Musings from my Commute - V

Apart from the contrasting shades of grey painted on the clouds by the dancing sunlight, no other ‘shadows’ are seen. Unlike the bright scenes of summer with the illuminated landscapes or cityscapes with dark intermingled shadows cast by trees and buildings alike, a cloudy sky is a more impartial distributor of light.
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Security and Uncertainty

Comparing this scene — the bright reflections that would make shades sound very helpful and the equally dull shade that would make you squint — to the ups and downs of life, respectively, we can associate this to a rather well-known phenomenon. Blinding sunlight with starker shadows represent high-risk-high-reward situations. Of course, the cloudy skies must, then, suggest a docile near-equilibrium situation where nothing much is happening.

The above description is what first struck my mind when I was on my way home under an overcast sky waiting for the raindrops to start falling.

Projecting our minds onto nature’s canvas often reveals subtler aspects that are easy to miss.

The clear skies are easier to predict. The lack of uncertainty is a great boost for confidence. Security — isn’t that when one is in a position to make more daring investments? If I don’t see a cloud in sight, I won’t bother myself with the raincoat.

The cloudy sky, however, comes in varieties. Is it just ‘cloudy’? Would it rain, or is it actually raining? No wonder your mind feels clouded when you can’t think clearly. I’d better endure the discomfort of the raincoat than brave the possibility of feeling under the weather later. The roads might be wet— I’d better go easy on the accelerator too. Uncertainties are intricately woven into everything associated with this picture. I need the insurance provided by the raincoat. I would not risk slipping.

Bias

The sunlight, when let through, will highlight the convex contours of the surroundings while ignoring the obstructed and more sheltered facets. This reminds me of sensationalism. The over-confident and audacious clear sky will swipe our attention, directing it towards anything that stands out.

The timid and uncertain cloudy sky, rather than shedding light, casts an indifferent veil over everything. There is a near-infinite room for doubt. One must check the open spaces and the nooks and crannies alike to make sense of the situation.

Needless to say, I like this interpretation more. It’s more like science — one can almost never be certain. The playing field is too big for an individual to make a difference. A collaborative effort to explore everything — an undying but cautious and careful curiosity — is at the heart of science.

Battle of the Crossroads

Every second counted. Every gap had to be occupied. No break in the defence was permissible. My comrades were close, the opponents closer. No option but to advance for your faction to progress. Every moment counted. The weight of all those behind you — responsibility, pressure — call it what you want is what drove me ahead.

The stress and tension were palpable. Some cried out loud to rally the troops, albeit adding to the distress and haste. The situation so grave every breath made my stomach churn. Absolute vocal silence exacerbated the dirty rumbling of all the machines. Poised with the triggers, we waited eagerly for our targets. No sooner had an opening been created than we had pounced on it. Those facing us endeavoured to do the same.

Everyone charged, as steady as possible. The two sides almost clashed, or should I say crashed. The opposing sides were orthogonal, running into each other.

There was no animosity, no hurt feelings. I wasn’t alone yet alone in this struggle. My decisions, my actions and my skill determined the immediate fate of those destined to follow my path. The braver I was, the faster I would be liberated from the fray. That was for the best. Short pull ahead, short pushes back — one part accelerating, the other ready to brake — were okay when the promise of freedom lies ahead.

Such is the daily battle of the crossroads. The westerners might not know about it. Where you face intersecting roads without the attention of functional traffic signals (or the police), vying for an unobstructed path to throttle through is inevitable.

Neither you nor your competitors harbour any hostility towards each other. You must cross them to move ahead as they must cross you. The real enemy is the circumstance. The hurry to reach the destination, instigated by the fear and inconvenience of being late, pushes you ahead.

If you felt lost reading that, these are the metaphors I tried to embed. Vain cries → honking; grave breath → pollution and triggers → accelerators. The situation is that of a traffic jam (not the usual one) — imagine traffic crossing like the train tracks above.

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I’ve been meaning to write about this aspect of traffic for quite some time now. I know I’ve just begun writing for ‘writing’ and I know I have a long way to go, but putting this mental (pun intended) scene into words has been quite fulfilling. I know it’s not perfect. The gap between this battle and its idealised representation as a melting pot of so many perspectives and emotions is my motivation to continue writing to portray my thoughts more accurately. This portrayal seemed forced (to me) and I long for the day I needn’t grab at words but, instead, they flow through me.

