Tidbits from Yale

It’s a rainy night here at Yale University. On my left, Mike is reading a philosophy book. Tommy is lounging on a sofa, legs up, head buried in a Newsweek. Zach is on his bed, computer in his lap, having fallen asleep with a finger in his mouth. The other two suitemates, James and Wade, are in their rooms, already tucked in. A girl’s laughter floats inside through an open window, but it dissipates, soaked away by the pattering of the rain. Mozart’s piano concerto #23 is whispering its melody; after 3 minutes, iTunes abruptly switches to Divertimento in B-flat Major, the violin vivacious and arresting. It jars me. “Peter, we have to discover nuclear fusion,” Tommy says. “It will make us rich and solve all our problems.” I ignore the waggish comment and continue typing. But the comments keep pouring out: “San Francisco banned happy meals.” “You look like a waiter, Mike. Pretty sure you don’t need to wear a white shirt for waiter-ing jobs.” “I have 45 pages the week we get back.” “Does it actually require research?” His feet smell. His nose-blowing is perverse. His voice is grating. But then I look at him, and my exasperation melts away: he's Tommy, that's all. 

T-$: word why?

When you shower, do you bring speakers with you, so that you can engage your mind with music?

Oh, right: I cut myself with the razor. I put my entire thumb on the plastic tab and pulled down; it came off too easily and my thumb buried itself into the newly exposed razor. I didn't feel anything, it was so sharp. The cut, though, was half an inch deep, and as I waited for the blood to start seeping out of the cross-section of veins, I slathered Neosporin over the area, creating a messy seal. The rest of my time in Port St. Joe, I would gingerly use my left hand for most tasks, my right as good as a dummy prosthesis.

In the Dominican Republic, after two weeks of Ed and I serenading each other with the first two lines of Drake’s most popular songs, John D's computer computer came alive with Drake the first time he opened it.

We collected plates and cups from the entryways in Berkeley. There were utensils hidden everywhere —some suites had upwards of 7 cups in their rooms. We entered the rooms in the most cursory, perfunctory, and disingenuous manner possible, proceeded to look through the cupboards, refrigerators, and rooms of everyone living in the suite. The responses ranged from friendly (“This is a great idea!”) to extreme annoyance (glares of hatred and disbelief). In all, we collected 62 cups and 28 plates.

At Warren's beach house, one of the "hicks" who lived in town stumbled into my living room, drunk, and said to me, “I'm having a better time with people I’ve just fucking met then my fucking friends." 

I moved from Canada to California when I was 5 years old. The last thing I did before leaving was write a card to Katherine that said, "I'm going to come back and marry you," or something like that. I might also have called her the prettiest girl in the world -- I don't really remember (my mom does, though). She friended me on Facebook in college. I remember having a short Facebook message conversation, too, but every time I search for it, I can't find it, which makes me think the entire episode might have been a dream. 

For 10 of my 14 meals every week, I sit at the Berkeley senior table. Over the course of a year, that’s 400 hours sitting on the beat-up maroon chairs, revolving around the same topics—the Jacksonville Jaguars (thanks for wasting my life, John), hedge fund investment strategies, and Youtube videos (search: “Greg Jennings”). I’ve grown used to the routine, and don’t recognize the awe-inspiring features that first struck me when I walked in 4 years ago: the loping chandeliers, demure portraits of former Masters, that admonishing elk head directly above the trays, admonishing people to go trayless.

A ghost frequented our common-room at points. One day, as I was tying my shoes in preparation for a run, the glasses on the table started tinkling – all by themselves. This also happened one night…at 3:38am.

On a chilly Yale night senior year first semester, I sat with Sangay D. in shaded area of the School of Management in a settling twilight and talked about Bhutan. The country is what environmentalists in the US wish our country was. Every 2nd of June, their children engage in Social Forestry Day, where everyone plants one tree and takes care of it for the rest of their schooling. Sangay's tree was 8 inches high when he first planted it, and now it's 12 feet tall. Watching it grow up with him, he said, was an unbelievable experience. In high school, his class adopted an area, and tended to it once a week. The Bhutanese economy is also inherently tied to the environment: 40% of its GDP comes from hydropower and 10% to eco-tourism. 40% of the entire country is a protected area. 

In the Dominican Republic, I accomplished 2 important feats with Ed. The first was recalling 150 of 151 Pokemon over a four-hour hike on the tallest peak in the Dominican Republic. (We missed Paras -- but not Parasect?) The second was creating a MECE framework of all the different types of humor: whimsical, exaggeration, long-form (referring to a prior incident in a novel context later on), storytelling, ironic, non-verbal and sarcastic. For the rest of the trip, whenever someone laughed, we looked at each other and slotted it into one of the categories. 

Yale and its humanities

The best kept secret at Yale is a simple little site called yale.edu/oir. It touts itself as a “Yale Book of Numbers”—and by golly, there are a lot of them. For example:

Most popular undergraduate majors in 2008-09:

• Political Science (15%)
• History (12%)
• Economics (10%)
• Psychology (7%)

Approximate percentages of Junior and Senior majors in the Divisions:

• 40% Arts & Humanities
• 40% Social Sciences
• 20% Biological & Physical Sciences

Some more statistics: in 1975, 35% of Yalies went to law or business school a year after graduation; in 2008, the number is just 11%. In 2009, the Yale’s library spent $47.7 million in acquisition expenditures. Since 2001, Political Science majors have increased 57% and Psychology majors 69%; History has gone down 25%, and Biology 32%. The Physics and Philosophy major has stayed the same: .08% (that’s one person). 

By far the most telling statistic, though, is the overall composition of our class. Every year, approximately 40% of us major in Art & Humanities, 40% major in Social Sciences, and 20% major in Biology & Physical Sciences. At Stanford, it’s the opposite: 40% in hard sciences, 20% in humanities, and less than 15% in social sciences.

Yale's Argentinian Pears

Part 1. 

At the end of freshman year of college I developed a craving for Argentinian pears. These had lumpy frames and were rock-hard, but I would ripen them in my common room, and they turned incredibly sweet and fleshy after two days. The pears were a delight to look at: red splotches in the shape of rorschach ink blots bloomed across the skin, melding with the green undertones. They reminded me of parrots.

For two weeks in April, I ate at least two a day. During lunch and dinner, I’d stuff them from fruit basket to my backpack, feeling like a kid reaching into a cookie jar. Principles of social welfare and common good rarely applied; there were days when I had at least 10 pears in my backpack. When I arrived back home, I wouldn’t know where to put them.

