I think by now everyone has left Etna for the year. I left around 6:30 last night and the only one left was Hassan (who happened to be passed out at the time). I’m pretty sure he left sometime last night, and with that, our house is closed down for the holidays. As the title to this post indicates, everyone leaving reminded me a bit of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.” From Tuesday onwards, the house emptied one person at a time, slowly but surely.

It’s going to be weird not seeing some of my best friends for the next month after I’ve gotten used to spending most of my time with them over the last semester. I will get to spend a lot of time with my family and my high school friends, so I’m sure break will still be good.

I guess all I really wanted to do here was wish everyone a happy holidays. Have a relaxing holiday break and enjoy the time with your families and friends!

So here I am sitting at the Detroit airport…for the past four hours. What to do with my time. Having no internet, I was forced to use my computer in some other way. Shocking, I know. What the hell do we do with our computer with no internet? We write blogs of course; then again, I’m writing in TextEdit, since I can’t yet publish it on the internet.

Desperately searching for a solution to my boredom, I ended up consolidating all of my files and applications, a tedious process that would only be done when one is bored. However, I realized something important as I deleted and renamed: I am incredibly anal about little things on my computer. Ever since I became comfortable with using a computer, I have always made it a goal of mine to make all of my files look clean and be named uniformly. My desktop cannot look cluttered; it must look good. But then I ask, why do this? What possible satisfaction do I get from having my computer look (and be) clean?

The answer - or at least my rationalization of a clearly pathetic situation - is that our computer is a representation of ourselves. Insulting or criticizing someone’s computer is tantamount to taking a shot at his/her driving. Driving is part of the personality; any remark about one’s driving is a direct insult at his/her character. Why that’s the case I do not know, but it just is. And so it is with our computers. Saying someone’s computer is inadequate, ugly, not reaching its potential, a poor performer, and so on and so forth, is simply unacceptable. Not only does this offend me as an EECS guy, but it also offends me as a person. (”And this offends you as a Jewish person….No, it offends me as a comedian…”)

The following is directed at those who know how to use and personalize his/her computer: Sock anyone who takes a shot at your computer. Or if violence isn’t your thing, at least defend it like it’s your baby. For most nerds, it is. WARNING: If you know nothing or care little about your computer, then you may very well be a victim of ad hominem attacks.

Let me come back to my point about personalizing one’s computer. My desktop is essentially a reflection of my character. If I have a bunch of random, unsightly files on my desktop, then it shows that I care little about the way I keep myself. If my mp3 files are named randomly from that crap we download from Limewire (e.g. [www.coolmp3s.com/yeaaaaaaa/jAyZ/rock boyz [note the misspelling]), then clearly I do not strive for perfection. Obviously I’m using hyperbole to reinforce an otherwise frail point, but I just hope those of you who care about your computers take the time to make it look clean and maximize its efficiency with system updates and regular consolidation. As a technological variation to Descartes’ famous quote, “I type, therefore I am.”

Yes, we’re an EECS house at heart.

(And in the middle of the article’s completion and its submission, I flew from Detroit to Columbus and now I’m sitting on my couch watching Sportscenter. Ahh, the life.)

Etnanine says “Howdy, prashant” to me in the top right corner after I sign in, so to the readers of etnanine I say,

Howdy, readers.

Precursor: I just finished my 8am final that I stayed up all night studying for. I was assisted by a 5 hour energy drink my friend, Ankit Desai, purchased from Walgreens and allowed me to consume in the library. At first I was a little shaky but after a while I felt pretty good. I don’t really know if it had any effect, but I’m still awake at 11am writing a post so maybe that’s my answer. Let me tell you this though, the drink/shot isn’t FDA-approved, also, I just ate a spicy chicken burrito i purchased from taco bell last night at 8pm….at 1030 am today. After I finish this post, Arvind will likely wake up to begin his day, and I will probably fall asleep into tomorrow’s AM.

The real post: My epiphany the other day, was that people are mostly good most of the time because they are expected to be. People don’t give other people respect for the things they are expected to do. 99% of the things we do for others might be genuine, but they really only get attention when they don’t happen or happen incorrectly. You can do something right 99 days in a row, but the one day you forget and your friend/girlfriend/parent/sibling gets mad at you is the only thing they’ll remember for a while.

It’s the small things people judge you on. The 1% of things that are up in the air, not expected, variable. Past the baseline things we are expected to do for others, are the genuine things we do for people we care about, and past that, a small fraction of what we do shows our true subconscious feelings towards others. That really determines what people think of you, and going that extra mile for someone can mean all the difference in the world. When you do something someone does not expect of you, that’s the real deal.

