Veeksha's Vibes

  The full blog: https://veekshasvibes.blogspot.com/2022/02/how-roadkill-led-to-education.html

There are some unusual titles in this list. While following it, I also made some rules for myself so that I don't get discouraged to stop reading them. The most important of them being to read in no specific order, to give myself an illusion of choice, because we all know being forced to do something never allows us to enjoy the activity. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell My dad read this book and recommended me to read it when I was older. Blink goes through the thought process of untrained minds and almost trains the reader as the book progresses. I tried reading it when I was 11 and put it away due to the sheer complexity. I'm pretty sure this book will have a lasting impact on me, so this is the one I'll try to read the earliest to benefit the most. The Little P rince - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry After having taken French for 4 years, I think it is very disappointing that I haven't read the most notable French novel. I watched the movie...

The sun beaming on me brightly Sweat running down my face Deep emerald grass offering some relief And the trees offering more My calves slightly aching  And an endless energy coming from my chest My mind is floating  And so am I Ignoring the limits of my body Feels like I rise 10 feet effortlessly with every jump Agility is peaking One more round and we’ll call it No, I meant two Let's do another The disk flies to me, and I miss the catch Finally breaking the tie in the other team’s favor We lost, but it’s the happiest moment for everyone The highlight of their day Free from the disappointment losing brings  True sportsmanship Derived from friendship I write poems mostly for myself, and this poem brings back special memories mostly for me since only I can understand every part of the environment. I tried to bring out the timeless feeling that comes when we are spending time with friends and the out-of-body experience that comes with prolonged physical exertion and someh...

I know poetry is supposed to be abstract and leave room for unique interpretations, but those are what I fear the most. What if I get it wrong? What if I wrongly interpret the one thing the poet spent countless hours contemplating and make the poem go to waste? Is it the poet's fault for not being specific enough, or mine for not looking deeper? It might just be a personal problem, even while I'm daydreaming, I try not to contemplate philosophical questions which I know for sure can't have answers because, like the poems, they will only lead to more and more contemplating and result in mental strain. The only time however when I try to contemplate a poem is when I find something I disagree about. Now that I think about it, the best work I write is when I don't agree with someone/something. Take for example this poem I wrote in eighth grade as a response to Robert Frost. (please don't judge, it was almost 4 years ago) Rocks  (I had to meet the word count for the assi...

Getting through this year has been quite challenging, to say the least. I found myself burnt out most of the time, but I wouldn't describe it as "senioritis." My motivation and focus were constantly disturbed by questions such as "why am I doing all this for" and "what is the point of me being here?" At many points in the year, I lost all motivation as well and it was a struggle to get back into the flow. I also had many more opportunities to reflect on the kind of person I am because of college apps, and I have concluded... that I still have no idea what I am. So I'll start with my goal: I want to find a sense of purpose before I graduate. There are so many things that interest me and a lot of things I am good at, it seems like there is a platter of opportunity laid in front of me with so many good choices that it's left me overwhelmed (by platter I'm not talking about college majors or acceptances). In order to know which one is the best ...

          Zoya from Playing Metal Gear V and Meursault from The Stranger have very different ways of dealing with their problems. However, the coping mechanisms they use to do so are very similar. Zoya’s coping mechanism of sublimation and denial results negatively for his conscience while those exact mechanisms result positively for Meursault’s conscience. The two different outcomes show how much other conditions can affect someone’s conscience despite doing the same actions. Coping mechanisms are methods the human mind uses to decrease stress. If you are stressed, anxious, or mad about something, you may throw things across the room or express your emotions by painting or writing. You might even choose to block out your stress by completely ignoring the fact that it exists, which, creates more underlying stress for most people. The coping mechanisms mentioned in this analysis are sublimation, and denial. One thing to note about coping mechanisms is tha...

  I'll start by saying this movie is a masterpiece and this scene brings out more anxiety than my worst nightmares.  Christopher Nolan is one of my favorite directors, and his use of POV in this scene was done beautifully. The camera starts with a bird's eye of Cooper's ship and the crew, showing the sheer size and emptiness of Miller's Planet. It makes the crew seem insignificant and fragile even when they could be the only reason humanity survives the dying Earth. The camera doesn't even show the horizon, signaling that there is something coming but doesn't make it certain. This starts the building of tension. The next shot is still facing away from the horizon keeping the uncertainty for a bit longer. Switching to Cooper's POV, showing a peaceful horizon while a minor tone in the music causes sensory disagreement. It makes the viewer wonder, "Everything looks fine, but why doesn't it sound fine?” Anne Hathaway finally comments about the "mou...

