I am not a particularly big sports fan. Actually, I can go so far as
to say I am not a sports fan in any way. I get incredibly frustrated
watching football because I have a really hard time following the
actual ball since it’s so small compared to the players and the
field. Last time I watched basketball I must have been fourteen. I
have never ever watched hockey as far as I can remember. Golf is
boring to me in concept let alone on TV. The only game I might be
into is baseball and only in very rare cases. So it might make little
sense that Jake emailed me this article by an ESPN writer.
Until you realize that he’s “talking” with Malcolm Gladwell. Probably
my favorite non-fiction writer of all time. I find Gladwell’s writing
to be consistently thought-provoking. His topics are always
interesting to me. His writing is plain, unpretentious and flows
beautifully. An amazingly rare accomplishment for a non-fiction
writer in my albeit narrow experience. Despite the fact that most of
the sports talk completely went over my head, I found some real gems
in this article. Here are a few I wanted to share.
As for your (very kind) question about my
writing, I’m not sure I can answer that either, except to say that I
really love writing, in a totally uncomplicated way. When I was in
high school, I ran track and in the beginning I thought of training
as a kind of necessary evil on the way to racing. But then, the more
I ran, the more I realized that what I loved was running, and it
didn’t much matter to me whether it came in the training form or the
racing form. I feel the same way about writing. I’m happy writing
anywhere and under any circumstances and in fact I’m now to the point
where I’m suspicious of people who don’t love what they do in the
same way. I was watching golf, before Christmas, and the announcer
said of Phil Mickelson that the tournament was the first time he’d
picked up a golf club in five weeks. Assuming that’s true, isn’t that
profoundly weird? How can you be one of the top two or three golfers
of your generation and go five weeks without doing the thing you
love? Did Mickelson also not have sex with his wife for five weeks?
Did he give up chocolate for five weeks? Is this some weird golfer’s
version of Lent that I’m unaware of? They say that Wayne Gretzky, as
a 2-year-old, would cry when the Saturday night hockey game on TV was
over, because it seemed to him at that age unbearably sad that
something he loved so much had to come to end, and I’ve always
thought that was the simplest explanation for why Gretzky was
Gretzky. And surely it’s the explanation as well for why Mickelson
will never be Tiger Woods.
and a few lines down, Simmons replies with:
On Mickelson and Sports Lent, I remember
watching one of those 20/20-Dateline-type pieces about him once, and
he was adamant about remaining a family man, taking breaks from golf
and never letting the sport consume him … and I remember thinking
to myself, “Right now Tiger is watching this and thinking, ‘I got
him. Cross Phil off the list. This guy will never pass me.'” The
great ones aren’t just great, they enjoy what they’re doing —
I find this to be completely true. If you love what you do and do it
constantly, you are bound to master it eventually. And if you truly
love it, can you stop doing it, even for a moment? Many writers carry
little notebooks with them and take notes constantly. Photographers
never leave the house without at least one camera. Musicians practice
night and day. People are often surprised at the overnight success of
a now famous person, but in most cases there is a multi-year effort
behind the success. I can completely understand taking a break
from something to recharge and relax. However, if you want to be
really really fantastic at something, I think the trick is to love it
obsessively. Then, it consumes you.
That’s sort of why I constantly
have the breadth vs depth argument with myself. If you want to do
everything and are unwilling to choose one over the others, it’s
impossible for all your interests to consume you. You have a limited
amount of time and energy and you have to make choices. Thus, it
shall be that I am never going to get the opportunity to master
anything until I give up on some things.
This is actually a question I’m obsessed with:
Why don’t people work hard when it’s in their best interest to do so?
Why does Eddy Curry come to camp every year overweight?
The (short) answer is that it’s really risky to work hard, because
then if you fail you can no longer say that you failed because you
didn’t work hard. It’s a form of self-protection. I swear that’s why
Mickelson has that almost absurdly calm demeanor. If he loses, he can
always say: Well, I could have practiced more, and maybe next year I
will and I’ll win then. When Tiger loses, what does he tell himself?
