Undergraduate / "It's not who I am underneath, it's what I do that defines me"--common app essay [16]

Sorry about that. Let me say it as this -

You may probably be feeling this way about your work with the kids. I want to say this somewhat cautiously next, that again, human personality being what it is, given the first chance it shoots off unable even to check itself in the very opposite direction. As though some verbal moral barrier, maybe teachings from parents, held only in ones mind, gives way. And your own need to experience reality, leads you on with an accompanying sense that you are doing no wrong. How lost a person may then become, finding himself doing the very things he abhorred earlier?

Undergraduate / "It's not who I am underneath, it's what I do that defines me"--common app essay [16]

Hi Andrew -- I thought your writing is just great, and thoughts you had became words quite seamlessly.

The academic purpose to your writing aside, I felt you were seeing yourself as the person you admire, Batman. Apart from his heroics and some antics with the Joker, essentially his life's theme seems to be about helping out those who cannot fend for themselves. To me, your working with those children you mention, seems to fit into this mould.

It is just my observation, and some understanding from life's lessons, that any exterior model for ones own behavior leaves you feeling a little hollow inside after a while. As though, there was something uniquely you inside which you neglected to enquire about, and address, in the things you chose to do.

You may probably be feeling this way about your work with the kids. I want to say this somewhat cautiously next, that again, human personality being what it is, given the first chance it shoots off unable even to check itself in the very opposite direction. Like some verbal moral barrier, maybe teachings from parents, held only in ones mind, gives way. And your own need to experience reality, leads you on with an accompanying sense that you are doing no wrong. How lost a person may then become, finding himself doing the very things he abhorred earlier?

I have these questions about your prompt and the essay you wrote. Thanks.

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

The basis of any instrument of measurement is a configuration within it of a null state. It is the variations to this state which are calibrated, and become a measure of the force, color, electrical impulse.. whatever we wish to quantify. The method of yoga is similar, and the mind is brought into a kindred state of tranquility.

In a mind wherein all volition is absent, howsoever achieved -- not to be confused as a numb mind -- a person becomes the quintessential observer. And accompanying this acuter observation other mental faculties are likewise augmented: rational, reflective, incisive, as we know from experience. Is there a basis for these and if yes, we should in theory be able to increase them without bounds.

These are not absolute and distinct in fact; instead, depend upon the structure of the language we talk of them in. Another culture could well express these differently, though, together they add up to the same. And in this continous spectrum can we then move in the positive direction --- endlessly?

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

We are working with the idea, that individually we are situated at some infinitismal point. But to see ourselves as that is difficult due to the visualizations in our minds. One, of imagined things, and also of concepts.

We think of intelligence as a light within ourselves, something shining through; first some griminess in our own minds, then 'illuminating' the matter before us. Do we 'understand' by processing inputs of our senses or do we mentally 'see' ? And if that, into where?

Choosing that we 'see' by this capacity of intelligence, into a space - of thought, we illumine a world, which is the basis of the 'visible' one. And that world, by a process of its own of constant change, is the 'image' in our vision; but simultaneously too, is of a matter more real, we 'see' as our thinking. For anything -- everyone who understands it, it is a common concept; any differences then are due to the griminess in individual minds.

So obviously the importance, when holding our attention onto something, of recognizing its appearance as its momentary manifestation.

Undergraduate / "my laugh" - UCF application essay - first draft [14]

I believe the entire prompt includes how the individual overcame the bump, which she has not mentioned.

Undergraduate / "my laugh" - UCF application essay - first draft [14]


You may not be reading this since this essay has been sitting for a while.

Reading your last paragraph, one feels almost an envy, a desire to know what power you got, what did you learn that gave you this strength. It is your choice of course whether you wish to share the events leading to your great perseverance and patience, to the extent that it has had such a positive impact upon your work.

It is almost always a very personal experience, these things when they happen, that is their nature. You started telling your story in a very easy and descriptive fashion but seemed as if to have changed your mind about telling the entire story. The upshot as you can see is, that what you so strongly assert as the cause for your healing, and you at this time believe as well, is now suggested by others to be omitted altogether for better reading!

Now, that is peer pressure !

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

Let me quote a text on spiritual practice:

By the practice of the threefold inner discipline on the form and the substantiality of the body, one can comprehend directly the energy that makes it possible to "grasp" it with the eyes and so forth (for the flow of light waves is the form): and when this energy-function is suspended, the dynamics of perception is made inoperative, the link between the perceiving eye and light is severed as it were and invisibility occurs. (21) of Chapter III of Yoga Sutras

The above is an 'interpretative translation' of the original text by a scholar. Of interest is 'the threefold inner discipline' which leads its practioners to this and other extraordinary abilities -- relative to common human experience. You and I understand what college courses demand, therefore I think you will appreciate the very real nature of the effort in this other practice.

