So I've been going to a ton of readings lately, because I do have a lot of English classes this semester and it's always rewarding to listen to writers speak--after all, reading them write isn't an uncommon experience; it's hearing them feel their writing that proves to be chilling, gratifying.
I went to another reading at Peeler tonight and I have to admit it was one of the very best I've heard. It basically comprised of Micah Ling, a DePauw graduate and published author, and Jeffrey Bean, my advisor Barbara Bean's son, and a wonderful poet. :)
Micah Ling certainly writes in an intriguing fashion, adopting a real life character and making her fictional. Her Amelia Earhart poems captivated me particularly—I’ve always been fascinated by Amelia’s story, and Micah helped give her a different voice, taunting our imaginations by making her a real figure on a lost island, the ‘black widow’ to her ‘corpse of a plane’. Amelia’s plane often becomes her child, and Micah depicts her possible solitude, unkemptness and overall madness on the island beautifully. ‘Not Crazy’ is a beautiful indication in this regard; its final line eerily pretty: ‘Talking to no one is better than quiet.’
Jeffrey Bean may become the best poet I’ve ever heard read—not only did he do a stellar job keeping the audience ‘on their ears’, his poems had that quality Joe Heithaus so rightly called innocent: these poems are comical but realistic, beautiful but true. His ‘Encyclopaedia of the Wheat’ made wheat into a person with emotions, feelings, lies. ‘Bread is the afterlife,’ says Bean. And ‘human eyes are not still enough to see the eyes of the wheat.’ Bean’s wheat has bones and skin—it is a person with embarrassment, haunting, movement. Its ‘name for you is secret’.
The other poems I really enjoyed were ‘Why I failed at Baseball’, with its ‘balls fresh from packages’; ‘In August’ for the way it spoke of fat wind, ‘Dreamboat’, simply for its hilarious, imaginative concept (Bean really could give Wes Anderson a run for his money—I now see why he isn’t a die-hard fan!) and ‘The Bread’ from the poisoned sonnets. He was a true delight to listen to, for he made writing real—the person standing on that stage was somebody you could reach out and touch, laugh with or pat on the back. He was a true writer—one that felt and breathed and made jokes, just like the rest of us.
So, I've been meaning to take a quick diversion from studying for a big Philosophy exam, and my mind wandered to some of the highlights of this week: one of which was a Phil club meeting on Tuesday. I'm one of the Executive Board members, and we primarily spent the hour discussing Consumer Ethics. For instance, a couple of females sued McDonald's in the past year for allegedly 'making them fat'. In such a scenario, who do you decide to launch the attacks at--the corporation, for making such forceful advertisements as 'our food is perfect for Breakfast, lunch AND dinner!' or the consumers, for buying into that marketing madness and not adjudicating what's right themselves?
The group came up with some rather quirky insights, and all in all, the discussion flowed smoothly, being one that had you thinking about the questions long after the proclaimed hour had ended. I'm going to be leading a discussion on Cosmology sometime soon, and I'm hoping to incorporate a notch of Physics into my Philosophies--after all, what else is DePauw best for? Intermingling your varied interests into a holistic liberal arts education--that's what the 'uncommon success' is all about, in my book.
Phil club is a great way to kick back, relax, and spend some thoughtful time away from class and work indulging in issues you find provocative. That apart, it's a great opportunity to meet people who share similar or opposing ideas as you. And if that weren't enough, free food is always a good reason to attend meetings! It's alternate Tuesdays from 6-7 at Reese Lobby--I COMMAND you to attend in the future!
Other than that, this week has been pretty exhausting and flooded with work--just the way I like it. A friend of mine got me some Milk Cakes the other day (Indian dessert that's much to die for), and I shared it with some of my professors--and much to my relief, they absolutely loved it. I have my birthday in a couple of days, and at this point, I can't quite tell if I'm excited or not. It is the aphoristic TWO DECADES, after all.
More news to follow!
I had a temptation to sign off as Gossip Girl, but wasn't sure if I'm brave enough to do it. Let's see, now...
You know you love me, Akanksha
(So I managed it! I guess now it just means I need to provide my readers a few more reasons to do so). :)
So we had the Diwali Festival at Columbus, Indiana today. It was sponsored by Cummins, which bears quite the tie both with India and DePauw, and so a bunch of us DePauw students had the opportunity to go and enjoy a myriad performances--dancing, singing, fashion shows and the works. The performers included every possible age group, and some of the kids were particularly adorable in that they went through an enormous amount of practice to put the show together. I feel like the biggest highlight, however, was certainly the food! (Lord knows I did my best at over-indulging, and how!) We had Malai Koftas, which are basically a kind of vegetable cutlet submerged in a cream gravy; chicken curry, and Saag--a sort of spinach in curry. We had Raita, too, which I've sorely missed--it's vegetables mixed with plain yogurt and spices. And as a grand finale, we had delightful Gulab Jamuns! (I'm not quite going to attempt at explaining what they are, because I doubt I could do them justice). All in all, it was certainly a fun event... and pictures are soon to come!
