Argentina Arrival!

It's taken me a really long time to get around to writing this post, mostly because I haven't been able to make very good use of my time here yet. Mostly, I've been sleeping and going to classes because after trying to speak and understand Spanish all day, I'm just tired out. But the last couple of days have proved more eventful, so I thought I would share.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photographer taking my pictures for this trip so I'll just take it off the web though I have a couple from a friend's camera. In terms of places visited (well, the touristy ones) were mostly from the tour of the the barrio (neighborhood). We went to Plaza de Mayo and saw La Casa Rosa, where the president works and Caminita in La Boca as well. It was in Caminita that I had my first alfajores, a chocolate covered dulche de leche sandwich between crackers. I almost died. Speaking of dying, we also visited a cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. They had beautiful carved tomb houses made up of granite, marble, stone, among other materials.

Caminita, La Boca

Casa Rosada 

with cemetery cats

I also had a chance to get to know some of the food here. Dinner here is at 9 or 9:30 PM which I normally eat with my host family. So far I've had Milanesa (breaded meat) or some other type of meat or pasta. Home food hasn't been super interesting by any means but I had Milanesa Napoliana, which was what I had at home topped with tomato sauce, cheese and ham. 

absolutely fantastic

The cafe culture is really big here but so far I've only been to the local cafes really close to my house to work. I still have tried medialunes, a sweet version of croissants, and submarinos, which is hot chocolate except better. They warm up the milk for you and give you a piece of chocolate to melt it in. It really is to die for! I also had a chance to try mate, a traditional tea that perks you up without caffeine. It is very bitter and I didn't have sugar on hand, so I'm definitely down for trying it again but this time with the suger. There is a lot of pastry shops around and today I grabbed a piece of cake for breakfast tomorrow. I'll write about how that goes. 

mate with straw usually with a thermos

Another super interesting thing I've noticed about the culture so far is like "kioscos" that are like convenience stores except they really only sell drinks and chocolates. They are everywhere! My host sister's boyfriend on multiple occasions have run down to one at the end of the block for a chocolate dessert. So far I've tried a Milka bar that has white chocolate on the inside and white chocolate on the outside, Marsco, a better version of Reese's Pieces, and Bocadito, a dulche de leche filled chocolate. I think Argentines are super into sweet things which I absolutely have not objections about what so ever. 

What is difficult about being the few asian people here, traveling with a friend who is black is being stared at pretty often, and being easy target for pick-pocketing, random honking, and stares, among other things. But honestly, we do the same thing in Korea so I'm learning to not let it bother me. 

Hopefully, I can get around finishing that book... 

Until then,

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Some of the books that have me cringe and cry enough to close a book, only to gather up enough courage to read the rest have been Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. When I saw in the Philippines that a new book had come out, I knew I had to get my hands on it.

And the Mountains Echoed has a very approach I became familiar with by reading Jodi Picoult. She likes to take the voice of different audiences to create her story. Similarly, Hosseini has used both different characters' voices and flashbacks to keep the reader constantly working out the storyline and on the edge of their seats to know the ending. In a way, it was infuriating to have the story cut midway, scrambling to figure out what happened, but in hindsight it could only mirror what it must have felt for Pari who must try to piece together a life she barely remembers. Set in 1952 Afghanistan, the book begins with a bedtime story Abdullah is told by his father Saboor; it is a story that contains so much of the rest of the book including a Sophie's choice, the gift of oblivion, and emptiness we can never seem to fill.

 Saboor and his youngest daughter, Pari, set out to Kabul to meet Nabi who is his brother in-law who has promised Saboor a job building an addition to Nabir's employer's, Mr. Wahdati's, house. But it turns out the trip is to trade Pari, who will be adopted as part of the Wahdati house, for money to feed the family through the winter. As the story is pieced together through the eyes of different people, it turns out Pari lives a life of luxury, being well-fed and well-educated in France after Nila (formerly Mr. Wahdati) left the paralyzed Mr. Wahdati for Nabi to take care of. In the meanwhile, Abduallah, Parwana, Iqbal (Parwana and Saboor's youngest son), and Saboor leave for refugee camp in Pakistan when the war breaks out. We find out Abudullah leaves for the US with his wife and settles down, running a restaurant of his own. Iqbal goes back to Afghanistan during the US occupancy to reclaim the house they all grew up, only to see a wealthy army general who had been part of the jihad had built an enormous mansion for his family there. Angered, Iqbal attacks the house and is assumably killed. Pari and Abdullah are finally united through tragically so as Abdullah suffers from Alzheimers and cannot recognize that the women standing in front of him is the little sister he had so longed to find.

