Zombie mode.

                  Well, the thing is this entire coaching set-up was very different from usual and nothing like in previous classes. First, you spend six hours at school, return home, choke the food down your throat in an attempt to reach your coaching on time, reach there, spend four bloody hours trying to understand the teacher, reach back home late at night, dead tired and dead hungry, eat food, and if you still have the energy and perseverance left-study. This schedule was exhausting. And it had been my initial schedule and till the end i tried to keep it this way, with some successful and some unsuccessful attempts.

                       This schedule is traumatizing, rigorous and appalling. There is no respite, no chance to take a break from books. In effect, you are always running behind schedule, behind class, behind what is being taught.

          Our teachers always advised us to follow a simple method. After coaching days-go back home and simply revise the topics taught in class. The next day, when you don’t have a class do further questions. (As I might have mentioned earlier, I joined a classroom program, one that goes with school. According to this, you have four hours of coaching every alternate day.)  I know it sounds simple and feasible too. But practically it is not. Especially in case if our batch. Because instead of having coaching on alternate days, on MWF, we had slight improvisation and had classes on MWTF. Four days a week. (So that we could catch up to the earlier batches, with the syllabus.) Like I told you, I had to face the repercussions of joining a late batch, and this was it.

               However, we were not informed of this minute but really important improvisation when we signed up for a late batch. Had I known this would happen, I would have joined sooner. It exhausted us even more. And in my honest opinion, with school and coaching, the Tuesday that we did get off-went in sleeping and taking out the tiredness. 

              If on one of the days, you did get energized and studied, there was no telling you would do the same the next day. And once you are doing a topic, you need continuity. As a result, whatever little bit you did study was washed off and you had to re-study it all over again. And by re-studying I don’t mean revising. I imply that this was a waste of time and energy.

                  The only effective study that was possible was during weekends.

        Only, in my case, I tried to follow my teacher’s advice and exerted myself. Thus, my friends began to call me zombie. After coming back from coaching, I used to take a break for an hour while I ate food. Then, I sat to study and I studied till 3 or 4 O’ clock in the morning. Knowing well, that next day I had to wake up at 6 am for school. At times, I pulled all-nighters and never even slept before going to school.  After coming back from school, except on Tuesdays, I had coaching, where I’d try to focus all my attention towards the blackboard despite my drowsiness. And trust me, this is not just my tale. It happened with a lot of kids with my class.

                   I began to grow thinner, and gradually became skeleton thin. There were dark circles under the eyes, and an overall Zombie look.

          All this pain and agony was not without results because I did excellently in the studies at coaching. But was it worth it? I began to wonder. My teachers often thought, after looking at my face, that she is depressed, sad and so on because of studies and books. Little did they know that it had nothing to do with books! I was sad, all right, but not due to academic reasons since I was doing well. I was sad because I was loosing the balance in my life. I did not want to look like a zombie!

       Sixteen-seventeen these years are the peak of hormonal changes in teenagers, and they show in different ways. The sort of person you will become in the future is greatly affected by stuff in this time.

          I always had a theory of balance in life, and it always worked for me. I believed that no matter what you do- a 24X7 job, studies, leisure you should always maintain a balance. A lot of people say that you just have to work for two years, then you will get selected in a good college, and you will not have to go through with this anymore. But they are wrong. So! So! Wrong!

          When you get in a college you will have to work to keep up your GP or whatever they call it. You will have to work to get a good placement. And when you do get the alleged high package job, you have to work your ass off in the initial years to reach anywhere.

          I am not saying that every aspect of life is bad. I’m saying that you will have to work and exert yourself in all stages of your life. The only solution or remedy to this is: maintaining a balance.

            

          Studies have shown that a lot of academically brilliant kids do not fare well later in life. It not because they are not good anymore, but it is because by the time they reach where the must, their entire energy is sucked up. No zest. No enthusiasm is left.

               Honestly till the end of these two years, i could never re-establish my balance until my coaching was finally over.

               But it does not have to be this way for any other kid. In these two years, you should know your priority-which is books. But it does not mean you must not have fun. Neither do you have to be as extreme as me.It is  possible to clear JEE and it is also possible to maintain a proper balance. You have got to decide how badly you want to get into IIT. For me? the cost was a little too much. Not that i gave up but

          I did not want to become that person. This is when O.D.S. (Oppressive Depressive syndrome) seriously began to take its toll on me. I began to doubt what I really wanted from life. Cruel success or humble happiness?

                                                                                     

\\ in line with my above thoughts I  highly recommends reading this book- The Gift, by Cecilia Ahern.