Here he explains this inner discipline:

(1) When the attention of the mind-stuff is directed in a single stream to a chosen field, without being dissipated and thus distracted that is concentration. (2) When the cognition is entirely concentrated in that field thus becoming its own field of observation - that is, when the observer is observed - it is meditation. (3) When the field of observation and the observing intelligence merge as if their own form is abolished and the total intelligence shines as the sole substance or reality, there is pure choiceless awareness without the divided identity of the observer and the observed - that is illumination. (4) When these three happen together there is perfect inner discipline . This can happen during what is commonly known as the practice of meditation, and during any other form of physical or mental activity.

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

I have always 'felt' for those working the forum here, and that is why my questions in the post before the last one. I am sorry if they appeared as offensive.. I had meant them in quite another way.

In the nearer past of India, these things you point out, about those "enslaved" and the "untouchables" very likely carry truth. But in the interest of informing ourselves correctly, should we also not consider the fact that these "aberrations" are undesired but inevitable devolutions over time, given the coarsness of general human living and thought. Can we correctly judge what social conditions of those times the "varna" ( the four categories) system took care of ? Or that those assigned their particular social status were unhappy in their category, not knowing what distress this system defended them from, or provided for them ? Indian civilization has a long history-- earlier than 3500 bc -- and we live it every day! So it is not by words alone, but the lives of 800 million, including I am certain these two authors, that we willingly live our culture down to its spiritual roots. The few Indians who side with this version of our history, do so more in the promise of some opportunity they imagine dangling there, than from any intellectual and spiritual integrity.

Why refute this above version, instead of simply letting it be? Because, it lays a negative attitude in our minds, where we cannot explore the philosophy for its more significant meanings. Would that not be in itself proof of its intrinsic worth and tell us too its own true history. For its promise itself is to sharpen our very mental focus where we can judge without doubt almost on any matter.

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

Dear Simone, how exquisite your writing is, and I am again awed by your willingness to share your thinking here... and why not !

Your last paragraph, on Indian philosophy being used to disposses and depress the original inhabitants of the sub-continent is intriguing. I wonder who those original inhabitants were. I am happy to concede that you may know the history of our part of the world better than most of us do, but somehow this particular idea you mention does not sit well with my sense of the background of our peoples.

Our really ancient past, and I am speaking here of the past, as one understands from our epics Mahabharat and Ramayan, is that the learning, the Indian philosophy, was really brought down by the Rishis - the sages, who imbibed it through their practices in the Himalayas. The second of these, the Ramayan belongs to almost another aeon in time, supposedly some 200,000 years ago. You may be aware of its story and a central event where a bridge of stones was laid across the ocean between the mainland and Sri Lanka, a historical artifact, known as Adams bridge in the West clearly discernible in satellite images.

This epic is extant in the present day India and its many portrayals of personalities, serve as the constitution almost, for as many Indians as for others, the modern concepts in state governance have replaced. And of course these latter are none other than Western democracy -- of Plato's Republic, am I right?

Let me take you in another direction now. You may smile to yourself that I am quoting from Sophie's World -- a high school text introducing philosophy, but that's where my rough reading comparing Aristotle and Plato's thinking, and perhaps one essay on this forum too, is making me wonder what to make of this.

To exaggerate even more, we could say that Plato turned his back on the sensory world and shut his eyes to everything we see around us. ( He wanted to escape from the cave and look out over the eternal world of ideas!) Aristotle did the opposite: he got down on all fours and studied frogs and fish, anemones and poppies.

While Plato used his reason, Aristotle used his senses as well.
We find decisive differences between the two, not least in their writing. Plato was a poet and a mythologist; Aristotle's writings were as dry and precise as an encyclopedia. On the other hand, much of what he wrote was based on up-to-the-minute field studies. --- Sophie's World by Josten Gaarde.

It appears Western civilization accepted Plato's ideas on state governance but chose to go Aristotle's way in understanding nature. I am actually quite struck by the correspondence of Plato's philosophical thinking and Indian thought. Almost as though the very same ideas he might have wished the people to follow, another nation, and geographically for those times another world, were already doing. I notice this though, and understandably, as he lacked a following in this aspect of his teachings, that his conceptualizations are similar but say very little on any practice to reach tangebility within those ideas -- something which Indian teachings are eloquent about.

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

Sean /Simone, I am quite interested in knowing what you yourself think about these things that I have been talking on at great length. Not on my point of view but independently yours. Are you comfortable speaking out on such matters?

I guess I would really like to know what an adult who doesn't have this prestructured system of philosophy like we in India do, think about life, and on the nature of existence. I expect every time one visits these questions, one may discover his or her ideas too have moved, maybe as consequence of some churning they've had in that time.

I have another personal question. I can see the purpose of the essayforum as a gateway for students, and improving their admisssion applications; but I would like to understand a moderator's purpose for himself or herself in doing this volunteer work, which obviously can be quite numbing at times! Why did you get into it, and when do you think would be all right for you to move on?

