Merge branch 'master' of github.com:wona/wona.github.com into post-2

add post summer diaries google step

Gemfile.lock

@@ -1,119 +1,252 @@
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@@ -122,4 +255,4 @@ DEPENDENCIES
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_posts/2020-07-18-igem.md

@@ -0,0 +1,73 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Heart To Heart with iGEM Chapter- IIT Roorkee"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+image: igem1.png
+excerpt: "iGEM is the largest worldwide synthetic-biology based competition, conducted every year at Boston, USA."
+---
+
+
+*iGEM is the largest worldwide synthetic-biology based competition, conducted every year at Boston, USA. iGEM developed out of student projects conducted during MIT's Independent Activities Period, and  has continued to grow with 310 teams (and 5400 members) entering the competition in 2017. 
+With a large number of teams participating in this competition from over 40 countries across the world, and with numerous teams from India like IISER Bhopal and IIT Kanpur participating as well, IIT Roorkee decided to unfold its own iGem chapter this year. Despite the odds faced as a consequence of the unfortunate COVID-19 crisis, the iGEM Roorkee team, with a versatile bunch of highly energetic and enthusiastic minds, aim to achieve some really big laurels this year, and have been pushing hard for the same. 
+Watch Out! decided to interview the members of this team along with the brains behind IITR's iGEM chapter - Sanjeevani Marcha, to get to know more about the kind of challenges they faced, their vision for their journey and to find out more about the competition itself.*
+
+
+**WO**: Could you elaborate on what iGEM is all about? How is it unique from other competitions around the world?
+
+iGEM stands for International Genetically Engineered Machine and it is the largest undergraduate Synthetic Biology competition in the world. In the competition the teams engineer biological machineries like Bacteria, Yeast or Algae and use them to solve a local or global problem. In one full iGEM cycle (8-9 months) we start by identifying the problem, think of Synthetic Biology based solutions, conduct research and experiments and finally conceptualise the product to reach the main stakeholders and the market. iGEM is very popular in most of the Bioengineering schools across the world.
+
+
+**WO**: You mentioned the term ‘synthetic biology’, for the sake of the readers, could you expand on what ‘synthetic biology’ means?
+
+Synthetic biology is simply playing with the DNA and the genetic codes, eventually manipulating it to work according to our needs or deliver required products. For example; instead of using the roses for the production of rose scent, one can actually use a micro-organism, let’s say a yeast, and transfer the gene for the rose scent and make the yeast produce that scent. This will save the overuse of roses and roses won’t have to be cut for obtaining rose scent. Here, designer genetic circuits are made from various biobricks, each having some functionality, which are run in a cellular system that are usually bacteria. Every property that the natural world exhibits like, the scent of the rose, the color of the leaves, or the glowing of a jellyfish, it has a genetic code present in the fragments of its DNA. Through iGEM and other synthetic biology research these fragments are now standardised like the lego blocks. We arrange different Lego boxes to make a synthetic construct which is run inside a bacteria. To put simply, it is the amalgamation of engineering into biology, and hence, it is also known as Engineering Biology 2.0. 
+
+
+**WO**: How and where is the competition held? How are various teams pitted against each other?
+
+There is no such ranking system to judge different teams. There are 3 grand prizes for the best overall projects. Medals (with no limits), special awards and track prizes. After the registration process, the teams start working independently on their idea, build their product and then present their work in a 4 Day event called the Giant Jamboree, held somewhere near October-November at Boston, USA. Earlier it was hosted in MIT (that is where it began), now in the Hynes Convention Centre and after 12 years iGEM is shifting to Paris next year! The teams have presentation sessions and poster sessions there. This international competition witnesses a participation of over 350 teams, from around 40-50 countries. There is a special category for high school students as well. We can’t do an iGEM project just with the people who know biotechnology. We need people who are good with computers, machine learning, effective communication, public relations, social science research, business mindset, designers, videographers, marketing and sponsorship. We conduct engagement workshops and seminars as a part of the project and talk to multiple stakeholders, create animations or maybe even make a comic! Then there are special awards where teams are acknowledged for a specific skill they fared well in. So if we have an amazing design & development team we can win a prize in that category. Or maybe if we couldn’t have sufficient experiments but work rigorously on the social front, we win a prize! 
+
+
+**WO**: IITR will be participating for the first time in this year’s iGEM tournament. Where do you place your chances of winning? What kind of expectations do you have from the competition?
+
+Yes, it’s our first time and full of fresh challenges. iGEM has 12 standard project tracks which are designed according to the problem a team is working on namely, therapeutics, diagnostics, environment, manufacturing, information technology, nutrition etc. The tracks clearly highlight that you can leverage any discipline of science or engineering and pair it with Biological systems. Our project is currently in the therapeutic and environment track and we have our eye on the Gold Medal. We are strategizing our team’s strength and will plan our way accordingly to maximize our chances of success.
+
+
+**WO**: Are the members of iGem Roorkee Chapter, all Biotechnology students? How does one get to become a member of the team? Also, do you plan to expand the team? 
+
+First of all, all members are not Biotechnology students. iGEM is centred around the field of synthetic biology but it is not restricted to it. In fact, anyone can join the team. It simply depends on how you want to apply your knowledge in your respective field and incorporate your skills into the competition.
+Secondly, yes, we are planning to expand the team. Majority of the people we have in our team are involved in research. We need people who can manage our public engagement. We also need volunteers who can handle social media or are really good with content writing. Whenever we design a model, it needs to be mathematically validated with an exhaustive mathematical proof. We do not have the aid of someone with a strong mathematical expertise at our department, so we are looking for people who can help us in this regard. This year the competition has a major focus on dry labs (computational models, software design, product development). We will need impressive team videos and presentations for one of the medal criteria.  So yeah, we are on a lookout for amazing videographers who can conceptualise and make it with us. Also, even if you can contribute to a small component of the project, all our work is documented and attributed to people who help us execute it. I believe that it is IIT Roorkee’s team - and if you have the time and capacity to enhance any part of the project, Roorkee’s chance to shine on the platform increases.
+
+**WO**: How does one go about selecting projects? Did you have a fixed list of projects to choose from?
+
+ No. We need to identify a problem in the community and solve it using biotechnology.  For instance, seeing the rising antimicrobial diseases, we are trying to create a therapy alternative to antibiotics. Starting with an idea is the biggest challenge. There can be two ways to approach it- focus on the research areas of our institute or professors and align along those lines  or observe the immediate problems around us and look for its biological solutions. We start with multiple ideas and eliminate them. We had done considerable work on an idea related to Ganga which was pursued vigorously by 2nd year students - Nitish, Pradum and Kushagra. It was an amazing idea with a high social impact, but further research revealed that it was complex and more expertise intensive, hence we had to drop it. Yeah, it’s heartbreaking. 
+
+
+**WO**: Sanjeevani Marcha, you are the brains behind the setting up of the iGEM Roorkee Chapter. Could you tell us what inspired you to go down this road?
+
+My personal interest and passion for biotechnology encouraged me to embark on this journey of establishing the iGEM community at IIT Roorkee. At Roorkee, in a batch of just 28 students with hardly 2% having any interest in the subject, it is difficult to sustain your interest in research. Also the conventional research projects aren’t as exciting and rather exhausting. At iGEM, I saw 4000+ undergraduates, my age and even high school students, working passionately and creatively with biotechnology. All of them coming together in a grand celebration to change the traditional ways of science and biology impressed me deeply. When I first saw this website, I was utterly surprised to see this amazing community of biologists and engineers! The website is super intuitive and you are bound to be attracted if you have slightest of passion for Biotechnology. As I read more about the competition, I realized that this is a very serious platform, a huge global community, and there are Indian teams participating as well. When I researched further, I found IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IISERs, IISc etc, participating in it and a simple question came to mind- Why not IIT Roorkee yet? Our institute has all the resources and the Biotechnology department is already blooming with innovations. I became firm on bracing all the challenges with only one goal - iGEM IIT Roorkee and a teethy group picture with the traditional iGEM logo at the Hynes Convention Centre - Boston. 
+
+
+**WO**: What kind of challenges did you face while setting up this chapter?
+
+Each and every kind possible! Starting anything new, and that too at IITR, is challenging and you face a ton of resistance. It is difficult to convince people to move out of the ‘set’ patterns, and take an initiative to pursue something different. First, I needed a team of like-minded people who could resonate with the grandeur of iGEM. Trust me, I didn’t get them till the very end. Many people liked the idea, but seeing the amount of uncertainty, difficulties and lack of direction lessened their trust and confidence. But on and off I always had people who were working with me on this. Not all were with me from the beginning, and not all stayed till the end. But I am grateful for everyone’s contribution because they helped in shaping it and most importantly kept me going on this path. Next it was difficult to convince the professors and draw their attention to our work - something that we really wanted to do, because we cannot do it without them. Good quality research and scientific aptitude is not very well developed in undergraduates. Hence Professors, PhDs and Lab managers are very significant components of iGEM Teams. It has been extremely difficult to convince a professor with the idea of iGEM and win their trust by a good idea that we can work on. Another big challenge was the financial aspect of the competition. It has a fancy registration fee plus the experiment costs and the logistics. The bottleneck was to get the money for registration, and going to the Jamboree. So all our efforts were directed in identifying the problem that we wanted to address and develop a solution that can convince our professors and the administration to invest in our team. I am really proud of Siddharth, a first year student who developed the idea from scratch, stood strong with me in this dream and sat together long hours writing the proposals and attending meetings with Professors. We literally went to more than 20 professors, TIDES, our HoD, the Dean, talking about iGEM & explaining our idea. Juggled team management, designing, content, research, networking, development and even online presence, finally making it through the funnel!
+
+
+**WO**: You have recently been officially recognised by our institute. What do you think is the next milestone in your journey?
+
+Currently we are an independent body, but our ultimate aim is to be a part of the STC as a Biotech based technical group. Our idea is to first participate in the competition, prove our caliber and then we can try to streamline the process of integration into STC. This will improve our visibility and allow easy access to a lot of resources. 
+
+
+**WO**: We heard that IITR’s team was groomed by former participants from IISER Bhopal this year. How has this collaborative experience been? How does IITR’s BioTechnology education/research differ from other IITs/IISERs?
+
+Teams are continuously encouraged to collaborate and have conjoined aspects in their projects, some shared work, and even have discussions on improving each other’s project. And the iGEM network is very helpful and so humble! When I reached out to the Indian circuit of iGEM Teams and asked for mentorship to start my own team, what factors to focus on, how to make a timeline and enhance communication, all of them were super helpful. We had discussions with ex-iGEMers and Team Leads and got amazing tips! We spoke to IISER Bhopal and simply asked the student team to mentor us and help us make it through our debut year. They were delighted to support us! The team is super energetic and always available to take our doubts and calls. We are planning to have some collaborative events with them as well. 
+
+
+**WO**: 2020 has been a unique year. Has it impacted iGem in any way?
+
+Due to covid a major change is shifting to a Virtual Giant Jamboree  (crying inside, no boston trip, MIT ke bahar photo, after parties and firangis, ohno). Also the committee has provided the teams with a lot of resources and tools to build our projects. We are given access to Benchling, snap gene, Twist Biosciences products along with numerous webinars, panel discussions, training sessions, virtual coffee hours, global slack channel and fun events to keep all the students connected and at the same time investing in cultivating new ways of working in biology without enzymes and pipettes. We are learning so much and thoroughly enjoying these gloomy uncertain days in isolation.
+
+
+**WO**: How do you see the future of iGEM IIT Roorkee Chapter?
+
+Personally, I wanted to establish this community on the campus that will speak of Biotechnology as “technology” and change the ways biotech undergraduates see their branch. Even if someone doesn’t want to pursue research, he/she can always participate in one iGEM season during their 4 years and it will be one of the most exhilarating journeys. This is one of the main reasons I strongly believe that iGEM can be a great success at IITR. It is truly multidisciplinary and something made for undergraduates who want to have a blast in science and research. Every year, people who come together for a project can decide which skills to focus on and leverage the project on that. We have an amazing set of people at Roorkee and expertise in every possible domain. Indian institutes generally face major challenges in pursuing iGEM because our researchers and professors aren’t very supportive of open-source or collaborative science. Also, they aren’t used to the glamour and energy that comes together on such platforms. If we start utilising our resources effectively, and we are able to showcase our caliber at this stage, I am sure our professors will trust us and fully support the teams.