He worked as hard as he possibly could. He prepared like no one else
in the game and he still lost. That has to be devastating, and
dealing with that kind of conclusion takes a very special and rare
kind of resilience. Most of the psychological research on this is
focused on why some kids don’t study for tests — which is a much
more serious version of the same problem. If you get drunk the night
before an exam instead of studying and you fail, then the problem is
that you got drunk. If you do study and you fail, the problem is that
you’re stupid — and stupid, for a student, is a death sentence. The
point is that it is far more psychologically dangerous and difficult
to prepare for a task than not to prepare. People think that Tiger is
tougher than Mickelson because he works harder. Wrong: Tiger is
tougher than Mickelson and because of that he works harder.
This is something I’ve often discussed with Jake since he hates
taking exams so much and makes sure not to study for them. I am never
sure if he’s genuinely having problems studying of he’s just not
trying hard enough because he’s scared that if he gives it all he has
and still fails, he’ll have to admit he couldn’t achieve despite
trying as hard as possible.
I work very hard not to regret my past. I tend to get hung up on the
past as is so I try regularly to make sure my decisions are as sound
as they can be at the time I make them. I also give the things I do
all I have. I want to be able to look back and say that there was
nothing more I could have done. I used every single ounce of ability,
power, and strength in my body and soul to make something happen. If,
then, it still doesn’t happen, it’s time to move on and realize it
wasn’t meant to be.
That’s not to say that I have followed my own
advice all the time. A few years ago, I applied to Stanford Business
School. My intention was to do a joint Education and Business degree
and to get accepted, you had to apply to the business school first. I
have always hated business school but I know Stanford is the bast and
I loved the idea of this particular program. I applied to it at the
same time I applied to Teach For America. I knew that if I got into
both I would choose TFA. Most people might think that’s stupid but
TFA was what I wanted to do at the time. I figured if I couldn’t get
in and could get in to Stanford, I’d study Education Policy and hope
to start some kind of education non-profit after I graduated. I knew
TFA would get me first-hand experience and that’s more useful than
any education in most cases. (and in the end it turned out to be invaluable).
I had taken my GMATs four and a half years before I applied and since
they are good for five years, I just used those scores. I asked for
recommendations from my boss and a co-worker. I really did work hard
on the essays. Overall, it’s not fair to say that I didn’t try but I
am sure I could have tried harder to perfect my application. I am not
sure if it was on purpose or sheer neglect. I knew the acceptance
rate was very low and chances were that I wouldn’t get in. And when I
didn’t get in, I kept telling myself I didn’t want to get in anyway.
I hadn’t even bothered to retake my GMATs. It was obvious that
Stanford wasn’t my first choice. Which is all bullshit. I didn’t get
in and that’s that. If I didn’t try to make my application as strong
as it could have been, that’s sheer stupidity on my part. Why waste
time writing essays, bothering to fill out an application, and taking
other people’s time to write recommendations if I wasn’t dying to get
in? I was completely retarded to not give it my best effort. And if
this was my best effort, I should admit that I wasn’t good enough to
get in. To not try my hardest just to have some excuse to use when I
don’t succeed is really setting myself up for failure. Life’s too
short to live like that.
There’s a famous experiment done by a wonderful
psychologist at Columbia University named Dan Goldstein. He goes to a
class of American college students and asks them which city they
think is bigger — San Antonio or San Diego. The students are
divided. Then he goes to an equivalent class of German college
students and asks the same question. This time the class votes
overwhelmingly for San Diego. The right answer? San Diego. So the
Germans are smarter, at least on this question, than the American
kids. But that’s not because they know more about American geography.
It’s because they know less. They’ve never heard of San Antonio. But
they’ve heard of San Diego and using only that rule of thumb, they
figure San Diego must be bigger. The American students know way more.
They know all about San Antonio. They know it’s in Texas and that
Texas is booming. They know it has a pro basketball team, so it must
be a pretty big market. Some of them may have been in San Antonio and
taken forever to drive from one side of town to another — and that,
and a thousand other stray facts about Texas and San Antonio, have
the effect of muddling their judgment and preventing them from
getting the right answer.