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

Here's a sense of the philosophy which I feel may be close to what the 'sages' have preached in India.

An underlying difference I found in the way that people in the West think and how people in India have thought in past is in the following. I will talk of only the Indian thinking of life and reality, the other we all know well.

This isn't exactly how people here think now though, having become influenced by Western thought. What is going on instead in our minds now is a confluence of the two, and we interpret life in both modes.

It is a facinating idea, this Indian way of thinking, and while I lived so long in US and Europe and had the force of their ideas washing over my mind so long, I can still reach within and pull out this native thinking that I took in so many years ago.

If I were to meet you now, I'd tell you how we simply decided to move to this city on the outskirts of Delhi, without fixing up ahead, the place we would be living in. The accomodations we found as a stop-gap are expensive, and our houseold things will shortly be arriving from US. And inspite of our efforts we havn't found the right apartment until now.

In a somewhat similar situation years ago, we were living off a university campus in the US, where my wife studied and had a small job. Our children were quite young and funds were depleting more quickly than we had anticipated. As I would drift into sleep each night, I could see the situation, not as I wished nor feared it would become, but instead, as though I was walking along a narrow ledge, but had little fear that it will fall away from under me.

This confidence is of the nature of faith; faith like the naive, the innocent and vulnerable have. Those who come to our help at such times too, perhaps do so understanding our situation and others depending upon us. But we can look upon it in quite another way -- where we see not ourselves and others who helped us, responsible for matters turning out right... but of our appeal evoking a response from an underlying 'layer of reality' of these things... whose forms are objects we see in the world, and events, our experience of them.

This is another outlook of the nature of the world and the movements within it.

We may wonder how do we connect and communicate with this more fundamental existence. It seems natural that it should be from the highest level we recognize in ourselves, for otherwise, which part of our nature would we want to keep to ourselves, and not trust to such an intrinsic force and conciousness?

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

I have discovered I have a strong memory, and am often able to extract details from the picture in my mind, of things, which happened quite a while ago.

Early one time we were in US, newly arrived in Washington and were waiting in a hospital for some reason, I cannot remember what that was. But as we waited, a cartoon was playing on the TV fixed on the ceiling there. It was a pedatrics ward, and I remember a few other families and children, all watching this program.

The story was about a bunch of stick-like figures in some town, and they were talking amongst themselves about a demon who visited them regularly and was expected again soon. So all were distraught and in a state of intense fear. They got down on their knees and bending to the ground, started to pray in a kind of moaning voice " ...mmmmm".

The picture pulled us away a bit, and we saw a character, human like, who was actually looking over the entire scene below. He then opened the top of this huge bottle-like container that all these figurines were in, and using a tweezer contraption reached into it. We are pulled back in with the figures again. They are all bowed and suppliant; the boy reaches in and grabs one of them. The figures look up then towards this unfortunate, who had been clamped and begin chanting " oh, the lucky one... the chosen one."

The boy withdraws the figure and trussing him, carries him away. He drives home where, as he opens the door, his dog is waiting, wagging its tail. The boy places the figure, alive and human like as we now feel it to be - on the dog's muzzle; who shaking it vigorously like a rat or a squirrel, chomps down on it .

There were other details, which together conveyed that these stick figures were the weak in the world. Like the people, I thought, where I had come from. The cartoon mocked them, and I remember feeling stunned with the intrusiveness of it.

I accompanied my daughter recently to the American Embassy school here in Delhi, where she will be studying. As we waited for the teacher we had come to meet, a caucasian mother and her daughter came along and sat down with us in the waiting area. It was a little small, so after a while the silence was becoming a bit awkward. My daughter was called to meet with her teacher, and there was little to turn my attention to. I was more at ease than I normally am in such situations, but the woman sitting next to me wasn't. She and her daughter sat there just bearing the strained silence.

".. quite a melting pot this school is " I ventured after a bit . She nodded in quick agreement, but offered no more to ease the silence.

"You've been here long?" I asked with the faintest of trepidation expecting a rebuff, as in my more recent memory.

But she was forthcoming and replied, " Only this 7th of July ".

"Oh! " I couldn't help exclaiming, perhaps out loud " that explains the shell shocked look on your face."

"What do you think of the culture here?" I asked. "There's so much to see, so much to learn " she said, half convincingly.

I don't think I really broke the ice with them, because the conversation did not flow. To be fair, part of that reason may be that unlike my own children, I am not good at talking with native english speakers. My sense is this particular lady will look to avoid me in future.

I tried talking about how my experience with Americans in India, had been so much of one kind before leaving for the US, but had discovered them as thinking quite differently while we were there.

She said lamely, " Yes, the lack of education ". As though illitracy was very high in the United States.