Other than that, this week's been really exhausting. It was Fall Break week, but me being me, I ended up burying myself knee deep in work interspersed with movie/One Tree Hill marathons. I can't say that it hasn't been deeply enjoyable, though--I've got a lot of work done, a lot of fantastic books read, a ton of intriguing movies watched, and a lot of hours with fun faculty spent!
I'll update this place soon with the Diwali pictures--be sure to keep a watch out!
One of the reasons I chose to come all the way to the United States was for an education that was so holistic and all-encompassing in its entirety that it actually proved rewarding. I know that this may sound repetitive and redundant, but I honestly feel like I should specifically begin to address some of the opportunities I have been able to avail of at DePauw that I wouldn't have been able to as a student in perhaps any other country (or at any larger school).
Take writing workshops at DePauw, for instance. Whilst the English department at DePauw is probably one of the largest departments here at all, the beauty of workshops--small in number and close-knit in feeling--continues to hold tight, even with the large incoming class. At workshops, we basically are given assignments to inspire our creativities, and this is perhaps the best homework imaginable: to actually be able to do something so leisurable and have it graded, have it critiqued, have it commented upon. Your professor comes up with an assignment, you go home and mull over it and come up with a creative piece, you come to class and turn it in, the other students take it home, read it and adjudicate all the pros and the cons to it, they come back to class and the entire class has a discussion on your very writing and offers you (for the most part) helpful, insightful critiques! Can there be homework any more fun and any more helpful to you in the long run than to have your very abilities discussed and put up in the room for marking? I think not. And the best part is that this helps you grow so much as a writer and buys so much room for arguments--a facet a liberal arts student would just snatch up greedily.
All in all, I think the workshops at DePauw are certainly helping mostly everyone that partakes in them in not only their writing but also to build strength, argumentative abilities and surety in their very own selves. I do think that a lot of people will say that they're the rather 'easy' classes and hard to get into because everyone desires to be in them, but to do the jobs loyally--the writing, the reading, and most importantly, the critiquing--is a task in itself. And for this, I applaud DePauw--writing workshops are, after all, a very American concept, and even within America, relegated to a very chosen, select few institutions--and I am so very pleased to be able to avail of them.
And that's the only picture of me I have in a class (an English class, but alas, not a writing one--a literature one with the genius of a professor, Dr David Alvarez), while I was in my freshman year at DePauw. I thought I would share it with you since it's been on the website for about a year! :)
1.Movie-wise: My copy of Gigantic finally came through! Thank you, Putnam County Library! Now I finally have something to look forward to.
2.Dr Sununu’s midterm: Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t the studying that was a highlight—it was finally being done with the exam! If you’re a DePauw student, there’s little chance you haven’t heard of Professor Andrea Sununu (I’ve made her a fanclub on Facebook—go join if you’ve had her and absolutely adore the woman that she is!) You don’t get a more challenging professor, but you also don’t get an experience that can ever be as enriching. The midterm was supposed to take an hour, but it ended up taking 3.5, and there were still four people in the room when I left! I have to admit it, though—this is one class I’m going to remember long after I have graduated from DePauw.
3.Saturday evening—I had dinner with one of my favourite professors’ families, and we ended up watching I love you, man. Dinner was absolutely delightful, the company was fantastic, and the movie was eminently watchable. Weekends have never looked better (at least to me!)
4.Inter-library loan and how it saved my life: I’m pretty certain I’ve mentioned this before, but this week Inter library loan did the undoable and got me a book from CANADA! It was about my favourite moment of the week.
5.My sister’s birthday: And she’s now fifteen! Unfortunately, I couldn’t be in India for it… but that keeps the spirit bound right in!
6.My last month as a teenager… that’s right! I’ll be the scary ‘two-decades’ old soon. And I don’t even have a briefcase yet! I have to admit it’s rather overwhelming.
7.Fall break is in about a fortnight!
And so that’s been my week. Longer update after class, because that’s one thing you don’t quite want to be late for (even at a school as forgiving as DePauw!)
So here's a list of good things I've availed of this past week:
1. The Inter-Library Loan: This is one of the greatest boons at DePauw of all time. If they don't have a book or a movie you've been longing for, simply request it from another library, and they'll borrow it for you! Is this great or is this great? Really makes my weekends far more worthwhile than they've ever looked!
2. The Duck: What I like about this place is that it's still on my meal plan. The chicken paninis are ABSOLUTELY AWESOME, and what's great is that you don't run out of laundry money if you want to eat someplace fancy!
3. Philosophy: I'm certainly LOVING this subject, and if I could stay at DePauw for ten years just to do all the majors I want to do, Philosophy would be my next choice--right after what I'm already doing.
