Sunday, April 10, 2011
Doing Nothing
Yesterday I nearly managed to do nothing. My parents had me clean the upstairs bathroom and organize a bunch of my stuff in storage, but that is about it. Of course, I wrote a couple blog posts and ate food. I also watched a bunch of late-night, garbage TV. I allow myself a day of sloth once in a while, so I don't feel too bad about it, but I am not going to try to write anything else about it.
Leaving Stanford/Returning Home
Leaving Stanford was bittersweet.
The first thing I did after waking up (around noon) was start cleaning all the chalk off of our walls. For those who don't know, for the last quarter and a half, we've been letting everyone draw on our big white walls with a bunch of colored sidewalk chalk. Well, now we had to remove a full three walls worth of drawing and some stuff on the ceiling. We photographed it all, filled up a garbage can with water, and got to work with some rags. It an hour or an hour and a half plus a couple Mr. Clean Magic Erasers for the toughest parts, but we got it done.
Next, we moved most of my furniture into storage. Now Ben has an awesome, huge single, but it doesn't look like my room, which made me feel a little weird. The best part for him is that we figured out a great way to arrange the furniture so that he could take my mattress and use it to make a queen sized bed. Lucky him.
We went to lunch at Axe & Palm before he had to go to class and we had to say goodbye. It was a little surreal for me. After rooming with Ben for the last two years, we will probably never room together again. It will only be a quarter until we're both in the Bay Area for summer, but it won't be the same.
I packed, took care of some errands, and then I left.
On the drive back home, "Give a Little Bit" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGI6qQHFlPk) came on the radio, and it made me think of all the friends I was leaving down in Palo Alto. I was actually quite sad to say goodbye to them all. At least some of them, truth be told, I will never see again. It made me truly happy that they made a little bit of time for me this past week, just to see me and talk to me and wish me farewell before I left for England. I will miss them all.
In particular, hearing the song made me think of how I left Yost, and how Yost ended up being one of the best parts of the last two quarters. There was some real Yost Love this year, and I feel lucky to be part of it. The community there was fantastic, and I feel that I made some close friends. I hope to see them all again, sooner rather than later, and to stay in touch with those who I won't see for a while.
The first thing I did after waking up (around noon) was start cleaning all the chalk off of our walls. For those who don't know, for the last quarter and a half, we've been letting everyone draw on our big white walls with a bunch of colored sidewalk chalk. Well, now we had to remove a full three walls worth of drawing and some stuff on the ceiling. We photographed it all, filled up a garbage can with water, and got to work with some rags. It an hour or an hour and a half plus a couple Mr. Clean Magic Erasers for the toughest parts, but we got it done.
Next, we moved most of my furniture into storage. Now Ben has an awesome, huge single, but it doesn't look like my room, which made me feel a little weird. The best part for him is that we figured out a great way to arrange the furniture so that he could take my mattress and use it to make a queen sized bed. Lucky him.
We went to lunch at Axe & Palm before he had to go to class and we had to say goodbye. It was a little surreal for me. After rooming with Ben for the last two years, we will probably never room together again. It will only be a quarter until we're both in the Bay Area for summer, but it won't be the same.
I packed, took care of some errands, and then I left.
On the drive back home, "Give a Little Bit" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGI6qQHFlPk) came on the radio, and it made me think of all the friends I was leaving down in Palo Alto. I was actually quite sad to say goodbye to them all. At least some of them, truth be told, I will never see again. It made me truly happy that they made a little bit of time for me this past week, just to see me and talk to me and wish me farewell before I left for England. I will miss them all.
In particular, hearing the song made me think of how I left Yost, and how Yost ended up being one of the best parts of the last two quarters. There was some real Yost Love this year, and I feel lucky to be part of it. The community there was fantastic, and I feel that I made some close friends. I hope to see them all again, sooner rather than later, and to stay in touch with those who I won't see for a while.
Blustery Day at Stanford
This post is for Thursday.
I enjoyed a pretty lazy start to the day. In the afternoon, I went for a walk with Sara Silbs. We went once around Lake Lag, but it was so windy that we just went back to Murray afterwards. We hung out and talked in the dining room through a nice dinner.
Later that evening, I met with Josh Bowman, the new JSA Social Chair, and Sophie, a fellow Bronfman Fellow and part of Josh's Social Committee, for their first meeting. Josh asked me to come as an advisor of sorts. Apparently there were three other members of the committee who didn't show up, so I hope my advice to the two who did was useful.
