November 26, 2011-Recorded music for Burra Katha

4h

We got the Jazz
Taxi
Fast Lane
Beneath the surface

These are the songs that I managed to record today with Taylor. We sent them to Jaewon to be mastered and put on the mixtape for CAS. All of them need to be regulated and recorded over again because of nuances with the mic. I have a lot of respect for professional artists who must spend weeks trying to get a song to sound just perfect. I have learned a lot about myself through this session. Without jaewon to do all the software management, I had to record and edit mine and Taylors voice myself. I learned that I am actually competent enough to do this. Jaewon was able to use my edits in his computer via email which means I was good enough to record on my own. This is a very comforting thought and makes me feel accomplished and confident.

November 24, 2011-Lyrics for Burra Katha

4h


I wrote several new songs today. The one's I will be keeping are We Got the Jazz and I Dont Need Brighter Days. The first is simple braggadocio in the style of old school alternative rap. Its very light hearted and a lot of fun to rap and recite. The latter is much more somber and deals with the bitterness that comes from having relationship problems. I took elements of my own life and incorporated them into  a song to advocate against feeling bitter. I try to encourage people to walk away from stress and live life normally because there is no use in stressing. I love writing these lyrics because they are very introspective and creative because you have to think of word play and interesting metaphors.

October 23, 2011- Debate speech wrtiting and practice

2h


Same as previous entry.

October 22, 2011- Speech writing for the Debate

2 h

I worked on writing my speech for the electoral college debate. I am finding some very interesting facts about the electoral college i.e. that there have been 500 attempts to change it and all have failed. It also preserves the rights of less populated states because of its minimum of 3 electoral votes. It was interesting to see that even though something like the electoral college is opposed by so many people, it is still the only viable solution to elect a president who is not based on regional power bases. This makes me ponder other similar things where there is something universally opposed yet necessary for efficient functioning.

November 12, 2011- Debate Tournament at EHS

4h

At this debate, Akash and I were ready to win because of all the prep work we had done previously. We were debating about the current system for electing presidential candidates. We were able to argue on the side of the electoral college each time we debated. It helped that we agreed with the electoral college when we debated because it allowed us to have more conviction. I was happy with our performance untill I received the ballots and they showed we had only won 2 out of the 4 debates. It was disheartening to see the judges who voted us as a loss say that we did not mention counter arguments to certain points even though we mentioned them in our speeches. It is very annoying when parent judges are unable to keep up with the flow of the debate and correctly record our points. I still gained a lot from the debate because I have a much fuller understanding of the electoral college system. The novices we trained won the novice trophy and the rest of EHS did well. It was overall a success for EHS forensics. I learned that we must be more clear in our presentation of points and perhaps tone down the aggression to make room for more argument.

November 11, 2011-Debate Practice to train new debators

My partner, Akash, and I helped to train the new debators today at the practice party before their first tournament at EHS. We observed a debate between two of the novice teams and gave them critiques. We tried to teach them what learned throughout our years of debate. We attempted to give them wisdom from our mistakes and tell them what approaches have worked for us in the past. It was nice to see the novices look up to us with such respect because they knew how accomplished we were in the field of debate. We crossfired against a novice team and showed them how to approach a case in many novel ways. The kids all tried to grab our points and cross fire questions, but we refused to give them any points because we wanted them to learn for themselves. The activity meant a lot to me because I have never been in the position to teach other people about things which I know better than other people. I am happy to help my teammates but i feel resentful because we never had anyone showing us the ropes like these novices we trained.

March 20, 2011 - Indian Festival Holi Celebrations

4 h

Indian Festival Celebrations:

This is the most fun Indian Festival that exists. It is called Holi (festival of colors). Growing up in an Indian family has its advantages, because you still get to experience the culture of India, while still enjoying the luxuries of America. I have been involved with this festival all along, however, this was the first year that this was celebrated at my best friends back yard. So, we get there in our clean clothes, and soon find ourselves doused with every possible color and colored water that anyone could lay there hands on. Soon, I realized I was ill-equipped and had to devise sleazy ways of putting color on other friends and family. This was a great learning experience for me because I had not played Holi like this before. I understood the significance of the festival for the first time: after you color everyone with the same color, everyone is EQUAL. The Indian society is very class conscious and everything in India is based on Caste and Class. So, this is one day where everyone forgets what class or caste they are from. This is also a spring harvest festival, where the previous night there is a bonfire and some of the new crop is offered to the fire. After 2h of being wet and colorful, we played the Indian drums to entertain the people and ping-pong to entertain ourselves. Overall, this was the most fun I had in a while. And above all, my parents were happy and I was happy at the same time.

July 27, 2011-Ropes course at Brown University

2h

9am-11am

A day at the ropes course.

I attended the Ropes course at the Leadership Institute at Brown University. I learned about leadership and the importance of team work. This was a low course, consisting of a series of real and imaginary obstacles designed to challenge us to work to accomplish the task as individuals and as a team.

The course consisted of a series of ropes, and obstacles between trees about a foot above the ground. These obstacles examine physical conditioning by testing strength, balance, stamina, agility, flexibility and examine mental conditioning by inviting us to confront issues such as a fear of failure or a fear of losing control.

It was a fun course because we learned to trust our teammates and I actually made great friends in my short 2 weeks at Brown. My best friends were Jacques, Austin, Kevin, Heather, Tori, and Leah. I learned more about myself here than anywhere else and I decided firmly that I wanted to do Doctors without borders later in life because of the things I learned at Brown.

Overall, the idea behind the ropes course was personal development and team-building. Lesson learned: Physical fitness, and mental fitness are both required to overcome challenges. Mental strength is important to accomplish even the most physical tasks.

July 16, 2011-Music for Burra Katha

4 hours
I wrote several new songs called Fastlane, Horror, Taxi, Weve got the Jazz, and tinging. It remains to be seen how many of these songs we will actually record, but I think they are the best material I have produced in a while. 

Feburary 27, 2011 - Debate preparation

2 hours

Prepared for the debate with Akash Salwan. Resolved: North Korea poses a more serious threat to United States national security than Iran. The topic is clear, but it takes a long time to do the research and get a speech together. We have been working very hard to keep the speech clear and concise (under 4 min). It always seems a challenge to write a powerful speech. I start writing, and then I write so much that then I have to start cutting down.

March 6, 2011 - Florida Catholic Forensics League Grand FinalsPreparation

2 hours

I am still tired from the scrimmage at Tallahassee yesterday, but I have promised Akash that we will be preparing for the debate. The topic is pretty clear, "Resolved: North Korea poses a more serious threat to United States national security than Iran". We have in the past done pretty good, but this time, we want to win the the debate.

March 11-12, 2011 - Florida Catholic Forensics League Grand Finals

6 hours

http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110417/ARTICLES/110419546



I and Akash Salwan participated at the FCFL Grand Finals at Lake Mary Preparatory School in Orlando. We were well prepared this time. We were debating whether North Korea or Iran was a bigger threat to the United States of America. Each time our name was drawn we went with North Korea. We did better than we have ever done at the Public forum debate format. We were placed 7th out of 29 teams that had competed. We were named as Alternates for the National Catholic Forensics Grand National Tournament in Washington, D.C. May 26-30, 2011. If we had a little more preparation, we could have been going to the nationals. However, this was a really good experience because we had prepared hard for this debate and we got a taste of defeating several teams before reaching the final 7.