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In this, I believe

This I Believe The fat old lady in the third row yawned loudly, certain that I was going to bore. I took a deep breath and looked in front of me, assessing the sheer beauty of the crowd and of the situation I was in. It was the fifth month of my Study abroad in Italy, studying in a school and city where anyone barely spoke English. I was facing a hall of students and officials from over 90 schools of the country, about to present one of the last acts of the National Summit. For weeks I tried convincing my class to enact a play with me, but English scared the Italians, and Shakespearean English, more so. When I walked into the President’s office to ask if I could perform alone, he laughed and told me in his heavily gesticulated Italian, that no one’s going to help me, but yes, I could. I smiled. I was given one of the last slots, not because they expected it to be great, but because they expected most people to have left. But they hadn’t, and I was not going to disappoint. ...
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What should I write?

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Blog Idea for RCL2018 For my RCL Blog, in this semester, I wish to talk about an ideal world, and all the reasons why they do not work. I shall discuss movies with hypothetical/futuristic civilizations, and the rules they create for a 'better world'. There have been tons of films, especially in the past decade, which aim to solve the problems that our world currently faces, issues that we currently have no potential solutions to. Writers, with their wild imagination, have provided us with several new 'constitutions' that could, perhaps, be our own future one day . Image by the YA Shelf For my Passion Blog, I am considering continuing my old passion blog, which spoke about death and everything related. I am certain that there are several aspects to my topic that are yet to be covered, and the fact that most people find the idea weird makes it exciting for me to write about it. For the "This I Believe" podcast, I am yet not decided. I wish ...
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Why So... Shaky?

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A review of my own Ted style Talk The Paradigm Shift Essay was my favorite part of RCL yet. Having found a topic I actually enjoyed researching and talking about, the process of preparation and writing was smooth. The Paradigm Shift Essay took me a good week to draft. There were many points I wished to cover about my Transition in the Superhero genre, and I was extremely satisfied with my final essay. A confidence in the content of my essay was a major boost when I had to prepare my speech. I knew I could go back and use literally the same sentences from my essay (being a conversational writer), while drafting my speech. It took me about two and a half hours to write my speech. Cutting short on the content to fit an appropriate time range was painful - as I did not wish to get ride of the wide variety of pointers I had found during my research; yet, that had to be done. The above mentioned time was inclusive of polishing the wordings to fit my own flow of speech, but excluded t...
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Why our heroes are becoming darker by the day (metaphorically)

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“Why so..... serious?” - Joker. Movies reflect extensively how the society, or public at large is. The most fascinating and evident aspect of this, is the fantasy genre, which speaks about an unreal world, yet reflects vastly what the real world is like. It depicts what the people would like the world to be, what pleases them, fascinates them, and in a way, also shows the limit of its audience’s imagination. More than anything, it is exciting - for anything can happen! It is simply beyond a regular life, magic seen through the reel.  One of the prominent film genres under the fantasy category, is superhero movies. Since the 1980s, where they first flourished, superhero movies are bigger than ever today - and also, extremely unusual. The kinds of characters are diverse and new, and the same old set of characters - though still present - are not people’s ‘favorites’ anymore (Sorry Superman). They are unusual not just because of a varied character range, but also in the ...
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Shape-shifting Paradigms

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Using the concept of Shape-Shifting in Rhetoric Typical statement of a guy called 'Paradigm' Paradigm shifts, in a way, correlate with shape-shifters. Shape-shifters do not just switch their shape without reason, they do it when necessary (at least the responsible ones). Based on the deamand of the situation, they alter their appearance, along with their traits, function and over-all existence. Similar is the case of paradigm shifts. A 'paradigm' is a typical example or a pattern of something; a model, when defined by a dictionary. It reflects occurrences in the real world, normal occurrences, that gradually change over time. These changes are catalyzed by current scenarios of the world, slowly, to facilitate or solve a particular (new) concern. These problems can be recurring, which means that paradigm shifts are recurring too. 2 such examples are: 1. Change in super-hero movies 2016/17 witnessed a massive change in the way super hero movies are made...
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Every student's nightmare..... a speech (and how you can ace one)

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Speech, are you ready? An article on how you can charm hundreds, just with your words. They say all’s well that ends well - but that’s definitely not true for speeches. The first impression is what you’re aiming for. The opening part of your speech; for once you have their attention - that’s when your speech makes a real impact.  Always have a phenomenal attention grabber. Be it by stating facts , a dramatic quote, an interactive approach, humor , a story , or the good ol’ loud opener. It excites the audience about what’s to come, building an eagerness to pay attention to the rest of the speech.  While it is okay to read parts of your speech, trying not to do that leaves you with great results. To think of how some of the classmates gave their speech, without having to refer to note cards, the effect was fantastic (atleast when they remembered everything). It allows your audience to connect with you, showing that you ‘know your stuff’ and adds a credibl...
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Don't wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking!

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'Kairos' isn't magical, you got to work for it. Through 208 episodes and 9 long years, the much celebrated TV show How I Met Your Mother left a very important message for its viewers: when you are in the right place at the right time, everything fits and it all goes right; and as the protagonist finally meets the ‘mother’ in the last episode, I only wonder if he knew that it was all through the gift of Kairos, that the show got its beautiful ending. As we all eagerly await for that perfect moment to find us, I googled the sentence, “right place at the right time”, which led me to a very interesting article on how to be in the right place at the right time . It speaks vastly about how kairos, the most essential key to success is not entirely abstract, and timing is anything but a play of luck. Kairos is in your own hands. The protagonist finally has his chance encounter in the last ep of HIMYM We extensively discuss the significance of timing and how a s...
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