It wasn't the lesser educated that had bothered me, I told her, but those who were in good positions, in society, in schools.

We were rescued when my daughter joined us. The mother introduced herself and her daughter, telling us they were from Canada. Maybe it was her vulnerability, accentuated in this situation, that made her appear quite attractive.

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

I hope I managed to convey a sort of a purpose earlier. Come to think of it, hasn't this always been the purpose in India. For me, the difference this time is that I have completed a circle and find myself back again. Did I voluntarily give up my power to move, or was it taken from me? Makes me think of what happened when India lost its independence. Some rulers just allowed that, without resisting at all, believing that was how it had to be !

Most of what I am seeing here leaves me feeling disappointed. Though it is nice when the staff behaves so obsequisely, but I think I'd have felt better if they had instead an attitude of only doing their jobs, not looking up to us. One can see how it's their status forcing this attitude on them. Everyone seems to have this look, and it gets under the skin.

Half the people in India seem to be in that condition where life is hard on the account that they are wondering where their next meal is coming from. I see most of these staff as recently moved up from that situation, and perhaps driven from a fear of falling back again. We are so freshly arrived from Palo Alto, a relatively prosperous community even in US, that the memory of things there is still alive in my mind. I compare development here with communities like those and feel the urban growth fast catching up. But this oppresive sense of poverty in these people, more than actual poverty itself, puts a weight on one's mind.

I have no intentions of pushing myself in a particular direction, and in fact, unlike what I said earlier... I have to allow my own thinking to evolve. It seems starkly insufficient to look past the obvious.

Writing Feedback / I closed my eyes and started the chanting!; The moment of the Lords. [11]

I closed my eyes and started the chanting. They appeared on [my] left of my side. Bald headed and simple dressed though they were, their mere presence had a pleasant, powerful aura. about them

"We have been observing, you are loo sing the sense of your path." Their deep, clam calm voices rushed [passed] through [the blood in] my va [e]ins, blood and [my] peaceful mind.

Writing Feedback / -- Writing from India (essay about holidays and truth) [29]

Thank you Simone and Noto you're very kind!
I'll put it down, as I can..

Writing Feedback / "The Attitude of Success!" - CBEST: successful person essay! [14]

In many cases, People's attitudes [often] change [on] after they becom[ing] successful. The prosperity gained makes [them] some persons believe that they are no any more the same [person] as before. As a result, the[ir] behavior towards those close to them is [also] changed. Surprising, [how] people are change ing from [having] a good and positive attitude to an arrogant and disrespectful [one] position . My friend Tim changed [in this way] his manner after becoming very successful in marketing.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

Just moved to India. I've always wondered this about myself and others.. it is so important to us to feel we are knowledgable about the really important things. Which is surprising because, on the other hand, I know that I am looking for answers to many questions. Yet I seem to have difficulty in saying I know little.

I am sitting on a fence at this moment. On one side is the world, familiar now, but left behind. And on the other is this unfamiliar one, which is really mine !

I am thinking of a glass like door, toughened, which I have opened and it is swinging back. I am turning and waving to you, my head is slightly bowed as I try to catch the expression on your faces; but much is mixed in the reflections on the glass walls as I walk away rolling my bag along. I am wearing a long coat and a hat, and I never ever wore these .. they were symbols in my mind of the world you belong to, the one I wanted to hate; because your forefathers had hurt mine. But you treated me gently and I find it hard to show you the anger in my eyes. Or now, that I have come to care for you like friends.

I'll turn and face the dust and heat now, and I'll keep writing ... this side of the glass!

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

I hadn't responded yet to this -

We take this as our hypothesis, that everything happening with us is nature following some signature pattern written after our own deeds. These patterns are discernible in our faces.

Of the practice, the first stage has five principles: non-violence, not-stealing and truthfulness are acceptable generally; two others, sexual restraint and non covetousness, have varying emphasis in different parts of the world.

As we make these principles dominant in our lives, our circumstances are affected as well. Greed, lust, anger, deceit show themselves on our faces and our life follows accordingly.

The next stage of our practice is a deeper cleaning of these negativities. Living in cleanliness, the first of these principles, we feel the effect on our minds as well, soothing and invigorating.

More subtle is the effect of being accepting of difficult situations, at all times they may occur. Of controlling any agitation and reacting only with patience.

Building fortitude and tolerance has the effect of smoothening our minds further still; such as we notice in those who have stoically undergone hardships. Bearing physical pain has a ring of sadism in it, but if seperated in thought from sensuality, which is its purport in sadism, the effect is positive.

Next is concerning matters such as we are talking of now. We may not see an answer to our quest, yet the struggle is rewarding and feels meaningful like any other effort. This effort is the cause for positive changes to our personality.

