Since writing math and physics content takes an obscene amount of time and inspiration that I currently lack, I thought I’d write a less serious post for once – this will hopefully also satisfy the people who tell me blog posts shouldn’t take half an hour to read.
So, recent developments – I am almost done with my college applications! The bulk of the writing was in my first wave of applications due December 1st, and I am on the verge of submitting those, so I’m close to the end of my suffering. I’ll likely write something at greater length about the process later on, but I’ll briefly describe my most important complaints.
The writing style that colleges expect is sappy and cringe-inducing. Most of the “exemplar” essays are atrocious, and I would vomit if I ever wrote anything like them. The recommended format makes it impossible to avoid this, since it’s asking kids to write essays of the form “Object X symbolizes my life because launch into overly metaphorical cringe-inducing story of how beautiful your soul is.” Why are we encouraging kids on the cusp of adulthood to write about how their stuffed animals represent different aspects of their personality?? The exemplar essays are overly descriptive of irrelevant details, packed with malfunctioning metaphors, and always cliché, which brings me to point 2….
It’s impossible to avoid being cliché when your essay is one of 1000 that the admissions officer will see, and you’ve received the same advice as the other 999 kids. We’re asked to “find our voice,” but none of us are developed enough as writers that we have a distinctive writing style the way Hemingway or V.S. Naipaul would. Which brings me to point 3…
The last 3 years of high school English classes have done nothing to prepare us for this kind of writing. We have only worked on literary analysis and rhetorical analysis, writing about how authors use metaphors and similes to develop a theme, but we’ve never worked on writing personal statements. This feels like a failure of the high school curriculum that goes beyond college applications, since only 0.1% of students will go into literary analysis… maybe some of this time would’ve been better spent helping kids develop more basic but widely applicable skills?
There’s also the issue of how repetitive the prompts are. There’s a massive amount of overlap between different universities’ prompts, but there’s always just slightly different enough that you can’t copy-paste essays from other prompts. It feels like a huge waste of our time.
The emphasis on extracurricular activities leads to the issue of Linkedin resumé padding. A lot of things sound more impressive on paper than they actually are. A few examples:
The use of GPA as a criterion for auto-admission in Texas schools rewards cheating, grade inflation (in AP Physics C, a 40% turns into a 90% through “grade-banding”), and teachers’ favoritism. A large amount of kids with top 6% GPA at my school are cheating on tests, by their own admission. Even if GPA isn’t the deciding factor in admissions, it’s further contributing to the current disaster.
SAT and ACT don’t reflect any kind of intelligence or even competence in math and reading comprehension. The SAT now lets students use Desmos, which allows them to find the solutions to equations without actually doing any math. There can be a debate over whether a test of 7th grade algebra should factor into college admissions, but now the SAT isn’t even testing kids’ knowledge of elementary algebra, let alone more advanced topics.
Well, that’s that. As stressful as exams are, I now feel like a board exam (JEE!!) would lead to a more meritocratic and efficient admissions system than the current quagmire I’m wading through.
Apart from college applications, I’ve been suffering a great deal at school lately, but that’s a separate story for another blog post; I feel I have already dumped enough negativity here regarding college applications.
On to the positive developments. My Thanksgiving break has started, and I’m already down sick! Thankfully it isn’t anything too severe, but I still find it irritating. I’ve mostly recovered and am now splitting my time between a few activities. I’ve been feverishly reading Aakar Patel’s “The Price of the Modi Years” and am learning about the last ten years of disastrous governance under Modi. I’ll soon write a more detailed post, but until then, did you know that former Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi once served on a bench investigating a sexual-harassment case against himself? Or how about the fact that, in 2021, a RTI request found that the Supreme Court had 54 pending habeas corpus petitions, with the oldest dating back to 16 years before. Even more interestingly, did you know that Justice Arun Mishra was on the bench judging the Rubabbuddin Sheikh vs State Of Gujarat & Ors case (where “ors” included current home minister Amit Shah), despite having earlier recused himself from the case? Many interesting things can be learnt from Aakar Patel’s book…
I’ve also been slowly making progress through Syed Mujtaba Ali’s “Deshe Bideshe” in the original bangla! My reading/writing skills in bangla are nonexistent, so I’m very excited to be developing them. The book is interesting, telling the story of his stay in Afghanistan with some very beautiful language. He has a good sense of humor and a talent for poetry, so I’m enjoying the book a lot even though it’s a difficult read.
