S4: "Magic Slate"

It was almost dusk and pari was returning to her home from the school. She became late as she was playing with her friends montu and rimmi. On the way, in the bushes she found a slate which is very colorful and is looking brand new. She picked it up and looked around for someone who might have lost it. She didn't find anyone. She put that slate in her bag and went to home.

During that night, after dinner she opened her bag, took out the slate to examine and wrote something out of her book just to check it. It glittered once, she got amazed and wrote some other formulas from the book, she saw the glitters again.

"Wow", She murmured to herself. She kept the slate in her bag and slept.

The next morning, she took the slate to her school. The maths teacher came in and asked random questions. Pari didn't know the answers for any of the questions but suddenly answers came out of her mouth. She stood startled for a moment. Teacher was asking the same formulas she wrote  on the slate but she didn't learn them, she just wrote them. The teacher appreciated pari for answering all the questions. But pari was totally in a puzzled state.

She took the slate  and wrote everything mam told on it. She didn't play with her friends. She went home early as she was really confused. To overcome this confused state, she wrote everything from her notebooks on the slate and sat there watching the glitters and she spent the whole night doing that.

The next day, there was a surprise test and out of blue pari wrote all the answers which she didn't even learn. she finished the test prior to everyone and went to the playground and sat alone watching the slate in her hands. Suddenly, she got the answers for all the confusions and puzzles running in her mind. Two words uttered out from her mouth.

"MAGIC SLATE", she murmured.

"Oh! That's amazing. whatever we write on this, we will remember that, it will go directly into our mind. This is absolutely unbelievable", she said to herself touching the slate.

Rimmi and montu came and asked her, "Hey what happened? You left so early . Didn't you write anything? ."

"Yesterday I studied till late night, I knew all the answers", pari lied to them.

She didn't want to reveal the truth. Though she was not happy with it, for the first time she kept a secret.

Every day she used to carry the slate with her to school and write everything on it.  By and by she became so arrogant and conceited. She doesn't even clarify the doubts asked by her friends. She stopped playing with montu and rimmi. She even started making fun of them.

"oh rimmi ! You don't know even that answer and montu, you are not able to solve that easy problem. How pity !", she started flaunting about herself.

Rimmi and montu busted out in anger but didn't utter a word. As pari left, rimmi said to montu "I have this hunch that something  is wrong. Pari can't get that intelligent over night. She is dumb than both of us. She is definitely hiding something. Let's find out what is actually 'pity'."

The next day when pari went outside during lunch break, rimmi and montu checked her bag. They found the slate which is very colorful and while checking the remaining items in the bag, montu accidentally draw a line on the slate. It glittered. They both got shocked.

"Write again", rimmi said.

Montu scribbled on the slate, it glittered again.

"Oh-ho ! So this is the actual reason why she is pitying us", rimmi said seeing the slate. They decided to steal it and teach her a lesson.

Pari came back and found that her magic slate was missing. She was very depressed. She searched every corner of the class and asked everyone about her missing slate. No one answered her.

That night, rimmi wrote everything on the slate she wanted to learn. The following day, in the class when mam asked the same questions, she was unable to answer them but pari answered them.

They got the secret. " As pari owns this slate. whatever we write on it, it goes directly into pari's mind" , rimmi said to montu.

They both smirked and raised an eyebrow at once by looking at each other.

Montu took the slate to his home and wrote all the bad words he knew and also wrote some spontaneously invented bad words.

Pari spoke as it is as montu wrote and got punished by the teachers. She had no clue what is happening with her. Mam warned pari for her behaviour and announced the class that there will be a test tomorrow.

Rimmi's turn it is. She took the slate to her home and wrote everything which is going to be asked in tomorrow's test incorrectly.

Pari got flunked badly in the test.  She got all the wrong answers and bagged punishments and scolding's.

Rimmi and Montu were gleefully chuckling in the playground.

Pari came to them and said in a very low tone, "I want to tell you both my secret. It's not me, it's my magic slate. Whatever I write on my slate I get to remember it. I got very proud with that, I am sorry."