_posts/2020-07-18-memoir-priyanshi.md

@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Memoir of a Selenophile "
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: priyanshi.JPG
+category: memoirs
+author: "Priyanshi Mishra"
+excerpt: "I’m sad today as this journey is ending. Although, you are the stepping stone of my life and I don’t want to leave you now but, there was a part of me that never wanted to come to you in the first place. I feel warm in your arms now."
+---
+
+	 	 	 	 	 	
+Dear Roorkee,
+
+I’m sad today as this journey is ending. Although, you are the stepping stone of my life and I don’t want to leave you now but, there was a part of me that never wanted to come to you in the first place. I feel warm in your arms now. I never really thought that you could make me feel this way because the start of our friendship was not an endearing one. You welcomed me with high humidity, scorching heat and AN khosla.
+
+But it all began to change as your monsoon beauty washed away all my worries and apprehensions. Our friendship started getting better as I fell in love with the wholesome breakfast, late night strolling, unforgettable excursions by Himalayan Explorers’ Club, IITR lingo, killing boredom at student’s club, the calmness of Ganga, late night fun at cautley, enormous MGCL and much more that I cannot fathom. You gave me all that I needed vis-a-vis cool professors, well-equipped labs, never ending workshops, cerebral seminars, culinary club, fine arts section and most importantly a conducive environment for all my aspirations.
+
+Since we met, you have completely changed for me. Obviously, in a good way. And I would very much like to thank you for:
+
+Giving me a hard time adjusting to hostel life but at the same time, letting me take responsibilities for myself and handling the account all by myself.
+
+Giving a garden facing room at Sarojini bhawan which helped me wake up early in the morning and kept me energized throughout the day to attend all the classes.
+
+Making me realize that nothing can beat home cooked food by serving me a monotonous lunch and dinner all the time.
+
+Helping me evolve through those never-ending challenges that kept coming my way and allowed me to embrace both the calmness of the night as well as the chaos of the morning.
+
+The pocket friendly and really delicious snacks and music concerts at MAC, movies at convocation hall, festival celebrations at Saraswati temple that became one of the best ways to break the monotony and have fun.
+
+Serving free beverages at Shiru café where I got a chance to relax after classes and enjoy great conversations with strangers, colleagues and friends.
+
+All the bhawan days that gave me immense pleasure in wall painting, decorations, and getting a little bit too judgemental over other people’s contribution.
+
+Introducing me to a grand Cult fest like “Thomso” where I got the chance to volunteer and participate in so many events.
+
+Being my best friend, by giving me places to hide when I was sad and places to celebrate when I was happy.
+
+However, I was sad that being a part of the batch of 2020, I’m not going to get a regular farewell or a chance to enjoy the prom night and convocation like other batches. We all are suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic but I’m glad that I got a little bit more time to enjoy with you. It’s not a normal ending though. But, what’s the fun in being normal? I’m going away from you and surely going to miss you a lot.
+
+With love,
+Priyanshi

