Watching from the dark corner

I left today with next to zero energy, covered in a film of flour, remnants of poolish drying on my forearms and the largest burns I have ever received gracing my arms. I have never been so excited for a weekend in my life, compounded by the fact that most of the Barn crew will be gallivanting around the city with me. (Jenny)

On Culture

At the end that is nothing but supporting my theory that there is nothing like a good culture and a bad one, but the only way to get developed is by blending the pros of cultures. (Ali)

mind flight

Driving across the country, inch by inch and foot by foot and mile by mile, watching every blade of grass bleed into every forest and give way to the flat green plains of Kansas to grow into the rising highlands of eastern Colorado, abruptly interrupted by the titanic Rockies and moving on up north to pass over the moonscape that is Wyoming, through the unfamiliar Western terrain of Utah's salt flats and Nevada's heavy mountainous deserts finally giving way to Tahoe's majestically beautiful summits rolling down to the Pacific coast has been a surreal and powerful accomplishment.


I have come to understand and appreciate just how very vast and diverse this country is, and everywhere we passed by I thought of different histories, of 40 acres and a mule, of outlaws on the frontier, of buffalo massacres and Native American tribes, of Mormons crossing such an incredible distance to found Deseret and of the true end of the frontier coming from the western end as well. (Preston)

What happened in Asia no longer stays in Asia

The bus stops somewhere downtown Surat Thani; stirring us back in the peanut gallery awake. On boards a regular looking civilian, who of course points directly to me and gestures to come. No one else is fazed. I come.

I finally started recounting my Asian adventures. I expect to pen 2 - 3 stories a week.

Too Cool

And that’s why I’m ‘cool’ in some circles. Cool is all relative. (Brady on the Geek Population Constant)

Look both ways

As for me I predictably ran out of money in Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City), but I got a teaching job here no problem making $16 (net), which is pretty good considering I can live like a king for that amount here. So i'm probably gonna gonna kick it here for a bit then head up to China next year. This place has the craziest traffic i've ever seen, already saw two girls on a bike get run over by a cement truck. Anyway keep in touch.

This is what I love about the people you can't help but meet in Asia; their level of absolute ignorance to what normal people living normal lives do and just how many light-years away they often are from that. Few people are more thorough at keeping The Dream alive.

Tit for Tat

Is this because we don't care about the future of our country or the world? A lot of people have some questionable priorities, but no, I don't think so. I think it has a lot to do with distance, real andperceived. Washington, and decision making, seems far away from the average US citizen. 

Maybe we don't expect much of our leaders, because we expect that Washington is going to do what Washington is going to do, regardless of who is in office. Is this that true? Maybe, but not trying to exercise the power you do have certainly isn't going to help. For the pessimists out there, think along the "lesser of two evils" line. (Tat)

Bolding is mine, should you notice it. I've been thinking a lot lately about the average voter and their proximity to the implications of this election. 

Does the average voter know what the different choices actually mean? Does the political process provide voters enough information to make that decision?

What can we citizens do to empower each other, and help each person come to their best possible, most informed decision?

Inequality in large social systems

Inequality occurs in large and unconstrained social systems for the same reasons stop-and-go traffic occurs on busy roads, not because it is anyone's goal, but because it is a reliable property that emerges from the normal functioning of the system. (Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality)

I wonder if nomadlife traffic has a power distribution?

For Better or Worse

I am back now. I think it is time to set some things in motion.

On exit interview forms, do they have a checkbox for “Blowing up your life, in order to travel the world endlessly?” (almostfearless)


IMG_1214 by Mix Master on Zooomr

Gotta get PWNed before you can OWN

Things arent going as well as I would like. After leaving a solid social network, comfortable home, and a sense of control of the important parts of my life, I feel utterly friendless, helpless, and homeless. Im doing my best to be strong, remember what AIESEC stands for, and keep my head above the water so I can breathe, but I cant help but wonder if Im just slowly drowning. Where is the traineeship experience that everyone raves about at all the conferences Ive been to? (Caitie)

Without that, the Experience is nothing.

Plight of the Nomad

A mix of alluding to the ones I love with those I've just met and talking about the ones I've just met with the ones I love. (Dani)

And so it goes.

response point 5

To me, a proposal of recruiting a number that would lead to an actually shrinking of the LC- a shared proposal by more than one at the retreat- seems to be two steps in the wrong direction, and gives very mixed messages to newer members on how we actually plan on carrying out our mission. (Katy)

More on this later, but the instant you decide to decrease in size, you, your future members' experiences, and your past servants' legacies are FUCKED, and the foundation many others toiled to lay will have proven to be not nearly as mighty as they may have thought.

