a ho ho ho

laughter

I wasn’t going to post until finals were over, but I love this picture of Obama reading my blog! It’s heartwarming to know that the President can find time amongst his busy White House days to share in a moment of laughter with seven of his finest blue- and white-shirted colleagues.

Finals studying has been going well, but I’m feeling the do-something-useful itch. I’m thus looking forward to a productive winter of job searching, writing-sample editing, and sharing a warm bowl of noodles with good friends. I think that this summer will be a great chance to branch out and work in organizations that specialize in areas very apart from global health. It’ll be nice to pick up a new skill set and meet some differently-brained people.

My other goal for this break is to get through my new copy of Levinson’s Financial Markets. Also on my plate is Lords of Finance. I’m not being very ambitious here – I realize that it’ll take some time for me to learn the finance jargon – but hopefully it’ll allow me to converse in a new language slash bring up in unrelated discussions factoids about the finance in the 1920s.

Finally, I want to wish all my fellow students the best of luck with their Contracts final. No matter what happens, you’ll forever be able to understand law-related facebook-status puns.

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natural history

Giant ground sloth

flickr thanks: jeanseyes

This Saturday, I finally took a trip to the American Museum of Natural History. I spent many minutes staring at the animal exhibits (especially some of the amazing horned-mammal displays), but the evolution-themed halls were the highlight of my trip. Walking through the halls was like striding through the phases of animalian history – the exhibits were set up to guide museum visitors from the development of basic vertebrae through the introduction of higher-level developments. My trip through evolution started in the Saurian times. An amazing T-Rex skeleton was posed next to an educational display discussing an old paleontological debate about whether T-Rex’s stood upright or leaned forward with their tail off the ground for balance. I think they leaned forward. Life feels much more awesome when you walk that way, snout forward and scanning for prey. I’m sure that’s how they would have chosen to evolve.

Next to the T-Rex was a tremendous Brachiosaurus skeleton. I don’t think that I could survive in the face of an angry Brachiosaurus. But it was amazing nonetheless to conjecture about what dinosaurian life may have been like.

In the next halls, there were mammoths, sabretooths, and other ancestral mammals. But what really stunned me were the giant ground sloth skeletons. I didn’t know anything about ground sloths – but I could see before me that they must have been imposing beasts. If I could have an animalian guardian, they for sure would be among my top three choices. There are very few animals as cool as dinosaurs – ground sloths and hippopotami are among the few.

Of course, we visited many other exhibits that day. I felt like for an afternoon I left the industrial, parochial sliver of life that is New York City. I felt like I took a stroll through the expanse of all time and space. I loved it!

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Nice Surprises

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/310718

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/310718

The day before my birthday I got a great surprise package delivered to my kitchen table, to my great surprise. I thought that it might have been the seat cushion I had ordered. Furrow-browed, I ripped it open expecting to see a plush bottom-saver. But lo! It was not! It was Manoeuvre! Manoeuvre!

The reason I had not my own copy of Manoeuvre was because the game was out of print. In the boardgame world, because so few games achieve widespread appeal, it is very costly to a publisher to produce too many games. Unlike books, the gameboards, bits, and miniature people (“meeples”) included in the games are expensive. And you don’t want extra games sitting on your shelf, no matter how excellent they are. And so Manoeuvre has been sold out for over a year.

I think that Manoeuvre is a masterpiece of a game.  It carefully balances strategic choices with managed luck. A veteran player will generally stomp a novice, but the dice factor keeps games tense. Relatively simple to learn; immensely fun to play. I’ve played 60+ games, and Manoeuvre ranks in the top three each in originality, execution, and fun factor.

The next day I received a very humorous, heartwarming letter from a good friend, who I will be seeing tomorrow! But that’s personal, so I won’t be sharing. The letter did come with a copy of The Illustrated Strunk & White and The Elements of Legal Style, which I look forward to digesting once finals are through.

THANKS!

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Busy Bee

buzz

flickr thanks: mamaloco

I’ve been working real hard lately. I’m expecting two wonderful friends to visit me soon here in NY, so I’m trying to get my schoolwork done quickly. Unfortunately, I let myself slip on the memo we had to write for our Lawyering class, and I don’t have much to blame besides bad planning. On the upside, I’ve now been poring over the memo meticulously and I’m learning a lot not only about legal writing but also about my own idiosyncrasies. I hope to dramatically improve my writing by the end of the year – partly why I started to write in this blog again, in order that I practice getting thoughts into medium rapidly and coherently.

I had originally hoped to write in here every weekday, but the work has piled up unexpectedly. Just gazing over this amazing layout makes me want to post more though, so I think that I’ll be posting more regularly in the days to come.

Let me part with some passing observations:

  • Leafing through someone’s Facebook pictures would be more illuminating if there was a “prune rate” that indicated how often they untagged themselves from a picture. On the other hand, people would probably be over deterred from posting the pictures we REALLY want to see.
  • ninite.com is an amazing resource for people who setup computers. 90% of the programs I install on a new OS are available for streamlined download there.
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Spot! Light!

flickr thanks: dirkjanranzijn

What makes some people love the spotlight and others loathe it? This is a question I’m wholly unqualified to speculate about, because my whole life I’ve stepped outside the spotlight. I don’t talk a lot when in a group; I don’t dance in the middle of the circle. But I know that many people love to do so.

I wonder why these people grew up to be so inclined. Was it that their parents encouraged them to be performers? Did they have great experiences in the spotlight as children? Perhaps there is a genetic disposition.

I’m also curious as to how to affects people’s success and happiness in life. My intuition is to say that people that love the spotlight tend to be more successful. The visibility they gain probably outweighs the larger risk they face of showing their flaws. I think that people understand flaws better than they understand reticence. My take on modern success is that visibility is critical: in politics, retail branding, service branding, academics, it seems almost that quantity is as important as quality. But visibility can be fleeting. What, then, do spotlight lovers feel? As a spotlight shirker, I have an advantage – I’m not bothered when nobody seems to give a twit. But I could see how it would be really hard for others.

So, why do some people love the spotlight so much, and are these people ultimately happier?

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ROFLAFELS

Falafel

flickr thanks: morbuto

I love falafels. In NYC, I’ve had to chance to sample many falafel vendors, some famous, others fame-worthy. Living in Manhattan has given me my first opportunity to eat falafels on a regular basis, and I couldn’t be more grateful. I’ve had them in a falafel sandwich in a pita and on a plate with salad and a la carte. All bring me much happiness.

I love falafel sandwiches for the same reason I love burritos – they’re multifarious food bliss compacted into human-functional form. Leave your utensils and your silverware at home; to enjoy you need only your hands and an appetite. Forget digging around your plate for food. This isn’t a discretionary exercise – the only way to eat is to consume whole.

But I like the rice, salsa, and cheese fillers of burritos more than I like the lettuce, tomato, onion, taziki of falafels. Forgive my blaspheme, but let me have a falafel, rice, onion, and cheese burrito. I won’t be able to control my gratefulness. But have I gone too far?

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Beginning Again

Standing over the clouds

flickr: ewen and donabel

Starting anew with this new blog and a new snazzy design. Will it motivate me to write more often? Only time will tell. Only time will tell.

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