I went from there to Xanadu for AEPi's last rush event before rush retreat, In 'N Out and root beer games. I missed most of the burgers and games, but it was still fun enough.
I enjoyed a pretty lazy start to the day. In the afternoon, I went for a walk with Sara Silbs. We went once around Lake Lag, but it was so windy that we just went back to Murray afterwards. We hung out and talked in the dining room through a nice dinner.
Later that evening, I met with Josh Bowman, the new JSA Social Chair, and Sophie, a fellow Bronfman Fellow and part of Josh's Social Committee, for their first meeting. Josh asked me to come as an advisor of sorts. Apparently there were three other members of the committee who didn't show up, so I hope my advice to the two who did was useful.
I went from there to Xanadu for AEPi's last rush event before rush retreat, In 'N Out and root beer games. I missed most of the burgers and games, but it was still fun enough.
Friday, April 8, 2011
Great Conversations
Yesterday was characterized by a series of wonderful conversations.
The day started, more or less, with lunch with Rachel at Casa Italiana. Rachel happens to be my main inspiration and example for starting this blog, as she kept an impressive blog while she was in Oxford fall quarter. She shared a lot of her experiences in Oxford, and I told her about some of my grand plans for the quarter. We talked about how and why she kept a blog and what role it might play for me next quarter. She said, and I can see how this is true for me now, that keeping a blog not only helped her record memories, it also changed how she looked at the world as she was experiencing it. Similarly, I find myself thinking about how I will write about the things I experience every day even as they are happening. I also look around for interesting things to write in this blog, so I make sure to find interesting things every day. It was also interesting to hear what coming back to Stanford has been like for her. Her time at Oxford clearly meant a lot to her, and I hope that mine will mean as much to me.
After leaving Casa, I went across the street to Hillel, where I found Joe working in the computer cluster. I talked to him for a bit and then we ended up going to fix his flat tire at the bike shop. Joe's original plan was to blow up the inner tube and then find the, supposedly small, hole by placing the tube in a bucket of water and looking for the bubbles. As I was filling up the tire with air, though, the tube completely exploded around 30 psi and, with it, any hope of patching the tire. (It turned out that the tube would have probably needed replacing anyway.) Joe then had to buy a new inner tube and, with the repair guy's strong recommendation, the tire as well. With some good teamwork, we had the new tire on and inflated in no time. Then we walked back to Columbae.
All the while, we talked. Talking with Joe inspired yesterday's post and several other thoughts.
Next, I went to the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader's Seminar. This week's speaker was from Conservation International, and she talked about how CI, a non-profit, shows businesses and governments economically beneficial ways to partner with other businesses, governments, and people to promote conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. The talk is/will be on the Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner website if you are interested. It was a pretty good talk, but so are all the other ETL talks, so check them out on the website.
Half the reason I went was that I promised Aaron Kalb that I would see him there before I left. After the presentation, we got to talking a lot. We ordered Ike's sandwiches, sat down, and kept talking until I realized I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to have dinner with someone else.
So I ran to my car and drove back over to GovCo to meet Eric Miller for the second half of my dinner. We went over to Ricker, sat down, and ended up talking for about an hour and a half straight. Among other things, we decided we would try to find an apartment off campus to share for the summer, when he will be working at Genentech.
After saying goodbye to Eric, I got a break from socializing at Yost for a bit before heading out to Haus Mitt Beer and Pretzel Night with Lilly and Ashley. I had never been before, but it was a pretty fun event with tons of people I knew to talk to. I had promised Joe I would see him there, but we did not end up talking much. I had also told Jessica that I would be there and that I wanted to see her before I left.
The party died down soon after Jessica came, so we headed back to her room at Chi Theta Chi, where we just chilled and talked for several hours. After knowing each other for thirteen years, there is always plenty to talk about. It helped that I hadn't spent any real time with her for more than a quarter and that she is graduating and we will probably never go to school together again.
I left Chi Theta Chi a little after 2 am, when I went back to Yost. Ben wasn't even back from working on CS homework at Synergy, so I waited in my car to get back in. When we got back in, we talked with Clementine and Julien, probably the only other people awake in Yost for a while. I told Julien about my idea of writing an article on the Stanford Physics Department and how they do such a poor job with undergraduate education. It was encouraging to hear that he agreed with me on most points of my argument, and that I am not alone in thinking that the department could use a bit of a push in the direction of better teaching. I think he agreed that his experience with the department, particularly with required courses, has been largely negative. (Hopefully, more on that later. I keep telling people that I might write this article in the Daily, so I probably should man up and do it.) A bit later I went to sleep.