UPDATE: The conversation is delicious, and I'll weigh in more thoroughly tomorrow. A birthday party tonight got in the way. Keep the thoughts coming, here, there, there, or on your own blog. Let's try to keep the conversations on target (whatever the target of that exact conversation may be - some are focused around slightly different points), progressive, and DARING. Push your brain hard.

"Comedic Spokesman" migth be a better title

This is really all about giving our customers yet another reason to
come into our restaurants in addition to the great tasting food (CBS News)

So says McDonald's spokesman Bill Whitman on their recent menu additions that directly compete with Starbucks.

I don't normally laugh at news articles, but normal logic was not applied to this statement.

Thanks, Mark.

Vegan Dining, con Attitude

Kimberly Latham, a fashion publicist in New York, said: "I would never have read ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma.’ I’m not even sure I know what an omnivore is. But I know what a skinny bitch is, and I know I want to be one." (NYTIMES)

Thanks, Kimberly, for such a great example of the Anti-Dream.

Nature Vs Nurture, Zach...

"“The mind is much more like a muscle than we’ve ever realized,” Flynn said. “It needs to get cognitive exercise. It’s not some piece of clay on which you put an indelible mark.”" (Gladwell article on IQ and racial differences)

Club Survival Manual - for las ladies

Getting swarmed by dudes is no joke, and you CAN prevent it. Pull these moves the next time you feel like having a night to yourself, and your saucy ladies, and you should be bombardment free... (HoBlog)

I think this one is Digg worthy. Check it out and lend it some juice.

A 9th grade student learning English

Helping others are also very easy. You can volunteer only one minute to others. For example, pick up rubbish, five seconds. Wait in the elevator while people are coming, five seconds. You can only use a minute to help others. Then, you will have a habit, helping others. No one forcing to help others, you get habit, that is the greatest habit in the world.

Good Habits Blog

I stumbled upon this quote and was stopped dead in my tracks. The context. The messenger. The overriding and underlying ideas. The verbiage. It has been consuming me the entire day.

My keyboard lacks the ability to properly release how precisely this resonated with my world.

The Dream Manager

Finally they are getting it!

We want them to be humble in the sense that a Dream Manager is not responsible for living the dreams, and shouldn't take the credit when people do live their dreams. (Interview with author of The Dream Manager)

Internal Blog

Perspective is worth a lot more than it costs. (Seth Godin on internal blogs)

One of things I never rallied hard enough for (within the org) was a strictly internal blog system. I was there for the initial conversations, and God knows what document it's been lost under now. I should have kept it as a paper weight, not a paper.

The persistent inability for crucial decision-making contexts, results, and reasonings to be transferred from one generation to the next amazes me. That, and the fact that so little was/is done to address it. In a culture so deeply rooted in centrality at the moment, there still is no easily accessible place to go for research and learning.

Where would I be writing this if such a system existed? How many more targeted, thoughtful, and interested minds would see this? How easy would it be to voice thoughts and catalyze them if there was a dedicated space for it?

Instead I write this here, causing confusion for those who can't understand my indirect references as I hold back proper nouns.

Doing nothing will never fix it. Starting such a 'system' would start to fix it. Innovating on this system would/could finish fixing it.

Which step do you think is the hardest?

Understanding Nerds

Your nerd might come off as not liking people. Small talk. Those first awkward five minutes when two people are forced to interact. Small talk is the bane of the nerd’s existence because small talk is a combination of aspects of the world that your nerd hates. When your nerd is staring at a stranger, all he’s thinking is, “I have no system for understanding this messy person in front of me”. This is where the shy comes from. (Rands)

Very amusing and fairly accurate article on nerdery.

Still raining, dammit.

The Dode...

... is back.

It is quite overwhelming at times actually. I think I finally understood the meaning of "follow your dreams" spoken by the wise folks of yesteryear. There is indeed some truth in that. The reality of achieving something worthy is so fucking hard and having not followed your dream would make it impossible. (Empire Builder)

Where's the comments section?

