Self-Improvement

It's easy to sit here, at 3:50 AM, and read blogs about productivity. It's easy to be inspired by some of the most inspirational people in the world.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Good Will Hunting. There's a scene in the movie (probably one of the most famous scenes of the movie, but I haven't done any research on it) where Will explains to a seemingly smart college student where he went wrong with his life. He spoke about the college student's blatant plagiarism of ideas - he was simply memorizing words from textbooks and regurgitating them in order to seem smart. Not only did he not truly understand what he was saying, but he was paying a ton of money in order to obtain this lack of understanding. He explains that the college student spent $150,000 on something he could have gotten for $1.50 in late fees at the library.

The fact that I took away from that scene is this: knowledge is free. Knowledge is more free now than it was when the movie was made - things like MIT's OpenCourseWare, Udemy, EdX, Udacity, etc. have been teaching countless students in countless subjects for long enough now. Late fees at the library aren't needed.

What is needed?

• Motivation
• Time

That's it. Not only that, but we have time. If there's time to sit here writing this, there's time to use for other things. Of course, I was never a fan of the scary concept that if there's time to partake in leisure activities, there's time to study/work/etc. When I was younger, I was exposed to a quote that made me feel uneasy about myself. It was about how while one person was sitting and watching TV, another was training, honing their skills in their craft. While I understand how the quote could motivate, it also made me feel like crap for relaxing. Did the person that was honing their skills never take any time off? It's important to relax as much as you need to keep your brain active when it needs to be. I feel like lifting weights demonstrates this excellently. It's important for your muscles to rest, so they can rebuild the microscopic tears you made while bench pressing your new personal record. In my opinion, the brain functions the same way.

Motivation is the harder of the two requirements to tackle. It can't just be fleeting - for any appreciable changes to occur, one needs to work over a long period of time. Just like how you can't just decide to work out with extreme intensity for a week and expect the same results as working out at a lower intensity for two months. Motivation stems from passion. Passion is hard to just create, but I feel like you can create it the same way you can create confidence: fake it for a while. It sounds dumb, but that's how self-confidence worked for me, and I can only apply my own experiences to subjects like this if I want to be sure about what I'm saying.

In conclusion, I want to say that I struggle with self-improvement just as much as anyone else. I, however, feel a strong urge to make a change in my lifestyle (it's summer, and I've had enough of this whole "relaxation" thing - so much that I actually want to occupy myself with something that challenges me mentally/physically). I want to turn this urge into results. I'll update on where this goes on the blog. I might do video blogs or something. I'm not sure yet. Thanks for reading.

Piano Teacher

I'm concealing a ton of excitement by not putting an exclamation mark at the end of every sentence in this paragraph. Tonight, my family and I went out to dinner. We went to a nice Indian restaurant. Seems a bit ridiculous considering we know how to make almost everything on the menu, but their food tastes a lot better and the atmosphere is nice. So, we ate, and I brought up a topic I'd been subtly hinting towards for the last 2 weeks or so:

"You know, mama [pronounced muh-mah, the way I've addressed my mom forever], piano is a really nice instrument. If only there were some way to get better at this beautiful instrument without forming bad habits. Alas, if only I had an experienced pianist visiting our house once a week for about an hour to point me in the right direction and help me progress to a higher level of proficiency..."

That, ideally, is what I would have said, but as soon as I said the word piano, my mother stopped me. Remember when I said I'd been subtly hinting towards piano lessons? Yeah, I haven't exactly mastered the art of subtlety yet...

After much convincing (part of which actually took place before the dinner), she agreed to let me try piano lessons. I did a lot of research on finding a good teacher, and I think I've found an amazing one. We've now called him and scheduled a lesson for this Sunday at 5:30. I truly can't wait to progress to playing the piano properly, partly parce que le plupart de my presence on this planet has been packed with piano pieces impossible to play because of a paucity of proficiency in playing this pulchritudinous instrument.

I'm sorry.

Maturity Level and Rome

If I had to pick a word to describe my day today, it would be uneventful. According to thesaurus.com, I could've also used quiet, routine, unexceptional, humdrum, uninteresting, unmemorable, or unnoteworthy.

