essays, phase test, and bleach

I’ve just realized that the University of California essays are due in TEN DAYS, and I’m only a quarter of the way through one of them. (There are two.) You will find that it can be unbelievably hard, sometimes, to write about the simplest of things – in this case, yourself. The Common Application essays and Stanford’s supplemental essays were much easier in this respect, because they anticipated significantly more elaborate and interesting responses. The UC, system, however, seems to delight in pushing applicants into a corner by asking them to write about the “world [they] come from” – as if such a thing could possibly qualify as an interesting essay topic. The second essay question asks the applicant to describe an experience/a quality that he or she possesses/a contribution/an accomplishment that he or she is proud of. Describing a personal quality would only come across as boring and boastful, while talking about a contribution one has made when one hasn’t made any would be unconvincing and really hard to write about. Which leaves experience and accomplishment. Since I couldn’t think of anything better, I chose to write about the time a few of my classmates and I performed a play I wrote for the farewell party for the graduating class. I’ve managed to write nearly two hundred potentially interesting words on it, but that’s about as far as I’ve managed to get. Which brings me back to my first sentence: THERE ARE ONLY TEN DAYS LEFT!

The phase test, on the other hand, went predictably badly, and I’m still looking for a good enough vindication for my performance so that I don’t resort to self-pitying, as I have a tendency to do when there’s nothing else to blame. Chemistry annoyed the life out of me, and I’ve never hated it more in my life – which is not a very nice thing for me to say as a student, I know. This was the second-last phase test, which really makes me wonder at how quickly these two years have gone by, despite their unpleasantness and the stress. The Indian education system as it is at present has got me thinking that people have ceased to value intelligence, and prefer hard work more. It makes sense, when you’re in a world where so much has to be done, and competence is so hard to come by. There are dozens of people in our school who score top grades because they slog, and are brainwashed by their parents and teachers into believing that studying is the only life they have. Not to be mean, but some of them are not particularly intelligent. They only do well because they cling to their teachers’ every word, and spend ten hours a day studying. They score shockingly well on tests, but don’t really have a scientific mind. When you look into their eyes, you don’t see curiosity, enthusiasm, or a thirst for knowledge – you see the dull blankness of a mind that’s been conditioned to do something it doesn’t comprehend. They probably don’t even know why they want to get into IIT, or what they want to do in life. They want to get in, because they’ve been told it would make them successful, or because they would be kicked out of their families if they didn’t. It’s true that once such people do get into IIT, while others who were smarter but simply didn’t work hard enough, don’t, you don’t question their right to study there – they did earn it. But how effective would their studying at IIT be? They don’t even know why they’re there to begin with – only that someone once told them it was their final goal. I’m not denying that intelligent people don’t get into IIT nowadays, because they do, and in hoards. But the system, as I see it, is making it increasingly easy for less talented people to get through. All they have to do is – yeah – spend ten, maybe twelve hours a day studying, without necessarily comprehending much or anything at all – but who cares if you don’t know why an image stares back at you when you look into a mirror, as long as you know the formula to calculate image position in systems of spherical reflecting surfaces? In a few decades’ time, IIT will cease to be the dream school of all except the most stubbornly patriotic Indians, because the JEE would only be open to robots.

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Bleach is becoming stupider by the chapter. For one thing, Aizen deserved a less ignoble defeat. I mean, come on, how can you justify 400+ chapters of evil by saying the Hogyoku simply decided to turn against Aizen, or that Urahara, by some miracle, happened to be smarter than Aizen, or – and this is the best one – that Aizen got bored of being an unbeatable evil overlord, and gave up his powers so that he could die in peace, knowing that he’d finally met someone worthy of being called an opponent – viz. Ichigo, of all predictable characters. I would think Central 46 only sentenced him to 20,000 years of imprisonment because they didn’t have any means to kill him – which is pathetic, considering all that he’s done, and could have done. They conveniently decided to ignore the possibility that, if Aizen singlehandedly destroyed the Central 46 once before, and evaded capture for 400 chapters while almost destroying the Soul Society, maybe there isn’t anything they have that could keep Aizen from escaping and doing all that once again for 20,000 years. And then are those annoying unanswered questions – those loose ends that were never tied up. What happened to Grimmjow? From what I remember, he was never shown to have actually died. Or did he die when Nnoitra hit him with his scythe? Considering he was such a popular character, the least they could have done was to show Grimmjow’s body rotting away in Hueco Mundo’s sands – just so people could stop expecting the Espada to somehow come back. Face it, these last two story arcs are going to be the worst ever.