On the conversations I had:
Without going into details on what I talked about with all these wonderful people all day, I will say that I talked about some awesome, serious, meaningful stuff. Discussions covered plans for Oxford, plans for senior year, plans for graduating, plans for graduate school, plans for careers, balancing family with professions, academia vs. industry, life priorities, marriage, past relationships, current relationships, ideal romantic relationships, divorce, benefits of journaling, old stories, shared experiences, old friends, old enemies, the role of education, different styles of education, current academic interests, Edden's bar mitzvah, Judaism, conversion to Judaism, comedy, improvisation, the appeal of the 9-to-5 job, traveling, the difficulties of traveling, traveling alone vs. traveling in groups, the adventurousness of people, and so on and so on and so on. I wish I could remember it all and write it all down, but I just can't do either. I will just say that I love days like yesterday, and I wish I had more of them. I will remember bits and pieces of these conversations for some time to come, and their memory will influence me in small ways forever.
One thing concrete that came out of all this came from my conversation with Jessica. Jessica reminded me of something I thought of doing some time ago, but never did. It is easier said than done. She mentioned that she has never nailed down and written out explicitly what values and morals she believes in and stands for. This is something I would really like to do and may attempt to do in this blog at some point in the future. So far, all I have is that I believe firmly that the loss or taking of a human life is, in the most general case, a negative thing. It is to be avoided and postponed when possible. Of course, it may be permissible under unfortunate circumstances, war, euthanasia, or the death penalty for example, but it is still a negative thing. That's the only thing I am going to say I believe in for now. Well, I guess promotion of Truth is probably a generally good thing also, but I'll have to think about it and get back to you.
The day started, more or less, with lunch with Rachel at Casa Italiana. Rachel happens to be my main inspiration and example for starting this blog, as she kept an impressive blog while she was in Oxford fall quarter. She shared a lot of her experiences in Oxford, and I told her about some of my grand plans for the quarter. We talked about how and why she kept a blog and what role it might play for me next quarter. She said, and I can see how this is true for me now, that keeping a blog not only helped her record memories, it also changed how she looked at the world as she was experiencing it. Similarly, I find myself thinking about how I will write about the things I experience every day even as they are happening. I also look around for interesting things to write in this blog, so I make sure to find interesting things every day. It was also interesting to hear what coming back to Stanford has been like for her. Her time at Oxford clearly meant a lot to her, and I hope that mine will mean as much to me.
After leaving Casa, I went across the street to Hillel, where I found Joe working in the computer cluster. I talked to him for a bit and then we ended up going to fix his flat tire at the bike shop. Joe's original plan was to blow up the inner tube and then find the, supposedly small, hole by placing the tube in a bucket of water and looking for the bubbles. As I was filling up the tire with air, though, the tube completely exploded around 30 psi and, with it, any hope of patching the tire. (It turned out that the tube would have probably needed replacing anyway.) Joe then had to buy a new inner tube and, with the repair guy's strong recommendation, the tire as well. With some good teamwork, we had the new tire on and inflated in no time. Then we walked back to Columbae.
All the while, we talked. Talking with Joe inspired yesterday's post and several other thoughts.
Next, I went to the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader's Seminar. This week's speaker was from Conservation International, and she talked about how CI, a non-profit, shows businesses and governments economically beneficial ways to partner with other businesses, governments, and people to promote conservation of natural resources and biodiversity. The talk is/will be on the Stanford Entrepreneurship Corner website if you are interested. It was a pretty good talk, but so are all the other ETL talks, so check them out on the website.
Half the reason I went was that I promised Aaron Kalb that I would see him there before I left. After the presentation, we got to talking a lot. We ordered Ike's sandwiches, sat down, and kept talking until I realized I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to have dinner with someone else.
So I ran to my car and drove back over to GovCo to meet Eric Miller for the second half of my dinner. We went over to Ricker, sat down, and ended up talking for about an hour and a half straight. Among other things, we decided we would try to find an apartment off campus to share for the summer, when he will be working at Genentech.
After saying goodbye to Eric, I got a break from socializing at Yost for a bit before heading out to Haus Mitt Beer and Pretzel Night with Lilly and Ashley. I had never been before, but it was a pretty fun event with tons of people I knew to talk to. I had promised Joe I would see him there, but we did not end up talking much. I had also told Jessica that I would be there and that I wanted to see her before I left.
