Oatmeal and Morality "The main cause of enlightenment is bodhichitta, and the root of bodhicitta is compassion." -Geshe Kelsang Gyatso One night last July, a crisp breeze fluttered through the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. I stood in the middle of a bush, holding ten cups of day-old oatmeal. I balanced the cups in the crook of my right arm, reaching for the handle of the green door in front of me. A drop of frigid water fell from the...

I can be very whiny sometimes. In a fit of frustration one Monday morning, I slammed my college guide down on the table and turned to my friend. "I don't know where I want to go to collllllllege," I moaned plaintively. She looked at me with her wise eyes and asked calmly, "Have you thought about Brown?" My closest friends often know me better than I know myself. I trolled through college guides and talked to Brown alumni, and I...

I have always loved foreign languages and mathematics. For me, they are inextricably linked. I decipher grammatical structures in the same way I decipher equation - they both have a proper syntax. In order to speak French or Spanish fluently, I must think in French or Spanish. In order to evaluate complicated integrals, I must think in "math;" I really do imagine math as a different language. Instead of the usual words and phrases, I picture numbers and graphs. I...

I breezed through my first two years of high school math. I did my homework quickly, never studied for tests, and understood the concepts perfectly. My junior year, I took AP Calculus BC, which was really Calculus AB and BC combined into one course. For the first time, I struggled to understand. I spent hours doing homework, reviewing for tests, and getting help from my teacher. Some days, no matter how many questions I asked, I just could not grasp...