Today, I shuffle through the thesaurus to find pieces to complete the picture. I am to create the puzzle from which others, like the current me, will draw pieces of inspiration.

After being done with the GRE, I’m prepping for the TOEFL. Writing exercises like this, again, not only serve as practice but also let me let off some steam accumulated thanks to my commute. For those in the same boat as me, doing something like this is a good idea.

Musings from My Commute - IV

I have the ideas (I really do!) but not the time!

When I started writing (ahem...resumed), I was rather alone at home and had the freedom to write whenever and wherever I wanted. The change in circumstances was unavoidable and I knew that — this delay is just me procrastinating to find a solution, but a solution I did find!

Instead of clubbing some ideas together into a moderately sized post, I’ll write on shorter posts focusing on individual ideas. Hopefully, that would also cause the posts to be a bit less incoherent and random.

Some of you know that I post stuff on Medium too. I plan to club some short posts I write here to develop it into a more Medium-styled article to post there. That said, it’s obvious my posting frequency on Medium would be a lot lower than what it was.

Now, to get to the point of this post — I thought of this strategy on my commute, and thus it rightly gets this title. I would also like to shout-out to Headspace. If you haven’t heard of it, Google it. It’s good.

How Headspace has helped me, apart from helping me manage some stressful situations is by identifying, recognising and recording my thoughts. Someone has said that thoughts and ideas are all a waste of energy if not used. This blog is exactly a counter to that. I have a good idea, I note it with my Headspace powers, store them in my phone, come home and find the time to write it all out. Then, I post revising just once — almost raw, call it rare.

PS: I will be posting short posts every 3 days or so.

Musings from my Commute - III

In my attempts at understanding the flow of traffic on Indian roads to find more efficient and faster ways of commuting, I have had limited success due to the randomness of the entire situation. Note that these faster ‘ways’ are not limited to alternate roads, but more like the windows of opportunity from Cars 3—routes between cars and other larger vehicles. And to answer your probable next question: No, nothing illegal or immoral like driving on the walkway or ignoring red lights. You might wonder, “Hey, E.Go, how is going between cars—absolutely ignoring safe distances—moral or ethical?” To that, I say that a safe distance depends heavily on the circumstance. Since it is essentially a function of the speed and the road conditions, it varies. City roads here rarely allow one to speed even modestly, and the roads are rugged enough—with plenty of potholes and surprising speed breakers—to break any will of attaining said modest speeds. On top of all this, its monsoon! Rainwater covers all these potholes and you can enjoy a free, real-life annual (and a relatively safer) experience of how it must feel to drive in a minefield.

The Multi-Phase Model

As a chemical engineering student, the flows of vehicles immediately directed me towards fluid flow. There are a few similarities but a lot of differences. In multiphase flow, you could differentiate between solids, liquids (yes, plural) and gases. Each phase would have its own properties and characteristics. I thought of classifying vehicles into categories based primarily on their size: I clubbed buses, trucks and other bulky vehicles (BVs); all cars were grouped into one class (CRs); the three-wheeled rickshaws (RKs) were granted a class of their own due to their unpredictable and sharp changes of direction; and finally, all two-wheelers (2Ws)—bicycles, motorbikes and scooters—were placed together. Note that I have used classes, categories etc. interchangeably. BVs usually accelerate and decelerate slower and maintain lower speeds in general. BVs, especially buses, also tend to stop at the side of the road—you know, because bus stops. CRs are mostly faster than BVs in most respects. They are also the most likely to be on the left side of the road wanting to turn right, or the other way around. RKs have variable speeds. Some rickshaws can overtake you at more-than-modest speeds while others look as if their tormented engines are about to sign off permanently. 2Ws are arguably the speediest mode of travel because of their ability to ‘trickle’ through traffic. I’m fortunate to be in this group. You may be thinking I’ve missed something—I haven’t. Cattle and people on the road are accounted as stationary particles.