This comment reminded me of The Wisdom of Crowds. Sometimes it’s hard be
objective when you know the subject too well. It’s hard to not make
assumptions and to not overcomplicate the situation. I guess the
trick is to know when you’re in that kind of situation and to seek
the help of people who are less involved for those particular situation.
All interesting points, all gathered from a sports article that I
wouldn’t have even seen had Jake not sent it to me. Shows you that an
interesting person like Gladwell is worth reading regardless of the
context.
 I first read Philip Roth last year when I
read The Human Stain and enjoyed it very much. I liked the writing. I
liked the story. I liked the pace. Since then, I made two separate
attempts to read him, both of which failed. Both of the other books I
tried were too “dirty-old-man” for me. When The
Plot Against America came out, I knew I wanted to read it.
Especially since it was political and there were many reviews that
equated it to the current administration. I asked for the book and
received it as a Christmas gift in 2004. It sat on my shelf for a
year and I knew I would never pick it up unless I forced myself so I
asked my reading group if they were interested in reading it.
Everyone agreed so we picked it and I finally got around to reading it.
The book is a what if story about Lindbergh winning the 1940
presidency instead of FDR, written from the perspective of a Jewish
family living in New York. The main character is a little boy named
Philip Roth. It was very well written and a relatively quick read.
For people, like me, who don’t know a lot about the correct political
history of the time, it’s a bit confusing to keep track of what
really happened and what’s made up. I am usually determined to avoid
any form of fiction or non-fiction that is set during the second
World War but I knew this book would be worthwhile. And it was. It
was also very disturbing and there was an engulfing sense of fear and
panic throughout the entire novel, making me thankful for the
thousandth time that I wasn’t alive during that particular time in
history even though this particular story was fictional.
As much as I despise the current administration, I would have to say
that the horrific tale of the book is not nearly as parallel to the
current times as the media made it out to be. If it really were, I do
think we’d see thousands flocking to Canada weekly. May it never ever
get to be an issue.
 Well the
little boy is getting more mischievous by the hour. He now likes to
open drawers that he cannot even see into. He pulls the handle,
reaches into the drawer and just picks an item at random. Whatever
comes his way. He then dutifully brings it to me to show his new
finding.
He is completely obsessed with screwing and unscrewing water bottles.
He cannot unscrew them all the way though and once he closes them, he
comes to me and whines and whines until I open it back up. Same for
the little bowls we feed him from. He can close them but cannot open
them. Every day, he finds a new item for me to open so he can close
it. Today, during music class, he was very upset that the little
bells on a shaker wouldn’t come off. He kept brining it to me,
thinking I could do it for him. I tried to explain to him that they
just don’t come off but he wasn’t very pleased with my answer.
He has also made the correlation between the water bottles we drink
from and his sippy cup. If he can’t find his cup and he’s thirsty, he
finds and empty or full water bottle somewhere in the house and
brings it to me. I then find his cup and he, happily, drinks in big
gulps. Who says babies can’t communicate? He has started to sign the
sign for milk, but tends to do it at random times, not necessarily
correlating with nursing. He does, however, come over throughout the
day and try to lift my shirt up so he can have some milk. Getting too
clever, David.
After several months of no more teeth, one little one left of the
middle bottom one is now peeking out. Maybe there’s more to come
soon. He’s completely mastered walking and even walks sideways now.
He also has mastered picking up an object by just bending down a bit.
He eats at least one meal a day completely on his own (veggie burger
+ turkey meatballs + peas or some other vegetable and fruits). He’s
gotten pickier about the food and likes to bang his body back and
forth in the seat if I don’t listen to him. Mother always wins in the
end though and David learns that veggies have to be finished before
he can have his grapes. He loves, loves, LOVES grapes and
blueberries. And bread. I never give him bread at home so he follows
people around for bread whenever we go out.
