saluranjha
Dec 21, 2016
Undergraduate / Raising questions about the workings of the cosmos [5]
HI Guys I am writing of common app's first prompt..Can you review it and lemme know
"Where is heaven, Dado (grandmother)?''
She paused, and pointed towards the visible band of the Milky Way.
"There, I think." She turned towards me and smiled.
As her first grandchild, I used to spend a lot of time with her. Often, we would just talk - about life, and how we saw the world, with her chuckling at the narrow scope of what I perceived as problems at the time.
Laying outside on a charpoy, gazing at the uncountable stars, she would tell me stories about my grandfather. An old myth in Pakistani culture is that after people pass away, their sprits adorn the night sky, their legacies forever twinkling as stars. My grandmother seemed to believe devoutly in this, as she pointed at the same spot in the sky every night - the tail end of Pleiades, I know now - telling me how my dada was looking at us. "He's probably smiling and saying I should let you sleep now." I would stay up, and ask her questions about stars and the universe, and she would try to use knowledge and imagination to come up with answers - but she always did answer them, and that's what mattered.
Soon, I began to focus more on the science of astronomy. Every time we had library class, I would go through the stacks to find any books remotely related to the subject. A senior noticed my interest and let me borrow one of his favorite books, titled "The Milky Way." I was elated. After merely getting through the preface, I realized that the Milky Way is our address in an ever-expanding cosmos. It wasn't heaven, as my grandmother had described it, but I found it just as mesmerizing.
After poring over books by Sagan, and individually going over the Feynmann lectures, I sought a more practical take on astronomy. With this in mind, I joined Lahore Astronomical Society, which is the country's only one of its kind. I was thus able to attend lectures from people ranging from amateur astronomers to some of Pakistan's leading physicists.
Every time I came back home after spending months at boarding school, I would tell Dado about the things I learned about astronomy.
"So, tell me how far is this Milky Way from us?"
"The light we're seeing right now left it 26,000 years ago."
Together, we raised new questions about the workings of the cosmos, but now, I was the one who was expected to have the answers.
I soon began to delve deeper, by joining Zed's Astronomical Observatory, where, I first started using telescopes to explore the sky. I started by learning how to navigate Celestron and Galelioscopes, and soon moved on to conduct spectrometry of planets and stars. The observatory was over 20 miles away from my house, so the first few times I left for the bus station at midnight, my parents were quite hesitant. However, after a few conversations about my passion for astronomy, they understood why I found this important. After about a year of conducting spectroscopy of planets and stars, I received my first telescope, as a token of appreciation by the observatory's owner.
My grandmother now lives at our ancestral village, so I don't get to see her as often. However, I went back to meet her this summer, and for a moment, it felt like nothing had changed. I took my telescope with me to show her the stars and planets I had analyzed. Visibly excited, she asked me what I found out about their composition. I began to realize that when she talked about my Dada, she didn't actually rationalize the folktale about people forming stars. It just gave her comfort. And sometimes, that can be enough.
Turning the telescope towards the Pleiades, she paused for a moment.
"And what is there, son?"
I smiled.
"That one, I'm not sure of yet, Dado."
HI Guys I am writing of common app's first prompt..Can you review it and lemme know
Watching the stars
"Where is heaven, Dado (grandmother)?''
She paused, and pointed towards the visible band of the Milky Way.
"There, I think." She turned towards me and smiled.
As her first grandchild, I used to spend a lot of time with her. Often, we would just talk - about life, and how we saw the world, with her chuckling at the narrow scope of what I perceived as problems at the time.
Laying outside on a charpoy, gazing at the uncountable stars, she would tell me stories about my grandfather. An old myth in Pakistani culture is that after people pass away, their sprits adorn the night sky, their legacies forever twinkling as stars. My grandmother seemed to believe devoutly in this, as she pointed at the same spot in the sky every night - the tail end of Pleiades, I know now - telling me how my dada was looking at us. "He's probably smiling and saying I should let you sleep now." I would stay up, and ask her questions about stars and the universe, and she would try to use knowledge and imagination to come up with answers - but she always did answer them, and that's what mattered.
Soon, I began to focus more on the science of astronomy. Every time we had library class, I would go through the stacks to find any books remotely related to the subject. A senior noticed my interest and let me borrow one of his favorite books, titled "The Milky Way." I was elated. After merely getting through the preface, I realized that the Milky Way is our address in an ever-expanding cosmos. It wasn't heaven, as my grandmother had described it, but I found it just as mesmerizing.
After poring over books by Sagan, and individually going over the Feynmann lectures, I sought a more practical take on astronomy. With this in mind, I joined Lahore Astronomical Society, which is the country's only one of its kind. I was thus able to attend lectures from people ranging from amateur astronomers to some of Pakistan's leading physicists.
Every time I came back home after spending months at boarding school, I would tell Dado about the things I learned about astronomy.
"So, tell me how far is this Milky Way from us?"
"The light we're seeing right now left it 26,000 years ago."
Together, we raised new questions about the workings of the cosmos, but now, I was the one who was expected to have the answers.
I soon began to delve deeper, by joining Zed's Astronomical Observatory, where, I first started using telescopes to explore the sky. I started by learning how to navigate Celestron and Galelioscopes, and soon moved on to conduct spectrometry of planets and stars. The observatory was over 20 miles away from my house, so the first few times I left for the bus station at midnight, my parents were quite hesitant. However, after a few conversations about my passion for astronomy, they understood why I found this important. After about a year of conducting spectroscopy of planets and stars, I received my first telescope, as a token of appreciation by the observatory's owner.
My grandmother now lives at our ancestral village, so I don't get to see her as often. However, I went back to meet her this summer, and for a moment, it felt like nothing had changed. I took my telescope with me to show her the stars and planets I had analyzed. Visibly excited, she asked me what I found out about their composition. I began to realize that when she talked about my Dada, she didn't actually rationalize the folktale about people forming stars. It just gave her comfort. And sometimes, that can be enough.
Turning the telescope towards the Pleiades, she paused for a moment.
"And what is there, son?"
I smiled.
"That one, I'm not sure of yet, Dado."