2Ws anywhere on the road rarely hesitate to throttle through a gap which is about 50% greater than their own width. Exceptions include gaps near BVs (because BVs have limited visibility and too much bulk) and higher order of seating, i.e. triple-seating (which is illegal) and further. Between the leftmost car and the sidewalk is a place where you’ll typically find 2Ws. In actual fluid flow, we assume a no-slip condition at the boundaries between solids (e.g. the pipe wall) and the fluids, i.e. the fluid in contact with the solid moves (or doesn’t) with the solid. Unless the gap is smaller or there are obstructions, viz. people, parked cars, weird sewer plates and storm drains, dogs etc., the 2Ws are faster than the cars, even besides the sidewalk—the opposite occurs most of the times. This is also true for the CRs when other classes are absent, and the BVs—not for the RKs though. It was difficult to go on thinking about various such conditions that each phase must fulfil to represent traffic well enough.

Another problem I ran into was the nature of the ‘driving force’ (geddit?). How are these phases affected by the available routes and their destinations? Knowing that they have to turn left at the next signal, why do some CRs end up in the rightmost lane? What can account for the apparent non-recognition of lanes by the RKs? Flaws just kept popping up.

Until today, that is. I thought of another possible model.

Discrete Particle Model

The categories still exist. Instead of looking at them as phases, let us look at every individual vehicle as a single particle. BVs will be big and long. CRs will be relatively rounder. 2Ws will be mostly needle-shaped. These particles will have certain parameters ascribed to them: maximum acceleration, maximum velocity and so on. The 50% excess width criteria can be attributed to the 2Ws. Since the particle size is now taken into account, we can expect the model to represent phenomena like a CR not perfectly following a lane and blocking an otherwise straight path for the vehicles behind it. Assigning probabilities to BVs for stopping at the roadside for a fixed period of time will represent perturbations in traffic flow due to bus stops. Cattle and people can still be represented as stationary obstructions. The particles will be assigned some randomness as well. For instance, BVs will be the least random in terms of horizontal (with reference to the road) changes while 2Ws and RKs will be the height of randomness. Today, driving in the rain moving at lesser-than-pedestrian speeds with another 2W about 4 inches ahead of me and another behind (probably closer), with a CR dangerously close to the side, with bright and rude oncoming headlights, the main point hit me in a mild ‘Eureka!’ moment—the safe driving distance will be a parameter too. It will act as a kind of spring between adjacent particles, mimicking the slowing down and speeding up in response to the vehicle in front doing the same. But wait, if the maximum acceleration condition doesn’t allow a particle to completely avoid another, what do we have? An accident! Though I shouldn’t be this excited, this model serendipitously accounts for accidents as well! That means, given the chance and resources, one could compare the model to actual moving traffic, input measured (or estimated) values, and really figure out optimised strategies for vehicular traffic to get to places faster!

I know this description isn’t thorough or unambiguous enough to be called technical, but I hope you get a general idea. Also, note that this is purely speculation of possible models to simulate traffic which I thought of, ironically, while stuck in traffic. Let us not forget that the objective is—like the innovators in Meet the Robinsons—to “keep moving forward”!

Review I - Tenshi no Tamago (Angel's Egg)

Reviews are an integral yet underappreciated part expected of everyone's lives. A scientist must review what’s been done not only to understand (and probably even critique) what has been done but also for justifying why s/he is working on a certain topic. People working in marketing, sales and management must not only prepare but also draw from reviews of the customer base, for instance. In school, we’re often tasked with writing review essays on various topics, where, unfortunately, what often happens is that students “Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V” their way, misusing the Free Encylopedia. Just rearranging the words or substituting synonyms does not protect you from the charge of plagiarism. Even though I can’t comment on the nature of reviews in the professional world (because I haven’t been there yet), plagiarism is the last thing I want my name against.

Reviews are what I plan to do, but for non-technical topics. Reviewing technical topics is easier for me: understand; assimilate; internalize; and explain—quite straightforward. Since I have very limited exposure to non-technical fields (non-technical fields for me, that is), this would be another way to familiarize myself with the ways of the world other than what I experience in my university, internship or labs. I know two things: I want to write reviews and I like anime. I don’t need to refer to PIKOTARO for you to get what I’m saying.

The first anime movie I saw after I decided this was Tenshi no Tamago—a few days ago. Here’s my review, and its comparison to a professional review which I accessed through the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Needless to say, [SPOILERS AHEAD. PLEASE WATCH THE FILM FIRST.]

