Jimmy Pan

Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power…

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It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology…

The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.

A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts….

This same thing happened with British American Tobacco in the former Soviet Union. BAT offered up leaf production and processing advice in an effort to demonstrate good faith to the government. As soon as conditions were ripe though, BAT started developing their own tobacco production centers and buying out existing ones. They aided in “general transit” (smuggling) in order to help tobacco cross borders duty free, thus avoiding paying taxes to the government. Same shit.

Dinh might appreciate this one.

Which of the following assumptions is required for the statements to be true:

SMBC

Hi all, I haven’t been writing much lately, because LSATs are coming up June 15, as well as the usual slew of grading, writing, etc. It’s actually kind of fun to study for them, as opposed to word crunching for the GREs. I feel like LSATs are the test I was born to take.

Here are my goals for the next few weeks:

• Apply for passport - CHECK this morning!
• Catch up on international blogs RSS
• Finish grading, write up practicum report, finish tobacco report
• Do stellar presentation at the MPH symposium
• Get 177+ on LSATs
• Apply to some global health jobs that make my heart thump
• Read ‘the 10 most underreported humanitarian stories of 2007‘ and maybe the archives

There are a million good things to say about Carol Shu. I know most of the readers of this site already know how awesome she is. Last night, however, at the Beirut concert (an awesome band), Carol (an awesome person) sent me a 7 minute voicemail of them playing one of their best songs (an awesome thing to do). I wish I could have been there with you, but it really cheered me up. It’s one of those Carol things.

Happy Birthday Carol Shu!

PS. If any social responsible fashion companies want a exquisitely creative, big hearted, good-taste-in-music having person to join their group, let me know, I know just the person for you.

A lot of us have trouble really getting things done in our life sometimes. It’s not because we don’t have the desire, it’s that there are so many distractions in the world. The professor I TA’d for last quarter shared this interesting graphic with the class, and I wanted to share it with you as well (with a little modification).

The idea behind this is to distinguish between URGENT and important.

URGENT is all caps and in red because it screams at us. We feel compelled to do URGENT things, either because there is an impending deadline, or because we are weak, easily tempted, beings.

important is in lower case and in green because although it does not always feel very compelling, it needs to be done.

Not URGENT/ Not important: Taking out the trash. It rarely screams at you to be done, and it doesn’t fulfill any long term goals. That’s not to say it shouldn’t be done.

URGENT/ Not important: Reading the next chapter of Harry Potter. Seriously, who can wait another day to find out what happens to Harry?

Not URGENT/ important: Building friendships. Crucial to anybody’s welfare, and yet often times we still feel antisocial, and our body compels us not to put ourselves out there.

URGENT/ important: Working on your resume for a position that’s due in 2 days. Building friendships might be crucial, but so is making yourself eligible for that position you’ve been salivating over.

I personally try to spend as little time as possible in the first two categories, but it’s hard. It’s easy to say, “What does it hurt to spend another 10 minutes reading Jimmy’s website, why limit myself?” It doesn’t hurt technically, it just takes away from time you could be spending on important things.

That’s the biggest limitation of all.

http://profiles.takingitglobal.org/jpfrawg

So I signed up for this website, which is really a fantastic concept. To give credit to the design team, it’s actually a very polished, feature-robust site. However, I’m not really sure what to do with it. The goal, it seems to me, is to foster youth awareness about global issues, and promote collaboration. I don’t see a lot of action going on, but that may be because I’m an english speaker in the US, which seems to be a minority on the site. I’ll toy around with a bit, maybe start a couple of projects.

I also put up a twitter plugin, so the most neurotic of you can keep more detailed track of me. Sorry I haven’t been posting lately. Thanks for visiting regardless.

So I’ve been using handtowels pretty much my whole life. My parents used them because we were too cheap for paper towels. I was raised with cloth diapers. I suppose that our economic standing forced us to be pioneer environmentalists. Regardless, I’ve stuck to this tradition for quite a while. I don’t use napkins, I don’t use disposable anything really (except toilet paper), and it works pretty well for me.

Anyways, we have these towels in the kitchen I’ve been using as handtowels since we moved in. They’re stained, and a little dirty at times, but the stains don’t really impact the handdrying ability, so I have no qualms. Today, I couldn’t find the handtowels…they’re usually right on the oven handle. I asked around for them, and Helen asks me incredulously “Do you actually wipe your hands with those?”. I think for a second. And then Helen bursts out in laughter, because she knows I’ve figured out what she does with them.

I don’t know if you guys consider me your resident technology guru, but I just switched to Firefox 3, and I love it. It doesn’t render quite as fast as Opera, but it feels much snappier than Firefox 2. Kind of like when you’ve gone ice skating for 3 hours, then ditch the skates and walk around in your shoes. That’s the feeling.

What is the worst thing you would eat for a Shot at Love With Tila Tequila?

I might go as far as eating balut, but probably not a pig’s vagina.

For Sophia Bush though, maybe.

You may have noticed that I switched up the template a bit. I tire of things pretty quickly. I’ll be ditching this one in a few days to months.

I haven’t posted in a while because I was having a ridiculous quarter at school. I now, thankfully, have a little more time to post. I won’t talk too much about what I’ve done in the past few months though. Let’s look ahead into the near future.

Job: I’m coming out of my MPH program soon, so I’ve begun looking for some place to go. I’m trying to go far away, and see a little more of the world. Hopefully I’ll find a job that lets me work on health and intellectual property/technology access.

Blog: I’m going to try to write more, both about my life and about ideas. My goal is to refine my writing and learn what it takes to spread ideas in an internet-empowered world. I’m also going to try to find fora in which I can talk about global health and other interests.

LSATs: I’ve been thinking about law school for a while. While I probably won’t go for a while, I ought to take my LSATS while my synapses are still sparking. I’ve been reading some law books too so that I really know what I’m getting into.

Spanish: Gonna try to learn some espanol. Maybe I’ll share some tips. I’m pretty horible at languages though.

Soul: Gotta keep finding myself.