Rewarding the Unproductive

On Tuesday, I was in the office being a total bum; I was browsing the internet and being completely unproductive. During my scouring, I came across free tickets listed on my firm's craigslist equivalent that my firm was giving away to employees. The tickets were for the John Mayer and Sheryl Crow concert that night at the Tweeter Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts; I jumped on the tickets.

After trudging through rush hour traffic to get to the South Shore of Massachusetts, Lawrence and I were highly entertained by the performers. Sheryl Crow is amazingly fit and has a surprising number of hits. Guiltily, Lawrence and I sang along to many of her songs. John Mayer is always entertaining with his song improvisation and constant rambling about nonsense inbetween songs. The crowd was of course filled with crazed teeny-bopper/college aged girls, all drooling over the man. Guiltily again, Lawrence and I knew most of the songs, bobbed our heads, and sang along. We had a great, guilty pleasure of a time, happily adding this concert to our list of unexpected adventures this summer.

What gets me about the whole experience, though, is that I was rewarded for being completely unproductive. Those in my firm who were working hard with no time to check our firm's craigslist and had no chance of getting those $76 seats. True, I can't be one to complain given that I am a culprit here, but I can't help but reflect on the skewed incentives. Here I am, about to quit, browsing the internet, and not adding to the firm's productivity at all, yet I get to take a guest with me for free to see popular musicians.

What's wrong with this picture? This skewed incentive system is one of the many reasons contributing to my departure from the business world, and I am only exacerbating the problem by participating the way I have. Still, I can't help but take advantage of free tickets or other such incentives. I'll be leaving the firm in a couple weeks, boycotting business if you will, so shouldn't that be a statement enough of my disagreement with it all? What's the harm with enjoying some free tickets for a night that would have gone to waste anyway?

I suppose this sort of reasoning is exactly what propogates the whole skewed incentive system I'm so righteously against, but in my last two weeks, I can continue this sort of reasoning as a way of "sticking it to the man". I'm taking advantage as much as I can before I leave to show how bogus the system really is. That's it... I'm sticking it to the man. Heh.

Summer (so far) in Review

This summer has been amazing. It started with Maine and kept rolling with the backpacking trip to Europe. I've been so busy since then that I've failed to blog about the rest of it. Here goes.

I was accepted to the Harvard Health Careers Program- a post-bac program for those of us who were to lazy in college to take the pre-med classes. I took a year's worth of gen chem in 7 weeks. It was rough. We had lab three times a week, lecture 5 times a week, recitation twice a week, a review session once a week, a test once a week, and an all encompassing final at the end. I worked more for the class than I did for my job, but I pretty much loved it. I was so motivated to do it since I was doing it all for myself, and I was working towards the greater goal of becoming a doctor. I'll be continuing with the program in the fall. I'll be taking orgo, bio, and physics simultaneously (with lab!), and then the MCATs next summer. Yeah, I'm shaking my head too right now. Wish me luck because I'll need it.

What happened to my job, you ask. My gracious partner at work, an owner of the firm who is in charge of guiding my career at the firm, allowed me to take leave for the program. The flexibility of my firm is amazing. I've returned to work for a month, but will soon be quitting to pursue the post-bac full time. Well, at least I got a year of consulting for healthcare/medical sciences/non-profit/higher education under my belt. Hopefully it'll help me get into med school- it's really all about getting into med school now.

Since the end of class and returning to work, however, I've had so much free time and Lawrence and I have been taking full advantage of it. (This is the last time I'll have free time like this until I take the MCATs next summer, so I'm especially enjoying every minute of it.) Last weekend, we camped 15 minutes from the Rhode Island shore at the Burlingame State Park. The water was warm, for New England (i.e. we weren't numb after prolonged periods in the water), and the beach was wide and not crowded. In the town we were camping, we went to the Frosty Drew Observatory, which is run by amateur astronomers who claim we were there on one of the clearest nights this summer. There we learned how to pick out constellations, and saw Jupiter and two arms of the Milky Way. We also went to the Washington County Fair where we saw tractor pull contests, horse pull contents, and no other non-white people- I guess this is what the rest of America is like?