_posts/2020-07-28-memoir-aritra.md

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Roorkee Chronicles"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: aritra.png
+category: memoirs
+author: "Aritra Dutta"
+excerpt: "It was March of 2018. We had butterflies in our stomach and adrenaline continuously rushing through our blood."
+---
+
+It was March of 2018. We had butterflies in our stomach and adrenaline continuously rushing through our blood. It was the day of our JAM counseling result. After bearing all sorts of pain for three years at the undergrad level, finally it was the day of receiving something in return. 
+The screen displayed “IIT-Roorkee”.
+
+The next few moments were beyond description. I was utterly joyed. The preparations began from this day onwards. Next few months went by in no time and I arrived at one of the oldest engineering colleges of Asia, thousands of kilometers away from my home. But honestly speaking, on the day of our admission, when we were allotted our hostel rooms, I was actually disappointed. I was like “Seriously!!! Is this a hostel room or a bigger version of  a cellular jail?? Are they going to treat us like criminals”… 
+There were innumerable thoughts going on in my mind. But I was soon assured. It took almost no time to get used to the college’s hostel environment.
+We were supposed to have our first class nine days after our admission. So the very next day of our admission, when I got out of my bed the next morning, I had nothing to do except watch a few guys playing in the hostel ground. I couldn’t control myself and went to join them. Little did I know that this would become one of the permanent fixtures of my life. 
+Although it was a cambise ball, I got my ring finger injured so badly that later on, the doctor informed me that I have a broken tendon. So technically, the string of my embarrassing moments had already begun; right from the second day of my hostel life. And it was to continue for the next two years. 
+
+
+Next major embarrassment was when I went cycling on the campus roads. I was riding down the slope in front of the library. That day, it was raining heavily. The above circumstances were enough to make me fall flat on my face.. I fell hard. Within the first two months, I had a damaged finger and a broken jaw. Sounds ideal hostel life…Right?!! 
+Well, there were many more such “embarrassments” to come. 
+
+
+But yeah, there were some good moments as well. I went to the very first trek of my life, all thanks to IIT Roorkee’s HEC. It was a 4 days trek to Chandrashila and Deoriatal. After a grueling semester, this was a major stress buster! 
+
+How can one forget the chilling cold winter mornings of Roorkee. And by the virtue of our dearest faculties. They gave us so much attention that we had to attend their classes as early as 7 AM in the month of January. 
+Kudos to their dedication. And to our tolerance. :)
+ 
+With one blink of our eyes, our first year was gone and we were standing on the verge of setting out foot on the accelerator of our career vehicle. Bhawan day, departmental fest, late night hangouts, football on rainy days, even hostel change; all these events added a myriad of colors to my two years of IIT life. 
+The next six months passed well. I was in my last semester, where everyone had mixed feelings, before this pandemic set in. 
+All the endless sleepless nights, parties, divine refreshments, will be missed. Life at IIT Roorkee has been a priceless memory I’ll cherish for the rest of my days.