Throughout the day, he comes over to my desk and puts his head on my
lap. Just to say he loves me. Still as smiley as ever and funny and
sweet. Takes all his toys and comes to sit by my desk to play.
I love you, little boy.
My first job out of college was at a major investment bank in New
York City. I worked at this place for several years. I spent three
months in London and six months in Tokyo. I had over six different
managers in that time. When I decided to move departments a few years
into my job, I had decided that choosing the right manager was
important to my happiness at work. What I realized a few months later
was that my manager wasn’t just important, he was crucial to
the success of my career.
The manager I worked for in London was wonderful. He liked me and
thought highly of me and encouraged me constantly. He had me work
with intelligent people and I learned a lot working for him. He’s the
sole reason I was willing to live apart from Jake for six months to
take a position in Tokyo. The manager I worked with before him in New
York was totally the opposite and always yelled at me, never made
positive remarks about my work and constantly complained. The
situation got so bad that I was dreading going to work each and every
day. I figured the manager in London (and then Tokyo) was as good as
it got.
Until I moved to another department at the bank. When I moved back
from Tokyo, I was ready to be done with the company but at my
manager’s request, decided to look around internally before I quit. I
met with several departments, all of whom were only willing to hire
me for menial jobs since I had decided to work three days a week. One
department, however, seemed to have an interesting project and they
really wanted me on board. The head of the department, let’s call him
Carl, met with me and asked me when I’d be willing to start. The
original offer was to support and fix a specific piece of software
that was honestly built wrong and broken all over the place. After a
few weeks and many meetings, I was suddenly put in charge of
rewriting the software altogether. I spent the following two years or
so, managing a team of six in London, Tokyo and New York and working
only three days a week. What’s amazing about this isn’t that I was a
phenomenal worker. I hadn’t really changed all that much from the
previous year and my skills hadn’t improved that drastically.
But my manager had. Carl believed in me and he told me so daily. Even
though he was a Managing Director, he met with me several times a
week and congratulated me regularly. He brought me along to meetings
with partners and other important people. He asked my opinion in
public and in private. He made sure I got all the credit for all my
work. He gave me all the resources I asked for and was there to
answer all my questions. He truly supported me in every way. More
significantly, he believed in me. Everyone thought working three days
a week would be a career suicide but he put me in charge of a project
and he promoted me to Vice President.
Carl made me believe in myself. He made me feel like I was capable of
doing all that he was asking me to do. And, amazingly, I became
capable. I rose to his expectations. I became the person he saw me as.
A few years ago a friend told me to be careful about statements I
made out loud. She said that if I constantly complain about being
fat, people start thinking I am fat even if they didn’t previously
think so. I believe in the power of saying something to make it
happen. Carl believed in me, he supported it and I rose to his
expectations. If I say something out loud often enough, other people
believe it and start treating me as such and then I become that
thing. Obviously, this happens all the time in abuse cases. Someone
tells you you’re trash often enough, you start believing it. Soon you
forget what your personal thoughts were and you just see yourself
through other people’s eyes. That can cause a lot of damage depending
on the people around you.
It can also help you become a better person. It can help you have
faith in yourself. It can help you become the person you have the
potential to be. The person you already are.
It’s all about whose eyes you get see yourself through.
 The
Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan was a mistake. The AskMe
recommendation was Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell but I didn’t make
the distinction in the title until long after I’d started reading the
novel. Since I was already over 100 pages into the novel and enjoying
it, I decided to keep reading despite the confusion. The Cloud Atlas
is about a bomb diffuser in the army during second world war who is
sent to Alaska to dismantle the bombs the Japanese sent to the United
States inside air balloons. These balloons, of which there were over
nine thousand, fell all over Alaska and West Coast of Northern United
States. The balloons were rigged with explosives and are one of the
best kept secrets of the war. A completely fictional story based on a
true-world event.
The three main characters are all interesting, each a bit too extreme
in their flaws. But I got attached to the main character and to the
story in general. I cared about what happened and enjoyed reading it
from the first page to the very last. Especially since I had no idea
about the balloons and was quite amazed it was a true story.