Lastly is the principle of accepting the fathomless-ness of the universe, and its mysterious ways of responding to our entrities, whenever we make them. The principle encourages us to surrender to this idea that the universe responds to us. As though holding back on contrary thoughts, rational as they are, will cause that to happen.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

We were talking above about societies and their health. A community can be governed and its state of health measured - but this is an external sort of governance. Though it is more and more the way the world has moved to governing and measuring development.

In contrast is, when people decide to individually take up some principles and follow those. The laws then are from within. We focus only on an individual taking up a discipline voluntarily. No one polices or measures how much we slip. The consequences too are finally, ours to judge. Our connection is with our own circumstances, and practicing and watching the changes in them.

The perspective we wish to establish is that everything happening with us is in fact a consequence. Even though there is much of our circumstances we are not able to rationalize in this way. But that should not mean that it isn't the case.

There are two phases into the practice. First a struggle to fit our behaviour into the norms. Following that, one starts to become that changed person. And our understanding of the principles, is reflected in our behaviour.

My endeavour is not to impose any idea to be taken as is, rather, to carry us to a point from where we can conceptualize that everything out there has only this intimate relationship with us. If we can look at it this way, we can appreciate the significance of our power to change it -- and recognize these changes as they happen.

Essays / Describing a bombing. [5]

You're sitting in Afganistan, the corrections you made to an essay posted earlier were very good --- don't know why it suddenly went away. I am thinking you're fighting the war there, your name has a German ring, yet it means 'love'. I'm also thinking you're craving for some intellectual outlet amidst the barren landscape.

Well. If so, tell us, I for one am very interested in hearing of things in your part of the world!

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

Sorry Sean. You were probably waiting for Simone's response to your questions above.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

At this point I should say something definitive about Eastern practices and their methods in the quest for answers. Not only that, but also the results which can be expected when someone follows this practice.

There are eight stages of the practice that I can talk a little about here, and in the first two stages itself there is enough for anyone to work with and verify the consequences. He or she is likely to resist accepting these consequence as truly following from the practice. Which is fine, but dwell at the same time on this, that the currently accepted explanation we might give ourselves is also a conditioned one. We carry over the mechanical behaviour we see in objects to our own interactions with them. But human interaction with objects, according to Eastern thought, is of a completly different kind.

One may develop some appreciation of this by recollecting that in quantum dimensions -- the observer's presence itself affects the outcome of the experiment. Similarly, relativity shows that classical mechanics is an approximation, valid in the limited spectrum our lives are confined to..

Point is, we are functioning under some conditioning in our minds which we expressly carry over from mechanical behaviour in objects to human interaction. But in reality, the outcomes of our actions might follow a very different chain of events than we now think them to be -- thinking of ourselves as objects too, and we touch and push to make things happen.

Scholarship / I have studied intensively, especially maths and physics for the past twelve years - scholarship [38]

I apologize for what I said above about the corrections suggested by the moderators sometimes taking away the flavour of the writing. I wanted instead to say, that being a foreigner, I perhaps get a better sense of what the person wishes to convey, which the moderators may not at times.

Scholarship / I have studied intensively, especially maths and physics for the past twelve years - scholarship [38]

The bus bounced along the rutted road as I bent over my books, finishing my homework after spending the evening helping children at Hoa Binh children's village. It was late [and] I felt tired but happy. I had [had] a joyful day with them. My high school held many parties for the children in mid-Autumn, the International Children's holiday, and on many other occasions. Each time I volunteered, I discovered something new and exciting. Children here were very polite and loveable.

...

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

If one were to look for what concerns the people in US, I would say it is their own progress as a society. They totally believe that their model of society can carry the entire humankind forward. A healthy and vigourous community of people is their ultimate end. The big answers are in outer space, and till quite recently, robotic intelligence.

Europeans, in some contrast, are less concerned with the health of their society. Maybe because their societies already are healthy and matured. They look for their big answer in the atomic particle regions. In studying conditions when the big-bang occured at the start of the universe. They believe that is where they should apply themselves for ultimate answers. Religion for both peoples, is only a component of the society's health. Either way -- believing in, and not believing at all in some higher power, or better still, having some of both, is the most stable state for society.

There are some questions though, independent of the health of the society. A healthy society will in no way bring anyone closer to the answers of the ultimate kind. One could say, nor does it take them away. It is just a fact of human existence, that these are independent issues of equal importance.

Too often, people in Western countries, seeing those from other lands clamoring to get into their societies, start to confuse both of the above. They start believing their own pursuit of knowledge as the correct one. But it is mostly the young people from other countries concerned with stability in their lives and often starved for the basics of material existence, who turn to the west.

Following generations in western countries on the other hand, may well recognize the twist caused in the minds here only as consequence of this clamor -- and look eastwards, towards those who directed their efforts solely to answers of the other kind.

Scholarship / I have studied intensively, especially maths and physics for the past twelve years - scholarship [38]

No actually Simone's idea is great and as you have later put it in your essay -- that sounds very good, so go with it.