_posts/2020-07-31-fire.md

@@ -0,0 +1,105 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "Portrait of a Lady on Fire: The Poet's Choice"
+image: fire.jpeg
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Pritika Mishra, Aditya Ramkumar"
+category: editorial 
+---
+
+*SPOILER WARNING*
+
+*The following article contains extensive spoilers for the film ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. Readers are encouraged to watch the movie before they proceed.* 
+
+Most people love fried bhindi. To some (including Author P), it is the greatest thing on earth, a true delicacy and the most OP vegetable known to humankind. Yet despite repeated testaments to vendakya being the key to infinite intelligence and reassurance that ‘this is just a phase’, Author A dislikes (to say the least) this wretched organism from the depths of their existence. Imagine having your brain sheared off, cutting your fingers off, frying them and then eating them. You don’t need to imagine it, you already have. The only silver lining is that whichever genius decided to name this autotrophic piece of sinew ‘Lady’s finger’ has an imagination equally morbid and has learnt to hide it with subtlety. 
+
+The only relevant difference between Author A and Author P is their separate, individual reality. The finger remains the same, yet it receives such varied reactions. Rarely, if ever, do we investigate the working and interactions of our experiences, our senses and our desires. Céline Sciamma’s 2019 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire deals with these very concepts. 
+
+Portrait  is a profoundly tender story about self discovery, becoming and the anticipation of coming to terms with being noticed by someone. It spends its time with the characters as they fall in love. Set in the 18th century, this forbidden queer period drama does a lot. We are introduced to Marianne right away, an artist teaching a painting class who notices one of her old (quite possibly secret) works ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’. We are then taken back in time through Marianne’s memory. 
+
+Amidst the sounds of waves crashing, Marianne arrives on a remote island off the coast of Brittany after the Comtesse commissions her to paint a portrait of her daughter, Héloïse. Héloïse is to marry a Milanese nobleman. Before Marianne’s arrival, Héloïse had already spoiled her mother’s plans to have her portrait painted and sent to Milan for the prospective husband’s appraisal because she refused to sit for a male artist. Now, Marianne has the task of painting Héloïse in secret, while spending time with her in the guise of a walking companion.
+
+Sciamma makes very specific use of camera angles and blocking. For most of the film, the viewer is placed in one of three perspectives - following Marianne from right behind her, watching Héloïse from Marianne’s perspective and wider shots of the characters interacting. While entire essays could be written on how the film deals with the concept of ‘The Gaze” from artistic and feminist perspectives, this technique also provides a third perspective, showing us from both the inside and the outside how a relationship develops. 
+
+For the first half of the film, Héloïse just wants to be ‘looked at’, to actually be seen as the person she is, and not just as an imaginary object in a painting. We know nothing about the Milanese nobleman, nor does anyone make any effort to describe him beyond those two words.
+
+![pic1](/images/posts/fire1.jpeg){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+
+To see someone is not as simple as it is made out to be. One could be very mechanical about it and describe only what is externally apparent - a person’s appearance, their clothes, their actions, their words. This is extremely reductive and impersonal. Any human being could describe any other human being in this way if they were in the same room as them, if they had a photo of them or if they walked past them on a busy street. This is what Marianne does initially. We keep looking at Héloïse’s hands, her hair, her eyes. Marianne’s focus is to draw Héloïse as accurately as possible, which means she needs a smile. She only cares about that expression and not the feelings that trigger it.
+
+On a deeper level, as we are drawn to something, we attempt to learn how it works. Musicians learn music theory and appreciate the intricacies and brilliance of the composition and arrangement when they listen to a new song, beyond merely how it sounds to a lay-person. When it comes to people, we study their desires. To know someone is to know how they think and why they behave a certain way, to know what they want and to predict what they will need. Marianne realises that she is attracted to Héloïse and cannot bear to pretend anymore, even to herself. She realises that she has repeated the previous artist’s behavior and destroys her first portrait out of guilt. 
+
+Most people, especially in popular descriptions stop here. But there is a trap - human beings aren’t automatons. We can only guess at the motives of others based on what we see and what they themselves tell us. More importantly, we ourselves do not really know how our minds work. We analyse ourselves based on our own self-image, which is tainted by our biases, experiences and the knowledge that this is our own selves that we are trying to understand. A degree of uncertainty exists. Try taking an online personality test. The result will likely be what you predicted (and is probably not accurate) - the test told you what you think your personality is. 
+
+We don’t actually love other people because we don’t really know other people. We love the idea of them, our own mental automaton that thinks and acts like them. The closer the approximation, the healthier the relationship. We are stuck in our bubbles of momentary infatuation and myopic affection.
+
+The film shows us this mind-numbing, suffocatingly exhilarating, early-stage love in the way we stop looking at specific parts of Héloïse and just stare in her general direction. We watch them play the harpsichord together, catching fleeting glimpses of each other from the corners of their eyes. When Héloïse finally agrees to pose for Marianne, we watch from a neutral perspective how the two fawn over each other, barely able to look each other in the eye, yet extremely concerned about the other. Marianne says ‘look at me’, so she herself can get a good look at Héloïse. The camera cuts to Marianne’s perspective exactly as she looks up. We gasp every time. 
+
+Marianne and Héloïse’s romance has to end. We know this from the very start. Halfway through the movie, the film makes its engagement with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, right when it’s starting to get evident that Marianne and Héloïse have feelings for each other. The dialogue, editing and composition in this scene makes it almost impossible to miss how iconic and relevant the myth is going to be to their story.
+
+Héloïse wonders if maybe it was Eurydice who asked Orpheus to look back - perhaps she played a role in her own end. Marianne thinks differently - “He doesn’t make the lover’s choice, but the poet’s. He chooses the memory of her.” Later, when Marianne and Héloïse are forced to part themselves, neither is without agency - like her imagined version of Eurydice, Héloïse encourages Marianne to look back at her; and like her Orpheus, Marianne chooses not to regret, but to remember.
+
+![pic2](/images/posts/fire2.jpeg){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+
+These authors believe that both versions are true. The time Eurydice spent in the underworld and Orpheus spent alone in the human world has resulted in drastic changes in both of them. They are not who they were before and Eurydice realises this. She knows that their relationship is doomed and hell is a pretty comfortable place anyway. 
+
+In both stories, the artist in the relationship tries saving their love from “death”, figurative in the case of Héloïse and literal in the case of Eurydice. The artist then “looks back”, losing their lover, keeping with them only the memory of theirs. 
+
+The film plays with this idea from the beginning. The first time Marianne meets Héloïse, they go out on a walk with their faces covered. Héloïse makes a run for the cliff with Marianne (and us) fearing that she will jump off and kill herself like her sister, that the film will end before it has even started. But Héloïse stops and uncovers her face. The waves surge and she turns around. 
+
+The film's score is the score of real life. The surging of the waves, the crackle of the fire, the footsteps. Each moment is filled with intention. So when the film actually uses music, the scene's importance is emphasized automatically.
+
+One of the most powerful scenes in the film features a group of local women chanting in front of a bonfire, producing a scene of community that nurtures the crescendo of desire between Marianne and Héloïse. Its status as a central turning-point is powerfully emphasized by its being one of only three scenes with music: in this case, a haunting acapella chorus that seems to emerge organically from the society of women around the fire. With its harmonies stacking ever higher, and with dynamics rising to match, the song in some way mirrors the flames, literal in the way Héloïse was in flames (which then goes on to inspire the titular painting that we see at the beginning of the movie) and figuratively, the flames igniting between the two characters. Héloïse and Marianne stare at each other, even as one catches fire, even as things change. 
+
+![pic3](/images/posts/fire3.jpeg){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+![pic4](/images/posts/fire4.png){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+
+Class divisions also break down as the two form a friendship with the family maid, Sophie, accompanying her to get an abortion from a village medicine woman. Sophie lies on the same bed where the local woman’s infant plays. We see a close up of Sophie’s face, as the infants play with her. We watch as Sophie goes through pain and begins to cry, but the giggling baby next to her makes her smile, comforting her and clinging to her fingers. There is a conscious choice, in this scene, to depict Sophie as neither a demon nor a victim. Later that evening, at Héloïse’s suggestion, the three women re-create and paint Sophie’s abortion, an act that comes across as normal. By choosing to portray  it, they deem it important, a story worth telling.
+
+The film shows us all these different women come together, laugh, cry and support each other based on simple commonalities, proximity and good nature. The film also sends out a clear pro-choice message as it points out to us that we should not let out subjective notions cloud objective truths. Héloïse and Marianne care and support Sophie and do all the things that someone who ‘loved’ Sophie would do as well. 
+ 
+![pic5](/images/posts/fire5.jpeg){: style="width:90%;height:auto;"}
+
+The final scene of the film takes place long after the affair, Héloïse married and with a child. Marianne sees Héloïse, who is unaware of her presence, sitting alone in an opera house, and watches her former lover closely as the orchestra opens with the ‘Summer’ concerto of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons – the same piece of music that Marianne had played for Héloïse years ago on a harpsichord. Marianne remains fixed unflinchingly on Héloïse as she listens raptly, a wrenching sequence of expressions registering on her face, emotions heightened. Both women still remember those experiences and have feelings for the person they knew.
+ 
+What makes this final shot of Héloïse so masterful is that it is from Marianne’s perspective. This is a movie which explores the power of observation, of appreciation for the subtleties of expression which make you appreciate the object of your desire that much more, telling us what desire and love and friendship could mean for women, when free from society’s patriarchy, even for a short period of time. Portrait is a memory of a love story; sad yet hopeful.
+
+Even though this idea of perception, the idea of it being not one sided is nothing short of terrifying,  at the end of the day, all we think we still want is someone to whom we can say
+‘Look at me.”
+
+
+Attached for your listening, here's a list of songs that we associate with the film.
+
+- La Jeune Fille en Feu - **Para One, Arthur Simonini**
+- The Four Seasons (Summer) - **Antonio Vivaldi**
+- Your Wave Caresses me - **The Last Sighs of the Wind**
+- Saibo - **Sachin - Jigar**
+- In Exile - **The Pineapple Thief**
+- Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice) - **Arcade Fire**
+- Gone - **The Head and the Heart**
+- Forget Not - **Ne Obliviscaris**
+- What About Me - **Snarky Puppy**
+- Like Real People Do - **Hozier**
+- Fade Into You - **Mazzy Star**
+- falkor - **Covet**
+- Visions of Gideon - **Sufjan Stevens**
+- I Want you to Want Me - **Letters to Cleo**
+- All I Need - **Radiohead**
+- It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus) - **Arcade Fire**
+
+[https://open.spotify.com/playlist/04n1zPULrTqPPWFQL6Rswn?si=TA7o53oqS-auQu2HDk-p0Q](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/04n1zPULrTqPPWFQL6Rswn?si=TA7o53oqS-auQu2HDk-p0Q){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
+
+Miscellaneous 
+
+[Céline Sciamma breaks down adapting lyrics from Nietzsche, evoking witches and power of sorority, and the creation of the incredible scene.](https://www.indiewire.com/2020/02/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-song-bonfire-lyrics-chanting-1202211855/){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
+
+[What Portrait of a Lady on Fire Tells Us About "the Gaze"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMUC584ppNQ&t=179s){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
+
+[Portrait of a Lady on Fire review – mesmerised by the female gaze](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/01/portrait-of-a-lady-on-fire-review-celine-sciamma){: style="text-decoration:underline;color:blue"}
+
+
+