I went to sleep at 2:00 AM last night and woke up this morning at 6:50 AM, thanks to a splash of water on my face from my fantastic dad. I really do appreciate the water splashes - I've never been able to keep a normal sleep schedule for long, and part of it is because I find it so difficult to get up in the morning...

I went to school, talked about A Tale of Two Cities in English, and did a lab in Chemistry. Then, we started the reproduction unit in biology. It was here that I found out how truly immature I was. I'm hoping that by the end of the unit, I won't have to hold back laughs at certain biological terms. The class isn't an accelerated class - I take Regents biology along with Chemistry Accelerated. While being in an academic class doesn't say anything about one's level of maturity, it does have a different atmosphere - I feel like Regents classes are more open to slight interruptions interfering with the pursuit of knowledge. It's not necessarily a bad thing - we still learn the basics of biology, which is what we should want, but there's less curiosity in the class. It's hard to put into words. I'm still an amateur writer.

After Biology, I went to AP World History - my one AP class this year. I'm particularly fond of this class, and it's not because of the subject, but because of the workload. I don't know why, but there's something immensely satisfying about knowing the tremendous amount of work we'll have completed by the end of the year - at the end of this year, I can point to my 900-page textbook and say, "I read this." As for the outlines, I feel like outlining a textbook is an important skill that I'm going to need in college, so I don't really mind them as much as some of the other students in my class.

After AP World, French. French comes very naturally to me for some reason. I notice patterns in the language very easily. We learned about passe compose (sorry for being too lazy to insert accents) with the reflexive tense today. Like most other things, I picked it up pretty fast. After French, I went to CPR - this class is pretty light in terms of workload, but I want to stress that I get everything right in case I'm ever in a situation requiring First Aid.

After French, math. My favorite class of them all. In math, I'm transported to a sort of Rome, where I watch as roads are built all around me, and I'm blessed with the privilege of navigating them to go from problem to answer.

What else happened today? I went home, slept, started my outline, watched the premier episode of Cosmos, and started writing a blog post titled "Maturity Level and Rome", which was about my day. Blog posts won't normally be this regular, but I wanted to document what a normal day is like for me in my current life. This is one of the few blogs where I write about a day that I might describe as mundane.

A Resurrection

The last time I blogged, I was in 8th grade. I've changed so much since then, it's hard for me to believe I wrote half of this stuff. Still, I remember sitting in front of my computer on dark mornings, playing League of Legends and dreading school the next day.

Doesn't sound much like current Arnav, does it?

I could dwell on that stuff forever, but I want to blog about other things. Firstly, I want to address why I'm blogging again. It's fairly simple, really - I've just been influenced by MIT Admissions Blogs. I've been reading them for a while, and I thought it would be a fun thing to do. However, that's what got me started with blogging in the 8th grade, and that wasn't such a huge success - I didn't really follow through with it.

What makes this time different?

This time, I plan on blogging for myself. Previously, I had blogged in a more social manner - everything written on my blog was written for other people's eyes, and I spent far too long making sure the site was visually appealing. Since then, I've come to realize that I'd like to blog for the reason I think most people might blog: it's like keeping a journal. I'll be writing more for myself than for others, and should therefore enjoy writing more. This will lead to blogging being less of an obligation, resulting in more blogiation. I made that word up because I saw the letters in obligation. Heh.

Suits

Best TV show ever, definitely up there with Sherlock and Season 1 of Lie To Me. Kinda makes me wanna minor in law when I get to college...

Today I practiced my suit-wearing skills for an hour. Sounds pathetic, but it was fun. Perfected my half-windsor, gelled my hair, wore glasses, got a briefcase, walked around house like a professional awesomeist.

Project Euler

Gonna try this out. Looks like a fun challenge. It's a ton of math problems that you can solve in any language, but require some sort of computing power to solve.