You often have some awkward grammar constructions which I think just cannot be overcome by simply following instructions you recieve here. You'll have to keep writing for much longer. For your present purpose of securing admission and the scholarship, I suggest you get through this stage by taking a jump-start with the essay I corrected for you, add the first paragraph, get more inputs from that stage onwards, then submit it.

Your vocab is good enough, your intelligence obviously is, else you wouldn't follow through with this persistence -- and your grammar is likely to improve probably faster at this university you're trying to get admission into, so why not just do whatever, to get in !

I am an Indian, and a student in this forum. Take the moderators' word as the final one.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

... but really I would hesitate to think of myself superior to another human by virtue of my personal circumstances -- of where I was born, the race or nation I belong to and the opportunities I had simply owing to those factors.

Somehow I would think I was disrespecting something within myself if I thought myself intrinsically superior to another human. So I appreciate your frankness about your opinion regarding the aborigines.. if I were to meet them, I'd really be interested in sharing their simple outlook to life, which we can be sure it is.

Ofcourse communication would be difficult or negligible, but I believe they would be peaceful people and maybe I would sit around a fire on the open plains on some late evening with them. Maybe there'd be atleast one older person, a man most likely I would somehow relate to. I can imagine he'd communicate himself by gestures and verbal expressions which would appear just as we would, in situations that we are comfortable in. I expect he would be treated with respect by others in that group. I can even imagine him looking sometimes towards me and smiling through yellowed teeth. But his eyes would speak from depths I would fain find in cities of US and Canada.

Maybe, for some reason I might have been carrying a gun or something of that sort with me and if our attention somehow went towards that, or to my own clean shirt, or immaculately tailored coat, he would not appear uncomfortable and so make me feel that. He would probably just see that as the way people from where I came, did it. Carry arms, or dress in that fashion. Maybe as the evening passed someone else within that group would become the common source for light hearted amusement of all. And most wonderously, sometimes animal voices would ring in the clear darkness behind and around us, and these people would say something -- identifying the creature no doubt, but even what the cause for its cry may have been. A call to its mate, a lament of the beast's condition, maybe it hadn't found anything to feed that day, or maybe, just that someone like myself with a gun had killed its baby. I think, the aborgines would surely know that much of the wild language.

And then when I parted from them, that same evening or the next day, they'd stand and regard me without any awkwardness at all. Maybe watch me mount my horse and I'd look at them and feel humbled that I had so little to give them in return for their easy and genuine hospitality. I'd ride away, sorry of this distance between civilizations, that there are those who will never experience this quiet and serene company of these people.

Scholarship / I have studied intensively, especially maths and physics for the past twelve years - scholarship [38]

Hi Thaihanguyen,

I feel like asking you to do the same thing I suggested to Nishessh.

To achieve your present purpose, that is, get yourself accepted to this University and also hopefully recieve some scholarship, use the essay of yours I corrected last. When I read what the moderators sometimes suggest to you, it seems either completely unlikely that you will be able to correct it in that fashion, for this essay, or what they suggest takes away the original flavour of your writing. I tried to make corrections which I think are acceptable as current english, maybe sometimes grammatically a little off. Hey, but that makes it only more authentic-sounding then, doesn't it!

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

Thank you for picking your way so cleanly. You've described the situation well, balancing the two aspects - relinquishing misconceptions and acquiring fresh knowledge. And naturally, the larger interest is in the latter process - how do we learn?

Using your scenario, let me assume someone approaches this object in the room. Let us think it is a Laptop. If he approaches it without any question in his mind, he would be like the bushman who came upon the coca-cola bottle; only wishing in the end that he hadn't found it. So I assume the person is aware of technology, knows some programming even, yet cannot figure why the computer does what it does. For instance interpret keystrokes, or perform math and make logical decisions. He knows there's a microchip-processor in there with many million transistors on it -- but somehow this doesn't add up in his mind to the almost intelligent action which the machine performs.

The question he is scratching his head about is, how is all this made to happen in this postage-stamp sized chip? Are there new laws for the physical behaviour of things in there -- contradicting those we're accustomed to in nature? How are electric currrents so precisely manipulated ? What mechanism lies within it and how was it put there at all ? And one big personal question, how much smarter are those people who do this - will he himself have the intelligence to grasp it all ?

With this last question, he is burdened with something tremendously heavy, and as though slung around his neck. And this is despite the fact, as we can see, that the question is totally irrelevant.

We will assume the electronic-engineer wannabe overcomes his phobia, and wonders where he must begin to fathom the mystery. What comes to his mind are recollections of figures and of stuff similar to that he is looking for, from previous times when he was browsing books in some book-store or library. He sits down and makes a determination of where his search is likely to be most fruitful. Where will he find the right material, with the right amount of complexity, neither too difficult, nor lacking in content. Basically, he also has a good sense of what will be fulfilling in his quest.

