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2013-06-16

Welcome to the organization meeting of the Vidyalaya High School Club. This is the first meeting of members who have shown interest. In this meeting we discuss the agenda of the club in more detail and create various roles and assign people to the roles. Some ideas about launch of the club are shared here. Let me start by making an observation that, as a parent, I feel that this activity should be fourth in your priority list and you should continue only if you have other three under control.

  1. Grades
    2. A transcript with all the challenging courses and "A+" grade next to them is the dream of every parent.
  2. Standardized Tests
    3. 2400 sounds like a good round number to most parents.
  3. Sports/Clubs and other activities at School
    4. I would be so happy to see a resume where the kid is president of five different clubs
  4. External enhancement experience

This activity is to enhance our resume. We are doing this to distinguish ourselves but if we do not have good grades, nobody would even see this. Obviously, all these activities are secondary to physical needs of our bodies. If you ever have to choose between eating/sleeping and this activity, it would be a better idea to eat/sleep and take care of your body. Also, if you are a national level athlete or someone who performs in New York Philharmonic, you probably want to focus on those activities more. One part of this activity should be to find ways of doing more important work in less time giving this activity more time. The second part is to find ways to add values so others find us more "attractive" and would want to be associated with us.

Let us look deeper in the word "association". I have many association where I have no choice. I cannot change my parents and blood relatives, for example. Technically speaking, I can probably move to another country again but it is not likely to happen. Then I have association of choice. Where we go to party next weekend is a choice I make. Who I hire to work with is a choice I make. Which college admission counselor decides to offer you a spot is a choice that person makes. Within the choice world, we make different level of choices. You do not think as much when say hello to another person. You probably will think very hard before you decide on life partner when the time comes. Most choice will fall between these two extremes. When you apply for colleges or job, you are likely to allocate more time to one compared to another. The same is true on the other side, some students would get more attention than others. How does a kid communicate to a college that his file should be put in accepted pile and not placed in reject pile.

The primary motivation should be enhancing individual excellence as opposed to being part of the Team. The Team is there to help the individual, the individual is not there to support the "cause" in this activity. To use the baseball metaphor, there is only one human on the mound throwing the ball. One could not play ball without the ball boys and they are important part of the team but in this group, we are talking about Pitching. It is possible to assert one's point of view with respect and in a polite manner while being on the right side of logical thought process. Regardless of the context, it is pitcher's choice to throw the ball that passes through the strike zone as judged by a man in black clothes standing behind the home plate.

In a selective/elective relationship, communication is required to judge the other party. Someone has the burden of starting a conversation and other side needs to carry it through. It usually works better if both sides have something to ask and something to say. Typically one does not feel warm when only one side is expressing their thoughts. Let us play a little game now. Let us through some random words around at each other and see how one responds to it.