by Joe Singh
March 31, 2012
An open letter to the applicants, regardless of decision.
Let me begin with the lucky, those who managed to tell a story that the Tufts University Admissions committee chose to weave into the extraordinary, growing tapestry that is this institution's history. You should bask in this, and I'm sure you are. A college admission is, above all, transcendent. It is an acknowledgement that everything you've done, the person you are, is worth educating and trusting with a message like Pax et Lux. Whether you choose to be Jumbos or not, you are marked for greatness. Well done.
To the ambivalent, those who were good enough but not lucky enough, a waitlist is not a 'polite rejection'. Evaluate what you want to do, but know a waitlist from a school like this is a message of 'we really, really wanted you and are sorry we couldn't take you.' And yes, statistically it isn't probable you'll go here. But don't let yourself think it was because you were inadequate. It was a lack of space, not of talent...
by Joe Singh
December 6, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2J2tMsVtn0
I can’t believe I’m about to quote Chris Rock.
But I’m about to quote Chris Rock.
“Sports are entertainment, yes, but of a more clear-cut variety.
You make a shot or you don’t.
Win the game or you lose the game.
That’s why we love sports.
Success is not a matter of opinion.”
I was reminded of his words when the news broke that the NBA owners and players’ union had finally agreed on a new collective bargaining agreement, i.e. the framework by which the league functions. It regulates player movement between teams, which is the lifeblood of a league like the NBA. The owners finally un-locked-out the players once they agreed on how to divvy up their billions, and the thousands of arena workers who were unemployed realized they can keep putting food on the table.
Why on earth was so much money tied up in a game that essentially involves men running back and forth on a wooden floor and throwing a ball through a hoop?
That question can be extended...
by Joe Singh
November 29, 2011
*Originally posted on October 6, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oyhjyI9lF0
On the evening of October 5th, 2011, Apple Inc. released a statement notifying the world of the passing of co-founder, Chairman and former CEO Steven P. Jobs.
Gone But Never Forgotten
I read that news on an iPhone. I texted my dad, who also found out via his iPhone. I walked into the Tilton second floor common room as the story broke, and of five laptops I saw, three were Macbooks being used to look up the news. As I was walking through campus to the Cousens Gym, everyone I passed had phones out and was reading the story. More than half of those phones had the Apple logo on the back. It’s almost poetic, that the last news story Steve Jobs would ever directly cause would be read at the peak of his company’s powers, the height of its pervasiveness and staggering success.
My dad is an avid Jobs fan and an Apple devotee. Like hundreds of millions of others, he is drawn to the brilliant innovation...
by Joe Singh
November 29, 2011
*originally posted on September 27, 2011
I’m setting the mood for this one by putting the music up here. Let it play as you read through.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5YJfPBqPNE
This is war. Under the lights, at night, everything fades except the burn in my legs, the floodlights illuminating the surface before me, and the unique mix of cocky patience that comes from knowing I have what it takes but understanding that I can wait as long as I need to.
I hunch over slightly, panting, feeling beads of sweat slowly advance through my hair before I spring back in the direction I came. A few drops work their way down along my cheeks, clinging to my stubbly chin before bravely dropping into the abyss. I ignore the drops flying as I straighten again, my eyes tracking the sphere spinning away from me. With no conscious instruction, my left foot digs into the cement and twists right, powering me off the ground and towards it as my right hand begins the back-swing. Without any decision to...
by Joe Singh
November 29, 2011
*Originally posted on September 13, 2011
College, first and foremost, is an opportunity to broaden your horizons. To manage to link what you learn in class to what you do outside is exciting in high school, certainly, but in college it’s effortless and infinitely more profound.
One of the classes I’m taking this first semester, and probably the most routinely fascinating one, is Western Political Thought I. For that class, the reading assigned over the previous weekend was excerpts of the Greek historian Thucydides’s account of the Peloponnesian War (an ancient conflict between the Athenian Empire and Sparta’s Peloponnesian League). The tale is fascinating, but that’s not the part relevant to this post. The relevant part is the funeral oration given by Pericles, a renowned Greek statesman that Thucydides refers to as the ‘first citizen’ and de facto ruler of Athens.
Pericles, having encouraged Athens to declare war on Sparta, now stands above the bodies of the first Athenian men...