Debian

This marks the first day I spend a full day on Linux! I've got it running on a virtual machine (it's obviously not the best solution, but it's definitely the easiest one) and it's not bad. I need to apt-get some new browser, though. Shoutout to r/teenagers IRC for getting me on Debian in the first place. I've done some python on it, but 2.6.2 doesn't support import antigravity, which makes me sad. :(

 

LORD OF THE FLIES, PYTHON AND XKCD

OH GOD I WILL NEVER FINISH THIS SUMMER READING BEFORE SEPTEMBER 6TH

in other news, I finally got on GitHub! Check me out at https://github.com/arnavIsABoss. I only have PyEgg on there right now (which you can also find on the code page on here).
Also, I've started using import antigravity as my username for a lot of things because xkcd is awesome!

Lord of the Flies, Python, and xkcd.

I've got ~140 pages to read (and ~20 pages to write) about Lord of the Flies in the next month. Should be pretty easy, I'm not too worried about it.

What I am worried about is the DAHS website. I was working on it, and realized it still looks pretty amateur (BAD). It also has a lot of pages I haven't finished yet. I've been thinking about working on the website, but not rushing myself too much. I'm gonna release it a little later. (Although I'm still going to the web design teacher about their use of frames... it hurts to look at).

I've been doing some more Python, and I can't love it enough. It's hilariously fun, and I hope I can get a job in it one day, because being paid to code things in Python sounds like heaven.

Also, I've taken a recent interest in xkcd. I've always loved the webcomic, but for some reason, I decided to go through a TON of their comics and read all of them + their alt texts, and I love them.

I can't wait for high school to start, but I hope I can still fit in all my Python/DAHS website binges where I just kinda sit at my computer all day and either work on something in Python, or work on the website.

Business

warning: excessive html/css in this post, if you don't like it, don't read

jk, shouldn't be too much. ANYWAYS

I was working on the website for DAHS again, and got to the business page. Apparently, they decided a description of EVERY business class would be appropriate. Now, their site uses frames, so it's pretty damn easy for them. Since I don't want to use frames, I'm thinking of either making the Business page one LONG page, or putting all the classes/descriptions on their own separate page. Dude I swear separate is the ONLY word I ever spell wrong without realizing right away, it looks like it should be seperate. :(

DAHS Website

As I hinted in a previous blog post of mine (http://arnavisaboss.blogspot.com/2012/06/dahs.html), I'm gonna work on Division's website. I've only gotten to the index page and the Art page so far, but by the time I'm done, this site should be a masterpiece.

Timezone Birthdays

I'm thinking of a very particular person when I post this, but yeah. I know someone who has a birthday but celebrated it in a different time zone. This confuses me.

A birthday marks how long you've been alive, right?
So, say you were born at 6:53 PM EST.
Then you move to another time zone.

You celebrate your birthday as soon as it hits 6:53 PM, but if your time zone is later than the one in which you were born, it's not REALLY your birthday yet, and if your time zone is earlier than the one in which you were born, it's been your birthday already.

Take the former case. It's not really your birthday yet. This means you haven't been alive that long yet, so you need to wait your turn until it's REALLY your birthday to celebrate.
fake anger, btw. Happy birthday.

Code Snippets Page Added

I added a code snippets page, because sometimes I'm bored and don't feel like writing something huge, so I just start something and see where it goes. Also, Python! I'm using it a lot lately. Fun stuff. After this, I wanna jump into PHP because it seems pretty fun.

Pirates vs Ninjas

Why are you posting this, Arnav?
TO MAKE A POINT


Pirates have all the following:

• Guns. Not dumb modern guns. Guns that used gunpowder, and wood instead of steel.
• Swords. Not weird Asian ninja swords. Cool, curved, cutlasses.
• Gold. Ninjas will NEVER have as much gold/treasure/booty as pirates.
• Beards. Just sayin'.
• Eye patches. Ninjas don't get to have eye patches, and see in the dark.
• Hook for a hand. Something that lets you stab things with your hand, and doubles as a weapon? YES.
• Peg leg. Ninjas have all their limbs. Ew.
• Cool universal logo. There IS some variation, but it's usually just the skull and cross-bones. Do ninjas have a universal logo? Maybe a random red dot on a white flag. Not a REAL logo.
• Ships. How do ninjas go from continent to continent, and steal things? They don't. They're not pirates.
• Explosives. Would you not love to plant a barrel of gunpowder on an enemy ship (that you got on to by swinging across from a rope) and then swing back to your ship and watch the enemy ship explode?
• Captains. Ninjas have no captains. There's no sense of leadership.
• Cool way of talking. Ninjas don't. Maybe whispers, but anyone can whisper. Not everyone can pull off the whole pirate "arrrrrrrgh" thing.
• Cool hats. Ninjas get headbands, but that's NOTHING compared to the cool curvy pirate hats.
• Flying pets! The higher-up pirates (Edward Teach i.e Blackbeard) got cool birds like Falcons, and the other ones still got parrots and monkeys (monkeys don't fly, but still. do you want a monkey? are you allowed to have one, as a ninja?)
• "Teams". Pirates have a crew. Ninjas are forced to work alone, and if they work in a team, they ALWAYS lose. If you've ever read a comic or watched an anime or something, you'll know that the more enemy ninjas there are, the less chance they have of winning. The more pirates there are, the more your butt is about to get kicked.

Ninjas have the following:

• stealth
• nothing
• they suck

Being A Pirate

After watching about half an hour of a Pirates of the Caribbean (thank god for spell check), I thought about what it would be like to be a pirate. It just seems so fun. Taking over ships, swordsmanship, getting money, ruling the seas, etc.. It seems so thrilling. Another thing is the personality of most of them. Almost always drunk (this might be wrong, considering I'm basing it off my half an hour of Pirates of the Caribbean), spontaneous, and they seem to enjoy life. There's no "teenage drama", there's young men learning to use a sword for the first time and young women learning to cook and clean (sounds sexist, but times were different back then). I feel like playing an MMORPG in which one can take over the seas and plunder other ships and things. I think there was a Roblox game about it (there might still be one... brb redownloading roblox). No, seriously. I am redownloading Roblox right now just because I have the urge to feel like a pirate today. I'm awesome like that.

Pirates are better than ninjas.

edit: guess what I decided to be for Halloween this year?

Python

I've been doing a project in Python lately. I'm really interested in it. To start things off, here's a flashback of me when I was 7 years old:
-reading book about business and economy-
"... the best way to sell a product is to listen to what people want, and then create it."
-close book, start listening to what my family wants-

the rest is not important. It's just that line. That line of that book which I don't even remember the title of stuck out to me after all these years for a reason. Who knew in a kid's book, I would find something so genius? Just listen to what people are complaining about, and answer that with a product, and you're set. Easy money. Right?

So, I just kinda had that advice stored somewhere in my brain for 6 years. Recently, I was on Twitter (no duh I'm always on there). A Rioter (someone who works at Riot, the people who produce and maintain the free-to-play game I love, League of Legends) named Rinoa needed help with a computer build. Since I had researched computer builds for a few months before this because I wanted one myself for my birthday, I decided to help.

HERE is where the idea started. I went and found a bunch of good products that Rinoa could use to build her very own hot pink gaming computer. I needed a way to tell her all these products and information about them in 140 characters (curse you, twitter character limit) or less. I found pastebin. Or well, I didn't find it. I had used it before, but only for posting code. Anyways, I pasted all the products into the paste box. Here's the outcome, for those curious:
http://pastebin.com/gp39QVwf

Note the format.
<category>
<item name>
<price>
<url>

I had to go to each of the pages and do this in a very systematic, tedious way. I had to copy/paste 10 things from 4 locations on 10 pages. Not fun. The thing is, I also happen to know an online community who had this same problem a lot. The computing, customizing, and overclocking section of HackForums (obviously I can't speak for them, but in my opinion, pastebin is the best way to give lots of info on a computer build at a glance like that).

So, I took it upon myself to make this my first real Python project. (my first real project, period. I've had others, but this one will be finished and released!)

-take Newegg URLs
-spit out a ton of info about the product
-so far I only have name/price/url
-aiming for name/category/rating/price/url/optional comments

category is hard. rating is semi-easy. optional comments are difficult-ish.

Here's a video of my program in action (so far):

Watching it in anything less the 720p makes it hard to see. Just sayin'. Also, my taste in music is better than yours.