The party died down soon after Jessica came, so we headed back to her room at Chi Theta Chi, where we just chilled and talked for several hours. After knowing each other for thirteen years, there is always plenty to talk about. It helped that I hadn't spent any real time with her for more than a quarter and that she is graduating and we will probably never go to school together again.
I left Chi Theta Chi a little after 2 am, when I went back to Yost. Ben wasn't even back from working on CS homework at Synergy, so I waited in my car to get back in. When we got back in, we talked with Clementine and Julien, probably the only other people awake in Yost for a while. I told Julien about my idea of writing an article on the Stanford Physics Department and how they do such a poor job with undergraduate education. It was encouraging to hear that he agreed with me on most points of my argument, and that I am not alone in thinking that the department could use a bit of a push in the direction of better teaching. I think he agreed that his experience with the department, particularly with required courses, has been largely negative. (Hopefully, more on that later. I keep telling people that I might write this article in the Daily, so I probably should man up and do it.) A bit later I went to sleep.
On the conversations I had:
Without going into details on what I talked about with all these wonderful people all day, I will say that I talked about some awesome, serious, meaningful stuff. Discussions covered plans for Oxford, plans for senior year, plans for graduating, plans for graduate school, plans for careers, balancing family with professions, academia vs. industry, life priorities, marriage, past relationships, current relationships, ideal romantic relationships, divorce, benefits of journaling, old stories, shared experiences, old friends, old enemies, the role of education, different styles of education, current academic interests, Edden's bar mitzvah, Judaism, conversion to Judaism, comedy, improvisation, the appeal of the 9-to-5 job, traveling, the difficulties of traveling, traveling alone vs. traveling in groups, the adventurousness of people, and so on and so on and so on. I wish I could remember it all and write it all down, but I just can't do either. I will just say that I love days like yesterday, and I wish I had more of them. I will remember bits and pieces of these conversations for some time to come, and their memory will influence me in small ways forever.
One thing concrete that came out of all this came from my conversation with Jessica. Jessica reminded me of something I thought of doing some time ago, but never did. It is easier said than done. She mentioned that she has never nailed down and written out explicitly what values and morals she believes in and stands for. This is something I would really like to do and may attempt to do in this blog at some point in the future. So far, all I have is that I believe firmly that the loss or taking of a human life is, in the most general case, a negative thing. It is to be avoided and postponed when possible. Of course, it may be permissible under unfortunate circumstances, war, euthanasia, or the death penalty for example, but it is still a negative thing. That's the only thing I am going to say I believe in for now. Well, I guess promotion of Truth is probably a generally good thing also, but I'll have to think about it and get back to you.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
The Forgotten Post
In my tiredness last night, I made the mistake of writing about the day I was posting on and not the day before, as I usually do. So now I will correct that mistake by writing to you about Monday.
Before lunch on Monday, I went to a mini SPOT reunion picnic on the Oval. Unfortunately, only Aurelia, Michael, Fabian, Lauren, and I showed up. Still, I brought some Ben and Jerry's ice cream (two inside jokes in one) for us all to share, and we had a great time. Everyone else missed out.
Aside: Leading SPOT has probably been the best thing I have done all year. The freshmen were all great. Working with Aurelia was great. Backpacking was great. All of it. I look forward to doing it again this coming September.
After lunch, I went to Green Library to check out Austin Powers.
I had dinner with Liesl at Ricker. I am sad that I did not spend more time with Liesl the past two quarters, but it was good that I got to see her before I left. She's graduating this June, and she's almost definitely going to be leaving the area. She got a fellowship through the Haas center that sounds like it was designed specifically for her, it's so perfect for her. It pays her to do work in social change through art. In her case, the artistic medium is theater, and it is basically what she has been doing for free for the last four years. It sounds like she will most likely be doing her internship in New York, which makes perfect sense for her.
I was just so happy to hear that she is doing so well, and that she's getting this amazing opportunity. It's just refreshing to know that there are (paying) opportunities out there for college grads that can really make them happy.
After dinner with Liesl, I went to the Financial Literacy class that she's auditing, just because it's interesting. The class was full of seniors about to graduate. Not that much of a surprise.
Then Laura and I watched Austin Powers. For some reason, everyone else had work or other things to do. I don't understand.
Reflections for the moment:
I ran into Joe Gettinger earlier today here at the Hillel computer cluster, and then we ended up hanging out with him for a while. Somehow we go to talking about living a balanced life, and it reminded me of a couple different philosophies about how to achieve that.
