ThePanda

Colleges out of the United States seem to love SOPs, embassies seem to love SOPs (believe it or not my Canadian Student Permit requires an SOP, as does an American F-1 I have been led to believe)..... But it is when some college comes up with something called a SPE that u reallllllllllly start worrying abt what to write (umm first abt wat an SPE is, then abt what r u gonna write on it)...... Now among the gazillion other universities I had applied to, one of the Canadian colleges which still survives after ze elimination round my acceptance initiated is Queens which is supposed to be a pretty gooooood university, and has one of the prettiest viewbooks I have seen (almost as pretty as Swarthmore’s which has Ze Panda’s second most pretty viewbook of the year award to itself, though less than Brown’s which according to Ze Panda is ze prettiest viewbook of ze year, though Queen has the most Mac centric viewbook of ne college, a fact reflected on its website probably one of few where every explanation is given for both PC & Mac users), sent me a nice little packet which among other things contains a viewbook and a nice letter which states that I have to go online and complete my SPE and zat I shud be aware zat ze SPE maybe the only criterion affecting my admission to Queens…..... Get a statement like that from a university this late in ze admission season and ur bound to have a heart attack, specially if u r unaware of what on earth a SPE is…. So after a considerable search of what Queens so pleasantly reefers to as ‘Your Applicant File’ I discovered than SPE stood for Statement of Personal Experience, though little else was mentioned abt it, and without a paper copy I cudnt really come up with what to write, besides I was supposed to be heading out to ze markets with my parents, so scared ol’ me was moving abt all over Delhi trying to figure out what I am supposed to write for an SPE….... When me finally came home, nervous wreck that I was, I didn’t spare a moment b4 trying to get online, which of late takes me 3 minutes on an average (getting connected to ze ISP seems hard nowadays) and getting to Queens website took me another minute, getting to ze relevant section another minute and a half (not good for frayed nerves and pulsating hearts), after which I discover zat ze SPE is no essay oh no that wud have been 2 simple, its a form with 8 fields, the first two of which ask u to list two major academic achievements (the simple part), then two major extracurricular activities, two major activities you are committed to (the confusing part) and two major activities you have leadership posts in….. The first and the last were pretty simple, it was the middle two which were confusing, becoz if I am involved in an extracurricular activity I am committed to it and if I am committed to an activity its usually extracurricular in nature (I loved skool but not for ze curriculum)......

My parents & a lot of other ppl here in my corner of ze world have finally realized zat ze cable op is maintaining a virtual monopoly and is loooooooting zese guys out of zeir hard earned money, and zis has led to ze start of a final battle bet ze cable op and zese guys with ze cable operator frequently blanking out paid (read watchable) channels from ze stream…..... Wat is sad abt zis entire thing is zat a lot of us have already paid for ze box, and well these ppl treated them well, kept out competition for zese guys for ze past 12 years and now he’s repaying them in such a manner, all becoz these guys demanded better service and better boxes…................. Zis is sad ‘coz while I am a kid (mostly) and I may not have much of an attachment for zis guy, most of the adults treated him like family, in fact when some of us kids complained abt him earlier, they used to go on abt how he wud probably be working at correcting issues, and how solving tech problems takes time…...... Zis guy started out with r colony and expanded his operations but at ze end of ze day we were his first customers and most of zese guys were loyal to him, loyal as hell infact, and now he acts in such a monstrous manner…... So I change yesterdays statement, geniuses do become monsters but even zen in their personal lives they try and be good, its their line of work which makes them monsters, but money on ze other hand seems to affect everyone (specially those who rnt geniuses) and makes them monsters of a much bigger proportion becoz zey affect wat zey directly interact with, SAD…........

Flights r again being disrupted, this time globally with cancelations of BA’s London-Washington flight, ze Egyptian air crash and other such events….. Air travel 100 yrs after it all started has suddenly become a danger to ze country where it all started, and all becoz some chimps decided zat crashing planes into buildings was fun…...... While ze events of 9/11 were bad to say ze least, ze level of paranoia existing on zis world has inexplicably increased beyond wat it shud be and zat is sad, ‘coz earlier the only thing wrong with everything was zat some ppl died b4 zey wanted 2, but now ppl have no fun, live in fear and stillllll die, sad…...................

NASA has been legendary in its slow adoption of technology (some of its ships r still supposed to be running CP/M’s), but finally they have adopted Kermit a protocol made at Columbia (ze place which deferred me) abt 23 yrs ago as their data transfer standard on ze ISS.... Good for NASA now that it is updating technology a shift to the IA32 series line up wud be good, since theyv been tested 4 long enuf….......

Ze Panda
Still wondering abt wat to write on ze SPE…........