There were other fruit that inspired a similar fanaticism. Blood oranges, a new introduction sophomore year, were slightly less juicy than Valencias, but made up for it with sexy, dark-maroon flesh, zipper skin and a deeper flavor. Regular mandarins were reliable – cute, sprightly and portable. And of course, peaches  – much more bountiful pre-2008-recession – were my favorite to tote out of the dining hall; during the first two months of freshman year, I brought so many home (and left so many pits around the common room) that I earned the nickname “Peaches,” which stuck, surprisingly successfully, throughout college.

The pears, though, were special not for their flavor but also for their scarcity. After those two weeks, they promptly disappeared from the dining halls forever. The memory of them is hazy and serendipitous. They might have appeared again, but I could easily have dreamed it.

Similar fruits have been lofted into my personal pantheon by virtue of their scarcity. In Ecuador, I have fond memories of three: Uva de Oriente, a sticky-sweet grape that grows on 40-foot-tall trees in the rainforest; chontillo, a cousin of the rambutan, though stickier and more juicy; and salak, a garlic-shaped fruit with a reptile-like skin that protects the apple-pineapple flavored flesh. Junior year, when I created an Excel spreadsheet that attempted to rank-order my favorite fruit according to sweetness, depth of flavor, vitamin content, eating pleasure, crispness, satiation, and exoticism (a mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive framework if I’ve ever seen one), the top three were Uva de Oriente, chontillo, and salak. I’ve never tasted them outside of Ecuador (although I  tried to sneak 10 salak seeds into the U.S., to no avail), and because I can’t foresee myself returning anytime soon, the memory of their taste has gelled, sweetened, over time.

After returning from Ecudaor, I became disheartened, to say the least, by the fruit the dining hall provided. Because of Yale Dining's emphasis on sourcing locally, I was subjected to bruised Granny Smith apples, mealy red apples whose names have already escaped me, regular Cavendish bananas, Bosc pears, hard, neutered green pears, and uninspiring oranges. The blood oranges, or the mandarins, or the peaches – I was lucky if I saw any once a month. The only semi-frequent highlights were sticky, dark plums, frozen blueberries, and firm green or red grapes. I grew comfortable with the new threshold for excellence, but it was mere human adaptation; I never failed to realize that somewhere out there, pears from Argentina were growing on bright green trees, waiting for me to eat them.

Leaving Yale, Part 3: I must pee.

Part 1: Lychees and a Sock

The weather is perfect, unbelievable. The summer solstice has bent away, and the days are supposed to be shrinking, but it is bright, standing on this square of concrete sidewalk. The trees are green. Green-green, dead-serious green, veins of green, supersaturated chlorophyll watermarks against a light, intimate sky. A breeze is pushing me over gently, and the sun is whisking away lonely wisps of humidity. I am on the outskirts of campus -- on Howe street -- with a guitar slung over my back, walking towards, through, and away, from Yale.

It was never the plan to say goodbye in such a trivial way. James and I, we had just whiled away two hours in his art-deco-infested sublet. I brazenly wrestled the pictures and video of our triumphant guitar set last night from his computer, while he talked to his mum, awkward-as-a-white-elephant headphones in his ears. We are in the kitchen of a house. A house with mason jars, instead of glasses. A house with two bathrooms, both warily functional, exactly across from each other. The house speaks to us. It whispers, "You might have wire-rim glasses, but you'll never feel comfortable here." Whilst the ghosts of the tenants engage us, James and I, both of us, we just sit there, present, visceral.

“Do you like fruit?” I ask.

“Of course,” he responds.

“You can have this. I want you to keep it.”

“There’s an entire mango in here? Thanks mate! Are you sure you don’t want it?”

“Nope. That’s a present from me to you.”

Not much of a present for our friendship, or even for two nights in a real room, with a real sheet, a wake-up call in the morning, unabashed use of his computer, and a cozened generosity for my professional time-wasting activities. No, the fruit in the bag, just an over-ripe mango and a branch of lychees -- round and globular, hardened and ready for any-length fingernails to pierce with pleasure -- was not adequate for our goodbye. Not even.

So I prepared a speech.

“Thanks so much for being my friend. For having the generosity to have me, a tyro, with literally no knowledge of music, teach you, the 17-year master, how to play guitar. Because you didn’t need to ask me. But you did. And out of it came the greatest memory of this summer – and also a new friendship that, while maybe I wouldn’t have valued a year ago, and definitely not three years ago, now means so much. It was a good way to go out. I’m glad we became friends.”

At 7:25 p.m., we stood awkwardly, wedged between the arc of the front door and the staircase. (Poor design. I blame the hipsters.) I got out the first two lines – “Thanks for playing guitar with me. I’m really glad we played together” -- before he immediately volunteered a response: “Shared accountability, remember,” -- more inside joke than sentimental farewell. And, with that sweet, irreverent remark, an air of finality hit both of us; it hung in the air. I didn’t push back. Instead, we grasped in an ever-so-sloppy handshake, and then I turned and left into the beautiful day.

My heels struck pavement, my stride was purposeful, my gait long, tall, and designed-by-force. I was ready for my last tour through this school, head swirling with the soft memories of my last interaction ever. Then: "Hey, Peter!"

I look across the street. It's my KASY wife. Shoot. It's not like I don't like her, or anything; I actually do -- whenever we've hung out, she's been accommodating, energetic, beatific -- but we haven't seen each other much through the year. She's an acquaintance, and now, she's going to fall into place as my last conversation at Yale. This wasn't supposed to happen! Where's my script? The sunset, the cherry-black horse galloping into the distance, the tumbleweed?

"You're leaving! Oh man -- this is my friend, by the way."

I shake hands. I am woefully unprepared to meet someone new, not now, not after I have already put Yale and its vicissitudes behind me. Our conversation peters out, drips slowly onto the cement, the latent discomfort and patent unfamiliarity staining our skin, turning us egregious. After 30 seconds, I make the move to exit gracefully, without, of course, any semblance of grace. 

"Ok, I'll see you...uh, again! Soon! Keep in touch!"

And I'm off! The journey is back on track, and I'm planning my route through Yale: I turn right and head towards Chapel Street; then, feeling regret already poisoning my thoughts, double back and walk through the pathway between Branford and Jonathan Edwards. I decide to go even further north to High Street gate, so that I can let some of the magic of Old Campus linger. 