4. The Food Lab: Yesterday, I ate the best stir-fry I've ever eaten at DePauw. Last monday, I ate the best panini ever. The Food Lab just gets better and better!
5. And, of course, one of my favourite zones in all of Greencastle...
the Putnam County Library.
I'll always share a special bond with this place, because it's offered me so much in my times of need.
So there's a list of some of my favourite places and things at DePauw! Not to mention all the Physics and English, of course!
The grief of the episode has still not sunk in, and I doubt it will until I have finally made my way home. I do think, however, that this has proven to be the most difficult period I have endured at DePauw, and that were it not for the faculty at this liberal arts school that helped me get back on my own two feet, I would not be able to be where I am today: fully functioning and whole. Due to circumstances I was unable to go home, but the Physics family here has only provided me all the support I need to get through this rough period. For this, and so much more, I will always owe DePauw wholeheartedly. The first week the only people I would talk to at all were the faculty members, for they seemed to feel my pain and were willing to go out of their ways to do as much as they could for me: talk to me, help me physically, help me with my coursework and getting back to class, along with just doing simple things like checking up on me every day and writing to me as much as they could. I was able to take the advice of one of my professors to do something in the US that would allow me to say a fuller goodbye, and so I composed a short story for myself whereby I used one of my most favourite professors and his wife as inspirations for characters. Where else do you feel like you have your family around you? Where else do you want to spend all your time with your faculty, for they have helped you stand and helped you walk when you only need crutches? I'll tell you: DePauw. And the truth is, I'm not even exaggerating. There is no way for me to thank them enough, and I think the only way that comes close is to try and verbalize just how much they, and every single person at DePauw who has helped me through this difficult time, mean to me. There is no truth in the world but love, and it is the only one we can ever hold on to us, right to the end when we ourselves cross over that tunnel to the other side.
It is most hard for me to even formulate the words, because that would make them true. My grandmother, who I was extremely close to and loved dearly, left us all on Friday. Please spend a moment in silence for her sake. This poem has been the one thing that's getting me by. I hereby share it with you.
Gone from my Sight
I am standing upon the seashore. A ship
at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze
and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object
of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her
until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, ‘There, she is
Gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Gone from my sight. That is all.’
She is just as large in mast and hull and spar
as when she left my side and she is just as able
to bear her load of living freight to her destined
port. Her diminished size is in me,
not in her. And just at that moment when someone says
So summer's nearly over! This is my last week at work and today was the day that all the RAs got back to campus. Not that I've seen anyone yet, but I know it's only a matter of time! I definitely feel nervous/excited for this year to begin, but I think that at this point the feeling's half-and-half. Facebook continuously updates me as to how people are super thrilled to be back at college, but since I've spent my entire summer here, I can only wait in anxiousness for everyone to get back!
The thing I cannot wait for most, however, is classes. This semester I've got an exciting pick, detailed as follows:
ENG
282
British Writers II
1
2:50-3:50 MWF
AH 301
A. Sununu
ENG
301
Fiction Writing Workshop
1
2:20-3:50 TR
AH 303
B. Bean
PHIL
101D
Intro to Philosophy
1
10:30-11:30 MWF
AH 301
M. McKelligan
PHIL
364
Death: Phil. Approaches
0
S
7:00-9:50 PM R
AH 317
M. McKelligan
X
PHYS
270
Mathematical Methods
1
12:30-1:30 MWF
JSC 245
T. Stiles
and SRF. So that's a total of 5.5 credits, if I count my Audit as a credit!
I'm just so thrilled to jump right in!
Anyway, in other news, the highlights of my week entail...
... has to be one of the best movies I've ever seen!
Then...
I went to watch this play in the Putnam County Playhouse. One of my professors acted in it!
So lately I've been at the library downtown a lot, and can I just say that that place has the best collection of books and movies imaginable? I'm just so glad that I've availed of the opportunity to become a member of it! And what better time to do so than the summer? You simply walk up there (and it's very much within walking distance), and you're free to check out up to 50 items! It just doesn't get better. What's even nicer is that they'll request other stuff from other libraries for you, too, and they'll hold things for you if you need them. It's just great!
So if you're on campus for a summer working and your evenings seem relatively empty--you know what to do! Just walk up to the local library and pick up things--there's bound to be several you'll enjoy!
So the summer's drawing to a close, and what's funny is that I feel like it hasn't even begun (I kid you not! I wish I was one of my many friends who happen to be craving the fact that school's so close because they're so bored and have nothing to do. I, alas, have felt that this summer I've done far more than most!)
We had to move out of our duplex and into the International Center last weekend. I'll be here two weeks, and then move into my room for the fall! So basically... that's a lot of moving, as you can imagine, but what I like about it is that it keeps me on my toes, and that I get to live in all kinds of different environments with all kinds of different people.