The Hard Life

But instead of hard hats and work boots, the people on the pickets had arty glasses and fancy scarves. (NYTIMES)

The TechCrunch coverage of it is interesting.

musing

I have heard this tip before, but I don't know if I buy into it:

rule 2: write provocative emails. you never know what could come of them. it is rather simple to deduce the CEO of a company's email by looking at how the other email addresses that are available to the public are structured. for example, if the emails seem to be first initial last name (ie pat jones=pjones@company.com), google the company, find the ceo's name, and just apply the formula. (Sydney)

The CEO is often times not the best entry point to an organization. There's a reason their emails are usually not listed - they've got bigger fish than unsolicited emails to fry. Additionally, this tip is too often abused in that idealists or young guns contact the Big Guns without knowing what that person is into. Depending on the specifics of your writing, it could almost be labeled a form of spam... and no normal human wants to be that guy.

So, sure, there is the off-chance that you hit an extraordinary soul and something grand comes from your email, but I wouldn't count on it, especially if you had to use some trickery and Google to get their contact info. I'd start with a different point of contact, or would start first trying to meet people in person, i.e. networking. Those are much higher leverage contacts and, I'd guess, much more worth your time. Let them first give you permission (you must earn it) to contact them, just like we as consumers request of producers.

Update: Another link for unsolicited communication.

quality penning

We walked up to the ticket desk, and were going to switch tickets, when the vendor informed us that there would actually be room for both of us on the bus. As we walked back to wait for it, we got to talking...

He comes from Rwanda, and during the genocide, had a family friend kill his parents, 3 brothers and 1 sister... (alejandrakumin)

International Adventure always seems to bring out the most interesting stories.

part of The Journey

These times are good times too. This is where real people are made. This is where real courage and determination come through. This is the point where I get in touch with my spiritual core. And then once I do, I reach back out that hand to the world. (rlpp)

Amen. Being aware of and adding language to this journey we all must go through makes it much more powerful, and difficult. But with the difficulty comes much more golden riches if you make it through.

Inspired Verbiage

Then you strike, like a cobra, but smaller and stiffer. (Dilbert Blog)

Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) offers some advice for getting laid. Break down another's temptation resistance with decoys, then go in for the kill.

My interpretation:

"Want a brownie?"
"No"
"Want a brownie?"
"No"
"Want a beer?"
"Yes"

Check out the post, there's even a little science behind it. If you haven't added him to your RSS reader yet, I'd suggest doing that as well.

quotage

Cleaning up old emails and I came across this prose from a forum discussion. Thought it was worth scribing on a blogger page, where longevity should reign pretty strong.

Just a couple thoughts to add to the list of replies on this very interesting, and very important, question:

First, given the structure and function of AIESEC, management of exchange is central to the taking responsibility and leadership roles, in that exchange - as a complex and challenging process - provides the work for our people to do while going through other elements of their AIESEC Experience. As I work on exchange, I go through the challenges of generating increasing quantity and quality, and so learn in the process.

There are a number of levels of learning that take place while on exchange. At the most basic level, a person learns about another country and culture. At a bit more of an advanced level, a person begins to see the underlying differences in ways of interpreting and valuing the world that result from the culture one is in. And at its most advanced, the individual on their exchange experience starts to challenge their own ways of seeing the world, and by assuming a fundamentally different worldview, they also gain a much deeper perspective on themself and on the world.

In fact, in studies of human growth, one of the properties of the growth process is that of being able to see from an increasing number of perspectives. It's like looking at a beatiful sculpture. If you look at it from one side, you see a bit, but to really see the whole sculpture, it requires walking around - or changing your perspective.

Being immersed in a different culture and environment for an extended period of time - such as what happens on an AIESEC internship - is one of the most powerful tools for 'walking around the sculpture.' Except in this time, the sculpture is one's self, and the world. There's a difference between gaining new knowledge (reading books, looking on the internet, or travelling to a place), and learning how to see things differently (being able to see through different cultural 'glasses'). This, to me, is why exchange is such a fundamentally important element of the AIESEC Experience.

And this is why we need to continue to work like crazy to create more internships for our people, and more people for our internships. It is a crucial part of the AIESEC learning experience, and working on exchange is a part of our own learning process.

I remember some of the most exciting times I had in AIESEC was when I was raising TNs back in my LC in Calgary. It was incredibly challenging, and that's why I learned so much.

Thanks for the question...

brodie

It very well articulates elements of the process I went through while thinking about, going, then coming back from Egypt. I'm beginning to wonder what my second adventure shall entail.