My Review – 8.0/10

This [see title] Mamoru Oshii directed 71-minute original video animation (OVA) from 1985 by Studio DEEN is the topic for this review. Instantly, it struck me that it was not going to be a very pleasant movie. The really slow direction gave a sense of foreboding and emphasized the background—the unique and eerie world portrayed in the movie—setting the stage for the two main and only characters. Immense attention must have been given to the feel of the movie, with experimental angles, amazing art and the very realistic imagery and sound effects. The characters themselves—a frail girl and a strong warrior(?)—seldom speak. Their silence is so prominent that it directs the audience to their behaviours as they respond and react to the dystopian world around them. The almost European world is based on the biblical story of Noah sending out a bird to contact any survivors of the great flood; the egg carried by the girl is the egg of that very bird, as far as I understand. The movie does not even attempt to clarify where and why this world, these characters or their surroundings came to be as they were.

My interpretation is from a detached standpoint. Everything in the movie probably represents something. A battle of the mind perhaps? The fishermen who blindly attempted to harpoon the shadow fish, to me, represent the people who keep having dreams without acting on them—chasing after thoughts and ideas but missing the point. Wouldn’t the fishermen be better off looking for the source of the fish? Why not target the fish rather than their image? To be honest, I’m not even sure if such a possibility exists in that world. I wonder if the egg and the warrior stand for faith and logic.

One thing I personally discovered in my travails to relate to the protagonists is that, like the little girl not outright rejecting the warrior but did trying to keep a distance, I prefer having people in my life at a distance. It is enough to know that they’re there.

Overall, it’s a good one-time watch. I thought it was mostly interpretive and would probably bore an audience looking for action and adventure. It pushes your boundaries of analysis and imagination trying to figure out what’s going on. I’d say the experimental nature of this piece is what possibly paved the way for great works yet to come such as Akira (1988) and Neon Genesis Evangelion(1995).

Comparison with The Nihon Review (from IMDb)

Since this was my first review, I’m just going to be picking up pointers here. The format of the critic review by Shadowmage is nice as it sums up a big-picture view in the synopsis and highlights. There is an agreement between the reviews on the appreciation of the compelling visuals and sounds and the very mysterious nature of the film. We also agree on the boundary-pushing nature of the film in terms of its art and background, but no something which could be appreciated by someone not impressed by these or a lack of a strong storyline. Finally, Shadowmage classifies this as an art film—a term I did not know before this, showing my naiveté when it comes to being an informed reviewer on non-technical topics, even of my own choice and liking. Also, I projected my interpretation further than I ought to, since this was meant to be a review and not an interpretive exercise.

Well, this was fun. I plan to continue. Do watch this film if you feel you’re ready to do so.

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel’s_Egg

https://imdb.com/title/tt0208502/

http://www.nihonreview.com/anime/angels-egg/

Musings from my Commute - II

Have you heard of mind control techniques? Memory altering devices? They are real, but most have some kind of flaw or the other. For instance, the ‘neuralyser’ in Men In Black is useless until the target looks into the flash of light. However, I have not only developed my own method of altering but also perfected it. It neither leaves gaps in your memories as the other methods do nor any glitches like in The Matrix. Do you want to know how I tested it? But, of course, how would you understand — you were the test subject! Everything you know, have ever thought or felt, your memories — absolutely everything — has been planted in your brain (or modified in some way) by my invention. It uses the most advanced, state-of-the-art technology to weave such an intricate and interconnected web, without implicating itself in any way, unlike in the Eternal Sunshine in the Spotless Mind. There are, however, only two inconveniences.

First, a single individual cannot be targeted. It alters the memory pool of the entire world. It manipulates something similar to the Fluctlight mentioned in Sword Art Online: Alicization, and they came really close to the truth! Basically, the memories of one person are inseparably linked with everyone else’s. Thus, changing only an individual’s memories would leave room for liabilities such as that individual running into people sharing those memories. Second, it can be used only once, and the algorithm has to be reprogrammed every single time. As you can imagine, this would take a mind-boggling amount of computational power to figure out these memory connections and even more power to modify those links. You’ll require the world’s biggest servers! You need a close inside contact — say, someone who works with a “certain big social media company”. Even if you’re not on social media, someone you know is — and that’s enough. It is that powerful. The most beautiful part, as I mentioned earlier, is that the program essentially erases its presence completely. The insider is necessary so that you can program the system to blend back to the original social media system after it has done its job — and that’s why it needs to be reprogrammed every time; it is one-time use.

