The First day of class

It’s amazing how hypnotic a horse’s ears can be as they bob slowly in front of you, stretching forwards and back rhythmically as your mount strides out. For me, riding a horse is a heady combination of adventure, exhilaration and deep relaxation. My mind wanders as my horse trots, cantors and gallops. I go at my own pace—a sedate trot or a full out gallop. The overwhelming feeling is one of freedom. I am, quite literally, on the hoof.

Golden desire was my favorite horse, the apple of my eye. He was fast, ferocious, sweet and ravishing. It was like we could understand each other not through words, but via telepathy. The connection between us felt like an outlet for all my deepest thoughts, something I attained only on a horseback.

The increased concentration, core strength, and spontaneity I developed were a result of horse riding. These skills not only help me become a better jockey, but also a better a better student and a human being. As a result of the skills fostered, I was able to perform well at school and exams. I am a better person because I loved and was loved by an animal, which has brought out my generosity and care for them. This is what I love to the most and will love to do forever.

February 28th 2018 was the presentation day for the Group four project; a project that combines all four fields of science: Chemistry, Biology, Physics and Environmental sciences. The topic for 2018 was “Health and Grooming,” our task as students was to become researchers and come up with an unique project that combines all four fields of science under the agenda topic. In a group of 6 people, it was hard to come up with an idea and decide to progress with it, as a group we thought of many things, the first thing we decided unfortunately did not work out and we were practically running out of time, we just had three days until the final presentation. However, we still had faith in ourselves, this is when we thought of another topic combining: used diaper polymers and detergents.

We worked for about 18 hours continuously in the lab to make this project a success, each of us worked on our individual subjects, I worked on the chemistry part so I had to work extra to make and demonstrate the working of the detergent. On the day before the presentation, we were overwhelmed to see that we made an economically and highly efficient detergent from used diaper polymers. This detergent was the first of its kind and was highly effective on all types of stained clothes. We presented a comparative demonstration of the commercial detergents and the polymer detergent on all kinds of stains keeping all the external factors constant. Most people were fascinated and we had couple of people willing to sponsor our detergent and make it commercial, we were amazed to see such an acceptance, so we knew our hard work paid off, which was later acknowledged by receiving the “Best project award” and the “Best presenter award,” this I believe, was my first step towards my career ambition of being a Research professional one day.

My Model UN journey has begun in 5th grade, I still remember that day like it was yesterday, I attended the conference having no idea what MUN was and what I had to do, all I knew was my friends were going so I wanted to go too, I grew from that to ultimately joining my schools MUN club, making new friends and attending MUN conferences to make and strengthen relationships. I knew from the very first MUN that, these are the friends I will have for a lifetime, we were united by the strongest bond of common interests, and it amazes me that these delegates sitting and debating along with me could potentially be senators, diplomats and important people of the future. Even after the conference, I found myself confiding in and chatting with people I only know by country name. This freedom we have in a MUN allowed me to strengthen my public speaking, research and professional skills which over time has helped me win many MUNs allowing me to build an interest in public affairs and global politics.

I became a Rotarian because of the personal satisfaction it gave me from making a difference in my community, and around the city. I can say that as a Rotarian my greatest joy was improving the lives of orphans. Among many other things, we have worked with organizations to help provide opportunities for education, improved sanitation and clean water. Locally, we cleaned the surroundings: lakes, pathways, parks, schools and donated books to underprivileged school children.

Rotary is all about service. Different people and clubs do different things that support different causes, and have an impact in different ways. The common denominator for over 1.2million Rotarians, from almost every country, every culture, is that we are ALL striving to make our communities and world a better place. That is powerful and I loved being a part of it.

CASnival is a Carnival themed service activity organized by my high school, it was a one day event aimed at commercializing fun, food and events to help the homeless people in the city.

A group of three and I organized a bake sale, by selling home made: cookies, pastries, cakes, donuts at affordable prices. The entire event lasted for about 10 hours and it was a hectic day for all of us, since there were a lot customers rushing to our stall. At that point it was important for us to manage the customers, serve them their orders, record the money earned, calculate the profits, keep all the food organized, manage time, maintain coordination and team spirit. It was definitely a great experience as it strengthened many of my skills and made me more insightful about profit and loss.

Although the experience was tiresome, we were glad that at the end of the day, our hard work paid off, we made a huge profit, which had a major contribution to the overall amount earned from the entire event.

Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit service organization that works for the welfare of the backward classes in India. This was my first major service activity.

A group of 30 members went to Pondicherry; a backward city in India. Though the major part of the city was developed and had all the facilities it was disappointing to see that a little shadowed part of the same city was entirely different. People here, lived in hay houses, did not have proper clothing, were not able to afford two clean meals a day. This was a very devastating situation, so we made it our priority to give them at least one thing they were lagging, ‘a house.’

We worked with and alongside Habitat for Humanity, in order to help these citizens give them what they were deprived of. Though this was just a three day experience, we went through the pain and the rigorous hard work a laborer experienced in their everyday life. It was a great learning experience, as we were able to see the different parts of the society and understand their life styles.

overall, in our travel to Pondicherry we returned with immense satisfaction and smiles not just on our faces but theirs too.