This weekend I watched a ton of movies and just hit some down time (when you're constantly doing something, sometimes it's effective to just kick back and relax). I watched the following:
(which I ABSOLUTELY LOVED, even though it's made in 1977)...
and
(which, again, I really liked, and...)
which was just a LOT of fun. Watching Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener in anything together, especially with Synecdoche, New York, being my favourite movie of all time--is a delight.
I really really really want to watch:
because it has both Levitt AND Deschenel and I LOVE them! And it's supposed to be adorable.
Well, back to work, I think (two more weeks!) I'll keep you posted on what I watch and what I'm upto!
1. HALF-BLOOD PRINCE. No, I'm not a huge HP movie fan, but in all seriousness, anything HP will do for me. I remain completely committed to the guy, and always will. I grew up reading him, after all, and watching the sixth movie three times in a row prompted me to reread Deathly Hallows for the nth time. Oh, good times!
2. Reading Mrs Dalloway. It's got to be one of the best-written books I've ever read. I kid you not. It's about, well, no prizes for guessing, Mrs Dalloway, and her mental state as she gets prepared to be the perfect hostess to her party.
3. Work! Work is actually going by well, and that, in turn, keeps my mind at ease. I didn't think this would qualify as an up, but it most certainly does.
4. My computer is back! And I can now try to upload pictures here. Let's see.. does this work at all?
And... it does! So that's that for effects. Wait, if this works, maybe I can upload some of my pictures at Arizona! Take two...
And it does! So I guess this qualifies as an up! Just in case, that is the 10 m Whipple telescope at Tucson, Arizona.
There's my professor, Dr Kertzman, sitting on the T4 crate and looking like she's underwater!
A shot of T1 and T4, with the central trailer, at night...
Dr Kertzman, Dr Glenn and myself... on different pedestals.
The sign!
And, if I can locate more pictures after my recent computer crash, then there's many more to come!
Downs:
1. My roommates, Michelle and Kaitrin, left to complete their research in Nuclear Physics at Los Alamos. It's going to be lonely without them.
2. I met somebody that I'm not a particular fan of, and...
3. One of my best friends (also a staff member, because DePauw is just that cool!) is going through a rough patch in life. Thankfully, I'm around to be by her side, and I do hope I can be of use.
Now does that sounds like a journal entry? I'll tell you the BIGGEST down of all time before I sign out for the day, however, and that is...
WALMART IS OUT OF HARRY POTTER 6 POSTERS!!!!!!!!
I think that made me cry just a bit when I went there and bank 9, which was supposed to have them, was empty.
In any case, I painted a very bad imitation of the Deathly Hallows on my hand and so, in a last attempt to upload a picture...
Oh, long live Harry. And you, if you're a true fan!
As my title and my evident blogging probably suggests, I'm at good ol' DePauw for this summer... and perhaps for the next one, too. That's right, I made it into the Science Research Fellows program into DePauw! Hmm, that makes me an ITAP, an SRF, an Honor Scholar, and a double major (no, no, I'm not boasting, I'm just trying to think what exactly it was that prompted me to take a little bite of EVERYTHING on my plate!) I don't know if this is the wisest decision just yet, or if I'll be able to juggle even any two of them, let alone all. Nevertheless, I'm not tricking anything by giving up any opportunities! You know what they say about them and doors and such.
I'm doing a research project on Gamma Ray Astronomy this summer. So far, it hasn't necessarily been smooth sailing, and part of that has to do with my feeling more-than-usual homesick (it IS the summer, after all), with my computer crashing and my having lost all the data on it, with my tooth bearing a cavity, with a not-so-pleasant incident involving Facebook, and with cooking accidents, to say the least! My work space, however, has only made it so much easier for me, and some of the people I'm currently living with are really the sole ones making it calmer. That's the thing about DePauw--the people here are about as understanding as you can get. Just think about June and myself, for instance--I flew back home in the middle of the summer, and was able to work everything out both with my professor AND with housing! Oh, and I had another professor offer to even pick me up from the airport! Do you build relationships thick as pizza crust elsewhere on the planet? I think not!
But apart from sounding corny, which I'm trying really hard not to do--this hasn't been the best week for me, for many other reasons that I haven't yet named. I'm about ready to crack, and what's funny is that it's not at all during the school year. One would think that work would be the causality that would prompt me to be pushed over to the edge, but much on the contrary, it's this.. gap that's doing it to me. I know my friends say they miss DePauw like crazy, but is it possible to be AT DePauw and yet miss DePauw? Oh, contradictions... thou art so much the bane...
In any case, I'm really missing the regular school year and the feeling of being... important... to your school work, to your classes, to your professors and to your friends. And that, more so than anything, is what DePauw is truly about... being one, and yet all.
