GASICS Part 4

Now, three weeks after offline classes began, we were to have a test that decided our batches for the coming and final year. This was important, as shuffling would be stopped until the revision phase at the end of the year.

I did my best at the time, but still managed a rank of 456. An improvement, but not enough for me to get into the next batch. This hurt a lot, a lot of the close friends I had made had managed to move up.

I was frustrated and annoyed at having pushed for three weeks straight and having nothing to show for it. The only friend I had left from my old life was now mad at me, for skipping his birthday party to study.

Showing up to the first class in the new batch, seeing almost none of my motivated friends left, I felt like I was going to rot here for the rest of my time. I desperately wanted to win, but my chances only seemed like they were getting worse.

Ego hurt, I decided that increasing the intensity of work was the answer. Every second from now on would be spent pushing myself to do better. I was going to prove that I was just as good, if not better, than the kids in the higher batches.

This was all just big talk in my head till now. The reality was, even if i did manage to complete the ongoing work on time, I still had a years worth of work to catch up on, to realistically have a shot of doing well in JEE Advanced.

A distinct memory I have is talking to my math teacher about the huge pile of backlog, and him giving me the resources I could learn from.

The very next day, after doing some back of the napkin math, I came to him again, convinced that it was impossible. To have any chance of finishing it all, I would have to work 14 hour days for the foreseeable future. He looked me dead in the eye, and said "yeah, so? you thought this was going to be easy?"

After this conversation, I realized that I would have to really commit to survive. This whole time, I had been half in, half out, which was just not going to work going forwards. Big changes had to be made to survive.

Every thing that did not lead to a direct improvement in the marks of Physics, Chemistry, and Math had to go. Having no friends turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I didn't have to expend energy to break ties, it was already done. The last of the two things I did for myself, the gym and practicing martial arts, also had to be cut out.

If becoming a machine was the price to pay to win , I chose to pay it, to whatever end necessary.