I walk through the gate. Should I be crying right now? Not bawling, tears hanging off my chin, but maybe a little misty-eyed solemnity, a rapid-fire sequence of blinking to hide these grown-man emotions? Crying seems appropriate. Apropos, I think, to make-up for my lack of emotion during graduation, when the end was still hazy, wobbly, un-finalized and not very present, not with a summer in New York so close. Yes, tears should be shed, preferably while I keep walking through Old Campus, even if these high school students -- what program are they here for? -- wearing their tags of identification around their small, skinny necks will see me. Tears would work well here. It would be memorable. It would be quite a Capstone. Emotions. Melancholy. The end of childhood. 

But of course, I am nowhere near crying. Not in the same block, or borough, or continent. My neurons are not obeying my commands for sentimentality. It isn't as if this is some romantic comedy, where I just broke up with this school and its now nearly 20 billion dollar endowment. Plus, I am facing a more immediate problem. It is the problem of throwing away my sock.

Oh, you hadn't heard? Well, see, back on Chapel Street, I attained a splinter in my right shoe. I thought it was poetic. An extended metaphor for my stay at Yale: overall superb, but a little niggling and nagging, a prickle, a mini-crisis. I relished the thought at becoming a literal walking metaphor. 

But 10 steps in, I had enough. It hurt too much. I stopped, peeled back the sock, and tried to locate the source of my discomfort, but I couldn’t see it. So I slipped my shoe over my toes, and then over my heel, and started walking, sock in hand. Which was equally metaphorical, now that I think about it. Slightly unbalanced. Comfortable, successful, but imperceptibly uneven, slightly awry, askew.

My sock could go into my guitar backpack! I would carry it as an emblem of Yale. It would sit in my room for a week, and then I would go to the old shop downtown and frame it underneath the saltiest old glass I could find, append a label saying, "The Last Sock of Yale," and place it in safekeeping in an attic until I bought my own place, at which point this trophy would come back in blazing fashion, mounted above a fireplace, an instant-conversation starter. Hey what's so special about that sock?; Well, Mr. President, let me tell you, that sock has been through thick and thin with me. Why, back when I was at Yale...

I throw the sock away in a trash can on Old Campus.

100th post: MLK, pushups, and a push for breadth and height

Milestones, and the promises of social recognition inherent in their celebration, have been the fuel of my livelihood for the past 22 years. The possession is not conscious; I am a naturally competitive person, and, aided by my parents' exhortations to settle for nothing but the best, or perhaps an inability to believe that my life, as it stands, is the best of all possible worlds – à la Candide – I all too readily will yoke myself to short-lived, fiery quests.

This post is my 100^th. While that’s an accomplishment, by all objective standards, Peter Writes is diminutive. My page views average 130 per day; if the sun of the blogosphere universe is the Huffington Post, I am somewhere by Neptune, floating among its shallow moons. In a personally Pareto efficient activity market, I should be spending my days consulting, eating exotic fruit, or picking up women on the street, not writing a blog that, most likely, has 20 consistent readers. But to write is to engage in mental calisthenics with passion at my side; better, for me, to be a failed novelist than a blandly successful CEO. The particularly Sisyphean struggle of writing every single day has granted me patience and resilience, and it’s deepened my appreciation for small, kind acts. I’m talking specifically, of course, about the friendly emails and comments that have pushed me onwards in this (ig?)noble struggle. They mean a mighty lot. So, thank you.

Hitting the big one-double-zero provides me a convenient excuse to re-pivot this blog, and my life. This is a two-part series, with part two coming tomorrow. For today, let’s start by revisiting the last challenge I took: the quest for 10,000 pushups.

--

My first love affair was with numbers. Not Russell Bertrand's Principia Mathematica; think more of a Sesame Street sensibility: counting, categorizing, and quantifying. At Yale, I kept track of it all. In the 69 million seconds I spent at our peerless institution, I took 36 midterms, 20 finals, and wrote 10 final papers totaling 200 double spaced pages. At the dining hall, I ate over 2500 pieces of fruit. I was a guest at 4 roommate’s houses, wore down 14 pairs of shoes, collected 25 Yale related t-shirts, upped my eyeglass prescription 150 degrees, played football on cross campus at least 40 times, and blacked out while drunk exactly zero times. I ended up with a GPA barely lower than the number of girlfriends I’ve had, and I’ve contracted as many tropical diseases as I have won intermural basketball championships. Most importantly, during the 100 days of second semester senior year, I did 10,000 pushups.

6 years in journal entries: my life in high school and college, unfiltered

Get ready for an epic post. (5,000+ words.)

I started writing in a personal journal at the end of 8^th grade. The catalyst was a week-long trip to Yosemite, where, upon returning home, I read through my school-assigned journal and realized it would preserve my memories forever. From then, I started writing in 80-page spiral bound notebooks for an hour before bed.

Junior year of high school, July 28^th, 2005, I transitioned to Microsoft Word. I could write 5x as much, but it was a curse: unfiltered thoughts are 80% junk. That’s why blogging is better than journaling – I’m beholden to a story; it’s not a memory dump.

In college, I went through a personal archeology dig every 6 months or so, poring through old entries, wandering back to simpler times. We’re going to do it again today: here are, almost verbatim, my journal entries for every September 7^th since 2006. This is literally what I did on this day for the past 6 years. (I’ll update with my handwritten 2003-2005 entries in a year, when I’m back home). Exciting, right?

I was tempted to copy and paste, but I’ve gone back and re-written poor stylistic paragraphs, like a good author would.

You’ll note that sensitive names have been replaced with the names of Pokémon. If you want to know the Pokémon to human cipher, just email me and I’ll give you the key.

Unless you know me (or can guess the Pokémon) these entries aren’t really that interesting. I’d recommend 2007, but it’s similarly filled with references only a few people understand. And if my high school stuff doesn’t make sense, it’s because I don’t understand either. I think my 16 year old self assumed I could jot nebulous notes that would instantly spark my memory later on.

This isn’t the juiciest or best-written stuff. I’ve literally taken a random thin slice and placed it under the microscope. Maybe I’ll do a “best of” someday. For those of you who wondered what I’m writing about every day, well, prepare to have your mind blown (yea, right).

There’s so much psychoanalysis to be performed here, but I’ll leave that up to John Song. Here we go!

Alcohol and Peter: the 4-year relationship.

