Keeping the Faith

Whatever happens, happens for the best...
God works in mysterious ways, you just focus on working hard, he'll take care of the rest.

These are the very words I have lived by all this while; applying it to myself as well as the ones close to me. I rationalized every little rejection that You handed out to my sister, convincing myself and her that there had to be a bigger reason than what met the eye.

There was this glimmer of hope... things were working out for her according to what we all wanted... and I thought this was it, it's finally happening.... she's finally getting what she deserves... a fighting chance. The faith was justified, and she made it to the interview round of the one school she had gotten a call from. And then, just like that, before it even began, it was all over... You dished out another rejection.

The old words sound empty to me now..... it is difficult to be strong. Is this the point where the spirit is broken and you succumb to cynicism? What is the breaking point of faith and trust in God, destiny and fate?
However, there is this little voice somwhere which surfaces from somwhere... says
please let this not be true... please let this just be a test of faith, and make things work out for the people concerned.

The verdict's out...

... and it's a 'regretful denial of an admission or interview invite' from wharton. Well, Bejan Daruwala did say it was going to be an important day for me.... I of course, always associated important with good news. I guess nothing like a rejection to change your perspective in life.
It feels so weird, after they changed my status back to complete from a denial, this flicker of hope that managed to override all pessimissm said that maybe it was because they wanted to go through my apps one more time, and maybe they really were going to give me an interview invite. but i guess, the list of maybes will continue till kingdome comes, the fact is, it's time to close the wharton chapter and move on (hopefully!) to other colleges.

On another note, if you're typing the word rejected in an SMS, and have the auto dictionary turned on, the word that gets typed first is actually 'selected', so of course u need to press the damn key to change selected to rejected. talk about cruel jokes!

Desp(ai)ration...

Staring into the night
All alone but that’s alright
It’s the feeling deep inside... I don’t like

There is no excuse my friend
For breaking my heart, breaking my heart again
This is where our journey...; Your breaking my heart again

Don't Funk With My Heart

... this one is for you Wharton.

It seemed like the perfect Saturday, woke up late, had a good breakfast, lazed around, and saw Pakistan struggling against India. Then as per routine, I logged into the Wharton online system to see if there was any update to my application... there it was. The sentence I had waited to see for so long on my app - "The admissions committee has evaluated your application... Click here to view the decision". Heartbeat racing, almost breaking into a sweat, I clicked the link... this PDF opened, which told me that the school was regretfully informing me that they were not able to offer me a position or an interview invite for Sep 2006.

Feeling what I did at that time, I shut the window, and went about doing other things to take my mind off the denial without an interview (DWI). I logged on at night to read the letter carefully, and guess what... the status had changed back to "Your application is being evaluated for the admissions committee." The DWI had disappeared like a bad dream, leaving me with serious doubts about my mental health, and powers of sight. Wharton has this student to student blog facility set up for their prospective students, and when I logged on to that, I found out the same thing had happened to many other applicants. For some people, the status had gone back to application under review, and for some it was continuing to show rejected. Apparently, an admissions committee member had also posted a note on the blog saying if the status had changed to under review, it meant you were still in the game as interview invites were being sent out until Feb 16.

So, where am I today?.... Staring at Feb 16, apparently still in the contention for an interview, but with all hopes of receiving an interview invite fading with every passing moment.

Wharton, I am prepared for news... any news, even if it is a DWI. so go ahead, bring it on.... just get on with it, instead of messing around with my (and tons of other applicants') minds!!

The "1000 things I want to do before I die" tag

Got tagged by Rupen on this ... can't pen down a 1000 things, but here are a few. Will of course, keep populating this!

1) Lose at least 10kgs... and maintain it :D
2) Complete my collection of fav books and movies
3) Take a biking vacation.... as a pillion rider
4) Act in a play
5) Travel extensively... take a vacation at least twice a year. Visit the Pyramids (again!), Ladakh, New Zealand, Greece, Scotland....
6) Continue with my salsa classes.... and learn jazz
7) Go hiking in the mountains

A month down

First month of 2006 is down.... and I am a little late in this posting, considering 6 days of the second month have also lapsed.

Anyway, here's a look back at the month gone by:

• It started with the last few days of a lovely vacation in Goa coming to an end... and at the end of the holiday, I had beautiful memories, and of course, some renewed bonds with my friends
• Frenzied activity took place after I came back as I rushed to meet application deadlines for 5 colleges
• Had some excitement when I interviewed with Duke; my first interview ever with a school! The interview turned out to be a lengthy conversation which left me with a lot of hope and optimistic feelings
• Feelings of complete desolation and an aimless kind of existence for a few days... After months of being completely busy, I had absolutely nothing to do after coming back home... horrible feeling! But that passed; I finally found the time and space to get back to meanigful reading... so hooray!
• Had a hell of time readjusting at work after Goa... kept blaming it on the Goa, thinking the vacation had gotten to me. But when the feeling persisted, realized it was actually work. introspected a little more, and nailed the exact problem... but also realized that I couldn't do much about it for at least some time to come. However, have made peace with stuff, and am all charged to steam ahead!

All in all, a pretty exciting month... hope Feb rocks!!