Let's hope my week gets better, although I won't count on it (yes, I do sound absurdly cheery in this post, but it's much easier to write happy than it is to talk happy!) and meanwhile, you'd better consider coming to DePauw. I know I can say so! :)
The Longest Partner You’ll Ever Have: TI-83 Akanksha Chawla
Monday mornings at 8 10 aren’t particularly my favourite time of the day to begin with, for it’s not until two point something hours later that my irises finally relent to the daylight and I really begin functioning like a regular person. What especially makes these Mondays exponentially more unbearable is an expected demand for a calculation in Astrophysics class, only to find that I’ve left my handy scientific calculator sitting back alone on my lonely Hogate desk.
Suffice it to say that I wasn’t always this parasitic, gadget-dependent being. When I was a science student for four years in my high school, calculators were a no-no. What could be considered Mental Math Madness became an integral part of who I was, for I found myself able to conduct a furious amount of calculations in an infinitesimal amount of time, and slowly begin to memorize what seemed like crazy multiplication rules into faraway corners of my brain. I didn’t know, then, that a world could exist where I wouldn’t have to exploit my brain in this hideous fashion and put it to use in inexorably different fields. I depended on my fingers and my cerebrum to make my feelings known, and my mathematical language spoken.
Math in America, however, is treated in a largely different manner. The reliance here seems to be more on practicality rather than manual methodologies, and I see it everywhere around me. The first day of Calculus class last semester, then, proved to me to be far bigger a culture shock than anything I’d yet experienced. ‘Where’s your graphing calculator?’ my professor asked me, as he looked down at my notebook and the messy graphs I’d attempted to scrawl in whilst the rest of the room punched in buttons into little machines with hidden brains.
‘I—I don’t have one. I’ve never used one,’ I then said, frightened that I had seemed to do the undoable.
His aghast reaction at my inability to work with calculators wasn’t the first, and a large multitude has followed since. I finally sold my soul and purchased a scientific calculator (lord knows how those graphing things work), and while I’m a lot slower punching things into it than I am with my fingers flying on paper, I’ve come to find that it’s not all as awry as I’d imagined it to be. I’m finally able to put my brain to a more analytical, real use, and the sands of time finally seem to have slowed to bodingly wait for my computations.
My sole concern, then, with our heavy reliance on these magical machines is this: I find, gradually, in my large array of physics and math classes, an unbearable dependence on these little devices, an inability to take an examination without the strength these little gadgets offer. Students around me have forgotten how to divide 0.1 by 2, or multiply 15 by 17 in their heads, or even on paper. Is this why we’re taught long division and even multiplication, the simplest, basic rules of math? If we can’t perform those simple mathematical operations easily without reaching for a calculator, why should we be expected to learn integration? Why should we be expected to learn anything complex, if we find ourselves unable to remember the basic?
I am uncertain as to whether there’s a real way around my observations, a way to ensure that the simplest things are done by hand and only the most complex left to machinery—for, after all, man does only make robots to simplify his existence. This unhealthy reliance on little devices, however, makes me look to a world where machines have, like demons, possessed mankind, and a world that believes in the loss of simplicity and the basic pleasures of solving something for your own. If that is indeed the world we’re vouching for, I find it hard to see how it can be a pleasant one to live in. After all, isn’t a lot of the real beauty in life seeing something evolve because of an action you induced into it? Isn’t that the beauty of math and science, an initial intelligent spark brightened by technology to only handle the complexities?
I'm about as liberal artsy a student at DePauw can get, in all honesty. My two majors include Physics and Creative Writing, with a minor each in Astronomy and English Literature. Oh, and I do two Programs of Distinction--one related to everything a liberal arts institution can offer (Honor Scholar) and the other to everything technology is about. Can you say I've bitten off more than I can chew? Because I sure can.
Now, whilst there are a million cons to this hectic situation (namely: grad schools don't want a random English major juxtaposed with physics, I can't complete enough courses I'd want to due to grad requirements, etc) I can't even begin to talk about the number of bonuses I've seen. What with the Physics community being such a small and close-knit one at DePauw, I've become such an integral part of it that I know everyone like the back of my hand, and I can spend countless hours just dropping in on professors or Physics majors. As a freshman, I'm already an integral part of two research projects, and I'm growing in ways I couldn't've imagined plausible.
The English community is harder to impact due to its large number, but nevertheless, increasingly warm. I've already made a bunch of professors my go-to ones, and some of them have been so taken by my writing that my current Writing professor thinks I can be published in a literary magazine. How many other small school professors work with you so closely to ensure you're going where you want to?
My programs of distinction are tricky, but nevertheless, an enriching experience all at once. HoScho is about as tiring a program as one can get, but in this way, I'm reaching out to departments (Classics, Econ, Biology) I would never have thought possible in my stay at DePauw... and yet, it's happening.
All in all, I have about as multifaceted an academically inclined student's view can get... and I'm one that's loving her diverse array of subject choices. It's only making me use the two sides of my brain so much more holistically, and I'm very grateful for the same.
College Students and Addictions: Does Facebook outdo Caffeine?