Back on June 16th, I wrote that I was working on a long-read about my relationship with alcohol. Nearly 3 months later, it's finished. Here's the story about why I never drink.

--

In high school, I never drank. There were, obviously, logistical obstacles: my mother was perpetually home, and my dad set a strict 11 p.m. curfew (Once I came home at 11:07 p.m., and ended up spending the night sleeping in my car.) But the real reason was that I never really wanted to drink.

I was content sober. My favorite activities were playing basketball at the local park (and NJB, and Asian-American basketball), playing Starcraft: Brood Wars, managing my fantasy sports teams, practicing for Speech and Debate tournaments, and, uh, doing homework. On my 16th birthday, I refused wine from my grandparents, even as the brimming cup stained my top lip. I knew what alcohol tasted like: wine was extra-tart juice, and beer was bitter. I understood it was an acquired taste, but I also understood that those who acquired it would eventually live their lives out of half-way homes.

During Bulldog Days, Yale's visitation weekend for admitted students, I was, for the first time in my life, surrounded by peers who drank. It was a sharp education in college’s social dynamics. I had prepared for my visit by reading the infamous Crimson article, The Cult of Yale, which explained to me that Yale's non-existent alcohol policy spurred its late-night revelry. At night, I bounced between parties, watching the tipsy masses, but also noticing an invisible majority of sober citizens, like me. We stood on the side, though, watching the group shots and beer pong, absorbing the room's energy. I didn't like life on the fringe, but it was a comfortable, convenient location to place my psyche. I didn't drink once during the weekend.

Eight days after Bulldog Days, I decided to attend Yale. I told my friends (and local journalists) Yale students were simply happier. I didn't know how much alcohol contributed to the increase, and I didn't care to know. What I knew was that by the time I arrived on campus, I needed to decide exactly what my stance was on alcohol. To be honest, I didn't fret over the decision too much. One day during summer, Chris told me, “Alcohol is nothing special – it’s just a social lubricant. If you don’t need it, you don’t need to drink it.” And that settled that. I didn't need alcohol.

I arrived on campus on the 24th of August, 2007. 6 days in the woods with FOOT came and went. During Camp Yale, I attended my first official party: Sig Kai's Luau, a rite of passage for every Yale freshman arriving to New Haven. When I arrived, I was lei'd, and in the frat's backyard one of the brothers handed me a neon drink from a plastic keg on a wobbly, dirty table. Welcome to college!

The drink felt weighty in my hand. I joined a group and pretended to take a sip. After 20 minutes, I passed the cup off to someone else. I forget what my excuse was. That was my first "experience" with alcohol.

--

Malcolm Gladwell wrote that society controls our temperance in three ways: moralizing, legalizing, and medicalizing. As college went on, a combination of all three constrained any temporary urges I had to drink. My parents would call me every month and tell me I shouldn't be drinking. I grew up my entire life adhering to rules, no matter how improbable the punishments. So legally, not being 21, I couldn't touch alcohol. As for medicalizing: it wasn't that I did my research -- I just saw too many jokers passed out during Freshman Screw. Plus, I'd occasionally grab the flab of skin on my stomach and broil in paranoia that I was becoming fat. (For my virtual acquaintances: my BMI is 20.2.)

For the first three years of college, I didn't drink. I did, however, pretend to be drunk, laugh at people who were drunk, and hold a drink in my hand, pretending to drink. At parties, people asked why I wouldn't take a shot with them, and I always gave the same answer: "It's a social lubricant, and I refuse to use a crutch." I don't know why I stuck to that answer, because it would always detract from the general flow of the conversation. Personally, I never thought any less of the people who did drink. I just thought more of myself more highly. I realized I was missing out on the delectable social offerings of college: DKE Tang, wine and cheese mixers, pre-games. It was a small price to pay to maintain my purity.

My first drink was at Yamato, a hip sushi bar in Westwood, California, during a summer internship junior year. Here's what I wrote about the experience.

I had my first real drinks tonight. It was unplanned, and almost too normal. It also improved the general complexion of the night much more than if I hadn’t drank anything. I walked into the restaurant and immediately took a shot of sake. I was burning red five minutes later. I maybe drank a ¼ a of beer later, but I was already "gone": I talked too much and joked incessantly, the jokes coming out smoothly, easily, calmly, about absurd topics (orgies, attractiveness, kleptomania)—and I said more than I needed to, but I didn't care. I was effusive with my praise: I told A he was great and really chill, and he returned the gesture almost out of forced necessity. At the end of the night, I forced myself to talk in measured, serious tones, partly because the other interns were ribbing me about being drunk. Downside: how low I felt afterwards. 

And that was it. That was my first drink. No up-welling of morality included. I crossed the line I had been toeing for the last four years and there were no regrets or consequences, though now, being wiser and older, I wish I had told them it was my first drink ever. I drank once more, two weeks later (three shots and a beer), and felt fine. My tolerance was increasing drastically. Then July 3rd came.

The company-wide email read, "Peter Lu's 21st Epic Birthday Celebration," or something equally outrageous. That night, I showed up ready to impress. So when the 24-year-olds around me handed me a black sharpie and ordered me to have 21 black marks on my arm before the end of the night, I nonchalantly took it in stride. My mind was empty; I was an unthinking receptacle of stimuli.

In the first hour, I took 7 shots.

Here's the journal entry from that night:

I have claw marks on my arm—6 perpendicular to my veins, one slashing through them diagonally. The drink count, people called it. I was doing well too: I was on track for 21. 4 shots in the first 20 minutes, 3 shots in the next 40, a drink at the club. The first seven went down so smoothly, with so little repercussions, that I truly believed that 15, maybe 20, was within reach. I'd never taken more than 3 shots, ever, but convinced myself turning 21 gave me superhuman strength. 

 The drink mix: gray goose and vodka, beer, a little Coke and Sprite. The place: R's apartment, USC flag hung proudly, a wave of smooth ambiance and conversation wrapped around us like a soft shelled cocoon. When the cabs came, I sat with K, talking about his departure into start-up land. At the bar, he bought me a red bull, and as I drank it slowly (I knew I was going to die if I took too much of it with alcohol), he noted that he was going to miss LA. 

The dancing was 45 minutes. I did my thing and didn’t care about what people thought; I thought, through the haze, about what I would have felt if I had been completely sober. I danced and danced, not caring about anything, and then went to the bathroom. I sat down, sat down again, closed my eyes, and almost passed out. 