_posts/2020-08-07-memoir-an-ordinary-life.md

@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "An Ordinary Life"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: memoir_an_ordinary_life.jpg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Nipun Vashistha"
+excerpt: "This is an account of how I felt during college years, rather than what exactly I did in college."
+---
+
+When I took up this job of writing a memoir, I honestly did not have any clue what I was going to write, and I am still struggling in my head to recollect as I write this. It is not that I do not have any memories of the last five years at Roorkee, or that it was not an eventful place to be. Infact, probably, there are just too many of them that I am not able to pick a few out of them to share with you. If you ask anyone how their college stint was, they might say it was too good, amazing, brilliant, extraordinary or maybe those with contrasting views saying it was competitive, overrated, and/or depressing. If you ask me how it was, it was ordinary. It was a series of ordinary days in the campus with your mates, waking up to find you have already missed the mess lunch timings and a few classes, having a love-hate relationship with mess and canteen food, looking at the same beautiful sunset everyday, getting excited about idea of getting an ice-cream sandwich, having a debate on ideas that would seem nonsensical to some, obsessing over a new Netflix series every month, cracking the same inside joke over and over again, walking in the campus for eternities observing the weird placement of trees in the campus, and ending your day just looking at the flickering stars in the night. It is interesting that as I write, I realise how there are so many things which makes up an ordinary day.
+
+It is not that there were not days which were really eventful, when you go out and meet a lot of people, learn a bunch of new things, feel so full of life. In fact, I used to take part in a good deal of college activities and events, made a lot of friends that way, and it used to be a very exciting and great learning experience as well. You feel like you can do anything, you feel like cycling down the library slope, you feel like going on that trek you always wanted to, you feel like staying up all night for that dream job, you feel like working hard for that next start-up idea, you feel like jamming all night till you lose your breath, you feel like staying up all night with your friends and partying, you feel like finding the love of your life, you feel infinite and euphoric. And there were also days when everything seemed doomed, days when you feel like giving up on everything, days when you tell yourself that tomorrow will be a good day but it does not turn out to be, days when you ghost on all your friends. There are just so many ideas and ideologies moving around in college, that the journey of searching for a meaning might leave you in a place where you just end up feeling lost. In the second half of college, after the post JEE hangover was completely gone and I finally started to look at things as they were, I was so overwhelmed with different schools of thoughts that, first, I was impressed by the very existence of these different ideologies, I was impressed that I get to be around people who aspire to bring a change in the nation, or people who want to be literary geniuses, or people who feel for art as it is their life, or people who want to join the line of changing the world by a technological revolution. But in the end, after I peeked into all of those different paths and possibilities, I only found myself more lost than ever. Then one fine day, a guy who was referred to as ‘danger’ in my first year (trust me, he is one of the sweetest human beings I had the pleasure to know in college shoutout!), we were talking and I found a little life lesson between our conversation that ‘You gotta try, you will only know if you want to do it or not once you give yourself in and give it a try’. I guess that has encouraged me a little over the years to do things and not panic. I guess nobody has any answers for you except yourself. College seems like a pretty difficult place if you find yourself stuck in the loop of doomed days. **But what better time than college to be lost?** 
+
+Now the thing is, these exciting moments and the days in search for something, they were only the peak moments and I feel it is unfair to just remember or describe your college days based on the peak moments and leaving out the ordinary ones, because that would be like painting a beautiful incomplete picture, or making a really catchy song with only beats in it. And perhaps, wouldn’t it be just unfair to not speak about all of those days which were just okay?
+
+As nostalgic and good college days and these memoirs sound like, in reality, it was a fair share of happy, really sad and ordinary days. But I still find myself cherishing that evening sunset outside my room the most. And when I look back, I realise that in some magical way, every single day that I have lived is now a part of me. My choices and dreams are not just impressions of the grand moments of my life but also of my everyday musings.
+
+वक़्त को आते न जाते न गुज़रते देखा, जमा होते हुए देखा मगर उसको मैंने  - गुलज़ार
+

_posts/2020-08-19-memoir-of-sorts.md

@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: "A Memoir of Sorts"
+tags: [wona, column]
+image: sorts.jpeg
+category: memoirs
+author: "Rajsuryan Singh"
+excerpt: "Four years ago, around this time, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do in life. I wish I could still say the same thing."
+---
+
+Four years ago, around this time, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do in life. I wish I could still say the same thing. College is supposed to be this transformative phase that you enter as a naïve kid and come out as a fully functioning adult having your life all figured out. The normalisation of this notion makes it much more difficult to accept when the puzzle pieces don’t fall together. Three years into college, as I looked at the puzzle with its pieces farther apart than they’ve ever been, I couldn’t help but wonder what drove me from clarity to chaos.
+
+When I started college, I planned to pursue science, physics to be specific. I found a sense of comfort in objective descriptions of the world, a resolution from an otherwise uncertain reality riddled with grey areas. To put it in less pretentious words, a career in science just seemed really cool (I blame Richard Feynman). Also, the only other discernible skill I had was music - which I never saw as a potential career choice. My plan made total sense. What’s funny about it - or tragic depending on your sense of humour - is that I didn’t act on it at all during the first couple of years at college and spent all my time on music instead. While the details of how it happened have blurred out, I vividly remember the consequences. 
+
+Music has been an amusement for as long as I can remember. However, my relationship with it was fairly underdeveloped before college. Growing up in a small suburban town, the only other musicians I knew were old harmonium and percussion players who’d play at religious gatherings - not something a 13-year-old John Mayer fan could vibe with. All of my exposure to good music came from the internet, and I am utterly grateful for its existence, but it misses out on a very important factor of effective learning—a like-minded peer group. College gave me access to competent musicians who asked similar questions, had a similar understanding and shared a similar relationship with music. I could always find people willing to listen and talk about anything interesting I came across and the other way around. Showing someone an idea I was working on, as they casually dropped by my room, would turn into full-blown songwriting sessions (true story, happened several times!). And the best part is that people bring in influences from diverse sources, musically and otherwise. Conversations that started with music would often branch off to math, philosophy, art, literature or even accounts of tragic - or funny depending on your sense of humour - life experiences. I credit a large part of my development as a musician to such instances - instances that also happen to form most of the reminiscent highlight reel that plays in my head while writing this. However, the more I progressed as a musician, the farther I strayed from my original “plan”. 
+
+I didn’t realise it as it happened, but I gradually lost touch with science. I wasn’t doing too bad academically, but I was sort of faking my way through it. Most of my coursework was not particularly demanding, and a day or two of studying was enough to get a decent grade. A lot of it was learning factual information, the rest was barely an extension of high school chemistry. To be fair, that’s probably a gross oversimplification and perhaps a misrepresentation of the courses, the two-day marathon study sessions are not built for nuance after all, but that’s what I remember. Science was not as exciting as it used to be. It started feeling like a hopeless relationship I had grown out of but was too afraid to walk away from. I started entertaining the idea of dropping it altogether and doing music full-time. But it wasn’t a time to be able to afford rash decisions, so I decided to give myself a semester to figure things out. What followed was several weeks of introspection and existential dread. And binge-watching Bojack Horseman, which might have been a trigger. I started working on the internship applications, scoured through research fields even remotely related to my major, and by the end of the semester, found several areas that piqued my interest and provided me with the much-needed intellectual stimulation. More importantly, I had a couple of realisations about the things I found fulfilling and the reasons thereof (content warning - loads of armchair philosophy ahead!).
+
+I realised that every fulfilling activity for me has the same anatomy - there are long periods of mildly unpleasant monotony followed by little moments of genuine excitement. The excitement almost always comes from an acknowledgement of beauty - whether it’s in an elegant mathematical proof or a soul-stirring guitar solo. It doesn’t have to be as profound, even seemingly insignificant things like a clever calculation trick or a subtle unexpected drum fill have a similar effect. And I believe that your ability to appreciate beauty and hence find joy in something is proportional to your proficiency in it. The more deeply you understand something, the more enjoyable it becomes. This brings me to the puzzle I mentioned earlier. If I were to believe whatever I have written in this paragraph, as invalid as it may be beyond the confines of my mind, it becomes obvious to do whatever you’re the most competent at as your career. At the same time, it becomes impossible to decide between things that you enjoy equally and are equally mediocre at. Whichever way you think about it, there seems to be no satisfactory way to choose what becomes a career and what is relegated to a means to fill spare time. 
+
+Coming back to the real world that doesn’t conform to idealistic personal philosophy, you have to factor in things like financial stability, relevant education, and available opportunities while making career choices. A career in science makes practical sense given the formal education, relevant experience and all,  and it’s significantly easier to do music as a hobby than the other way around. So that’s what I’m doing, for the time being. My plan, while being turned upside down several times throughout college, is still kind of the same. But there's a catch - it still comes with the same caveats. A few years down the line if I significantly improve as a musician, I'm pretty sure that I’m going to have another one of these crises, and the trend will probably continue for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, having gone through it once, I’ll be better equipped to deal with it. Now, to end this as abruptly as college did for me, I'll just say that whatever college entails for you is highly unpredictable, plans fall apart, new ones are formed, and in the process, you go through unforeseen self-discovery (the proof is trivial and is left as an exercise for the reader).
+