The approach my (former or current?) roommate, Ben, takes is that he finds a bunch of activities that are meaningful to him - push-ups, stretching, learning Japanese kanji, reading, meditating, writing a blog/journal (when he was in Japan), etc. - and making habits of doing them every single day without fail. I have taken the same approach for this blog, at least for the time being. He does these things a little bit every day - one set of push-ups, 20 kanji, and so on. After doing this for a long time, he has really accomplished a lot without sacrificing too much of any one day. By building these regular habits, he has developed all sorts of random skills and improved himself in all sorts of different ways.
The other philosophy I heard comes from the book/movie Eat Pray Love. I don't particularly recommend watching the movie, but my mom enjoyed the book and said it was much better than the movie. To summarize, both are autobiographical accounts of Elizabeth Gilbert traveling to Rome, India, and Bali trying to improve upon an uninspiring life by learning from these radically different cultures. I think "eat" comes from Rome, "pray" from India, and "love" from Bali. While she is in Bali, the author writes about her relationship with a Brazilian man, also a divorcée. She becomes worried, though, that her time spent with him would detract from learning what there was to learn in Bali and from putting into practice all the things she learned in India and Rome so that she could live a better life. Someone then gives her the advice, "To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life." To me, this also said something much more general - that you may not have to be living a "balanced" life at any given time to, in the end, have lived a balanced life. It made me think that, perhaps, living a balanced life necessitates being constantly off balance in one way or another.
In talking to Joe about this, I decided, at least for now, what should be obvious - living a balanced life necessitates a balance of the two life philosophies. Of course, I am sure Ben and Elizabeth Gilbert would say the same. I think a lot depends on what aspect of life I am trying to balance. As Joe said, it is important for him to go to Israel, but he can't go every day for a little bit. Building off of that, I think it is important, for me as well, to go to Israel regularly. In the case of Israel, I used to go every other year or so for short visits. However, I don't think that alone would give me a "balanced" life. It really took living in Israel for almost a year to really connect with Israel. To feel, many years down the road, that Israel is a real, important part of my life, both the short, regular visits and, hopefully, the few, long stays there will be necessary parts of that. I don't think it would be the same to have one without the other.
There are ups and downs to both approaches. The positive part of doing something either every day or on some regular basis is that it becomes a part of my life, my identity, and my character. By thinking about things regularly, my thoughts develop. Especially for building skills or relationships, regular practice or interaction is crucial. Some things I need to get into muscle memory or into habit. I think a neurologist would agree that the brain is not infinitely malleable. It has a characteristic, finite response time for everything. Our brain learns patterns and makes connections, but often only by regular, continual conditioning. I think this effects relationships with people as well. To get really close with people requires interacting with them over a long period of time. I start learning their habits, mannerisms, ways of speech, humor, logic, and so on. Even if I spent 20 straight hours with someone, I don't think I would learn some of the things I get from being with a person every day for 40 days and interacting directly with them for only around 30 minutes every day.
The negative aspect of this is how things become routine, thereby losing importance or excitement in my mind. With any activity or person or whatever, there are somethings you can't learn or feel experiencing them only in small bits. Some goals can't be accomplished by dividing the task into small bits. You can't learn to play an hour-long symphony only by practicing 20 minutes a day; you can't build an arch one section at a time; you can't get to really know someone by talking with them for 10 minutes a day.
To me, it would be hard to claim that something is important to me without being willing to sacrifice for it at some point. By focusing on something or, as in Eat Pray Love, someone very intensely, I am making a sacrifice. Time I spend going to Oxford will disrupt my regular learning habits, interaction with the Jewish community, social dance, etc. here at Stanford. To focus intensely on something almost always means neglecting or disrupting other activities, responsibilities, people, and so on.
If travel is important to me, though, I have to be willing to go on more than just short little trips around California. I need to really get away, see something different, and spend serious time there. The same is true with people. There are plenty of people whom I like. With my closest friends, though, we can always talk about some time where we really spent a lot of time together by ourselves and did something awesome. Maybe it was a weekend trip or maybe it was a year long relationship. I don't think I could call my relationship with someone close if I am not willing to, at some point, ditch the rest of what I am doing and spend some serious time with him.
What does this mean for Oxford? I don't know. That I should go, I guess. And I should enjoy it without worrying too much about other things going wrong. I don't think that's quite the right answer, but I'll figure things out soon.