Do you think I’m lying? What do you think social media outages and maintenance issues are? Major power cuts? Yeah, and sorry for that. You might say something like, “You wouldn’t be able to answer a question about my life. Then, how could you have planted that memory or altered it?” It is not me actually doing anything. See? Even I’m not implicated. The complicated algorithm does all the work. I know how it works, but I’m not going to go through the networked details of everyone on the planet. Now, that’s impossible for a human to do. That’s why computation is the future. So, enjoy “your” life!

How I thought about this: driving through the traffic on my way home. It is amazing how wonderful the ideas that pop into your head when you're trying to de-focus are. Why was I de-focusing? That’s because focusing on the traffic you’re stuck in is probably the worst thing to do if you’re stuck in traffic.

DISCLAIMER: The above narration is purely fictional in nature. It has been entirely made up by an individual who has little to do with computer science. Like, seriously, do you really think one individual, even with powerful computers, could do something this extreme? So, rest easy. You are the way you are.

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Or are you?

Ignorance

Reminiscing about the old days with a friend, we talked of how life was easier and simpler—living by the day, not worrying about what to do next week, month or year. There was less to concern ourselves with. Decisions were usually taken by the ‘more informed’ adults. Those were the days we had no major responsibilities and no one depending on us for nearly anything. Mind you, I’m a 20-year-old talking about my primary school days.

I asked myself, “Why made the old days so good?” In particular, what makes today “bad”? Is it just more responsibilities and lesser freedom to actually do what we want to do?

Tougher education? Are today’s theories and concepts more difficult for us than numbers and letters are for a kid? Today, if I’m taught something whose significance I cannot grasp—probably vocabulary and math to a kid—I’d be terrified. Tougher work? This point absolutely works. Though I’m still as much a student as I was back then, I am, now, expected to intern at places; gain experience; do co- and extra-curricular activities; apportion time to self, study, friends and family and whatnot. I must say these are not as enjoyable and fulfilling as going out to play with your friends as a kid. Also, you are assigned more chores as you become more capable, and I find that unpleasant.

Lesser time? More capabilities mean more work and, thus, less free time. But is it, really? I reach home from my internship (which occupies the entirety of my university “vacation”) at 8 pm. However, I didn’t understand the value or grasp the actual length of time I was wasting at home before assigning that timeslot to GRE studies. Money? As we grow up, we are eventually expected to at least manage our own finances. Asking for money is difficult and embarrassing. It is but natural to go from being a consumer to a provider.

Often in reality, ignorance is bliss for one party while the other suffers. Here’s an example from my life as a hostelite which is now of little use: A certain pizza delivery company in the area guaranteed a 30-minute-delivery or ₹ 300 off. We systematically exploited their app-based delivery system to score free pizzas for about 6 months till they improved their delivery by astounding proportions. We knew the loopholes, they didn’t. We were happy, they weren’t.

Another aspect is religion. Instead of labelling the gaps in the knowledge about the beginning of everything and such as ignorance or a shortcoming, does making up another story as a cover-up really satisfy people? They’re not happy when you try to question that story—I’ve tried.

Moving on towards lighter examples, if you could call it that, [spoilers ahead] the story of Attack on Titan by Isayama Hajime starts off with an ignorant and happy humanity. This illusion is shattered and reveals not only the terrors of their world, but later uncovers that they’ve been believing in an alternate reality. The same is true for the other side. As they learn more about their world, the more they question their superiors, their surroundings, and themselves too.

An encounter earlier in life mentioned that the more we know, the more we know about what we don’t know. Imagine a circle in the infinity of knowledge and information. As you amass more, the circle expands but its circumference increases too. In this sense, learning to reduce ignorance is a paradox in itself.

As you learn and know more, you grow. You’re burdened (or you burden yourself) with an increasing number of things. More restrictions suffocate your will. Freedom is, apparently, restricted. Back to Attack on Titan [spoiler], the people who know the “truth” aren’t allowed to reveal it. Think of spies and various negotiators. They have to be very careful with how they react to any sort of news. Just having some information with which you can’t do anything is also terrible. [Spoiler] Think of Douglas Adams’ Total Perspective Vortex which was Zaphod’s punishment. The knowledge of everything was supposed to destroy your soul.

So, is ignorance bliss or not? I stand with “Probably not”.