_posts/2020-09-07-in-conversation-with-the-wellness-center.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "In Conversation with The Wellness Center"
+image: "wellness-center.jpg"
+tags: [wona, column]
+category: verbatim
+excerpt: "Watch Out! spoke to Dr Shikha Jain and Mr Ashfaq Ahmad of the Wellness Center about mental health and the facilities available to the IIT Roorkee populace."
+
+---
+
+**WO:** Could you tell us what it means to be mentally healthy?
+
+**Dr Shikha Jain (SJ):** Being mentally healthy is a dynamic state of internal equilibrium - a harmonious relationship between the mind and the body. According to the World Health Organisation, mental healthiness is a state of well being, in which an individual can realize their capabilities or abilities, and can cope up with  normal stressful situations. She/He can work productively and is able to make a contribution to his/her community or society, so in short, we can say that it is a state of complete physical, mental and social well being.
+
+**If someone thinks that they have a mental health issue, what should be their first approach? How should they deal with it?**
+
+**SJ:** You should visit professionals - only they can decide if you truly have a mental issue, and the severity of it. Then the best kind of treatment for your issue is decided by them.
+
+**Mr Ashfaq Ahmad (AA):** So we need to look into three parameters - our emotions, behaviour and thought processes. For example, one indication is when any lifestyle change disturbs your mental equilibrium or your functionality because of your emotions, thought process and your behaviour. Then, of course, you need to meet a mental health professional or counsellor. A counsellor is a trained person who can identify and assess the level of the problem, and can give the intervention needed.
+
+<br />
+
+**WO:** A lot of myths surround the description of various common mental illnesses like anxiety and depression. What do these illnesses actually look like? What does the treatment look like?
+
+**SJ:** Actually, one needs to understand that mental illness is very different from physical illness. We can see and diagnose physical illnesses - for example if a person has fever, we can measure the temperature with a thermometer; if a person has a cut, one can see the wounds. But when it comes to mental health- one can’t simply gauge the severity of  anxiety or depression by just externally viewing the situation.
+
+So, the first thing to do is, approach the professionals so that they can then decide what kind of treatment is required for that particular situation, after taking into consideration various factors. In the case of depression - an aged person would display different symptoms as compared to a child. A depressed adult may feel sad, may be slow to react, or he may even say he doesn't feel like doing anything. But in the case of a depressed child, it is different. A child may be a bit aggressive while depressed and may also show tangible effects like poor performance in school. So, the symptoms and severity vary from person to person and depend on age as well.
+
+**AA:** One very important thing to address is our society’s wrong perceptions about mental illness. There is a norm of labelling a person “crazy” if they display ‘deviant’ behaviour. So, our main responsibility is to identify the problem in the initial stage itself. Usually, we are not able to do that. Especially in the case of anxiety and depression. If it is identified and solved in the initial stage- it won't render the person too dysfunctional. A mild level of depression or mild level of anxiety is easily treatable with psychotherapy or some kind of medication. But, if because of the social stigma surrounding these issues, one hesitates to meet the mental health professionals, the mild anxiety issue may become extreme. This is when the person becomes dysfunctional, starts having suicidal thoughts or loses the energy to do anything. And so, there is a great need to reduce these myths from the community. Answering the final part of your question regarding the treatment - basically, there are two models we usually follow. One is psychotherapy, where the counsellors interact with and help the person cope with the anxiety or try to alleviate the depressive state. Second is medication, wherein we basically prescribe medicines to try and reduce or cure the symptoms.
+
+**SJ:**  Collaborations in which psychologists, counsellors and psychiatry all work together give really good results. Currently, in IIT Roorkee, we are doing the same thing with the counsellors and consulting psychiatrists.
+
+**So in IIT Roorkee, do we now have both psychologists and psychiatrists in the Wellness Center?**
+
+**SJ:** Yes, the physiatrists are available in the IITR hospital and we counsellors are available in the Wellness Center. Sometimes the counsellors may accompany the student to the psychiatrist at the IITR hospital to make them comfortable.
+
+**AA:** The point was to emphasise on the collaboration we do, that we collaboratively work along with psychiatrists. We are not working independently- and so when we consider doing an intervention, the psychologists discuss the case with the psychiatrists and vice versa. So we are on the same page, and have a proper module for our intervention.
+
+<br />
+
+**WO:** How frequently do the students and members of IIT R visit you? How open and frank are they during these visits (in terms of wanting to discuss their issues)?
+
+**SJ:** *At present we have around 8 to 10 students visiting the Wellness Center daily. They come to not only discuss their mental health issues but also if they have any kind of academic, financial or scholarship related problems, wherein they do not know whom to approach.* We are now planning to establish some more activities in the Wellness Center so that students feel free to come and discuss any problems. These activities that will be organised will be done in hopes of removing the social stigma and spreading awareness.
+
+Now regarding the second part of your question. The level of frankness and familiarity depends on the rapport achieved between us and the student. First of all, we try to establish some rapport with the student and that might take more than one session. Once that is done, the students are more at ease and are more open in discussing their concerns and their feelings. Usually, with psychological problems, childhood history (i.e the growth period during their school days) is also very important. So, gradually they open up about themselves, and how they feel about their family, friends etc. A lot of ‘trust’ barriers need to be passed before the student is able to communicate freely with the counsellor.
+
+**AA:** So earlier, the concept of counselling focussed on just treating mental illnesses. People came to the counselling center with just their mental health concerns. However, now we are also looking at something called ‘positive psychology factors’, where we help the students answer questions like- “How  can I be more attractive in my personality?”, “How can I be more self-confident while working?” or “How can I bolster my warm relationship with everyone?”.
+
+Basically, apart from mental illnesses, we are also taking care of other areas like personality development. The first step was that we changed our counselling center name - now as you know, it's a wellness center. The message being that we take care of the entire well being of the student.
+
+<br />
+
+**WO:** Based on your experiences so far, how would you describe the mental health literacy of IITR when students come to visit you? Are they educated in terms of what they are feeling? Do they know that these illnesses are legitimate?
+
+**SJ:** Well, usually students do a lot of research using the internet before coming to us. So, they are not entirely unaware of their symptoms.
+
+The entire Wellness Center team is working hard to remove the stigma surrounding these issues, and spread literacy about mental health issues. The aim is that students should be able to recognise symptoms of anxiety, stress or depression early on, and should feel free enough to approach us immediately. Then we will be able to take care of their mental health smoothly during the early stages of the illness. And secondly, in my opinion, every student body in IITR should come forward and help us in our mission to stop this spread of social stigma regarding mental health. The members of the wellness team can't achieve this on their own. When all the bodies come together and collaborate, work is done more effectively. For example, Wellness Center has their own web page, Facebook page and we regularly upload mental health-related articles. I feel the team should consist of more students, to work better and effectively. 
+
+
+**AA:** I think we really need to appreciate the activities and work done by Team Wellness because it's a students’ volunteer body. They're working hard to spread mental literacy. *In the last two years alone, Team Wellness has conducted almost 30 programs in IIT Roorkee. It's almost like one program per month, and each was related to mental health. So I can say with some confidence that IIT Roorkee is quite literate about mental illness.*