Before lunch on Monday, I went to a mini SPOT reunion picnic on the Oval. Unfortunately, only Aurelia, Michael, Fabian, Lauren, and I showed up. Still, I brought some Ben and Jerry's ice cream (two inside jokes in one) for us all to share, and we had a great time. Everyone else missed out.
Aside: Leading SPOT has probably been the best thing I have done all year. The freshmen were all great. Working with Aurelia was great. Backpacking was great. All of it. I look forward to doing it again this coming September.
After lunch, I went to Green Library to check out Austin Powers.
I had dinner with Liesl at Ricker. I am sad that I did not spend more time with Liesl the past two quarters, but it was good that I got to see her before I left. She's graduating this June, and she's almost definitely going to be leaving the area. She got a fellowship through the Haas center that sounds like it was designed specifically for her, it's so perfect for her. It pays her to do work in social change through art. In her case, the artistic medium is theater, and it is basically what she has been doing for free for the last four years. It sounds like she will most likely be doing her internship in New York, which makes perfect sense for her.
I was just so happy to hear that she is doing so well, and that she's getting this amazing opportunity. It's just refreshing to know that there are (paying) opportunities out there for college grads that can really make them happy.
After dinner with Liesl, I went to the Financial Literacy class that she's auditing, just because it's interesting. The class was full of seniors about to graduate. Not that much of a surprise.
Then Laura and I watched Austin Powers. For some reason, everyone else had work or other things to do. I don't understand.
Reflections for the moment:
I ran into Joe Gettinger earlier today here at the Hillel computer cluster, and then we ended up hanging out with him for a while. Somehow we go to talking about living a balanced life, and it reminded me of a couple different philosophies about how to achieve that.
The approach my (former or current?) roommate, Ben, takes is that he finds a bunch of activities that are meaningful to him - push-ups, stretching, learning Japanese kanji, reading, meditating, writing a blog/journal (when he was in Japan), etc. - and making habits of doing them every single day without fail. I have taken the same approach for this blog, at least for the time being. He does these things a little bit every day - one set of push-ups, 20 kanji, and so on. After doing this for a long time, he has really accomplished a lot without sacrificing too much of any one day. By building these regular habits, he has developed all sorts of random skills and improved himself in all sorts of different ways.
The other philosophy I heard comes from the book/movie Eat Pray Love. I don't particularly recommend watching the movie, but my mom enjoyed the book and said it was much better than the movie. To summarize, both are autobiographical accounts of Elizabeth Gilbert traveling to Rome, India, and Bali trying to improve upon an uninspiring life by learning from these radically different cultures. I think "eat" comes from Rome, "pray" from India, and "love" from Bali. While she is in Bali, the author writes about her relationship with a Brazilian man, also a divorcée. She becomes worried, though, that her time spent with him would detract from learning what there was to learn in Bali and from putting into practice all the things she learned in India and Rome so that she could live a better life. Someone then gives her the advice, "To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life." To me, this also said something much more general - that you may not have to be living a "balanced" life at any given time to, in the end, have lived a balanced life. It made me think that, perhaps, living a balanced life necessitates being constantly off balance in one way or another.
In talking to Joe about this, I decided, at least for now, what should be obvious - living a balanced life necessitates a balance of the two life philosophies. Of course, I am sure Ben and Elizabeth Gilbert would say the same. I think a lot depends on what aspect of life I am trying to balance. As Joe said, it is important for him to go to Israel, but he can't go every day for a little bit. Building off of that, I think it is important, for me as well, to go to Israel regularly. In the case of Israel, I used to go every other year or so for short visits. However, I don't think that alone would give me a "balanced" life. It really took living in Israel for almost a year to really connect with Israel. To feel, many years down the road, that Israel is a real, important part of my life, both the short, regular visits and, hopefully, the few, long stays there will be necessary parts of that. I don't think it would be the same to have one without the other.
There are ups and downs to both approaches. The positive part of doing something either every day or on some regular basis is that it becomes a part of my life, my identity, and my character. By thinking about things regularly, my thoughts develop. Especially for building skills or relationships, regular practice or interaction is crucial. Some things I need to get into muscle memory or into habit. I think a neurologist would agree that the brain is not infinitely malleable. It has a characteristic, finite response time for everything. Our brain learns patterns and makes connections, but often only by regular, continual conditioning. I think this effects relationships with people as well. To get really close with people requires interacting with them over a long period of time. I start learning their habits, mannerisms, ways of speech, humor, logic, and so on. Even if I spent 20 straight hours with someone, I don't think I would learn some of the things I get from being with a person every day for 40 days and interacting directly with them for only around 30 minutes every day.