Interestingly, he is getting to know the object in the room by going elsewhere, and hopefully even spending much time pondering what he reads. Being a good student we expect that as he studies, his mind keeps coming back to the object in the room, enforcing his original questions and clarifying the answers as he finds them.

We can now examine the process as this student reads, or does whatever else we can consider as contributing to his study. Point is, he now has a mindset, and what and how it is, determines how well he learns. If we compare this with our original situation, we find this mindset as the distinctive factor in the two scenarios.

I'll continue .. feel free to say anything here if you wish to.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]


Why don't you write more about this.

Scholarship / I have studied intensively, especially maths and physics for the past twelve years - scholarship [38]

Since childhood, I have always dreamed of matriculating from a reputable university in Vietnam. For 12 years I pursued my dream, by studying intensively, especially maths and physics. But When I was invited to a workshop of RMIT Vietnam, I decided to explore the workings of an international university work . Then I discovered that It was the milestone [that] changed my whole life. Only months before my entrancechange exam, I decided to apply for scholarship at RMIT Vietnam. I have had to complete both, work at school and study English by myself. Getting 6.0 IELTs in [four] months of assiduous practice, I was very pleased [with]. From my result. I strongly believe that I have the ability of studying with a high level of determination and energy.

During 3 years in high school, I worked tirelessly in many leadership roles . Throughout my tenure, I worked hard to make beneficial changes in both school and society, driven by my desire to meet my own high expectations; and so does [did] my academic performance[also improve].

While in 10th and 11th grade, I was a volunteer, helping set up school anniversaries with some of the students. I noticed that I love children and doing charities. When my school funds village-children in mid-autumn and on many other occasions, we hold parties and give the children presents. I felt very happy seeing them quickly open the gifts and smile brilliantly. In the end of the day, we are [were] loath to part with one another. During that joyful time, I always went home late, around 9.00 p.m., finishing my homework on the bus ride home.

In addition to taking part in extracurricular activities in 11th grade, I attended a dance-sport club and discovered my passion. My teacher said that I had aptitude for dancing. Not only did I learn, but I also offered to work in the collaborator's position. After [only] a month of being a member, I managed a group which had the function of running [the] club's forum. Sometimes I had to help them understand one another and come close. It is responsible for [This developed] my interpersonal and problem solving skills enhancement .

[Indeed,]to prepare for an IELTS test in four month is very [extremely] difficult. I am currently a member of a nonprofit organization named SEAMAP. It is [,] the most famous and qualified english club in Hanoi, contributing my speaking skill improvement in 2 months.

My parents think that an International university is reserved only for rich people . If I want to study at RMIT Vietnam, [and] they won't help me with my educational expenses. A scholarship will allow me to continue with [the] International University and give me a chance to prove to my parents that their thinking was wrong. Besides, I have always enjoyed being a leader and am wish to pursue a career in leadership. I have learned that leadership means teamwork, patience, as well as the ability to take calculated risks. I hope to continue learning about leadership through my school years, and this scholarship will allow me focus on a viable career that none of [the] Vietnam universities can do.

I [am determined]have devoted my life both, to working to better myself and to improving society as a whole. If I am awarded this scholarship, I will continue in this same manner of being [as] a student at RMIT Vietnam. I [will]commit my[self] life to studying hard and to developing [furthering] movements [the causes] at your university.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to apply.

Graduate / Post-graduation Statement of Purpose [22]

Thank you Simone.

Graduate / Post-graduation Statement of Purpose [22]

Nishessh. There are two things here. One is learning to write well, and correct english; and the other to get the "best" essay out to the university you're applying to. Learning can be fun, but then be prepared to come here very often and keep putting up things you write. Over months and maybe longer, you will find substantial improvements in your writing -- and being able to say the things you really want to.

For this essay, if you want to send out the best you can, because your need is the admission, then repost the essay I corrected. After some more inputs, that one really will serve the purpose you want.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

This is a complement-like approach to yours. That first, there is as much of ourselves we do not know, as of the things out there.

Our reality and working-ground is this "substance like" ignorance, really responsible for all our lack of clarity and understanding. Our life is about dealing with this substance.

What we know, we are connected to already. It's objectivity and ours is the same. It isn't that we acquire something in coming to know something, instead we relinquish some misunderstanding, or vacous-like knowledge of it.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]


Correct me if I am wrong. You see the difference in our perspectives as this. According to you, there are objective truths out there following their own laws, and totally independent of what we may wish them to be. The Pythagoras theorem and the math of nuclear energy( e = mc2) ... are instances of that, you say.

And I, you are saying, imply that everything out there is really without any objectivity of it's own, and conjured up by some process of our minds. I hope you are not saying, that I simply imply, we fool ourselves into believing things out there are the way we wish them to be .. like castles in the air. And instead that, I say we ourselves create the objectivity in the Pythagoras theorem, and e = mc2.