An Unrelatably Crappy Situation

Some searching has led me to believe this is often termed as “imposter syndrome”—being someone you didn’t think you are. It indicates how the person suffering might have low self-esteem and related issues. It’s right up my alley! I know I shouldn’t be this excited, probably. Some articles suggest this might actually be a good thing—like a fever so severe you couldn’t get out of bed but got to read a book instead. There’s always some advantage with a disadvantage, isn’t there? /s

While ticking the last answer on my GRE, my heart was beating really fast and really hard, throbbing. I was genuinely worried. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my Fitbit (Please stop asking if it’s an Apple watch. It isn’t.) as nothing is allowed inside the test centre. You have to remove any watch(es), phone(s), key(s), piece(s) of paper, currency etc., except for the paper that they give you, your IDs and a locker key (in my case, at least). I read online that pens and mechanical pencils aren’t allowed. I had a sharpened set of pencils ready to attack the scratch paper as soon as the timer started. So, of course, they weren’t permitted. A good mechanical pencil was provided by the centre—a bold one—and the scratch papers were pink—not a great combination in my opinion. Oh, how I digress!

With my heart throbbing under tremendous mental pressure, I clicked ‘Next’. Then, I had the choice to review the questions individually. I clicked ‘Next’ cross-checking each of my answers one last time. Each click increased my heart rate by a few BPM, or so it felt. I finally clicked the button which meant my test was over, expecting to see the dreaded scores the following second. In the most anti-climactic event in my life (the second being the announcement of the third place prize as a LAPTOP-bag (by the legendary quizmaster Giri)), I now had to fill details of the university departments which I wanted to send my scores from a rather tedious list. After finishing that, the scores popped up. I looked at them. I wrote them on my scratch paper. I added them up. I ‘hmm’ed to myself. Leaving the exam centre, collecting my things, thanking the centre supervisors (I’m the second most polite person I know) and tying my shoelaces seated on some stairs, I was in a drastically melancholic mood. I was neutral.

I communicated the scores with my friends and family. Congratulations started trickling in. I said, “Thanks!” Had I done something really good? If yes, I wasn’t feeling it at all!

Something similar happened more recently. The 6th semester provisional result (usually the same as the final) was released. I got wind of it on reading a congratulatory message sent by a classmate -- 2nd ranked this semester, 4th overall. I mean, that's certainly not bad! I jumped like 6 or 7 class ranks. That's a huge thing this late in the course (6th out of 8 semesters). Why wasn't I happy or excited?!

The biggest issue with this syndrome, or whatever, is the weird situation it has created. I do something that's okay in my perspective while being awesome in others', and I'm accused of arrogance. I'm called a show-off. You think I do this on purpose? Don't you feel I'd like to enjoy something once in a while? No, because you only think about yourself! #memereference

If I did do something that's laudable, I don't feel it. If my feelings are correct, then the world is fooling me comprehensively. Either way, I'm not happy. Does it have to do with neurotransmitter levels in the brain? That got me believing I'm susceptible to early-onset Parkinson's (genetics too). That made me less happy.

Writing this catharsis (read simply as 'rant'), did help me shrug off the grumpy cat (R.I.P.) feeling for now. Man, writing's awesome!

GRE, again

333 is not that good a score, to be honest. But no, I'm not reattempting it.

I would give 20% to 30% weightage to vocabulary for the GRE. It is important to understand what you are reading. Often, knowing words similar in meaning or similar in their roots will help you figure out some information about another word -- e.g. whether the word is positive, negative or neutral.

I started with GRE vocabulary much before starting the rest of the question types through apps by Magoosh. Friends told me I had to learn some 3,000 odd words. I said, "Okay..." My mind said, "No." Magoosh said "1000" words. I said, "Okay..." My mind said, "The app seems fun." And that's pretty much how I did my vocab studies.

One thing I did not expect of ETS was the non-disclosure agreement. Based on the GRE prep books available and their contents, it seems as if the GRE material does leak out. However, the most striking fact was that the paragraph, which is usually printed, was to be handwritten and then signed under.

One thing I'd suggest people appearing for the GRE to do is to absolutely start using those words in their conversations. Go annoy your friends! Think of it -- when they don't know the meaning and bother enough to ask about it, you will be revising the meaning while answering. This is besides the refreshing of word connections in actually using that word in the first place. If you have time on your hands, write a lot. It will not only help in developing your vocabulary skills but also eases the novelty of the analytical writing section.

If you have any GRE queries or want to ask me something about it, mail me or comment below. I'm usually responsive.