The negative aspect of this is how things become routine, thereby losing importance or excitement in my mind. With any activity or person or whatever, there are somethings you can't learn or feel experiencing them only in small bits. Some goals can't be accomplished by dividing the task into small bits. You can't learn to play an hour-long symphony only by practicing 20 minutes a day; you can't build an arch one section at a time; you can't get to really know someone by talking with them for 10 minutes a day.
To me, it would be hard to claim that something is important to me without being willing to sacrifice for it at some point. By focusing on something or, as in Eat Pray Love, someone very intensely, I am making a sacrifice. Time I spend going to Oxford will disrupt my regular learning habits, interaction with the Jewish community, social dance, etc. here at Stanford. To focus intensely on something almost always means neglecting or disrupting other activities, responsibilities, people, and so on.
If travel is important to me, though, I have to be willing to go on more than just short little trips around California. I need to really get away, see something different, and spend serious time there. The same is true with people. There are plenty of people whom I like. With my closest friends, though, we can always talk about some time where we really spent a lot of time together by ourselves and did something awesome. Maybe it was a weekend trip or maybe it was a year long relationship. I don't think I could call my relationship with someone close if I am not willing to, at some point, ditch the rest of what I am doing and spend some serious time with him.
What does this mean for Oxford? I don't know. That I should go, I guess. And I should enjoy it without worrying too much about other things going wrong. I don't think that's quite the right answer, but I'll figure things out soon.
Post for the sake of posting
I'm tired, so this will be a post for the sake of posting, as the title of the post says. The main point of doing the blog before being in Oxford is to build a habit of doing it daily. I haven't missed a day yet, and I don't plan to.
First thing I did to day was wake up at 8 am (I know, right?) to go running with Naran. We have a list of things we made over the summer that we said we needed to do together, and this was one of them. We have two left on the list and all of next year to do them. So, we did it, but it was kind of painful.
I got lunch with Aaron Kalb at the Thai Cafe in the psych building. Their business model is great - only offer soups, salads, and two dishes a day for a reasonable price. It's a small place, but there were dozens of people of line at any given time, and it was probably the fastest moving line I have ever been in. It's a money-making machine.
Aaron is now among my favorite people to have meals with. Our conversations are always meaningful and enlightening. I think we both find each other very interesting and relate well. It's a shame I didn't hang out with him more in the last three years. But oh well.
I returned Austin Powers to the library, rented a couple more British movies, and then spent an hour or so reading British history next to the hoop fountain.
I went rock climbing with Ben.
I talked with Chris Olivares and John Rothfels about CS and, particularly interestingly, machine learning. It's going to solve some pretty cool problems in the future, I bet.
Went to AEPi rush; it was Jazz and Hookah Night.
Came back to Yost. Watched Trainspotting, a Scottish movie I rented, with Ben. Wrote this blog post. Done.
First thing I did to day was wake up at 8 am (I know, right?) to go running with Naran. We have a list of things we made over the summer that we said we needed to do together, and this was one of them. We have two left on the list and all of next year to do them. So, we did it, but it was kind of painful.
I got lunch with Aaron Kalb at the Thai Cafe in the psych building. Their business model is great - only offer soups, salads, and two dishes a day for a reasonable price. It's a small place, but there were dozens of people of line at any given time, and it was probably the fastest moving line I have ever been in. It's a money-making machine.
Aaron is now among my favorite people to have meals with. Our conversations are always meaningful and enlightening. I think we both find each other very interesting and relate well. It's a shame I didn't hang out with him more in the last three years. But oh well.
I returned Austin Powers to the library, rented a couple more British movies, and then spent an hour or so reading British history next to the hoop fountain.
I went rock climbing with Ben.
I talked with Chris Olivares and John Rothfels about CS and, particularly interestingly, machine learning. It's going to solve some pretty cool problems in the future, I bet.
Went to AEPi rush; it was Jazz and Hookah Night.
Came back to Yost. Watched Trainspotting, a Scottish movie I rented, with Ben. Wrote this blog post. Done.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Sunday at Stanford and Some General Ruminations
Amy says that I need to include more reflection, and I agree. So, for this post, I will try shorten my summary of yesterday.
