by Rajesh Kumar
Summer 2004
Hello friends and foes,
Granted that I do not possess the intricate talent to make myself any foes, I certainly think I've made more number of friends than I was originally allotted. Thanks guys!
First-off, thumbs up to Andrei for having reminded me of an "IB Forum" and inspiring me to take time off my work and post a message up here. I was quite disappointed to discover my "request" to post a "Hi!" message to be taken as a compulsive order. Nevertheless, I'm happy to see that out of the 33 fellow IBers I had invited, 15 of you were kind enough to show up, and 5 were brave enough to actually file a post. We must call ourselves the "Gang-of-Five."
Apart from making a post, some (cough) people have even been so "clickative" that they (cough, sorry, have been suffering from some throat congestions lately) find themselves altering my dear board's info box. But whoever changed it—not that I can't find out who—I think "altercations" is a very good choice of word. Kudos.
As for how my summer's passing, I have just one beautiful adjective to describe it all: Awesome. Just simple, plain, awesome. Nothing more, nothing less. (Peter, sorry if you take offense.)
The past two months have been very quiet, both at this board and in my life. I've had plenty time to contemplate and build the exact foundation that I have so clearly envisioned for my future. It's all like a jigsaw puzzle that I used to love fiddling with when I was a kid. Everything seems to fit in place to form a very clear, distinct and picturesque scenery.
To keep me busy, I've begun my own part-time business, and hence my inability (or unavailability rather) to post here. Even after spending a good part of my day reading, writing and corresponding over the Internet, and catching some Greek news periodically, there seems to be extra time left behind, allowing me to accomplish all that I had planned for during the last week of June. I've thankfully completed most of my work with just a few cleanup tasks left behind. My TODO list got so long that I virtually found myself needing a full-blown spreadsheet to keep track of them all!
Other than that, I've learned a lot by attending summer school. Biology 12 was unbelievably straightforward and easy. The provincial exam was a no-sweat job. I can't wait to find my score. During my 6-week summer schooling, I made some great friends, and also got acquainted with a wonderful teacher who has a remarkable talent for awakening even the dumbest portions of my brain. I'm even happy to have gotten closer to Martha and Brittney (as friends) — two people I've always wanted to know more about, but have never found the opportunity to. Speaking of Martha, I'm just returning from Martha's and Kelsey's journals, and both have had very interesting things to recount. Martha, of course, who keeps me enthralled by her very garrulous rants, and Kelsey, as always, known for her brevity and non-verbosity. How very contrary to the trends of today!
Speaking of Kelsey's (and the unspoken Heather's) journal, I decided a couple weeks ago to volunteer some of my programming services to LiveJournal. Alas, they seem not to want me, and so I have given up with the venture. I decided to start my own project instead, codenamed POBS (the one and only free, open-source and functionally working PHP Obscurer.)
Hopefully, all of you have had a chance to check out your Mathematics Provincial Examination marks. I couldn't have been any more displeased with my mark. My Calculus textbook, which Mrs. Bathella was generous enough to lend me, gets up at 3 in the mornings and whispers in my ear: "Pshh, Rajesh, where's that 3% you lost in your provincials?" Sometimes, it even plays a confusing orchestra of interrogatory and interjecting punctuation sequences like this: "??!?!!?!" And I begin to have unpleasant nightmares thereafter.
Well, if that's aside, I guess I could tell you about my evenings. I've been playing a lot of chess lately, hoping to sharpen both my axe and my axle. I've been trying to juggle something for weeks galore, and have met with unprecedented failure. I've however mastered the art of juggling with just one date (note the pun with the brown, sugary fruit). I've memorized the periodic table—only the first 60 I admit—just for kicks. I'm trying to memorize this orange-green "RoadSense for Drivers" book, but the attractive pictures won't permit me to do so. I flirted for a while with differentiation, vector geometry and functional analyses, but when it came to integration, I got knocked off my chair. I'm trying to write myself a program that will help me learn all the capitals in the world, both forwards and backwards. I've written another program in Python that will prettily print Pascal's triangle for me. I've been playing around with a few Linux distributions, and am looking for a good school-bag, and am eagerly awaiting this week's NY Times' book reviews. I'm disappointed with the Harvard Gazette for not having any noteworthy stories published. I'm playing around with my GMail account; 1 GB's not quite satisfactory. And after all the fun and frolic, I've just finished with Philip Stratford's very eloquently written afterword.
I, I and I. When will I quit being so egotistical? So immature? When will the imaginary letter 'i' find itself alive? Is it when h, d, and e collectively surround it and have it phagocytosized, obscuring it in the process? Is it when it combines with the magical Euler's e, and becomes buddies with the coquettish yet irrational pi to give us a trigonometric belly dance on graph paper?
Besides that, hmmm, let's see. What have I done? I've managed to write a half-dozen essays, the Extended Essay being one of them. I should be done in the next couple of days if everything goes according to schedule. I've even had the good-fortune to write an essay for the IB World Web international magazine, and if the hour is on my side and the time crisp, they might include it in their next issue. Hope they do. I shall post my essay onto the Internet shortly for the interested to peruse.
I guess I could go on and on, rambling about my daily activities and skilfully boring the beast within you, but I figure both you and I need a break. Before I develop any symptoms of RSI or CTS, off I head to brush my teeth afore I land on my cozy cot to spend the rest of the peaceful night dreaming about the twilight stars.
Cheers mes amis!
Addendum: Since I figure you can't reply to this post, and if you'd like to be absolutely certain I read your reply, please Cc your replies to rks@meetrajesh.com. As an added benefit, you will also get a modest reply in turn. Cheers!
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