Random
This page is structured more like a blog. It consists of all the miscellaneous things that are hard to categorize. Topics include things that I did, events I performed at, etc...
This page is structured more like a blog. It consists of all the miscellaneous things that are hard to categorize. Topics include things that I did, events I performed at, etc...
I competed at the MN Open. This time around I only participated in singles games, and actually did much better than I thought I would. Sadly the last game I played I approached with the competely wrong mentality. I realized my opponent was of quality, and thought I had already come much further than I thought I would (quarter-finals) and mentally gave up even before I started.
Facing a skilled player with that mentality is a death wish, and I got badly beat in the first set. I realized that I had made a mental concession and was playing much worse than I was capable of, and decided not to give up easily. The second set was 18-21, my loss, ending the game. Had I started proactively competing right away with the first set, I may have been able to go much further. Ultimately it was a horrible loss for me because I felt like I robbed myself, and for no good reason.
There were a lot of upsides to the tournament, however. I realized that not only can I played with skilled players, I can beat them too. Most of the skilled players I go against are technically stronger than me, which means I have to control the pace of the game by constantly thinking. Where is the worst spot to hit the bird for them, what can I do to get them off their rhythm, how quickly am I draining my stamina, and why am I dropping points. Footwork is everything, 90% of the time footwork is the answer to the problem in badminton. Play every single point with intention, and make sure you don't get into the pitfall of dropping many points in a row.
Over the summer (2024) I got super into painting. After reading "The Pocket" by Thich Nhat Hanh, I started thinking a lot about rooting myself in the present, and romanticizing life. Partly due to a renewed sense of wordly wonder, and partly due to a fear of losing my eyesight from being a CS major, I started staring at nature with more intensity. I realized there is so much beauty in each moment that goes by, and if done intentionally, even something as simple as staring at a shallow beach can be quite deep.
I'm not chasing photo-realism with my paintings. I want to use painting as a tool to portray the world and my experiences through my own 'lens'. Photography often falls short of how I experience things, it's lacking that personal touch. I hope that by painting my experiences, I can think more deeply about them, and how they made me feel, and reflect that onto the canvas. It's quite the lofty aspiration, but I'll start one stroke at a time.
I created a webpage for Madtown Bhangra club! Up till 2023, Madtown Bhangra had been an online competition. We wanted to bring the competition in person for the first time ever, but in order to do so we had to fundraise 15 thousand dollars in less than 6 months. To achieve this goal, I created a website for Madtown Bhangra to get sponsorship. The website actually did its job, it attracted sponsors and got us to our goal. Check out the website here!
Everything is bigger in Texas and the bhangra competitions are no different. By far the most exhilarating and intimidating performance I have ever given, Bhangra at the Alamo pitched us, WSB, against some of the best teams--not only from the USA but also our neighbors up north. We definitely should not have been there, but it was an opportunity unlike any other. Seeing these teams perform shattered my impressions of what constitutes "good dance", and inspired me to get much more into bhangra.
You can check out my team's performance here:
What happens when a bhangra team gets bored? They throw a party wedding! For the first time ever,
WSB threw
a mock wedding filled with performance, food, dancing, and lots of fun.
I competed at the Pioneer Open in Illinois. When it comes to badminton, Illinois is the most competitive state in the midwest, hosting multiple different badminton academies, and the allure of Chicago bringing players from abroad. With that in mind, it was nothing less than a complete shock when I not only won games, but got first place in the lower flight at the open for Mens Doubles. While here I got to see some seriously amazing players strut their stuff.
I performed with the Wisconsin School of Bhangra at UW-Madison's Bollywood Fusion Dance competition. At this point of the year, this was one of the larger venues I had performed at, making the preparation and experience unique in its own right. This event was recorded by @ASHWINXSURESH , a channel which has been especially prominent with the DDN circuit.
You can check out my team's performance here:
I performed in India Night with the Bhangra team! We got to be the closing act, and it was a very exciting experience. Just like the last big event, I had a lot of friends who performed in a variety of different ways, whether it be dancing, singing, or playing an instrument. All in all it was definitely a night to remember.
You can check out my performance and the entire event here (Bhangra team @ 1:55:43):
I competed in the Madison Open to put my badminton skills to the test. Unfortunately, I lost almost every game I played, but in all fairness, this year I got seriously unlucky. I had to compete against Jimmy Pohan who was formerly the #1 player in the United States! The craziest thing is, he didn't even win the singles competition, which serves to show how competitive the tournament was this year. Even though I got destroyed this year, I got a lot of valuable experience, so hopefully future competitions end better for me.
I created a webpage for badminton club! Following my election as the communications and social media chair at the club, I decided there needed to be a better way of centralizing information for new and current members. Luckily, over the summer I created my personal website, and now had the ability to create websites on demand. Utilizing what I learned, I created a brand-new website for the badminton club. Check it out here!
I performed in MCOR again! This time I performed through the Bhangra team. I had 2 weeks to learn the full choreography and get it up to performance level. Luckily, I didn't have anything else pressing on my schedule making it a doable goal. A lot of my friends performed as well, through RangDe, Surma, Waale, and Fuego.
I went to go see Mani's Arangatram! An Arangetram is the graduation in a Bharatanatyam dancers career. For her, this was the hard work and dedication of 15 years of dancing all put into one presentation. The production included over three hours of memorized choreography, musical interludes with improvisation, various speeches, and great food!
Recently, through Pooja Bartake and Hrishi Shah, I got the opportunity to participate in creating a music video. Although this wasn't my first time acting in a small film, it was an entirely new experience, and I had a lot of fun filming with my co-star, Ruhee.
I'd been playing for about two years and slowly but steadily improving all the while. I heard about the Steve Radar Memorial Badminton tournament, and decided it was time to put my skills to the test. In the tournament I got second place with Henry in mens doubles in the D bracket. I also played singles and lost the majority of the games I played. The tournament was both humbling and rewarding; it showed me that I'm still far away from the level of play I wanted to be at, yet showed me that the effort I had been putting towards getting better was not for nought.