As usual, book cover

There is a shift for Hosseini in writing style and character development, compared to his previous books. In Kite Runner characters are almost purely good or bad, while in A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini manages to develop the characters towards the end. But characters are much more human with greater depth in this novel as they are forced to fight for their livelihood. I still haven't decided if the introduction and integration of so many characters into the story line has helped the story line or dilute it. The middle-end section focusing on the foreign aid worker and his early life in Tinos did not seem to add to the overall colorfulness Hosseini tries to recreate for the authors. 

Undoubtedly, Hosseini's relies on his melodramatic and theatrical senses to bring the story home. At the very end of the book as Pari receives the tin box full of the feathers her brothers had once collected for her and she sheds tears before fading away in her sleep, I could almost here the cue. cut. of the director who would make this movie. This also meant that there was a lack of subtlety-- Hosseini felt the need to spell out key aspects of the book for the readers, rather than letting the readers do the work for him. 

I also think that an author's best works are often based off the experience he or she once had. As what I believe to be Hosseini's best work, And the Mountains Echoed contains characters with whom Hosseini could only too well empathize. Having born in Kabul but then moving to the US in 1980s well before the rise of the Taliban, Hosseini returns to Afghanistan for mixed motives, most likely. He sees a country that has changed so much compared to his childhood memories and ends up writing stories about his homeland, rocketing him to fame as one of the most riveting authors of our time. This can't be that much more different than the two cousins who have returned only to reclaim what belongs to their family or more directly Nila who went to Nabi's hometown, saw the poor state and misery people lived in, only to go back to her bubble of security and write about its horrors for some applause at a party. I've made a lot of assumptions in this part of the blog and I can't help but wonder  how much of it is true. 

Overall, an amazing read that kept me glued to my tablet. I wanted to read Sophie's Choice and watch the movie on the way to Argentina, but I'll upload something when I get the chance. Next time I blog, it will be in a different continent! 

Until then, 

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

Because I can't haul all my books to Argentina and Korea, my older sister has graciously lent me her tablet to use for the rest of the summer. Instead of reading Sophie's World, I ended up reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell on the tablet on the Kindle app. 

A review on the tablet, first of all. I LOVE it. While I've seen people say they are easily distracted by the features, I felt more engrossed in the book then when I am reading on paper. This is pretty interesting considering that normally I found reading on the screen very annoying and difficult. I also have not felt any strain on the eyes, but then again, this is only the first time and it might just be the novelty of the situation that has allowed me to rip through this book in record time. 

What the app icon looks like

Outliers is mostly about how our past, including experiences, opportunities, and cultural inheritance shape our successes and failures in the world. The first section is mostly about opportunities. He goes through a list of high successful people in the world and how specific experiences, regardless of how they presented themselves at the time, led a specialization in a skill that was highly demanded when the world changed. It is a combination of opportunities and being born when those experiences were being valued that led to success, not necessarily individual merit or intelligence. It is not to say that these people were not hard-working and passionate. Grit is why they succeeded over others who had similar background. I saw most of this as incredibly true; you need grit and passion to harness the opportunities you have been given, but so much of it is being ready when luck comes around. There really might not be such thing as innate talent and genius. 