There was once a time when I strongly, affirmatively refused to give in to the norms of society and therefore set up a Facebook account. This was around the same time that I sneered at the sardonic beeps of cell phones, taking a mental oath to never purchase one. I believe in a simpler time, I’d tell the rest of the world, and receive odd looks in response. Gone are those days. Whilst the cell phone grudge still holds strong, I bear no shame (or perhaps I do, for isn’t that the first step in claiming you’re an addict?) to declare that I am officially a Facebook aficionado. And I’m not alone.
Now, I’m not saying I approve of this distasteful reliance on a website to link me to the outer world; all I’m saying is that if I really sat down and analyzed the inner workings of my existence, I would come up with no possible means of communicating with civilization had Facebook not brightened my incommunicado personality. The sad thing is, however, that this has pushed me (and you, too, who’re reading this just for the title) to bizarre limits of spending hours playing PacMan on Top Friend # 2’s wall and turning up the volume to hear that tap-tap sound Facebook Chat makes in a manner that really qualifies it as a guilty pleasure to not knowing how to react when your professor on your friend’s list updates his status to: ‘… is writing some butt-kicking exams…’ when you know it’s your butt in turn that’s going to be kicked. Some would proclaim that the pleasures Facebook brings into our lives are many: from being in on the loop in the lives of the friends you’ve left behind, to being able to stalk Cute Guy # 1 endlessly (and don’t you love that profile viewers don’t show up here?!) to little ‘like buttons’ for status updates. Wow, I sound like that person who gives you his twelve reasons to enjoy alcohol. And this comes from the person who, not many months ago, swore to herself she wouldn’t give in to the norms of regular society.
The truth is, Facebook gives you a break from reality into reality… and twisted as that sounds, it helps you break away from being constantly surrounded by people—which, in essence, is what college is all about—to being able to push back the fact that you have two papers in a class due the next day and you haven’t even read that book yet. All of this draws me to the question of what a day, or a week, or any such extended period of time, for that matter, would be like without Facebook. Of course, this is a ridiculously subjective question, and everyone has but their own viewpoints: there are some who cannot imagine an evening without it, whilst there are others who barely, if ever, even stop to check their Walls (and I am largely envious of these aforementioned folks for obvious reasons). By and large, though, the point remains that our reliance on Facebook—to not only catch up with the rest of the world but to push away the melodramas raging in our heads—has magnified to such an extent that it is inordinately impossible to imagine a world without the website. And I’m not sure if this is a good thing. If my grandmother were reading this right now, she’d say, ‘Facebook! When we were children, we’d read books! None of this booking-face nonsense!’ If my mother were reading this, she’d say, ‘Facebook! When I was a kid, I’d watch TV on Sunday afternoons, not spend hours on some stupid SOCIAL NETWORKING site!’ And that’s precisely what the point is: it’s you who’s reading this right now, and the best (worst?) part is that you know exactly where I’m coming from.
So until we find that particle the Large Hadron Collider is meant to find and the world makes sense again, let’s all just take a break from life and Facebook it up!
Here is an article I recently wrote (and published) for the DePauw:
Hills Like White Elephants, and Grudgingly So: A Winter’s Tale Akanksha Chawla
There are more than a mere few things considered unfortunate for the fated recipient of a loud and blaring wake-up call from a defying-your-ordinary-expectations midget-sized alarm clock at seven-ten every morning of the week. One of these things is hitting your littlest toe against the bottom rung of the ladder positioned slantingly against your lofted bed, and yet another is splashing frigid water onto your poor eyelids to wake you up out of what was a potentially lulling slumber. But then there’s the cruelest of all: opening, and unleashing your irises to the evil, sardonic whiteness (and brightness) that is the outside snow.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Let me flash you back to the first morning the whiteness took control over my brain: the first of December, 2008. I was awoken to a picture I can only proclaim to be something out of a postcard. The window on my roommate’s side of the room seemed to contain and capture an image worth a thousand words—the grassy greens I had come to know and love encovered and blanketed by a thick, soft sheet of whiteness. I couldn’t quite contain my glee then. I hopped outside (to the misery of the friends who had to walk with me, for anyone who’s seen me knows that I should not be one to hop any place) and didn’t take any time to give in to the wonders of the whiteness etched before me. I considered the skies miraculous. I considered the snow impetuous. It was the prettiest ground I had ever walked upon, and when it melted the grass looked like it glittered—even at night, when it seemed like the icy black blades of glass were sparkling in a sinister fashion. It was beautiful; it was majestic, it was godly, and then some.
