Thinking

What's your major? And why?

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 22:29:12 -0700

math. maybe cs. right now i’m more interested in doing something like me or product design over cs.

why?

because math is hard, which makes it useful. me/product design because at no other point in my life could i learn either the way i can at stanford. this is not really true of cs.

how did you make yourself seem un-boring to stanford?

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:22:47 -0800

It’s not about SEEMING un-boring. It’s about BEING un-boring. Do things that interest you. Become good at them. Ridiculously good. Learn how to tell stories.

how come you don't post more often?

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:07:14 -0800

College is insanely busy, Tumblr doesn’t interest me, I’m looking for more interesting platforms and more interesting adventures. Questions go to my email so I have to answer them before I archive them.

You took AP lit last year, right? How do you get As on the in-class essays/essays in general? :/ I feel like I'm missing something and keep making the same mistake..

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 12:04:56 -0800

Talk to Clarke. He’s generally pretty direct about what he expects. Treat it more like a multiple choice than an essay (i.e. there is a right answer and if you want to be experimental you’d better provide solid evidence). I don’t know about Catrette.

is it possible to get into Stanford with a 3.8 or is it unlikely?

Sat, 15 Dec 2012 01:18:22 -0800

Getting into Stanford is unlikely. A 3.8 isn’t going to help you, but it won’t remove you from consideration. Being boring will remove you from consideration. This question is boring.

why did the future promise greatness, but give us only 140 characters?

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 17:58:49 -0800

People used to be confronted by problems of the infinite everyday. To create, communicate, and travel - essential everyday human activity - required a definite expense of time. I believe that struggling with this reality gave us a propensity to dream. To imagine things commensurate to the magnitude of the world we experienced around us.

Today, oceans are navigated in hours, feelings are shared instantaneously, words are typed without hassle. Our faces are lighted by the glow of screens instead of confronted by the unqualified blackness of the night. We forget to gaze upwards and appreciate the infinitude of stars. We live in a world that obscures the real one. A world of information dancing around, frantically, at the speed of light. Is it sad that many of our greatest desires exist only as bits of 0s and 1s in a network of cables spiderwebbing their way around the world?

This new world of ours is small. It makes us feel important, but the price we pay for this manufactured, reassuring sense of purpose is heavy. No longer are we confronted everyday with the scary magnitude of things that are unknown, undiscovered, unexplored. To most people, science, art, technology are already simply satisfactory. That shouldn’t be the case.

I wonder what would happen if people could come together and dream audaciously. So as an experiment of sorts, I encourage you to spend some time everyday thinking deeply and seriously about the things you love (i.e. anything). Why are they the way they are? How could you challenge them? How would you change them?

In 4 years, most people my age will be asked to go from being net consumers to net producers in this world. So practice making something interesting. Making things you are proud of. Making things that you think are important. Making potential solutions to the biggest problems of your fields. Encourage others to do so as well.

In other, more gaudy, words, dream fantastically. Dream unlimitedly. Dream big.

like a rattlesnake, you kiss potently.

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 00:03:43 -0800

like a rattlesnake, you kiss potently.

a brief syllogism

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 23:39:00 -0700

if someone was perfect, they would be here.
there is no one perfect here.
∴ nobody is perfect.

something more thoughtful to end the spree

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:59:18 -0700

Whenever you have to confront a mistake you cannot cope with, whenever you have to tolerate someone else’s mistake you can’t cope with…

just remember that we are engaging in the most human course of actions – that even the most ridiculous, most crude, more unforgivable behaviors are utterly human.

And what is human is in some ways what is most understandable, embraceable, and if not anything else, beautiful.*

*exception: genocide.

???how is it that in an attempt to push someone away your biggest fear is that it’ll work???

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:55:32 -0700

???
how is it that
in an attempt to push someone away
your biggest fear
is that it’ll work
???

cat power, cat stevens

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:43:18 -0700

Help me for I’ve lost my words
it seems they won’t come out today.
My mind it churns, my lips they move
but it’s hard to find the words to say…

I look around, I see them dance
they drape the trees and fill my desk.
I close my eyes, they graze my teeth
And still they stay. Locked in my chest.

things written in college

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:26:03 -0700

“Ay, from the crow’s nest
We see the shore —
And that keeps us hungry.”

a turtle on a turtle on a turtle and so on

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 17:22:00 -0700

all i know is i come from people
who were descendants of people
who were begat by people
what is ancestry

does this chain stretch back
to the explosions of planets
the beginning of time
do i come from the stars?

will i disappear as quickly
as i am made?
and my children will question
who their ancestors were.

Change and Growing Up Are Not Exactly What This Post Is About But Seem More Significant Than What This Post Is Actually About.

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 11:54:33 -0700

I always felt weird that my primary outlet on the Internet was a website used by fellow teenage girls with plenty of emotional anxiety. Oh and everything I wrote on Tumblr seemed a little too formal and lacked all the great self-deprecating humor that I have come to embrace (I suck.).