On a whim, Lawrence and I were then in NY Tuesday and Wednesday for less than 48 hours. We spent both days at the US Open watching the qualifying tournament. It's always amazing to see the talent at the tournament and to realize that our "talents" are not even close to professional level. We also watched Cecil Mamiit play his first round of singles qualifying. He unfortunately lost as he's recovering from pneumonia that he contracted last week. Though his losing was a slight bummer, more for him than us for sure, the whole qualifying experience got us really excited for Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day weekend- we have tickets to the tournament then.

This weekend, Lawrence and I hiked up Mt. Liberty in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire. The peak is about 4450 ft above sea level in the White Mountains and along the famous Applachian Trail. It took us a little over 3 hours to get to the top, where the views were amazing. You could even see Mt. Washington from there. About .6 trail miles from the peak, we camped at the Liberty Springs Campground where there were ten platforms on which to camp. It was the best campsite I've been too, with great views and a great outdoorsy atmosphere. Lawrence and I hiked down the mountain today had rewarded ourselves for the strenuous hike with a trashy Chinese buffet in Concord, NH. The food was pretty awful, but we were so hungry and desperate for white rice that it was fantastic.

This coming weekend, we'll be in NY again, for the US Open as I mentioned earlier. Hopefully we'll get to see some friends this time and spend some time in Manhattan as well. I still have another three weeks til I quit/school starts, so we'll hopefully fill it with more wonderful memories. More to come soon. :) (BTW, for pictures of any of these things, and more, please see Lawrence's website!)

I'm Coming Home!

Well, for a couple days anyway. :) Sorry to those who thought I'd be coming home for good- that's not for another couple years (stupid Boston). I'm excited to see my family, friends, and city. I haven't been in NY all summer and am so excited to just walk around, grab coffee, have excellent dinners, and then drinks of course. :) And the US Open qualifying starts this week! I'm pulling for the Filipino, Cecil Mamiit- I think I mentioned meeting him in the blog post about Lawrence and my European adventure. And of course I'll be back Labor Day weekend again to see the US Open, family, and friends one more time. I don't think I'll have a chance to return until Thanksgiving, so I want to make the most of these trips coming up. Hopefully, I'll be able to take pictures like the ones from the last one. :-D Haha, I love my friends.

Procrastination with Rachael Yamagata's Music

I find myself in music cycles. I'll like certain songs and play them continuously for a while until I come across something new (or something old from a previous cycle), and the cycle starts again. Recently, my playlist is dominated by Rachael Yamagata, who has a similar style to Fiona Apple but definitely stands out as being unique. I highly recommend her music and am looking forward to her next album, which I think she is currently recording. I'm so into her music right now that it's distracting me from studying for my chem final. I'd rather just lie in bed and listen to her songs than study. And now I'm even writing about it in my blog. Talk about procrastination. :) Anyway, the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, 1963, of hers is below.


1963

Baby, I'm stuck in the middle and I don't know why
Find the words you sing to me
Sweeter than the words of the bird in the sky
Oh, the days you came around
I feel so good for me
I can take most anything
'Cause what you bring

I find it to be magical (hey)
I feel like I'm loving you in 1963 (hey)
Flowers in my hair (hey)
Little bitty hearts upon my cheek
Baby, you'll be on my mind
'till I kiss you next time

Baby, come on, take a ride in my little blue bug
Keep the windows down
Don't forget to celebrate the radio's up
Oh, the way you hold my hand
There is no other way
We could take a thousand walks
And laugh all day

I find it to be magical (hey)
I feel like I'm loving you in 1963 (hey)
Flowers in my hair (hey)
Little bitty hearts upon my cheek
Baby, you'll be on my mind
'till I kiss you next time

I find it to be magical (hey)
I feel like I'm loving you in 1963 (hey)
Flowers in my hair (hey)
Little bitty hearts upon my cheek
Baby, you'll be on my mind
'till I kiss you next time

Magical (hey)
I feel like I'm loving you in 1963 (hey)
Flowers in my hair (hey)
Little bitty hearts upon my cheek
Baby, you'll be on my mind
'till I kiss you next time

Hey, hey, I find it magical (hey)
Hey, hey, I feel like I'm loving you in 1963 (hey)
Hey, hey, I got flowers in my hair (hey)
Hey, hey, little bitty hearts upon my cheek...