"We don't believe you. There is nothing like a magic slate. You're lying.", Rimmi said.

Montu was sitting in between them and was clueless about what rimmi is saying.

"I am not lying", Pari said in even more lower tone.

"If you are not lying then show us the magic slate", rimmi asked putting her hand forward.

"It has been stolen and someone is writing wrong answers and bad words on it, that is why I am behaving like this and I am really regretful for my behaviour with you guys. I am so sorry", pari said and she was about to cry.

"So you don't have it now. Tell us how does it look like, we will help you in searching it", rimmi said.

"It looks so colourful and if we write anything on it, It sparkles once", pari said with her fingers gesturing in the air.

Rimmi took out the magic slate and wrote 'HA HA' on it , showed it to pari and said "Like this?".

Rimmi and montu laughed out loudly at once. Pari got shocked. She opened her eyes and mouth widely.

"We stole it to teach you a lesson and to bring back our best friend pari from that arrogant monster pari" , rimmi said and gave the slate back to pari.

"We are sorry", montu said and both hugged pari.

Pari for a moment exchanged her looks between the slate and both of them, then laughed vigorously.

The trio laughed and laughed, then played till sunset.

With this mind boggling lesson, pari changed. Thereafter whatever she learns, she explains to her friends. Though she comes first in the class and solves everything, she never got proud and arrogant again.

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# The Invisible Hurdle

PROCRASTINATION, the gigantic and invisible hurdle which appears on every lap of our journey towards our goals. As it is invisible it is merely difficult, firstly to recognize it and then to hop over it. It's not as simple as its meaning says; delay or postpone action. It would even estrange us from our dreams if it becomes a habit.

The most important thing about procrastination is we do it unknowingly. You have an important thing to do, and the dead line is not so near or let's say there is no dead line at all. You will probably put off this important thing to watch TV or a movie or to chitchat with your friends and other things which are not as important as it is.

Sometimes I just put off doing the important tasks because I am lazy or just that I am not in a mood. This would  become really worse when it becomes a habit.

Overtime even without my consent, it became my habit. I started procrastinating foremost things and started indulging myself in not-so-important activities unknowingly. Only last minute pressure made me to work and even worse I left many things incompletely and even gave up many tasks.

Then I decided that I don't want to continue this and I don't want to become the slave of my own mind. I came up with so many ideas to shoo off procrastination and laziness.

Firstly  I wrote all the short term goals which have to be done in a few days or weeks and then the destination where I finally want to reach and I stick this up on the wall where I can see daily.

I started rewarding  myself after achieving each short term goal with the things I like but more than that I started punishing myself. If I won't complete a certain task, I can't touch my phone no matter who ever calls and I can't go on the social networking sites or something else which you are merely addicted to and which is involved in your daily routine. This is really affective.

Then I made my goals public, I told my friends about the tasks I am going to do and they keep on reminding me if I get distracted and I eventually began to do things to avoid embarrassment.

Laziness and getting bored are the two big No-No things . Thinking about the feeling after reaching success also helps. The important thing is recognizing that we are procrastinating and prioritizing the things. I provoke and scare myself to do things by thinking what will happen if I stay like this my entire life.

The main thing which worked out pretty well is whenever I get lazy ,I take a stick note and write "I M LAZY" and stick it on to the wall where I can see daily and not only me, my whole family also see it. And I ought to be honest in sticking notes whenever I feel lazy or bored, the more the notes, the more the embarrassment, and over time I saw the improvement, the lesser notes, the more appreciation and thereby more motivation.

And one more thing which helps is if you want to do something, start doing it little.

If you want to run for 5 miles. Just wear the shoes daily and walk a few steps and eventually you will end up running 5 miles or even more. Because sometimes it's just the starting problem, so by doing this you will overcome it.

You can make the invisible hurdle visible and you can jump over it as I did and then nothing else in this world can stop you from heading towards your dreams. 

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