Reactivation of Facebook

WHY?

I reactivated my Facebook. My social life didn't suffer too much from the deactivation, I thought it would suffer a lot more than it did. I reactivated it because I have to admit it's pretty useful. It's easy to have a conversation from phone to computer, it's easy to schedule events, and more people use it. I deactivated it because I felt almost addicted to the notifications (I know, right?) but I think the ~3 month break fixed that up.

Interview With J☼ Calto

Arnav: So Jason, how do you feel about school ending?
Jason: It's great.
Arnav: Care to elaborate?
Jason: No...
Arnav: -laughing-
Jason: There's nothing to elaborate on... school ending is great.
Arnav: Explain the ceremonial breaking of the pencil.
Jason: What?


quality interviews brought to you by:
Arnav. Skype.

Ceremonial Breaking of The Pencil

Let me start off by saying this:
The last three years of my life has come to an end. That's what this feels like. It didn't feel like this at graduation, because we still had finals to study for. But now? I can still remember my first time walking into Wisdom. I was intimidated. I got lost when looking for classes. I still remember my first words, because they're significant to me:

"Cheese Girl." Yeah. My first words that I would remember for the next three years of my life were "cheese girl", and I said it because Gabriella Lucas, a girl who went to Abbey Lane with me, always loved the cafeteria's cheese blocks. I hated them, so when I got them, I gave them to her. So when I entered the class where she was sitting next to me, the first words that came out of my mouth in the school that I would gain friends in, lose friends in, learn things in, impress people in, disappoint people in, and become myself in were "Cheese Girl."

I'm gonna try and make my high school first words a little more memorable (well, Cheese Girl is still very memorable, I mean to say a little more normal.)

So, you've probably noticed the title by now. In fact, it was probably one of the first things you read. "Ceremonial Breaking of The Pencil". People do it all the time, but for me and a group of friends, it's more than just "lol skool ovar lets break the penc1L!!!11!1!11!1!one1!11!!!!!1" It's meaningful. Let's go to a flashback:

I'm sitting in the final final of the first year of the next three years of education. I'm asleep. Yeah. I fell asleep during the final, because I completed all the work in the first 45 minutes (and I got a 97 on the final, too, so don't think I did bad.) I wake up when everyone's leaving (they didn't plan to wake me up, it was a funny moment) and leave. The day has ended. The semester has ended. It feels so... final. So, I break a pencil and take the eraser end and hand it to a friend. He throws it to the ceiling of the school (and almost makes it, too). I explain to the other three people that it had meaning. I didn't break the pencil just for the sake of it.

Here's the meaning behind me, Jason Colato, Japjot Josan, and Brian Taranto's ceremonial breaking of the pencil:

• breaking the pencil signifies the ending of education for the grade you're in. this is the most obvious one.
• one must always throw away the eraser end (preferably give it to Brian so he can attempt to throw it to the top of the building) to signify they are willing to write with no eraser and stand by what they say (i.e not erasing anything including memories, words, feelings, etc.)
• one must then take the pencil end home and write something with it. I still have what I wrote in 6th grade. It says, "well played, Arnav. well played." I don't have what I wrote in 7th grade (and don't remember it) and I have yet to come up with something to write that summarizes my experiences this year.
• breaking pencils at the end of the school year looks like something only immature students trying to look cool would do, but we took it to a whole new level. We gave it the breath of Life. We gave it reason to be.
• breaking pencils is fun

The end of school has come. I tweeted this earlier and was thinking about it, and it seems pretty cool:

"those steps that I took to exit that school today will be the last steps I will EVER take as a student of wisdom lane. deep stuff, man"

I Play Tetris

Yeah, I was playing some Tetris recently and people online were wrong (xkcd reference ftw?) about my Tetris skills, so I made a video about them so yeah. My first youtube video. It was fun to make (and free, as you can see from the top right two tabs if you know what I mean) Upload process overall was easier than I thought (it actually used to confuse me as a kid, but that was when youtube was like two years old max) and yeah here's the video for your viewing pleasures. (I was gonna add music but then... I didn't)