-Prashant

I took a little time today to read some of the posts of my housemates, and I have to say I’m impressed. Not because I have any right to be, but because what started out as a foolish way to make money (Akshay, Hassan, and me on the stairs one evening), has turned into something so much more important. I can see the people in our house, including myself, using this as an avenue to share their thoughts and feelings that don’t usually come out of a guys mouth. While all of us at etnanine are great friends, guys aren’t usually ones to share some of the things I’ve read on this blog. We might have our emotional moments at times, but usually these are far and spread apart as well as incomplete. This isn’t to say guys don’t have deep conversations, I know we do all the time, but complete, articulated emotional thoughts like the ones I’m reading on etnanine are hard to come by from any guy. I know Akshay and recently Pavan started blogs partly (or mainly) for the purpose of sharing their thoughts and feelings that can’t come out through any other means. I dabbled in this as well with my old blog at shuklap.googlepages.com, which I think is still active. This blog for me is showing me a whole new perspective on some of my good friends that I never would have seen. These posts are adding an aspect of vulnerability to my friends and myself that guys are trained to avoid. This vulnerable side to guys is usually only revealed to close significant others and really good friends if at that, and I think it’s amazing that we are willing to now share this side with effectively the entire world (or anyone that can get on the Internet and surf to our site). Props.

On that note, I wanted to share something I’ve been thinking about recently. As a precursor, I didn’t realize or remember when I decided to write about this that Hassan’s latest post gets at much the same point I do (I think I read his post a couple days ago), but I still wanted to expand/share my thoughts because I’ve been having them for a while now. All of us at some point or another have failed to do something simply because we were afraid we would fail. It sounds irrational yet it is a disease everyone falls prey to at some point or another. Whether it be to speak up in defense of someone when you know you should, or join a club, or run for a position, or try something new, or practice that much harder, or study that much harder, all of us at some point have fallen short of our potential. Economics has taught me at least one valuable life lesson, in that you can’t compare what you’ve done to anything absolute, but rather to your potential. Not studying that extra hour that could make a difference on a test is a failure. If you know in your conscience you have studied everything possible only then can you truly reach your potential. Some of you might be thinking that not studying hard enough is just a sign of laziness, but I think there is more to it than that. Part of it might be the fact that all of us are somewhat lazy, but I believe that, at least for me, sometimes I’m afraid that I won’t do well after trying my hardest, and that isn’t a realization I want to come to, so I avoid working my hardest just to not prove myself insufficient. I’m not sure if anyone else knows what I’m talking about, but it’s something that I am going to work to change.

After a recent conversation at home with some old speech and debate friends, some of which are still in high school speech and debate, I’ve realized that I miss debate a lot. My goal either for next semester or next year is to give college-level Parliamentary debate a legitimate shot because I know I will regret not doing so once I graduate.

I want to wish everyone good luck on their finals, and I hope everyone that is reading this blog has a relaxing, refreshing break back at their respective homes. That isn’t to say that I’m hoping that people who aren’t reading this blog have a bad break, but you get my point.

-Prashant

Ever since my first club soccer game my dad told me to “keep my head in the game.” What? What does that even mean? Obviously I’m paying attention to the game, dad.

But recently his words have taken on whole new meaning.

While watching Pakistan play a Test match versus India recently I noticed something extremely important about the way the Pakistanis were playing. Always against the ropes, looking strained at best and ready to collapse at worst. Their batsmen, bowlers, fielders everyone seemed to be playing not to lose. Their heads weren’t in the game.

Being in the game is so much more than just running with the ball. It’s about actively thinking about what you need to do and how you’re going to do it. Taking time off mentally puts you at a huge disadvantage because it allows your opponent to get a step ahead of you. Keep yourself in the game at all times and it leaves your opponent with no room for error.

We’ve all heard Yogi Berra’s infamous quote that “90% of the game is half mental” and aside from some obvious delinquencies in fractions, he was on to something. Winning the game isn’t about just being physically superior, if it was Alex Rodriguez would have 5 titles by now, its about keeping yourself in a position to win.

The analogy works well in sports but how do you translate it to all other walks of life? School? Relationships?

Personally, I’ve always been afraid of failure. Opting to take the easy route (which most often means obscurity) in order to avoid criticism. But recently I’ve come to realize the limitations I impose on myself. My dad (yeah, he’s a smart guy) always told me to go and fail something. For most of my childhood I ignored that and instead protected myself from failure by keeping it simple - do well in school, avoid girls (so I don’t get rejected), and never really fully commit yourself so you always have a way out. But I don’t think I ever grew. If anything, college has given me ample opportunity to fail and I’ve accepted the invitation with open arms.