Where I Am

I've been in a dreamy state of mind lately. I get caught up in whatever song I'm listening to, following every note and hanging on every word. I savor every spoonful of ice cream I have in the hot Boston summer. I take every opportunity to sit in the sun while I can still feel its rays in Boston. I catch myself daydreaming a lot about the future and the many things I want to accomplish. I am so excited about my life, and not in the conceited way, but in the I'm-loving-the-direction-of-my-life-and-can't-wait-to-see-what's-next sort of way.

This new found excitement has affected the way I live life day to day. I find myself exercising almost every day- not just for my health, but for the natural high I feel after a good workout. Friends can "hear a smile" in my voice when I talk to them on the phone. I'm constantly laughing, partly because my chem TA is such a character and partly because I've come to appreciate the humor in nearly every sitation in which I find myself.

I'm genuinely happy. I constantly find myself loving every moment and excited to experience the next one. I've found balance. I used to "savor the moment" because certain aspects of my life were about to change, like leaving high school and college, and beginning life in Boston. Now I savor them just because. I think I've come to appreciate that there is a very final end to life, not just leaving high school or college, that has made me want to enjoy every moment and make the most of my life. I can see that my days are numbered (hopefully a very high number), so I try to take nothing for granted. I hope to look back on my life one day and be completely satisfied with how I lived it, knowing that I never wasted a moment and lived to have the fewest regrets. (Dying with no regrets, depending on what the regrets would have been about, is reckless in my opinion, but that's a topic for another blog post.)

I feel like I'm on the right track for living a happy and satisfying life, enjoying every moment just because. On that note, I'm going to have my breakfast banana and cereal on the porch while some mellow Norah Jones plays in the background as a cool, high 70s summer day starts in Cambridge. See, these are the sorts of moments I'm constantly finding myself in, and I'm savoring already. :)

I Love Travel

Lately, I feel as though I've been stuck in Boston. With this chemistry class still two and a half weeks from completion, which translates into roughly half a semester's worth of work in 10 days, I feel like I'm never getting out of Boston. I'm itching to travel again. Lawrence's and my trip to Europe was just so amazing and inspiring that we in fact want to live abroad for a while. We ever so briefly entertained the idea of dropping everything now and just moving abroad, but the sensible, practical side of us quickly dismissed the thought.

In the meantime, however, we hope to travel at every opportunity we get, the next of which is the time between my final and my return to work. Given that we dropped a bit of money on our last trip, we hope to conserve some money on this next one. One possible destination is Maine, where we would hike, lie on the beach, and eat lobster. We're also entertaining a trip to Quebec where Montreal, Quebec City, and some hiking/camping would be on the itinerary. I'm open to suggestions. :)

I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to so many places and gain perspective on how life works in various parts of the world. I think it's particularly important to be able to reflect on the way you live your life in order to appreciate what you have and to spot areas in need of improvement. After our trip to Europe, for example, I felt particularly lucky to have grown up in the States. For all the problems this country has, its racial tension isn't nearly as high as those in some Eastern European countries. Although for a hefty premium, Americans have access to some of the best education in the world right in our own backyards. And we mainly get free refills on our soda drinks and water. You laugh about this last one now, but wait until you're backing through Europe in 90 degree weather and drink 12 euros worth of water. (This latter part is of course from experience.)

On the other hand, of course, there are many things that US has done that we citizens can't be proud of. Our war in Iraq has caused a strong tension between us and the rest of the world. Lawrence and I met a Polish guy in Germany who called Dubya a terrorist.

I'm so grateful that Lawrence and I are able to travel to gain this sort of perspective and apply it to our everyday lives. I hope everyone gets the chance to travel one day, even if only once, to be able to develop an appreciation for a life lived differently from theirs. I really think it may just make the world a little bit better of a place.