Anyways, my point was that longer and [a little more] original content was hard for me to post onto Tumblr. Plus it has no support for LaTeX. So I have decided to slowly transition to a new a new “blog” (I will treat it more as my personal page on the Internet).

Hopefully every once in a while, my friends who I no longer see on a day to day basis will visit it and be pleasantly surprised by what I’m up to. Or shake their head in disbelief that we were friends. In which case they can go screw themselves.

Without further ado, here is my new “blog”. It will soon be moved to just anshshukla.com once I pay Wordpress $13.

I’m in the process of going through my iTunes library and,...

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 11:16:00 -0700

I’m in the process of going through my iTunes library and, for once and for all, putting all my music on Spotify. An hour later, still on the “B”s.

Change is the foundation for something new. Therefore, it must be built, slowly, brick by brick. Too...

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 08:00:36 -0700

Change is the foundation for something new. Therefore, it must be built, slowly, brick by brick. Too many people expect find their change to be like lightning: quick, powerful, and gone in an instant.

My first vivid dream in 4+ years

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:29:00 -0700

Kevin running for DECA national office. In his campaign speech to all 16,000 people, he walks onto the stage and tells off everyone in attendance: “Hello future trust fund babies, wanna-be big shots, and branch managers at the local GAP.”

He then proceeds to give an elaborate five minute speech that leaves everyone shocked. After this, we find out that he is running unopposed and wins national office! The whole time, I can see the teleprompters scrolling through “F DECA”.

It was the strangest dream. Also, why is this apparently the right spelling of “teleprompter” on my computer?

Interesting family dynamic. Where by interesting I mean probably very unhealthy…both the...

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 22:08:00 -0700

Interesting family dynamic. Where by interesting I mean probably very unhealthy…both the parents were on their phones while their kids were watching Cartoon Network on a projector. A lot of people talk about how shorter attention spans are affecting the Internet Generation’s ability to work. There is also some discussion on how the value of knowledge is changing now that most “facts” can be researched in a couple of seconds from your smartphone. The most interesting place where this issue comes to light is when you do a crossword with a pre-Internet person…they are very stubborn about not looking up answers on the Internet, but why not?

Anyways, back on topic, I wonder if there is any research on whether our kind make for shitty parents. Judging by the hat on the girl on the right……yes.

Thank you to everyone who came to my Grad party! You guys are awesome and you make me feel equally awesome. For those who got their first taste of a brown party…hope you enjoyed it. Also, another board game night!

Kevin and I were within 100 feet of each other at 3 separate times during the day. Yes I was compulsively checking - it’s too much fun!!!

I’ve been trying to practice making things creatively, especially with my hands (can someone teach me to draw/DIY/craft/etc.?) - so it was especially appropriate that we went to this ceramic painting place as a family for Father’s Day.

I think I did an especially excellent job. If you look very closely….brown pride.

I am so excited for this…riding a plane flown by Stark this Thursday! I want to ask him what the flight plan is. Or what you’re supposed to notice. Somehow try to maximize this time I will have on the plane, but I realize I won’t because it’s just too much fun to take things as they go.

Helping make Kevin’s photo website/resume…in order to establish an online presence of course :)

I like it when I feel like I can influence people around me to become better. Or be more productive. Or enjoy life. Today was a good day.

Camera buying advice from Kevin.

EDIT: Need more time? Delete all those social networking apps from your phone…texting is pretty much all you need anyways.

This photo accurately sums up 99.9999% of all [base] male activity. This will hopefully be my...

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 02:17:03 -0700

This photo accurately sums up 99.9999% of all [base] male activity.

This will hopefully be my Stanford ID picture. Associated with it are two very important people! Maybe this way I won’t forget them.

My Tumblr is too serious. Here begins the debate on whether I actually care (I do?). Woke up, chose...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:02:00 -0700

My Tumblr is too serious. Here begins the debate on whether I actually care (I do?).

Woke up, chose between showering and…other things, “hiking”, the Frenchman’s lair, hiking, long walk across campus, ghetto Thai place only accepts cash and doles out peanuts, Stanford prison experiment basement (accidentally), Patxi’s, driving in circles in Buster (Sara’s newly named speedy red Corolla), scrolling through Amy’s Pintrest, napping/ankle band, random browsing, math, more random browsing, goodnightsweetdreams!

Hopefully tomorrow will be the first time in 18 years I will touch my toes. Keeping my fingers crossed!

If anyone knows why all smartphones have this really small 3-5 pixel black curve on the corners, please let me know. I have a theory but it is probably wrong.

seniorformal.stanford.edu is a very nicely coded website. This whole click through transport has been trending as of late.

EDIT: I have a feeling this Tumblr is approaching it’s usefulness to me. I have some ideas on better ways to document things that I will experiment with. Until then, see you in person (sometime)!