B told me we were going home. I walked out of the club and felt fine, except I couldn't walk straight. My brain was wrapped in that gauzy fluid constricting its mental movement. After grabbing my hat, I saw the cabs, then a palm tree, and held onto one for dear life. 

I could feel the vomit coming out, and as such, I hurled, smooth and easy, 4 different times, as B said, "That’s right, get it out, get it out," while telling the pedestrians it was my 21^st today. I managed to talk between nausea and actually hurling; I remember telling K I loved the tree, that it was the sturdiest piece of Mother Earth ever created, that I wanted to stay here forever, that I needed 2 more minutes. B and K dragged me into the cab and we left.

The best feeling of the night was the cool air rushing over my face in the cab. I almost told the taxi driver to drive around 30 more minutes just so I stay comatose there. I don't remember the walk to the apartment, but I do remember collapsing in bed, managing to take off all my clothes (how my wife beater landed on the other side I will never know) and experimenting with various positions until, 2 hours later, I finally fell asleep. I thought of Tommy puking on the couch junior year, and felt proud of myself for getting it out of my system early. When I woke up, at 1040am, I realized I was in my co-worker's girlfriend's roommate's bed, and on my phone were 4 text messages of varying urgency. It was great.   

I’m never getting drunk again. Never. I know what B said: “I tell myself I’m never doing it again, and somehow it ends up happening over and over.” But I have more control, and it's not a habit yet. At the very least, I understand my tolerance level (a beer and maybe one shot) and know now what I need to have a good night. Being completely trashed and throwing up will not be in the books for a very, very long time. Certainly not next week, and not during senior year. If I feel like drinking, I'll think about the +-10minutes of vomiting, when I literally thought I wasn't going to make it past the night. My social hesitancy disappeared, but it wasn't worth the fall. And being drunk corroborated my initial prediction of 4 years ago: I can be as gregarious as I want to be without the influence of alcohol.  

Of course, I didn't hold myself to that standard. In Vegas mid-July, at R's birthday, I took a double shot of Patron, which led to an amazing night. And beginning of senior year, I proclaimed it subtly: Peter drinks now.

As the weekends of tipsiness ensued, I was beginning to realize, with a creeping insidiousness, that I was  depending on alcohol to go out. I felt bad about using it to mollify my social fears, but I felt as bad when I wasn't out. Either way, I felt guilty.

Thanksgiving in Boston for Harvard-Yale, I went overboard at MIT. It wasn't actually a prodigious amount of alcohol: just 2 drinks. But the manner with which I took them was egregious. My cravenly self -- I was like a vulture looking for a carcass, asking everyone around me for a drink, and taking a used cup to pour myself the dregs of what was left. It was the worst kind of instinct: give me alcohol, so I can escape my brain. I forgot about the incident in the short-term future, but now, looking back, it gives me the chills.

I drank on and off the rest of senior year. Wine-tasting at Master Chun's house, the $40 bingefest YCC sponsored at Crown 116 event, Mardi Gras FourLoko -- they were special occasions, with the force of peer pressure to push me over the top. Then, I was sure this would be the model for my relationship with alcohol for the rest of my life.

During one of the last days of Yale, I ran into Derrick C. on Cross Campus. We joked around, like usual, but towards the end of the conversation broached the topic of alcohol. He told me he hadn't drank at all in college. I remembered the conversation we had as freshman, when he told me he was outgoing enough not to need alcohol. Seeing his success four years later made me realize I had failed. I had transformed from the brash and excitable freshman who needed nothing to interact with people to a staid and contemplative senior who justified the use of alcohol as social lubrication. Right then and there, I decided, no matter how painful it would be, that I would not drink anymore.

Other than one drink this summer, I've kept my word. I still believe in the spartan modus operandi: I need nothing external to be happy. There are no comfort foods; there is no comfort drink. What I'm going to achieve, social and otherwise, will be achieved while cogent and self-aware. I'm losing out on experience, I'm gaining in self-resolve and character. It's an unorthodox worldview, I know, but no worse than the dad in Calvin and Hobbes, the junkie for pain in below-zero bike rides.

Five years from now, my mindset might change. Right now, I'm sticking to my guns.

The 2007 - 2011 Yale class rankings

I might be in the Philippines, but that doesn't mean I can't feel in a Yale mood. Let's have a little fun and rank the 36 classes I took, from worst to first.

There are multiple biases in this list. Seminars have a natural advantage over lectures; because I cared more about academics junior and senior year, those classes are ranked higher. Rankings are not a reflection on a professor's personality, personal life, or research. And all opinions are inevitably biased by my own personal interests, as they should be.

Advice, if I could do it over again? 1. Avoid all gut classes. 2. Forget the Econ major. 3. Prioritize professors, not subject matter. 

Here it is: my Fall 2007 to Spring 2011 Yale Class Rankings.

Group G: "Never, Ever, Under Any Circumstances"

36. Intermediate Microeconomics, Eduardo Faingold

I don't want to be mean here, so I won't be. (Just look at the student evaluations. Lowest ever?)

35. Introductory Microeconomics, Justine Hastings

My first economics class at Yale. Greg Mankiw, she wasn't. The topic is like Defense Against the Dark Arts: cursed, no matter who tries. Here's what the semi-secretive word-of-mouth "gut list" email had to say:

"WHAT To Not Take:
MICROECONOMICS: I cannot with any clear conscience send out a mass email and not remind everyone on the face of the earth not to take MICRO unless you like awful boring classes that you will end up getting a C+ in. Seriously though, utility curves are cool. So are horrible professors, arbitrarily shitty curves, tedious work, and gleaning no greater of economics whatsoever.... but for the 200 of you who take it... I told you so."

34. International Studies: Contemporary Challenges, Paul Kennedy

So rarely does a professor hit that sleep-inducing tonal range perfectly. Other people loved him; I couldn't keep my eyes open, even when I sat in the front row (how embarrassing!).

33. Psychology Statistics, Teresa Treat

This low ranking actually isn't her fault. I took the class Credit/D/Fail and attended lecture 3 times all semester. The Psychology department must have realized how impossible it is to fail the course, because the semester after I took it, they mandated Psych Stats has to be taken for a grade.

32. Chemistry in Popular Novels, Iona Black

The idea was novel (pun intended): read lurid mystery stories where chemistry plays an incisive role. Discuss the books and learn the chemistry concepts. The problem was that the books blew. (Think "Culinary Mystery Series.") The chemistry barely cracked AP levels. The only redeeming factor was that for the final I wrote a 15-page short story about a young UC Berkeley couple that stops an evil conglomerate from poisoning the world's chocolate supply. Holla at me if you want to read the delicious page-turner.