And then came the tugging, flugging cold that was January, and I knew that the whiteness was really the tricky fruit of temptation, because with it came its nemesis and yet inevitable sidekick: The Ice. One, especially an international student who’s spent most her life playing with sand and arrived at the United States thinking sand and snow to really just be the opposing poles of a magnet (in that they’re so different they’re almost the same), should not assume that ice and snow go hand in hand. Because whilst the snow is pretty to observe and gets caught up in your boots in an annoying fashion and sticks to your hair, its evil twin, or Ice, is indelibly and incredibly worse. Ice masquerades and imposters itself in that wondrous whiteness, and while it’s at it, ensures that the friction Newton supposed to proclaim imminent dies out in a cruel fashion, and has you ultimately sprawled upon it on multiple occasions, oddly positioned and usually embarrassed to be flattened in a way that’s almost never pretty, with nothing but chills running up and down all sorts of places and a cruel laugh you can almost hear coming from within the inane coldness. It’s that simple, and yet, for those of us that are gravitationally challenged (like an embarrassed me, upon most occasions), that much more cruel.
And then come the fated mornings that the temperature is reaching all sorts of milli-Kelvins and you feel like you’re cascading down a path enamoured by liquid nitrogen and the nose hairs in your nose have frozen, and it is then that you realize that it is worth it merely because you know you can make your way to a building that promises warmth if only you choose to open its door. And it is when that warmth emanates around you and enters your soul that you feel truly numb to all that is the cold, and you feel like you’ve finally conquered the ability to defrost your numbed brain. That proud, warm bastion of a building you’ve but chosen to enter really is a large microwave, and let’s just thank the lords (or the wonderful Heat Suppliers of DePauw) for the very same.
So it’s cruel, and it’s cold, and it’s chilling, but the truth is, now that I’ve experienced the many manias snow has brought into my life, I cannot imagine a winter without it. Coldly cruel as it is, it is watching the skies let out their last hopes of limpidness that makes the moment worth it, and anyone who’s stood out for a moment, catching those tiny white flakes and watching them melt upon the wool of your black gloves, looking around to see the ground get roofed and masqueraded with an inexorable whiteness, and running around to merely watch yourself get stuck into a whirlpool of frozen fun that makes it all so inordinately worth it. Like it or not, snow is here to stay. The best we can do is to enjoy the picture it paints outside our windows.
I don't know if I'm really allowed to put poems on here, but I really am proud of this one, so I'd like to share it with you.
window seat
seventeen sluggish hours to touchdown we tighten our belts and hopes and her musical voice warns so unlike the rough sparkle of your own that I always thought I could choke on (it tasted so much like cider) and yellow flashes with babies’ screams and two minutes later we’ve left the cemented tarred greyness and air greets us and pressure meets us my ears tense like your smiles used to soft clouds buzz by as one thousand feet up dizzied, drained, drudged we unbuckle our sighs and reach for relief you would have hated this two fuzzy cuffs play Don’t Panic in my head and you never did like that song I count clouds like you and I counted dreams and then one by one watched them disappear they stick to the tail and we find ourselves falling and everyone’s shaking and everyone’s screaming the fuzzy muffs play Sugar, we’re going down but clouds aren’t so cruel, burned chicken dinners are I butter my bun like you used to rub your warm hands on my cold fingers sixteen now, and I wonder how slowly grains fall when I measure them slowly clouds move when I count them clocks always melted with you because frozen seconds couldn’t see us together and there was never an always but ever a never this clock won’t melt like this dinner won’t cool and we’re so in mid-air like my whispers always were like your silences always were and that was the only always I knew goodbyes were always less than sixteen now, please these sixteen are always, the always I now know and will be always for without you my time is always an endless plane ride with sloppy dinners and no leg space and always being stuck next to the old woman with a mustache when her other side gets the sexy Italian
So... another interesting DePauw assignment that gets you thinking. Here it goes.
Lunchtime
I am the large, bespectacled nineteen year old who’s had far too many citizenships to really be sure of where she’s from, the food aficionado who, to the disdain of many, primarily one Zach Donisch, mixes ketchup and mayonnaise everyday for lunch and isn’t even sorry about it, the antisocial occupant of the Physics lounge every single day of the blessed week, the accented astrophysicist who always has an opinion about everything, the ridiculously uncoordinated slob who cannot perform anything that integrates balls and locomotion of any kind (or wait, that sounded largely wrong, I’ll rephrase that. I mean: SPORTS), the person whose foot is perpetually lodged into her mouth, the messy roommate who cannot tolerate music being on when she’s studying and/or sleeping, that thing in the kitchen you can never get to offer any kind of assistance but is ever-ready when Tasting Time beckons, and, amongst many other idiosyncratic characteristics, the person who sits on the far right of this room and always has laptop charger issues. But I am also the person who’s been on mood stabilizers for as long as she can remember, the one who likes to question answers endlessly, the one who hates snow with a vengeance because sand is infinitely and eminently cooler, and the one that is so quietly boring you’d think she doesn’t have a personality. I am the sadist who is in stark hope that the world ends in 2012 so that we can all snuff it at once and those characteristically afraid of the prospect of dying can say, ‘This is it, Mike, see ya on the other side!’ as their parting words and still be honoured. I am that annoying kid who always sits on the front seat in class and raises her hand to every question, the inspirited complaint-bearer who thinks shopping is such a pain because you go and try out 29 different items of clothing before you buy anything, the person whose favourite guilty pleasure is playing scrabble on weekends and who can always be seen buying the exact same meal from the Den for dinner because I loathe the idea of change. I am the geek that has never been to a DePauw party (read: NEVER) or consumed alcohol, who watches horror movies as if they were daily renditions of the Dark Knight, who lets her roommate believe that she’s betrothed to an Arabic sheikh to accord for the papers said roommate once witnessed that are really social security documents, and who will always bear a strong love for ketchup and mayonnaise, no matter what. And that’s just the way I’m going to be.