 We laugh for many different reasons, at our ourselves, at others doing questionable things, and sometimes because we are just happy. But my question is how exactly we developed the physical process of making rhythmic exhales as a way to react to something "funny." To date, humans are the only species known to understand and react to humor. But according to National Geographic, apes and rats also have their form of laughing/giggling in response to tickles, but not humor. Everything we have evolved to be is for a good reason, so what is it that made humans decide that humor was important? Every search I did left me at “laughing releases endorphins and dopamine” but we all know that. The one thing that sets us apart from other species is language that gives us the ability to convey complex feelings and messages. And we can only do this with others. The purpose of humor now is not much different than it was centuries ago, to bring people together and form connections. This could...

It's easy to think of time as a line, you can easily go back and remember what happened and think of what other possibilities can do for the multiverse. I always thought it would be great if I could use a time machine to go back to myself before high school started and tell myself all the mistakes I would make and somehow erase the "timeline" where I am not at my full potential. From the hundreds of movies we've seen about time travel, we know that it won't work and result in a worse reality.  I think time is more of a force that exists, one that affects different things in different ways. Like how a feather and a rock act differently with the same amount of gravity. Some things age faster, and some slower, like the lifespan of a mushroom, compared to that of a tree. Time can also exist at different intensities, we know that time moves slower near more massive objects (Interstellar for those of you who have seen it). The other thing about time being a force means ...

Human connections can greatly influence actions for better or worse. Having no connections can deprive someone of the knowledge that comes from interaction, and having many connections can sometimes be overwhelming or harmful as seen in many literary works. Therefore, it can be debated whether we need human connections or not. Oedipus is a tragedy, which means people suffer, most of all Oedipus. One thing that sets him apart from the others is how many connections he has. He has connections with his wife, his children, other people in his family, and more importantly, his people. These connections are what caused him to care about who killed Laius. Had he not been the king of Thebes, the feelings of the people would not have mattered and the plague would have been something unchangeable by him. This way, he wouldn’t have looked into the prophecy, ultimately causing him less harm. The human connection led him to harm, this is why many leadership positions are considered dangerous In “Go...

Disclaimer: only half of this story is true, I’ll let you decide which half  It was an ordinary summer day, waking up at 11 am, spending every hour outside in the sun, riding bikes, splashing in the pool and hide and seek with a boundary of 1/4 square miles, and returning only to consume a meal or for well-needed hydration. Our favorite thing to do was play frisbee. After 2 hours of playing, we would get tired and lose accuracy, throwing at trees and road signs instead of people. I happened to throw it at the old neighbor's porch window. We panicked and ran to the parking lot, the only place out of his line of vision. We sent someone to peek and he saw the man looking outside for culprits who inflicted "damage" on his window.  We all got a good look at him that day and gave him the name "muscle man" or M&M for short. This name was given because you could always see him working out but he never gained any muscle. The next few weeks went on without trouble unt...

As I was looking through one of the agendas for this class, the question of fate vs. free will stood out to me. Don't worry, I won't be taking a stance right now, this is more of my thoughts on the question itself. When I hear fate vs. free will, I instantly think of the simulation hypothesis (where we are all NPCs in an insignificant reality) as the bigger picture. This reality is being controlled by divine beings and they create the world we live in along with all the rules that make up what we know as the laws of the universe. These divine beings could be doing this for their own entertainment by chuckling at our embarrassing mistakes like how we chuckle at the main character struggling to confess his feelings to the female lead. If we ever find proof of the simulation reality, this will be the first thing we have to determine.  Part of me hopes we aren't living in the simulation, but there's another part that wants to witness the simulation break and see who's b...

Ever since I read the Icarus poems, the question has been bothering me: do you go all out, or stay safe? When I was 3, my grandfather had just finished lighting a candle and blew out the match. At that age, the only thing I wanted to do was to be considered old enough to light a candle with a match by myself. I felt so ready to hold a match and put my hand forward to grab the match so that I could light it again. I went ahead and put my finger right where the flame had just been much too fast for anyone to stop me. I got a nice surprise when I realized that the fire being out doesn't mean the match was cold already. I took a risk, and I suffered consequences, it's a different story that I didn't have the knowledge to act reasonably. But taking risks is essential yet damaging anyway you look at it. Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk definitely didn't get where they are today without taking risks, they have had pitfalls and wins, but because of their risks, they found out what they...