Group F: "Not Filling (Gut)"

31. Intro to Cognitive Science, Brain Scholl

30. English 114, Paula Resch

29. Calculus 115 (Calc BC), Steven Jaslar

28. Introductory Macroeconomics, Anthony Smith, Gerald Jaynes

27. Economics of Natural Resources, Robert Mendelsohn

For the most part, these are not traditional gut classes, but they were too easy for me. This doesn't mean they weren't fun or interesting: I loved the readings in Resch's class, and the frameworks in Econ of Natural Resources were eye-opening. Every professor on this list was also caring and accommodating. But these classes were my easy way out: I took Math 115 instead of 118 or 120; Intro to Cog Sci instead of Intro to the Human Brain; English 114 instead of 120. I fulfilled requirements and had more time for extracurriculars, but if I could, I'd take a do-over.

edit: I'm not changing the ranking, but I have to add: Intro Macro was great. Jaynes wore a seersucker suit every class and used the Davies auditorium projector as his pulpit, preaching instead of lecturing. He reminds me of this song. The last lecture, Smith played a funny economics YouTube video I can't find anymore (Tommy, you remember?) Also, the class was at 1 p.m., so I'd come from lunch toting 3 peaches, and leave the pits on the floor while I took my "I'm-full-of-food" nap. The second best memory from an Economics class, researching Miracle fruit with Duck Ju in Faingold, doesn't even come close.

Group E: "Solid but Antiquated"

26. Epidemics in Global Perspective, William Summers

25. Intermediate Macroeconomics, William Nordhaus

Epidemics was my freshman seminar, which meant I met 14 first-years, took a field trip to Professor Summers' apartment in NY, and spent class time discussing the transition to college. The readings -- The Plague, The Cholera Years -- were interesting enough, but the way the class was set up, everyone realized they could get away without doing them. The discussions decayed, and by the end of the semester, I was frustrated and apathetic.

Nordhaus is famous in economic circles, and knowing this fact made me listen more intently during lecture. I even sat in the second seat in the classroom, so that his shoes would sometime kick against mine. I didn't learn by osmosis, though. The material just never came to life, and the impersonal nature of the lecture worked against any longstanding desire I had to learn more about the NBER.

Group D: "Pleasantly Amusing Psychology Classes"

24. Emotional Intelligence, Marc Brackett

23. Research Methods in Psychology, Woo-Kyoung Ahn

22. Psychology, Biology, and Politics of Food, Kelly Brownell

21. Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature, Laurie Santos

The meat of my psychology major. I gorged myself during lectures, fingers flying over the keyboard typing theories, facts, and research dos-and-don'ts. I can instantly recall details of the facial feedback hypothesis, the warm-cold first impression spectrum, the prevalence of food deserts in US urban areas, and the human tendency to pair-bond (while wanting to be polygamous). Anyone with an interest in psychology should love these classes.

Group C: "Endurance Training"

20. Game Theory, Ben Polak

19. The U.S. Banking System, Nick Perna

18. Directed Research - Psychology, Food Policy and Science, Kelly Brownell, Jennifer Harris

17. Decision Making Welfare and the Brain, Julian Jamison

16-11. Elementary Heritage Chinese, Advanced Heritage Chinese, Duke in China (6), Liang, Li, Kang 老师

I never had an intrinsic love for these Group C classes, nor was I enamored with the professors. They did, though, give me the an opportunity to create something meaningful in an area I never thought I would have cared about. Whether it was a 30-page final about the fall of Washington Mutual; a senior essay about the effects of advertising on the taste of food; or research on the link between happiness and GDP, I'm proud of the all-nighters and the struggle. The classes taught me resilience and gave me confidence that I could pull off legitimate insights in areas I wasn't naturally enthused about.

Chinese was a different sort of endurance training. Freshman year, I woke up everyday at 8:45 a.m to walk to 212 York Street. How I managed to finish the daily homework during breakfast and do decently well on the quizzes is beyond my comprehension. If L1 and L2 was a marathon, Duke in China -- 8-hour intensive Chinese classes every day -- was the final sprint. I was as good as a native speaker in non-professional conversation by August 2008. I might not haven taken any Chinese for the last 2 years, but the knowledge is still there. 

Group B: "Slip-N-Slide Fun: Fast, With a Little Burn"

10. History of Life, Derek Briggs, Leo Hickey and Nick Longrich

I know what you're thinking: what is a science class doing here? Fossils, the earth's atmosphere, different types of igneous rock: this is boring. Which would have been a true if I took it as a freshman. Instead, I took this class second semester senior year, when I had already begun to miss Yale. I loved Derek Briggs' dry wit; I spent time hanging out at the Peabody; I walked to the Geology building during finals week to study.

The TAs pushed the class over the top. All 5 were passionate first-year geology students (we're one of the best Paleontology departments in the country), and all nerds. Every time I asked a question, they immediately responded with the answer plus a dozen superfluous facts. They met me at odd hours of the day, answered emails well into the night. Their excitement made me excited.

9. Listening to Music, Craig Wright

I shouldn't have taken this Credit/D/Fail. Professor Wright has an infectious enthusiasm for music, and held everyone's hands through musical basics. The textbook and CD box set was money well spent; the assignments were fun. (For example: watch Fantasia.) Unlike Treat's class, I attended every lecture, and left with a renewed appreciation for the music my parents listen to.

8. Behavioral Perspectives on Management, Joe Simmons

Probably the easiest class that I've ever taken at Yale. Let's see: 5 quizzes, 2 minutes each; 4 one-page "reflections"; one 10-page paper final. I didn't take the class because there was no work; that was actually just a happy misunderstanding. I walked to SOM twice a week because Simmons is an amazing lecturer (2nd best I've had). He regularly cracked jokes about his wife, NFL football, other professors, and students in class, and broke down complex phenomena into bite-sized pieces. The readings were also from the New Yorker.

7. Musical Language of Poetry, Dave Johnson

My first, and probably only foray into poetry. I got in only because it was a BK seminar; that's what you call a stroke of luck. On the first day of class, Dave Johnson, a slick Southerner with the requisite accent, played a jazz tune and asked us to "feel the flow of the words." The entire semester, we wrote poetry with our ears, which is much more fun than counting syllables every line. I ended up writing 13 poems, and experienced the poetic evolution from "Poetry is so easy" to "Everything I'm writing is crap." I now read poetry regularly, something I never thought I would do. The class, other than helping me develop a new skill, let me develop a taste for an art form.