I peer deeper into the stone bowl, that looks just about as ordinary as last night’s cold leftover pizza (which, in retrospect, I’d warned myself not to think about in order to maintain the levels of my barf reflex in balance), and wonder if imaginatively tossing silvery stuff into what looks like a pitiful old pot from somebody’s dying garden is worth a trip down memory lane. ‘Huh,’ I say to myself. A second later, my eyes are closed, the silvery stuff is somewhere in the vicinity of my mind’s eye so I can see a not-so-tempting mulch of seventh birthdays entwined with toe fractures by falling into cow dung cakes three feet deep, getting As in class intermingled with endless plane rides, fish funerals interspersed with last night’s homework and the cat thinking of it as a potentially perfect spot to nap on. And the ride hath begun.
I’m nine, and my two-day old goldfish, Velvet, has decided to lodge itself to one corner (check that, spherical fishbowls don’t have corners) in a bizarre, stoic fashion. She’s not particularly responsive to my numerous taps, either. I wonder if she’s drugged from an overdose of repulsive-looking-too-small-to-fill-anything-fish food. Mum says she’s dead, and that it’d be a good idea to flush her out, and get rid of that ‘awful stench’—that awful stench that is the last that remains of what used to be my goldfish. I abide by my mother’s commands, and Velvet is flushed. A couple of hours later, however, I hear my mother screaming from the bathroom in response to something ‘orange swimming in the toilet!’ And Velvet has made it—lord alone knows what she had to witness, endure, or experience, but she’s back from the world of crap and untimely deaths! Tis a good day for all of us. Fade to orange.
The orange swiftly assumes a spherical shape, a lone ball amidst a myriad others encased into a severely netted enclosure. I’m in a ball pool, surrounded by—and what I’m about to say may sound very wrong to the highly imaginative—balls. It’s my favourite hiding spot at the local Herfy’s. (Footnote: Herfy’s is a Saudi Arabian fast-food joint that serves the best French fries, only they don’t call them French fries, because that, for them, would be politically incorrect. And it has the best ball pools in the world). I’m ecstatic, beating and batting against balls, unable to stand, unable to sit, just bouncing up and down amidst a bunch of colourful things I have now come to loathe for I cannot play a single sport that involves them (and most, unfortunately, do).
The scene fades to purple, and I’m made aware of the feel of a rather large and oddly-shaped purple coloured turban sitting on my head whilst I’m dressed as an Indian sikh MALE (which is not a particularly easy feat to accomplish), and I’m made reminiscent of a play I was the lead character in that had the audience in splits. Perhaps it was the turban. I think… I should definitely wear a turban more often. It’d make such a statement.
The scene fades to one in my Lit class last semester, and we’re reading a story on ancient Indian gurus, when the guy sitting next to me who always looks like he drinks far too much milk pokes me in the shoulder and goes, ‘hey, you’re Indian, right? So can you, like, do ancient Indian voodoo and stuff?’ I am at a loss for words, for nothing should undermine this moment. I think, ‘sure, so after this class, get me a soda, or I’ll blow one of your eyebrows off,’ but I say, ‘Um, no?,’ because it’s bad enough that he looks so mortified. A week later, a friend buys me a bottle of Dragon’s Blood—a scent from Walmart named only too originally—and I decide to bring the bottle to class everyday and set it dramatically onto my desk. The guy finally musters up the courage to point to the bottle and frightfully ask—‘What’s that?’ I stop dramatically. I turn to look at him with the fiercest look I can gather. ‘NEVER ask me about the bottle,’ I say. The guy doesn’t know what to think, and I don’t even feel bad for insulting his intelligence or ignorance or anything.
That memory fades to another, which escalates to another, and I’m left thinking about all the fears, regrets, and idiosyncrasies about myself I’ve come to gather in one sitting alone. I sit deeper in my chair, my eyes still closed, giving in to that trek down memory lane, and allowing my mind to take full control of it. Maybe the bowl isn’t all that pathetic, after all.
ks and movies imaginable? I'm just so glad that I've availed of the opportunity to become a member of it! And what better time to do so than the summer? You simply walk up there (and it's very much within walking distance), and you're free to check out up to 50 items! It just doesn't get better. What's even nicer is that they'll request other stuff from other libraries for you, too, and they'll hold things for you if you need them. It's just great! 
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