On Life's Ambitions

      Arian Foster, the NFL running back, didn't always have such a positive reputation. As a child, his teachers found it hard to encourage him toward his goal of being in the NFL. They said it was very unlikely he would be famous, that he wasn't running back material. He was not discouraged, and through hard work and perseverance, he eventually became the popular, awarded running back he had always dreamed of being. This story reminds me of the quote from the film Akeelah and the Bee: We may ask ourselves "Who am I to be famous, athletic, heroic?". Actually, who are we not to be?

      Although this story is optimistic and feel-good, I think that in most cases, if people tell you you can't do something, it means that you can't do it. If achieving your dream means disregarding the advice of many of your friends, constant hard work and frequent basic mistakes, I don't think it would be worth it. I think the much wiser thing to do is to look for a job you're already good at and pursue it to easily become a renowned expert at it. If this job happens to be your ambition anyway, then you're all set.

A Sad Story

       Carol Anne Brown was a girl who wanted above all else to race in the soap box derby, a championship in which children build motorless cars and race them around a track. She was a great racer and an inspiration to her family, her coach, and all those who saw her in the big races. However, as she got older, it was apparent to her parents (unintentional rhyme) that she had a secret double life (quite literally). She would arrive home hours after she was scheduled to do so, she would cut her arms with blades, she would seem to have different personalities when she went to bed and when she got up, etc. They tried antidepressants, but the medication didn't have any effect. As it turned out, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, characterized by rapid shifts of emotion. She took therapy and for a while she seemed her old self. However, one day she refused to get out of bed. Her mother, frustrated, left the house to walk the dog. When she came back, Carol Anne was in the closet, with a goodbye letter in her dresser. She had hanged herself.

       Her grieving family felt they should honor her somehow, and she found a legacy in her younger brother Sean, who went on to win the soap box derby, all the while carrying a photograph of his sister with him.

Autism and Genius

           Jake Barnett, a slightly autistic child prodigy, has got it made. At age 8, he was accepted into college. At age 13, he is now a paid scientific researcher and a celebrity on his campus. His capacity for memory and understanding of math and science seems to have no bounds. How is this possible, you ask? How can an eight-year-old have such remarkable brain-power that he can learn 200 digits of pi in an afternoon and the entire high-school math curriculum in two weeks? Because of autism.
          As a young child, he showed the usual symptoms of being antisocial, not making eye contact, being lost in his own world, spilling a box of Cheerios on the carpet and sorting through them (apparently). He was in a sort of social bubble, and needed help getting out. His family hired a tutor, and he has overcome his disability to an extent that he can give demonstrations and advice at his university.
          The particular type of autism he has been diagnosed with is called Asperger's Syndrome, whose symptoms include lowered empathy, specific and intense interests, and social ineptitude. It also seems to produce aptitude in math and science, and he attributes his success to it.
          I think Jake has a bright future and I aspire to be like him, an insightful expert in many fields. I sincerely hope he does the world some good.

Rennaisance Festival is Fun

        Over the weekend, I went to a Rennaisance Festival in Maryland. It's a bit like an amusement park, with the theme of Old English culture and, for some reason, smoked turkey legs for all of the thousands of people there. This is, of course, an anachronism, as turkeys are North American birds, but it somehow felt as if turkey legs were meant to be there back in 1514. The Rennaisance Festival is also one of the biggest producers of awkward moments I can think of. For example, that awkward moment when a helicopter roars over the jousting demonstration and smashes the fourth wall to pieces without even realizing it. That awkward moment when someone asks in a genuine Old English accent, "Would you fancy some roasted almonds, m'lord?" and you try to be clever and respond in the same accent, but fail miserably. That awkward moment when everyone has an authentic set of shining armor, and you have a sports jersey.

       Anachronisms and awkwardness aside, it was quite a pleasurable experience- I saw a few good shows, ate some good food, and, most importantly, had a smoked turkey leg.

SAT Fraud

          An unsettlingly complex system of cheating on SAT tests has been exposed to daylight. A student with near-perfest grades was revealed to be the center of a sophisticated fraud operation involving real money and real consequences. The student in question seemed to be a perfect example to follow- smart, athletic, and spirited. However, he was taking bribes from other students to do their SAT test for them. To accomplish this, he forged a cheap ID for each of his "clients", thus proving the lax security measures in the test. Then he would simply sit down and do the test perfectly, before recieving the money from his client, up to $2500 each. He was arrested and was relieved with the burden of community service on his shoulders. He knew by all means that what he was doing was dishonest, but he justified it to himself after hearing that there had previously been people doing this at his high school. He regrets what he did and is now trying to make up for it by teaching the kids he would previously had accepted bribes from how to do SATs well on their own.

          How do I feel about all this? Well, I think it is in some ways a noble cause- he was trying to give kids a chance to have brighter futures than they otherwise would. However, it is also foolish- it is against the point of education, as the kids are not getting any better at their subjects and the test did not gather any data about them at all. What happens to them once their false perfect score gets them into the advanced classes they would otherwise not be taking? They won't be prepared for it. Also, there is the money- if what the perfect scorer wants is to give kids a chance, why didn't he simply set up a class to teach them how SATs work?

On Indian Education

                The Indian Institute of Technology is the Indian equivalent of Harvard- except it may be better. The students graduating from it are highly coveted across the globe. From all of India’s enormous population, they are the best of the best of the best at what they do- only about 1.7% of all applicants actually make it into the school. Located in Bombay amidst bustling markets and impoverished streets, it is a well-equipped haven for those who have qualified for its services. But there is a problem: while the Institute was originally constructed to help bring India out of its long struggle to become modern, most of the graduates actually head to the United States and become major entrepreneurial leaders, with only a few working to promote Indian welfare and improve its national status.

                In spite of this, the major goal of most Indian youths is to get into the prestigious university. The level of dedication to the goal at hand is almost scary, with many boys studying 24/7 and taking additional pre-dawn classes, while being pushed and fretted over by their parents.

                I think that while the end product of brilliant, successful and benevolent engineers is a very good thing, the level of dedication is not necessary and should be more accurately determined. I also wish that more of the graduates would stay in India and help drag their homeland out of its undernourished and overpopulated current state.