+
+
+**SJ:** I want to give one example - in 2018, the Dramatics section put up a street-play “Jimmedar Kaun” (Who’s responsible?). In that, they addressed suicide and related concerns.
+
+
+**AA:** I would like to add that this time, Wellness Center conducted and organized the Orientation Program. This was really helpful, since we were able to introduce ourselves to the student community from the very first day, and were able to convey the message that we are there to help them, to facilitate their well being. I think you all must have also received emails regarding the lectures, bhawan visits and various competitions we organize from time to time. Therefore we're now taking an active stance to promote literacy about mental health.
+
+<br/>
+
+**WO:** What are some policies that the institute has adopted regarding mental health issues? For example, what is the institute’s policy when it comes to prescribing medication for mental illnesses?
+
+**SJ:** Mental Health Act 2017* has given us the proper guidelines, and normally we and the psychiatrists follow those. Sometimes we need to take help from the administration - e.g. suppose a person is having self-harm or suicidal tendencies, we may need to inform the parents. Before doing that, we - i.e. the counsellors and psychologists - together assess the situation. After informing the parents, the administration also accommodates the family on campus so that they can stay with their wards to provide emotional, psychological support and also take care of the treatment. I have seen sometimes that students stop taking their medicines or forget to take them. That is not good, this might worsen the student’s situation. We involve the administration when there is a threat to somebody’s life - only in severe cases like severe depression, drug abuse. In those particular cases, we need to inform the parents. That is because we prefer the parents to come to stay with their wards to take care of their emotional and mental health as well as supervise their treatment. So as far as confidentiality is concerned, we maintain confidentiality throughout the whole session, it is only breached in certain rare cases.
+
+<br/>
+
+**WO:** To break the stigma surrounding the treatment of illnesses, could you tell us what life for students after being diagnosed with illnesses like anxiety and depression looks like in terms of how they carry on with their daily life, how often they need help etc.?
+
+**SJ:** Following good lifestyle practices like having a proper balanced diet, doing regular physical exercises and most importantly sleeping for a good 6-8 hours is essential for improving and maintaining mental health. In IITR I have seen that students often don’t follow a proper diet and sometimes believe that just three or four hours of sleep is enough. But now more and more research is being conducted which says that six to eight hours of sleep is necessary for every adult, in order to work efficiently. Another important advice for those who are prescribed medications to combat anxiety or depression - they should not stop or change their medicines without any supervision or guidance.
+
+
+**AA:** We use either psychotherapy and pharmacological management (i.e. medication) to treat the student. In psychotherapy, we have different modules like cognitive behavioural therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy, behavioural therapy. These are very, very effective, in reducing or removing altogether the depression, anxiety and mood disorder symptoms. How some psychotherapy modules work is that they help people cope with their daily stress which lightens their mood and brings in positive emotions. So when they get this hope, this positive emotion actually reduces the chances of going back to the same illness. For example, suppose someone failed an exam. This might lead them to have a mixture of constant negative emotions like irritability, disappointment, sadness. But they need to understand that it's okay, they just need to strengthen their strategy to get a better score next time. If one thinks in a positive manner, of course, they will have the energy or positive emotion to make more such steps and eventually get more marks. The first step in the positive direction matters.
+
+
+**SJ:** Yeah, one more thing I need to add is that in anxiety and depression, one should change his own thought processes and perception. For example, if you have a friend who called you, but you don’t pick up right away as you’re busy. If your friend has anxiety, he/she might think that you didn’t pick up the phone on purpose, because you’re trying to avoid the person. This is quickly followed by a negative and harmful rationalisation in the person’s head. So the ones suffering from depression/anxiety ultimately need to change their perception, need to turn their thought processes from being negative to being positive. *A lot of daily situations can be viewed under a negative light or a positive light. It therefore depends upon the person, and therapy and medication strive to inculcate these positive thought processes in the person.*
+
+<br/>
+
+**WO:** Movies like Requiem For A Dream, and TV shows like Bojack Horseman have been successful in portraying mental illnesses/substance abuse problems and bringing mental health to the forefront of social discussions. What is your stance on such movies and shows?
+
+**SJ:** These types of movies and shows are very good. They break the stigma surrounding such taboo topics and spread awareness regarding mental health. For example, movies like Padman have made it easier for people to talk about menstrual health issues. In fact, I feel showing such movies to the student community would do a great deal in breaking the stigma and spreading more awareness too. I firmly believe that if the whole student community comes up and takes even the smallest step to spread awareness it will have a massive positive effect. The concerned student groups can recommend such movies and get them screened. “A Beautiful Mind” is an example.
+
+
+**AA:** These movies and series can be highly impactful. I would recommend “The Aviator” which depicts OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). These movies are highly influential because of the way they depict a person afflicted with an illness, and the struggle they go through before eventually getting better. Movies like “Requiem For a Dream” and “Udta Punjab” show the transition between stages of the lives of the subjects that occur due to substance abuse. Series like “Breaking Bad” and “Bojack Horseman” also depict some very harmful drugs. But movies can be double-edged swords.
+
+<br/>
+
+**WO:** Meme culture and meme pages are ubiquitous and rampant. All of us have been exposed to the same at various points in our life. In light of recent events (like the expose of a private, misogynistic and offensive social media group ‘Boys Locker Room’), how do you think the psyche of students across the country have been affected (men and women)?
+
+**SJ:** In the case of “Boys locker room”, we need to create more awareness among the parents and students at the school level. Also, accountability on digital platforms must be increased.
+
+
+**AA:** This problem is typical in the millennials. Adolescents are in the midst of an identity crisis. They are unable to conceive their place in society. So, they prefer being on social media in order to conceal themselves, and are content with projecting a different identity. It is similar to how children experiment with smoking in order to appear similar to adults. The ability to put out content anonymously is proving to be quite dangerous.
+
+<br/>
+
+**WO:** The Mental Health Wellness Centres at universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), have a rigorous and well maintained online presence in terms of the documentation of these illnesses, their treatments, the university policies, session booking mechanisms etc. Are there any plans for doing something similar in IITR?
+
+**SJ:** Currently, an online Google Form can be used to book a session and we are providing online counselling also. During this pandemic, we are providing the online sessions in the form of video, audio or chat; with confidentiality maintained throughout the session.
+
+
+We maintain records as well, but only to be used during sessions as a reference, in case of a change of counsellors. We are available 24X7 (YourDost for normal cases and counsellors for emergencies)
+
+
+We do have a web page and we are currently working on this domain. Our web designers are collaborating with us and completing all the relevant details there. Soon, the information regarding psychiatrists, counsellors and speech therapists will be uploaded there.
+
+[Link](https://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Mental%20Health/Mental%20Healthcare%20Act,%202017.pdf)
+