Summary:
I went on a nice snack-picnic with Michelle and Bianca, two of my friends from Petaluma who got into Stanford with me. Because of that whole deferring-Stanford–for-a-year thing, they're both graduating this spring, and, after going to school together for NINE YEARS, we may never see each other again. It is pretty bewildering when I think about it.
Then I crashed the senior gift-giving event, just because I could. Sarah Nguyen, a friend from Petaluma going to UC Davis, also happened to randomly be on campus yesterday. It was great to see you. Also, the event had free champagne and a chocolate fountain. I saw a bunch of friends there, most of whom wondered what I was doing there.
I helped some JSA-endorsed senate candidates flier at Yost, EAST, and Murray. I did it alone, and I didn't enjoy it. I don't even know the people I helped. Hopefully they're as deserving of my time and energy as my friends say they are.
That night I went over to Hammerskold to visit Laura. She told me all about her time in Berlin, and I gave her some of the news she had missed about Winter Quarter Yost. True to form, Keren came back from a party. Then she told us some great stories about experiences at South African clubs. Crazy stuff.
Ruminations:
For now, all I have is a list of a few things I want to start thinking about.
1. Purpose. How do I find it? What does it look like? How specific or general does it need to be? Short term or long term? What should I do if I don't have it? How should I feel about not having it? What should I do when I think I have found it? Why has it eluded me these past couple years?
2. Goals for Oxford. What are they? Which ones are most important? Meet people? Make friends? Make Stanford friend? Make Oxford friends? See sights? Get to know some cities? Focus on academics? Play sports? Stay in Oxford? Get out of Oxford? Sleep? I can't do it all (well).
3. Inspiration. How and where can I find it? How can I make myself more ready to experience it? What should I do when I find it?
4. Love. Where do I find it? Or does it find me? Do I know it or feel it? Do I need it? How valuable is it? Is it a helper or a hinderance? It's role outside marriage?
5. Future. The F-word. I don't know where to begin. Need to address the items above first, really.
Some things I need to process:
1. Saying goodbye to people I may never see again.
2. The entirety of winter quarter, especially identifying successes and failures.
3. The effects of keeping a blog/journal.
That's all I've got for tonight. Hopefully I will think about all these things and have some publishable thoughts about them in the near future.
Summary:
I went on a nice snack-picnic with Michelle and Bianca, two of my friends from Petaluma who got into Stanford with me. Because of that whole deferring-Stanford–for-a-year thing, they're both graduating this spring, and, after going to school together for NINE YEARS, we may never see each other again. It is pretty bewildering when I think about it.
Then I crashed the senior gift-giving event, just because I could. Sarah Nguyen, a friend from Petaluma going to UC Davis, also happened to randomly be on campus yesterday. It was great to see you. Also, the event had free champagne and a chocolate fountain. I saw a bunch of friends there, most of whom wondered what I was doing there.
I helped some JSA-endorsed senate candidates flier at Yost, EAST, and Murray. I did it alone, and I didn't enjoy it. I don't even know the people I helped. Hopefully they're as deserving of my time and energy as my friends say they are.
That night I went over to Hammerskold to visit Laura. She told me all about her time in Berlin, and I gave her some of the news she had missed about Winter Quarter Yost. True to form, Keren came back from a party. Then she told us some great stories about experiences at South African clubs. Crazy stuff.
Ruminations:
For now, all I have is a list of a few things I want to start thinking about.
1. Purpose. How do I find it? What does it look like? How specific or general does it need to be? Short term or long term? What should I do if I don't have it? How should I feel about not having it? What should I do when I think I have found it? Why has it eluded me these past couple years?
2. Goals for Oxford. What are they? Which ones are most important? Meet people? Make friends? Make Stanford friend? Make Oxford friends? See sights? Get to know some cities? Focus on academics? Play sports? Stay in Oxford? Get out of Oxford? Sleep? I can't do it all (well).
3. Inspiration. How and where can I find it? How can I make myself more ready to experience it? What should I do when I find it?
4. Love. Where do I find it? Or does it find me? Do I know it or feel it? Do I need it? How valuable is it? Is it a helper or a hinderance? It's role outside marriage?
5. Future. The F-word. I don't know where to begin. Need to address the items above first, really.
Some things I need to process:
1. Saying goodbye to people I may never see again.
2. The entirety of winter quarter, especially identifying successes and failures.
3. The effects of keeping a blog/journal.
That's all I've got for tonight. Hopefully I will think about all these things and have some publishable thoughts about them in the near future.
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