I’ve spent a lot of time this semester doing some self-reflection. Overall, the semester has been extremely inconsistent for me. One week I’m taking care of classes extremely well, the next I’m all about my friends. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get all of my things taken care of at once. I feel as if I’ve fallen prey to the same defeatist attitude of Pakistani cricketers. I’m not playing to succeed but to just take care of what’s in front of me. If I have midterms coming up, that’s all I’m doing. If I feel alienated from friends, then thats where my attention goes. The problem is that it’s a rather circular process. As I compensate for last week, I’m setting myself up for a new round of issues for next week, and so on…

So if 90% of the game is half mental and I’m obviously thinking about things the wrong way, it can’t be going too well. But what is the right way? It always feels as if it’s easier to make the wrong decision because its the most appealing at the time. “Sleep in and skip lecture today? Sure, I’ll have more energy to work right after.” But it never seems to work quite how I planned.

I’ve talked about this off and on with a few friends, a lot of us seem to share the same sentiments but only a select few really know how to get things done. And I personally believe my troubles lie with how I view myself. After my first semester here I told myself it was okay not to do well because I’m an engineer and I’m taking hard classes. Holding myself to a lower standard has served to only limit the amount that I challenge myself. It’s given me the ability to tell myself to just play not to get out.

I think it’s time I got my head in the game.

Now this is going to read like some emo post from some random kid who just took a break from listening to avenged sevenfold and is about to go toke up. However that is not the intention.

I have always had random thoughts about why we are here, as I suppose everyone has because it is only natural to ask why. As a child, we grow up, wondering why plants grow, why things fall to the ground, or even why jadakiss is as hard as it gets(that just can’t be right…) But there are answers to all of those questions. Plants grow because of the sun, things fall because of gravity, and jada, we’ll he’s jada. But life has no answer. That is why religion was created, as an explanation of something that cannot be explained, as an answer to why.

However, that is not good enough for me. I can’t bring myself to believe that I should act only to attain heaven, when I can’t rationally confirm that there is a heaven there. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that those individuals who have this view on life are stupid or wrong, on the contrary, I envy them. If I could truly get myself to believe that when I died, I kept on going, I would have no worries in life. But I can’t. The rational part of my brain keeps denying it. So I search on.

If not religion and an afterlife, then what. What is left for all of the non-belivers out there in terms of life goals? If I do something brilliant, like creating a universal law or managing to beat that elusive pogo stick world record, won’t I still just die, and then I don’t care what I did, because I no longer am. So that can’t be it either, personal achievement can breed short term happiness, but cannot be valued as a life goal, because it is not transient, it simply dies with me.

I want something more. I want something that at the end of the day, lives on long beyond my dying breath. The only thing that then comes to mind, is to improve the world for future generations, so that they may one day find their own solution to life’s puzzle, and finally be able to answer the question of “why?” Even if I do not value life in the same way others might, at least I can give millions the chance to make up their own minds. So I guess my aim now, is to do something that helps everybody, to act towards a universal purpose, rather than a personal one. However, I am still not satisfied with this answer, and would greatly appreciate any thoughts.

I don’t think this post in any way does justice to my full range of thoughts, for I cannot seems to put into words the final conclusion which I have reached in my own brain. However for the time being, I might as we’ll just enjoy life to its fullest, try to improve it for others, and not really worry about if there is something beyond, because if there isn’t, then in the words of one famous pig, “thats all folks!”

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have ventured into blogging thanks to some inspiration from two friends, Akshay Krishnamurthy and Kevin Huynh. Akshay had been blogging for quite a while now, but only recently did I discover that Kevin has also been getting his feet wet in the world of internet expression. He took a DeCal, a student-run class at Berkeley, about blogging, in which all the students created their own blogs, which they may or may not update now. Regardless, it’s a great way to learn about basic website-building and coding, and Kevin recommends it to anyone interested in making his/her voice known.

Just over the past week I bought a domain and a hosting service, and I have churned out some very advanced HTML code. And by “advanced” I mean “not.” I’ve just been playing around with the features, and just kind of cherishing the fact that I have my own website to experiment with. The purpose is not only to express my deepest and darkest thoughts, but also eventually to learn Javascript and PHP.  After I put some random PHP and HTML code in there, I realized it looked a little dry, at which point I consulted the handy-dandy blogger.com. Clearly it does not take rocket science to realize that my site is still in its rudimentary stages. Please, don’t judge. You can do that after I put more offensive and confrontational posts on there. But in the meantime, please check out:

www.pavyedav.com

And of course, I give credit where credit is due. Please visit my inspirations’ sites as well:

www.kiwimonk.com/blog

www.akrish.net

Thanks everyone, and don’t think I won’t figure out if you’ve visited my site or not. I got some Google AdSense on there already. Yeah, impressive. I know. Man, what can I say, I’m kind of a big deal. Okay, enough patting on the back. I didn’t do anything of worth yet. Cheers.