_posts/2020-09-10-summer-diaries-ishita-kaul.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: " Summer Diaries: Google STEP"
+image: "ishita-kaul-1.png"
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Ishita Kaul"
+category: summer2020
+excerpt: ''
+---
+
+Like most of the second year students, I was clueless about what I wanted to do in the summers after my second year of college. I talked to a couple of seniors and close friends. They all advised to either go for a research or a corporate intern. Both seemed rather good options. But for a research intern you need to know which specific field you are interested in. But all I knew was that I like computer science. I had explored a number of fields like Computer Vision, Software Development, OS, Competitive programming, etc (I have been doing a lot of exploration since my first year!). And I found all fields rather interesting. So, I finally realised that a company intern would be the most appropriate choice for me.
+
+Then I again talked to a few seniors (I keep bothering them!) and finally got to know about the Google STEP programme. For me Google was one of the dream companies I wanted to be a part of. So, I sincerely started preparing for it. And after 3 rounds of interviews and a few weeks of waiting I finally got a call saying I have received the offer. I was extremely delighted. I could see months of efforts finally paying off.
+It was amazing being a part of Google family via STEP Internship programme. This experience has been very enriching and will go a long way in shaping my future.
+
+
+# What is the STEP Programme?
+
+Google Student Training in Engineering Program, or commonly known as STEP Internship is a programme for 1st and 2nd year undergraduate women who are passionate about technology and computer science. 
+
+# Selection Procedure
+
+The process of application started in the first week of December. In the first round the students were shortlisted based on their resume and transcript.
+I was amongst the few selected candidates. We were told about the programme details in an informative session after being shortlisted. We were also given tips on how to prepare for the upcoming interviews in the session.
+
+Second round was the technical Interview round. I had 3 interviews (number of interviews vary from person to person) each of 45 minutes. Interviews were conducted on Google hangouts and we had to write our code for the problems on Google docs. There are usually 1-2 programming questions per interview (This may vary based on the interviewer). I was asked 1 programming question in each interview. If you are asked less questions compared to your peers it doesn't necessarily mean that you don't stand a chance!
+
+After these interviews your candidature is sent to the hiring committee for review and then within a few weeks you get a call / mail regarding your candidature.
+
+# Preparation Tips
+
+So, this is the most important part & most probably why you are reading it!
+So, let me walk through my journey of preparation. 
+I love to solve riddles and math problems. So, when I started my first semester, I was introduced to competitive programming by my peers. This field absolutely took me by surprise. It was everything I was looking for. Challenging problems and coding contests! So, I became an active participant on a number of coding platforms like codechef, codeforces, atcoder, etc. 
+Apart from that I also kept exploring other areas like computer vision, OS, basics of software development and so much more. Computer Science never stops to amaze me with it's diversity and practical applications being put to use. I did a couple of self-projects, and a few projects under professors at IIT Roorkee.
+Also, at IIT Roorkee we have this amazing culture of campus groups. In my opinion, working under various campus groups can also be a great way to enhance your skills in different fields. But on the other hand, not being part of groups cannot stop you from achieving what you want. Just be curious and explore! (that is what is college meant for right?)
+Coming on to the interviews, I gave a couple of mock interviews with my friends to get better at it. Listening to the problem carefully and being vocal about your thoughts and ideas even when they aren't the most optimised solution to the problem is extremely important. 
+For increasing your problem-solving skills, doing competitive programming on a regular basis can be very helpful.
+But the most important of all is ENJOY THE JOURNEY. 
+
+# Challenges due to COVID-19
+
+My first and foremost worry was if the internship would get cancelled or not. I was really worried about it. But soon we came to know that Google had shifted the internship to the virtual mode. This was a big relief for me. Though I was a bit disappointed that I would not be able to visit the Google office, being a part of Google even during these trying times was an awesome feeling. 
+
+To my surprise I received a laptop and a big screen monitor a day after my internship started. I could never have imagined that I would be getting all this amidst the pandemic. Now, I actually started feeling like I am working in an office at home!(I created a small work-desk for myself at home).
+
+Another change was that most of the projects were open-source and not google's internal project. But the projects were quite varied and exposed us to a variety of new concepts. 
+
+![pic](/images/posts/ishita-kaul-2.png){: style="width:80%;height:auto;"}
+
+We even got goodies delivered to us at our home like t-shirts, caps and a lot more.
+One of the things that worried me was if I'll be able to interact with other interns and Googlers because of the virtual mode of the internship. But that was also very well-planned by the company. We had regular meet-ups with other interns and had many fun talks and activities that kept us engaged throughout the internship.
+Many online tech-sessions, with Google leaders, were also organised about various fields in computer science and its impact in the near future.
+We even played a lot of online games! It was amazing and far beyond what I had expected from a virtual internship.
+
+# My project
+
+I was part of the GPay team at Google. I worked with 2 other amazing STEP Interns. 
+
+My project was aimed at developing an application which would reduce the waiting time spent in physical queues outside a shop. The project was targeted for a pandemic-like situations.
+
+Every project group was allotted a mentor and a co-mentor. These are the people who guide you throughout your internship. They monitor your progress and also give you frequent feedback about what needs to be improved. They are the people you would most often interact with during your internship. 
+
+Both my mentors were super-awesome and all of us had a lot of fun together!
+
+# Work Culture
+
+Work culture is very amazing at Google. I never felt like an Intern. I always felt like I was an employee. My opinions were heard and valued. There were very constructive discussions regarding what is best for the project. Each person in our team brought different insights to the table. This really increased the depth of my thinking.
+The work hours were very flexible and we got weekends off too. 
+Respecting each other's opinion and valuing great ideas are the core values of Google's culture.
+
+# My Key Takeaways
+
+In the beginning the entire project seemed daunting. But you learn along the way and get better at it. Just having the confidence that "you will figure it out" goes a long way.
+
+I realised that I should never shy away from asking doubts and questions. Everybody was more than willing to help when I was stuck.
+
+Working in a team gives exponentially greater results than working alone. This is something I learnt while working there. People with so many varied ideas and views lead to an amazing product that can be used by millions of users.
+
+Making mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of. It's part of learning and growing. I made many mistakes, but I always made sure never to repeat them.
+
+The entire internship experience was very astounding and satisfying. I was already overwhelmed by the experience when, a few weeks later, I received a call informing me that I have received a PIO (Pre-Internship offer) from Google. This was an icing on the cake. :))

category/summer2020/index.html

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+--- category: summer2019 ---