 The
Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel was recommended to me by
my good friend Michelle. Probably one of the most beautiful books
I’ve read in my life. It’s a story about a woman who drops out of her
doctoral program and goes back to her hometown and a minister in the
same hometown, both of whom are dealing with their own personal
problems and who are put in a situation where they have to take care
of two little orphaned girls.
It’s so touching and so very emotional to read. It’s really
beautifully written and the characters are three dimensional and
flawed and honest. There’s a lot of color in the book and great
descriptions of the children’s reaction to the terrible tragedy and
the adults’ differing ways of treating the children. It’s really a
phenomenal read.
I haven’t read Kimmel’s more famous book, A Girl Named Zippy, but I
think I will have to after this.
This is a relatively older photo that I took but never got around to
posting. I have a bunch of photos that are sitting on the server just
like this one so I am trying to go through them and see if I like to
put them up. There’s something about this particular photo that makes
me feel lonely and sad. But I still like it. I hope you do, too.
 Another AskMe recommendation was Kokoro by Natsume Soseki. As far as I
can remember, I’ve never read Japanese fiction so this was my first.
And what an inspiring beginning. I loved this book pretty much from
the very first page. My preference is usually character-based books
and Kokoro was nothing but. I loved the simplicity of the language,
could relate to the main character almost immediately. Cared about
him, about his story, about his feelings towards his mentor. I
enjoyed how non-contrived the story felt to me. Even though I was
wondering what made the sensei who he was, it wasn’t crucial to me.
It wasn’t like a mystery, it was like an unraveling of a personality.
I swallowed the book in a day and thought about it for quite some
time afterwards.
I liked it so much that I decided I wanted to read more Japanese
books. My impression was that they were more about people and their
thoughts, their morals, their ideas as opposed to actual events in
their world. Maybe I am way off but I wanted to find out, so I went
through the recommendations and put two of the other Japanese books
on hold and encouraged my reading group to pick yet a third one as
our book of the month for June.
 The second book I read this year is Amy and Isabelle by Elizabeth Strout,
another AskMe recommendation. A quiet, beautiful story about a single
mother and her teenage daughter who has a relationship with her
teacher. It proves my disturbing thoughts about how little parents
actually know about their own children and where they are and what
they’re doing at any moment in time. Disturbing at times, frustrating
at others, this novel rang relatively true to me. I enjoyed the
writing style even though I thought the book was a little slow but
still enjoyed reading it. I really am not looking forward to David’s
teenage years. And while I am sort of glad not to have a girl for
that reason, I know boys can be their own bag full of troubles and
worries.
The photographs at pictures of the year are phenomenal. Some truly
inspiring work.
As I mentioned before, 2005 wasn’t the best
year for books, for me. Determined to do better this year, I posted
on AskMe to ask for recommendations of people’s favorite books. I got
a lot of answers and got started reading them one by one. This year,
I hope to post about each of the books as I read them. So to catch
up, I’ll write about the ten I’ve read so far in the next few days.
 First up, is Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler. I have never been a big fan of
short story collections so I am not even sure why I picked this out
to be my first book of the year. Maybe it’s because the MeFi reader
said it was the book that got her out of her 2005 book-slump.
Whatever prompted me, I am really glad I decided to read it. Kissing
in Manhattan is fantastic. It’s not the kind of book I would have
picked up in a million years. Each of the short stories is about a
different tenant who lives in a fictional building in Manhattan. The
stories, while different, sort of weave through each other in that
the same characters pop up in different stories and you sort of find
out some more about them through another tenant’s story. It’s very
well-written, sort of weird stories but good imagery, great character
development and very visual. I thought about the characters and the
stories well after I’d finished the book, which, for me, is a sign of
a great read. What a wonderful way to start the year.
Just so you know that I am not exaggerating when I tell you about
what a happy boy David is, I wanted to share with you a recent photo
I took while he and I were laughing at each other. Isn’t he so very
beautiful?
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projects for twenty twenty-six
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projects for twenty twenty-two
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projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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