I Read Self Help Books

When I'm reading, I like to have the feeling that I'm educating myself as well as being entertained. This usually leads me to read books that correlate somehow to my schoolwork, but sometimes I read books that might be useful in everyday life. I've been reading another book about body language and tried an exercise it lists. Here it is for your entertainment:

"Speaking too rapidly is one of the most common and crippling vocal mistakes. Not only does it make you difficult to understand, but it gives others the impression that you're nervous, you're not confident, and what you have to say is unimportant.
A calm, slow voice commands authority."

"For this exercise, sit up straight in front of your audio recorder or computer microphone. Take a deep breath. Now say without slowing down the following sentence-all in one breath: 'I will no longer speak too quickly and cram all my words together in one breath beccause I have lots of thoughts in my head and I am trying to get them all out and I am afraid that if I pause, people will stop listening"




"Listen to the recording. Most likely, cramming a run-on sentence into one breath worsened your enunciation and caused you to swallow some words.
Now inhale and say the same line. But this time, make the pace exaggeratedly slow and deliberate.; leave excruciatingly long pauses between phrases; pronounce each word carefully; and take a breath more often than you feel you need to. Then listen to the recording."




As you can see, I sound fantastic at whatever speed I speak so there is no reason for self-help. I'm making good use of all this free time.

Poor College Student Needs Multiple Income Streams

Though I've been using the internet since I was six and making modest websites since I was seven, I've only recently come to appreciate the opportunities for money-making it provides. We're all aware of it. Most of my peers probably even believe that if they put some time and effort into it, they could make some cash online. But what would it take to make you actually act upon that notion? For me, it practically took someone shouting it my face, but I now have no reservations jumping in head first. I'm going to hold off announcing my primary project, but the second venture is a blog. No, not this blog. This is more like a public diary. But my friends and I made a blog we think has good general appeal, and therefore potential for a large readership for advertisement. It's about our misadventures and reservations regarding being POOR COLLEGE STUDENTs in New York City. Go check it out.

poorcollegestudentblog.blogspot.com

Key characteristics for internet business
- Inexpensive to create
- Inexpensive to market (the act of me blogging about it counts as marketing)
- High profit margins
- Can be profitable even when small
- Can grow big
- Not tied to a location
- Can make money on auto-pilot

So do you have a good idea that you haven't yet tried to implement? Dedicate a day or two to it and see what happens.

Did you vote last November?

Were you on Broadway on November 4, 2008? That was the day Obama was elected and jubilant students shut the street down. Though we saw a lot of enthusiasm around campus during election season, the climax surprised me. In the last month before the election, I had no doubt Obama was going to win, but how would we have reacted if it went the other way? I doubt any of us would have acted as Iranians are right now. We shouted with joy, but could we have screamed in anguish?

When President Ahmadinejad gave a speech at Columbia in 2007, he reinforced misguided American perceptions of the Middle East. "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country," He replied in response to questions about sexual preference, "In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it." Now as Iranian youth are rioting in the streets protesting his re-election, it's obvious the country had been terribly misrepresented. The violence that has been incited is unfortunate, but their passion is inspiring. Don't overlook the drama.

Productivity Meter

People in the work world would be envious of the sort of free time I have right now. When you're in the middle of the workday or writing an essay, you sometimes fantasize about what you would be accomplishing when creating your own tasks, but free time is undervalued when viewed in my current context of summer vacation. Let's take a look at what I hoped to accomplished at the start of a typical summer day and what actually happened.

1. Study one hour of Mandarin (success!)
2. Study one hour of Spanish (fell asleep during my post-Chinese break)
3. Core-synergistics, or other wise just working out (1up!)
4. Finish up some programming that is due at work on Monday (no, but Sunday is homework day. Is it not?)

Not bad at 50%. I hope to remember days like these when I'm bogged down with busy work this fall.

Stuck in Transition

Summer in Reno means hard work to refill my bank account, but things slow down significantly. I'm usually whining a week into vacation, but I end up appreciating it by summer's end. More free time means I have more time to talk with a few close friends. The stress at school makes 4-month semesters seem significantly shorter, and this lifestyle in Reno really allows me to have more personal conversations more often.

A quick list of what I'm up to.

1. Back at the Desert Research Institute. Just like last summer, I'm asked to do a lot of things independently. This is both a blessing and burden. I appreciate how flexible my work schedule is, but I sometimes find it a struggle to motivate myself for projects. Often faced with a large learning curve, it's often unclear the path I need to take to finish a project, but I learn quite a lot in between.

2. Working on a business venture with my brother, but I will make that public when it garners some success (revenue) first.

3. Trying to pick up Spanish and Mandarin study again, but struggling with motivation. My ultimate goal of fluency in both languages by the time I graduate seems so far off. This one might have to wait until the semester starts when a crushing homework load is motivation enough.

4. New Workout Plan! You may have seen it in a late night infomercial for p90x, but it isn't a gimmick. I came back from Singapore thinner than I'd been since high school, but after 3 weeks of the program, I feel as strong as I did at my peak last year. Give it a second look come 3am when the tv is on.

5. Reading for pleasure. This I do year round, but right now I'm doing 3 times as much.

On the surface, this looks like enough to keep me busy, but I'm already feeling the slow pace of this city.

Back Home

My days since coming back to the U.S. have been predictable but nonetheless, rewarding. My memory of the 30 hour trip back is somewhat of a fog, but the hour after I arrived in the Seattle airport is still vivid in my mind. Unlike in Singapore, I pass through transit without a second a glance from the locals. I initially relished the fact that I could assimilate with my countrymen again. Even this far North, a Hispanic is a common sight. To passersby I probably even pass as white, but while carefully observing passengers in the waiting room making an earlier flight to Idaho, I had trouble identifying.

So with whom do I better identify with? Idahoans or Singaporeans? Ideologically and politically, I would easily have to choose the American state, but I resent the cultural isolation that permeates rural America. Singapore is much more of a global society. Though I can't claim much of a history with Singapore, I would easily choose to live in Singapore. The truth is, I would probably never assimilate completely into either place.

For now Nevada is a comfortable place to be, but I drift further away each year.

Failure Resume: Learning from your mistakes

I got this idea from a book I've been reading about entrepreneurship. Failure is a necessity of the learning process, but it only becomes a tool when mistakes are acknowledged and fixed.

Awkwardness of Youth
Pittsburgh, PA 2006, Age 16
There were four girls standing in a circle by the soda machine. My dorm-mate was complaining about the fact that we had hardly managed to make any girl friends since arriving, so he challenged me to introduce myself to them. I see one girl has a shirt with the logo of Costa Rica's national beer so I use this as an excuse to speak to her:

Me: Oh hey.. you drink Imperial? Does that mean you've been to Costa Rica?
Girl: Ya I went last summer! Are you from there?
Me: Ya I am!.. I mean my parents are from there. I'm American like you, but I'm ethnically Costa Rican, though my Spanish kinda sucks...
Girl: Oh that's really interesting.

I walked over to the vending machine and grab a drink. When I opened it, it exploded all over my shoes. I stepped away sheepishly without saying goodbye, staring at the floor with heart beating all the while.

LESSON LEARNED: Talking to girls only leads to bad things.