6. Introduction to Psychology, Marvin "The Man" Chun

Let's forget for a second that the man was my college Master. Can we just talk about how incredible his first lecture is? The optical illusions, the gorilla walking through the ball game (I didn't see him) -- we gave him a standing ovation when it was over. I had never taken psychology in high school; never even considered it in college, and this class catalyzed my academic path in college.

Group A: "Unforgettable"

5. Social Psychology, John Bargh

The pantheon of lecture classes. Bargh is probably the most famous psychology professor at Yale, top 10 in the world. His lectures were like the "Pleasantly Amusing Psych Classes" on steroids: I have 35 pages of notes from his 13 lectures I still go back and look through because they're just so informative. Golden standard. 

4. Reading and Writing the Modern Essay, Alfred Guy

Most Yalies take this class freshman year. I took it junior year. And only to fulfill the writing requirement. When I walked through the door the first day, I expected to drop the class. I'd heard about the workload and the tough grading curve. I was also a horrible writer. Thankfully, Alfred Guy walked through the door. He had a long ponytail, wore a suit with a crazy tie, and in time, he coaxed me out of my shell and inspired me to write about topics I cared about. He gave me the freedom to explore my own voice, as trite as that sounds. After a semester, he told me something nobody had ever said before: that I was a good writer. 

Plus, the guy's got karma in spades: he won a quarter million dollars in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

3. Principles of Behavior Therapy, Alan Kazdin

The most practical, hands-on, innovative class I have taken at Yale. Kazdin has been teaching this class for years, and he's honed the syllabus to the essentials. It's a 2 hour class, but we'd regularly leave 30 minutes early because he was so efficient. In a sentence: this class teaches you how to become a better person by giving you a method in which to drive self-improvement. It also teaches you how to change the behavior of others. He only takes senior psychology majors, so good luck getting in. If you do, you'll embark on a semester-long project where you try to change a friend or family member's behavior (going to the gym, cleaning up a room, stop saying "um"). The lectures are precise, short, and full of practical information. If I could say one thing about this class, it's that it has the most real life applicability of any I've ever seen.

And if that wasn't enough, get this: it's the only class where I'm bringing the textbook -- all 560 pages -- with me to the Philippines. Yup.

2. Reading Fiction for Craft, Michael Cunningham

For all of senior year second semester, I was in awe of Michael Cunningham. It didn't start out that way: I had no idea how big a deal he was when I applied. I got into his advanced seminar, but he recommended I check out his intro seminar and take the one I liked better. I ended up taking his intro class -- and good thing I had the backdoor in, because there were 169 applications for 14 13 spots.

Cunningham's greatest contribution to my life was to give me hope I could make fiction writing a profession. I was comfortable writing non-fiction, could decently describe the real world, but I'd never written anything made up before. He led the class through exercises on structure, voice, character development, beginnings and endings, and gave us insider information on the editing process of his own short stories. I asked him too many questions over email, and he answered them all. 

During one of our last classes, he told us, "If you have the talent, you'll make it as a fiction writer, no matter how long it takes." He told me I had the talent. A little positive reinforcement: that's all I need. 

1. Advanced Nonfiction Writing, Anne Fadiman

I said it all here. But one note to add: this is probably the one course that changed the course of my life. It's why I dropped my economics major, it's partly why I'm in the Philippines, it's absolutely why I'm writing this blog. If you ever have a chance to take her class, drop everything for it. It might change your life too.

My class schedule for this semester

ECON 456 01 (11604) Private Equity Investing Michael Schmertzler M 1.30-3.20

ENGL 463 01(12033) WritingFantasy&ScienceFiction John Crowley M 1.30-3.20

F&ES 732 01 (11296) Tropical Forest Ecology Florencia Montagnini MW 1.00-2.20 GML

MGT 887 01 (10926) Negotiations:Beyond Win-Win Daylian Cain M 1.00-4.00 PR135

ART 230 01 (12334) Introductory Painting Robert Reed MWF 10.30-12.20

Oh, I forgot: I graduated. Shoot. We can dream, though, can't we?

Cleaning Yale: My New Haven janitor, Sherri B.

“I would definitely consider leaving here. In a heartbeat.”

Sherri B.’s hips are hanging over the sides of her chair. When she shifts her body, the fat sways, a consequence of her middle-age operations. She doesn't seem to notice.

There is no hiding certain signs of her rough upbringing. Freckles and oblong black bumps dot the contours of her cheek. Her chin falls into folds of skin; they move rhythmically as she speaks. Her face, distinctive and wholesome from afar, is in reality a haphazard amalgamation of beauty tips. She turns her body and looks at me. “Would you consider living in New Haven? You wouldn’t live here, would you?”

Sherri is my janitor. Every day between ten o’clock and noon, she climbs the steps of my entryway, jerking a sanitation cart in her left hand and a sopping mop in her right. Her rounds have become more difficult since she had knee surgery two months ago, and by the time she is at my room on the fourth floor, she admits to being out of breath. When Sherri walks, the small bulge of keys in her front pocket jingles, announcing her entry—insofar as a janitor can get noticed. 

It wasn’t like this eighteen years ago, when Sherri first started working for Yale. She headed her own small division in catering, where she met all the celebrities: “I was doing catering parties for the president of Yale, I done saw presidents from different countries, I done seen secret service from different presidents. Actors, actresses.” She loved the job. 

In 2005, she fell in a basement and needed multiple back surgeries. Two years later, she transferred into custodial services. Her current work is menial, uninspiring, and sometimes painful. Sherri has gotten over the demotion. “We make 17 an hour. It might not seem like nothing but you’re not going to go nowhere else and get that kind of money. Everyone in the inner city want to work at Yale University.”

Her time at Yale has been her personal blessing. She met her second husband, now of fifteen years, while he was a cook in the Calhoun College kitchen. At her catering job, she had the power to recommend others, and as a result Sherri’s friends and eldest daughter are all working forty hour weeks. Due to Yale’s generous first time house-buyer program, Sherri and her husband have a home in West Haven, and Yale has paid for twenty five thousand of the down payment and two thousand towards taxes every year for ten years. Her six children, four with Maurice, are taken care of for college: Yale subsidizes half their tuition at any place of higher education. But perhaps most importantly, Yale has taken her out of New Haven’s grittiest neighborhoods.

