My favourite part is the speed. It’s not even on SSD. Mine’s all HDD. Smooth as butter. Also, theoretically more secure. There are little convenient features which come handy. I’ll not list the advantages which come up with every google search containing the word ‘Linux’.
But if you’re fed up of windows, this is the way to go.