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

Let me begin to answer this somewhat dramatically and say -- we are all blind. And like some earthy worms, if we were looked at from a distance, we would appear as this.. nodding our heards, shaking them side to side, stopping and sniffing the air .. or feeling with our antennas, then pushing on. Wiggly little creatures, such an urge to squish them; can't even say why this urge. Maybe it is their pathetic helplessness, and their fat bodies and knowing, they are almost completely harmless and unable to hurt back in any way.

.. sometimes I see this picture. A castle, like we read about in fairy tales, floating in the sky, clouds obscuring everything around it. Actually more than a castle, an entire city, shining, golden... where is this? Somewhere deep within, and it is a vision that persists. Is it imaginary? I more and more think not.

I imagine watching them for a while and can feel a slow surge of frustration building up inside. It isn't just their clumsy crawl, but some assurance in their walk, as though they knew exactly what they were doing, where they were going. Stupid slugs, I hold myself back from screaming.. I see you walking up that stem and like some nincompoop you're going to reach it's end, then only turn back.

..back to other picture again. I do not know why its walls seem made of glass, at least they appear to be to my eye. The streets are cobbled, I think this part is from pictures I seem to remember from Pied Piper and others of those sorts. Ah, I think I know why the walls were of glass, because I am myself formless, no one sees me, and like in some 3D-picture where I can move around at will, I seem to be able to swish in and out of, wherever I wish.

It isn't just that I can will myself anywhere I wish, but I seem able to do even more. I seem able to make things appear, things to happen. Well, not exactly, but somewhat like this .. I seem to make myself come towards a central part of this city - it's like a city square and see there some kind of a show taking place. A man is climbing up a rope, he is turbaned, the kind we see snake charmers illustrated as; and his rope reaches up to somewhere high, higher than the rooftops around. I too am wonderstruck with this phenomena and alight from my journey, joining the few people standing underneath him. There's something riveting about this performance, more enthralling even than my so recently discovered abilityto fly, and I stand there amongst everybody else and wait and watch for what will follow.

.. ah now I notice, you're not a worm, but a caterpillar. Quite suddenly my disgust for you is gone, and I watch instead your bright colours and the subtle patterns along your frame. Your slithering has given way to grace, your dumbness to meaning. I can even smell the green leaves now and see hues in the flowers.. you yourself appear so fitting in the tree. In my mind, you are a colourful butterfly -- there is a lightness in the air.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]

OK Sean -- I want to put anything personal in our discussion behind. I do not think you have any bias anymore; and I'll be far more productive knowing you are thinking with me than against.

Writing Feedback / "People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction." [84]


... and this is what I'm concerned about. Will this attitude not colour everything you write here?

Writing Feedback / How can I play into the hands of my Maker - Sunday Morning [51]

Why does math have such a revered place in society, more so the Western one? Actually, an even subtler facet of this question is - why is anything expressed mathematically accepted without question ? Mathematical facts are facts in reality - why? eg., equations of relativity were always held as true, lacking only sufficient rigor in the conditions of the physical experiments in proving them right .

Knowing that all mathematical operations are possible on computers, we can make this simplifying statement that mathematical operations are in their lowest form only addition and subtractions. These operations can be applied to anything, even hypothetical quantities, which is what variables are. So, length into breadth always will give us the correct measure of area, even as a real fact.

The magic seems to be in the operation we call multiplication... the operands involved we've learnt are a quantity, which itself has a reality only in our minds, though it is constant. That is the number two has a certain behaviour, and so do the other nine digits.

The interesting point is it is their behaviour which is real, not them, that is they are real but are not objects. A conclusion here is that mathematical reality exists in a parallel domain of reality where properties of functions are expressed in a given way. Where we have discovered that only properties exist.

In this domain, Newton and Leibniz, discovered the mathematical property of calculus, which allowed a different way of relating properties within it. Einstein and Lorenz expressed extensions to the way fundamental variables like length, mass and time can be associated, based on this fact that the speed of light is a constant quantity.

Speed or velocity, is not in the real world, but it does exist. One could say it exists as a mathematical quantity. We can take the measure of an object's speed, that is we take a number quantity and applying the multiplication operation , to another specific number associated with a universal property called time, also in a mathematical domain, we simply take the resulting number and know that this can be associated to a physical point expressing the length from the earlier point. We know our object will be here then.

Our sense of reality of motion is as much due to this tangebility of the mathematical expression. Its truth and reality in our minds.

Speed, time, length, mass .. all these are considered fundamental but only length can really be seen, that is it's there in our world. The absolute quantity time, nevertheless exists but is a measure of a completly intangible, but unversally agreed to quantity. Something to relate change with, a sort of a common denominator of change.

Mass is something of a feeling of a downward force on any object; and we know it is related to the body pulling this object towards it, in this case the earth.