How to write a FOOT co-leader poem

Ah, FOOT.* (Ooh, I look like an Asian grandpa on the site!)

I found this in the figurative dust bin of my computer, and do not want to lose it.

to Jeannette:

if sleet mud thunder sweep ashore / and FOOTies, in tempests sway / or we’re attacked by a tyrannosaur / I’d still know we’d be ok / conjoined, in co-leader bliss / you’ll save me from any abyss / the denizen, of adrenaline / my bestie, Jeannette Penniman.

Solid, not spectacular. I've heard 4 years worth of poems, most written on the backs of index cards the morning of; some are absolutely amazing. I wish there was a FOOT poem database.

Last year, 349 days ago, I took an hour to write the above poem. There was a 5-step process. 

1. Break down co-leader's name into appropriate consonants and vowels.

Penniman Jeannette

P

EEEE

NNNNN

I

M

AA

J

TT

2. Play with instant anagram machine and write a poem inspired by hilarious combinations.

Dear Jeannette,

Neater Jeep Tent.

That’s an anagram of our names, I meant.

Seriously though, you’re quite a coquette with the alphabet,

The 4 E’s and 5 N’s in your name aim to exclaim,

This woman is no normal dame!

She’s actually a denizen of adrenaline

My co-leader, Jeannette Penniman.

3. Scrap crappy first poem and jot notes about co-leader:

Green / no internet / farm life / warrior / badass / dried apples / year off / lives close by /

4. Attempt to freestyle a poem and fail miserably.

‘tis AT1, lofty peaks and valleys devouring / rain mud thunder in our wake / ah wait! I see it

5. Write better poem. (Above.)

Somebody, for the love of God, record the poetry gala this year when all the FOOTies arrive. Or at least keep the index cards.

* Note: Non-Yalies: FOOT = Freshman Outdoor Orientation Trip. Freshman arrive on campus before classes begin and go on week-long hike through the New England wilderness. I hiked in the Berkshires as a freshman; I led a trip on the Appalachian Trail.

4 years at Yale

When I have writers block, the best remedy is to keep pounding out words, even if the bulk is pure doggerel. The second best cure is to capitulate to the amateur poet inside me. I know I've been promising all these essays, but for now, here's an all-encompassing poem about, well, Yale.

Bella Villa

We stripped on a warm day,

saw faces: yellow, tan, small noses

and slight frames, hipsters in

converse and cotton. A sherry, a ben.

We walked toeing crowns,

hometown and major,

steps and a swipe on a broken

couch, an empty container.

We caught wax dinners,

let napkins fold our facades, plates

criss-crossed with thin dry green beans.

They were all so promising.

We found a lighthouse streaming

purple light, piano minor keys

and a vase stuffed with

ripped posters and soggy ink.

Turn around and no island, but

a storm and earthy leaves;

gowns; old basketball shorts;

our rooms, piles of melancholy and socks.

Archive of Previous Work

Allow this one post for self-indulgence: I’ve never organized my work in one place, and it seemed reasonable to compile it here for easy reference. So, now: all my work that resides in the bowels of the internet:

YDN, organized not by date, but by the 2011 NBA Finals.

Dirk – when the pressure's on, you just know he's going to perform.

• Yale with no regrets: First column. 2 hours on a Wednesday night. Bob Woodward read it when he came to visit, and said something like, “I was really touched by this piece…” Highlight of my life? Most likely.
• Four years of psychology: Tips and tricks for everyday living.
• The Unrivaled Life: Chang-Rae Lee inspired.
• The Study of Seduction: English 120 piece, expanded. Propelled me into creative writing at Yale.

Wade – killer instinct, except for the rare occasion when he dribbles it off his foot. Sigh.

• At Yale, expect to surprise yourself: Probably my this-is-what-my-Yale-experience-was-like capstone piece.
• Bain baby Bain: Came out the only day the YDN didn’t come out, because of snow.
• Breaking the habit: How I became a writer.
• Partying, partying…yeah? New Orleans, spring break, the homeless.
• Vitamin soup for the soul: My mom’s habits when it came to feeding us.
• A not-so-sweet shoppe: Frustration with Durfee’s.
• Get your flow on: C-Hoops. Put 2 months of my life into that extracurricular.
• Young mind, Old soul: History of Life as a SC credit – definitely worth the trek to the Peabody.
• Of prisons and papers: Those New Haven Correctional Facility days.

Terry/Kidd -- seasoned vets, smelling the finish line.

• Do you see what I see? About my horrible vision.
• Sweet Seniority: Didn’t know I was writing until 2 hours before deadline. Ah, the YDN.
• For the love of Bass: The darn 1:45am close time at Bass.
• Going Steady or Ridin’ Solo? John and I. Joint piece, though I’m not sure I believe what I wrote. The story was true, though.

Lebron – eek.

• Driftwood: I used to think I was a good poet when this was published – I was completely delusional.
• The immediate difference a YDN op-ed makes: Super excited.
• AASA exists to inform: Back in sophomore year. Nice.

Midnight at Yale:

• Quick hits: bucket list, and another bucket list. I really like making lists.
• Snow sculptures: Nothing except for the best sculptures on campus. Junior year, James and I had the 2^nd best sculpture with the Totoro (after our evil bunny rabbit was knocked down); senior year, Nate and Ed and I did the 1^st place turtles and igloo.

Assorted publications:

• Mitrah A., for Yale’s 50 most beautiful people. Lot of fun doing this one.
• Of mules and men, Yale Wheel. About my summer in Ecuador. A related video of my experience with food too, on Vimeo.
• World Hunger, Yale Herald. I’m embarrassed just to link to it, it’s so bad. At least my freshman year Herald articles about ping-pong, IM squash, Kate Grace, and volleyball aren’t online.
• I also interned for a stint at the New Haven Advocate, and produced 11 briefs on the state of the city (and country).
• Asian American Students Alliance: there is not much – the real documents are offline.

Finally, my two forays into the blogosphere:

• http://allthedukesmen.blogspot.com/ For the light fellowship, summer of 2008. Enjoyable; so enjoyable.
• http://10thousandpushups.tumblr.com/ The quest to 10,000 pushups, with John and Nate. Great, great second semester senior year experience. I might rework some of my better posts for current use.

Find me on Quora!!!