I’ve also begun reading Kazi Nazrul Islam’s poem “Bidrohi” and some more of Sukanta Bhattacharya’s poetry. “Bidrohi” is an INCREDIBLE poem, blending Hindu and Muslim religious imagery with terrifying metaphor to create an exaltation of the pre-Independence rebel. There is an especially good recitation here for anyone who is interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29X1GFso6y0 I reread Sukanta Bhattacharya’s poem “Ae Mahajibhon” (amazing poem), which I had read with an English transliteration before but never in the Bangla script until now, so that was also quite satisfying.
Today I started watching Sanjay Kak’s documentary “Jashn-e-Azadi.” I’ve only watched Part 1 so far, but I’m already impressed by the film. It opens by following a father as he looks for his son’s grave in the “martyrs’ graveyard,” setting the tone for this sobering work of cinema, and continues by exploring the violence and repression that rules Kashmir. The phrase “cordon and search,” distant and intangible in a book, becomes more real as the true violence of such operations is revealed: burnt homes, civilians caught in the crossfire, extrajudicial killings, and grieving families. Sanjay Kak takes a very lyrical approach to documentary filmmaking and weaves poetry into his film, just as he did in “Mati ke Laal.” The choice of ghazals beautifully reflects Kashmiris’ own reflections on the nature of freedom and the horrors they have witnessed. The film is titled “Jashn-e-Azadi,” meaning “celebration of freedom,” and it is quite successful in exploring that topic – what does freedom really mean in a state under martial law, where the Indian constitution is slowly being forced upon them at the cost of tens of thousands of lives? The end of Part 1 shows Srinagar on Independence Day, where the only people celebrating in the streets are the soldiers, guarded by a labyrinth of barbed wire and rooftops manned by snipers – a powerful message about what kind of “freedom” is really being brought to Kashmir.
I’m also hoping to read some of Roberto Bolaño’s “2666” and make progress on learning Indonesian over the break, but I’m not sure how much time will permit. Another goal was writing more over this break, and this post has already made some progress towards that goal, so hooray!
Switching tracks again – on a long drive I started listening to some music I recently downloaded but hadn’t had the chance to listen to until then, and I realized a lot of it was really good.
In the kpop world, I liked Nmixx’s album “Blue Valentine” and TripleS’s album <ASSEMBLE24>. Not all the songs are amazing, but there’s a decent number of good songs in both albums.
In the Hindi music world, I have fallen in love with the Gangs of Wasseypur soundtrack (more on the film later). All of the songs worked well in the context of the film – the goofy songs (e.g. “Tain Tain To To”) worked when paired with specific parts of the film, creating comedic effect and irony where necessary. However, some songs are amazing even outside of the film’s context. In particular, I recommend “Teri Keh Ke Lunga,” which has some incredible singing by Amit Trivedi and a very dark, foreboding feeling; “Jiya Tu” which provides a good laugh and a burst of energy; “Taar Bijli,” a mournful song with beautiful vocals and some subtle political commentary embedded into the lyrics; and “Loonga Loonga,” a song with good energy that also has some good lyrics (“ae jawanon, garibi tod deti hai jo riske khaas hote hain! aur paraye apne hote hai jab paise paas hote hain!”).
I watched a number of good films in the last week or two, and I hope to write reviews for the following: “Gangs of Wasseypur”, “The Handmaiden”, and “Jukti Takko Aar Gappo.” I also want to write a review for V.S. Naipaul’s “A House For Mr. Biswas” because I finished reading it very recently.
That’s about it for now. I will likely do more random brain dumps of this sort in the future, since this kind of writing is very stress-free and lets me get out a lot of thoughts and recent events in a very easy format. Apologies to my readership of 3.28 people who might have found this boring or too chaotic. If you did somehow end up liking one of the films, poems, or songs mentioned here or something similar, feel free to talk to me about it (contact info on the about page of my blog).