The title is bringing back some memories for people who took psych.  So basically, the nature/nurture dilemma is the argument on whether your genes predetermine you, (your actions, personality, skills, everything about you) or the environment, the way you were raised, and the memories you exclusively experienced determines you. This also includes sexuality.  There are many indications that humans are largely based on nature. For example, in a psychology study, identical triplets were separated right at birth, they never got to contact each other after birth and neither did they know they were missing their other two siblings. They later grew up to have almost identical preferences and lives - they all played the same sport in school, they had the same taste in women, and even smoked the same cigarette brand. The documentary trailer of the study if you are interested :) This happened in the 1960s though, when being LGBTQ+ wasn't prominent or great, and all triplets were straigh...

    First, I would like to apologize for posting this late. Second, we need to talk about the flowers     The book starts off with flowers, at first it just looks like Wilde was normally describing flowers, but if you look closely, there is something bad about each flower. "The rich odour of roses …  heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink flowering thorn ."     The definition of "odour" or "odor" (according to google) is " a distinctive smell, especially an unpleasant one. " Even though roses look beautiful, they have something unpleasant or disgusting about them. This also applies for the "heavy scent", the first thing I thought of when I read those words was that one person we all know that walks and smells so heavily of perfume that it makes a whole room smell like the scent days after they've left. Again, not positive. The thorn plant is self explanatory. Wilde almost sends the message that nothing ...

               There are a ton of people who brought me to where I am now and I can't leave this class without mentioning the reason I passed. First, I'll start with my classmates. Elizabeth, who was always willing to talk to me during class when we had to share ideas, and constantly breaking my morning when she reminded me about the in-class essays every week. You showed me how much I was forgetting to consider and made me see the simpler side of language. Because of last year, I thought it was impossible to get ideas across without using complex diction and I was insanely lost. Shambhavi, who set an example with her analysis during our discussions, you made me realize that it’s ok to express ideas that aren’t obvious to everyone else because there is not one right answer all the time.                This is going to sound weird, but watching mov...

     This was taken moments after disaster. I was about 3 and a half and me and my family took a trip to these falls everyone had been talking about. Being three years old, I had no control over my energy and used it up before we got there. While I was extremely tired, someone offered to take a group picture of us, but I didn't want my face to be seen at that time, so I kept turning away from the camera. This went on for about 15 minutes or so.       It was then that my family decided to bribe me with food so that I would actually stand still. They forgot to consider one important factor though, there were hundreds of thieves around us, small, furry, demons that we named monkeys. The sound of the packet of cookies was enough for half of them to turn at us. Nearly 3 seconds after the packet was handed to me, a strong, swift force managed to take away my happiness. I was never the same after this experience, the monkey the proceeded to jump to an inacces...

     India is home to a lot of weird food customs. I was really excited to visit and spend some time with my extended family I rarely get to see, but I was almost spending more time consuming fruit and fruit derived product. If at any time you go to a household in India, they will offer you either juice, tea, or fresh mango, and in the unfortunate situation that you refuse all, they may resort to forcing some food down your throat against your will. This culture was more prominent back when my dad was a kid, he consistently tells stories of going to his aunt’s house to just talk to his cousin for a few minutes and come back, but he wasn’t allowed to leave until he had a full meal (no matter what he had eaten before).      In my eyes that was just pure torture, but this practice is very understandable if we travel back in time. My great aunt, (the aunt that forced my dad to eat) and probably her ancestors, were told to always offer food to a guest. Not only ...

     This one is a ritual of amusement, unlike the others that take up only a few minutes of the day, this one can take hours together. The people would sit in front of magic windows that would glow in different patterns to make pictures of something else. It was almost like a drawing that could move. When the first magic window was made, it only showed things in black and white, later as the people's tools got more advanced, they could make windows that showed color. Only the nobles of the village could purchase these at first but as they became more common and affordable, more people were willing to waste their lives staring into them. Through this, many stories would be told that sometimes changed the way the people saw their world.  Sometimes these stories would be more educational than what they learned in their schools. They would also be more enjoyable too because hundreds of them would be made every year and the people would have a variety to choose from. Thr...

Firoozeh Dumas goes through the hardship she experienced when she was a new immigrant through her name. I can relate to this not because of my name but because of my accent.  Lets face it, my accent was the most cringe in the whole class. There were others with accents but they weren't nearly as bad as mine. I moved to Troy when I was 5 (still developing language and speech). Learning English during this time was especially as hard because of that, and I would refrain form socializing or playing with other kids because it all involved speaking English, something I wasn't good at yet.  I could start to tell that people didn't like spending time with me because of my accent in 2nd grade. There were a few other Indians in my class, most of them wore the same clothes and had the same backpack aesthetic as me. Everything was the same except the accent. This drove my confidence and morale down by a lot. I would play on the swings and monkey bars by myself most of the time. In thi...