The second was focused on cultural legacies. This refers to a set of tendencies and preferences that were once necessary for survival in a region that are passed on through generations, even when the need for it has disappeared. It also includes just plain old cultural tendencies that make some cultures better suited for certain professions over other cultures. There were uncomfortable sections to digest, one part which rather bluntly stated that some cultures (he was using Korean Air in his example) are unsuited to the world of aviation because of a hierarchy system that prevented "subordinates" from using direct language in urgent situations that prompt action. The solution was not the common "work within the frames of the culture" but to insist in implementing alternatives, in this case using Western training methods and using English as the primary language. Looks pretty close to cultural imperialism? Well, in hindsight I think that's stretching it a little too far. Circumstances can demand we consciously make an effort to step out of the cultural legacies that we've been born with in order to be successful in certain fields. 

He also delved into how society views breaks and eduction. I've always thought that the reason why Korean students work hard is because parents viewed education as the only way for upward mobility. But Outliers suggests there is more. It has to do with what type of crops our ancestors farmed. In Korea, as in many Asian countries, most farmers had rice paddies that were labor intensive and benefited from having multiple rotations of crops in a year. This meant there was very short periods when the fields were idle. The more you worked, the greater your reward come harvest. The school system reflects this past, having as much as 60 extra school days compared to the US that planted crops like wheat and corn that required that lands be at idle for extended periods of time to replenish itself. Thus, the ingrained belief that there must be rest and idleness in order to learn. 

Cool book cover! 

The writing technique throughout this book were quite effective. He first told the condensed version of the story with many crucial details missing. He goes back and retells the story, filling in the necessary blanks. The first time around, I had my own share of reasons why that person was successful, primarily dedication and passion. But as my preconceptions were broken, I took on this new paradigm he offered so that by the end, I was making my own relatively accurate conjectures. 

Outliers had very similar undercurrents as certain parts of give and take when it came to its fundamental view on education as Give and Take. It isn't that people are innately smarter than others; it is a combination of expectations, set by parents and teachers that can stimulate students to achieve. There were some other sections that reminded me of Grant's work but can't recall all of them now... oops. It's so frustrating when I make the connections and when I try to write them down, I can't remember... 

I think I'll start on some of James Joyce's work that I was supposed to read in high school, but I change my mind too often to write it down. haha. 

Until then, 

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Austere

" I was twelve years old the first time I walked on water." --Mr. Vertigo

In the backdrop of the Twenties, Mr. Vertigo follows the life of Walter Rawley, a street urchin picked up from the gutters of St. Louis by Master Yehudi, a mysterious man dressed in black. Walt is told before his 13th birthday, he could learn to fly. While skeptical, he decides to follow Master Yehudi to an isolated Kansas farmhouse where he meets Aesop, a crippled black boy, and Mother Sioux, the grand-niece of Sitting Bull. In the house of misfit toys, Walt starts his journey through the thirty-three steps he must pass to learn to fly.

While the training consists of physical agony, including being buried alive and cutting off a part of his finger, an emotional battle rages on within Walt. Through the process, the Master attempts to break Walt's spirit in an attempt to free him of what he has been taught was impossible. But this freedom is a difficult lesson to learn as he is not only asked to accept that people can fly, but that all people include Aesop and Mother Sioux are create equal. Walt is resistant at first, angry and bitter at having been forced to leave the stimulus provided by the city into a house whom he views as his inferiors but who are treated as his superiors by the Master. The physical brutality Walt successively undergoes as part of his training to fly underscore the need to let go of attachment and emotions. His mutated pinky, for example, only serves as a visual manifestation that he must leave the unnecessary parts of him behind to learn to fly.first time Walt learns is to levitate, it is after Walter believes the Master has left him. After crying out his soul,"there was no more thoughts in his head, no more feeling in his heart... [he felt] utterly detached and indifferent to the world around him."

His journey takes off in a face-paced tumble as he goes from an obscure circus performer to an aerial artist. It is in the spotlight that Walt grows up, not just physically, but as an artist, taking ownership of his performance rather than being simply the obedient to Master Yehudi's plans. There are major scuttles in between, including a major kidnapping by Uncle Slim, his mother's brother, who wants revenge and ransom. But it turns out the narrow escape from Uncle Slim only served to sky-rocket his popularity, however short-lived. As gravity takes it's revenge on Walt as he hits puberty, his fame crashes to the ground with the same unexpectedness as  It was short-lived, however, as puberty and gravity took their toll on Walt, he crashed to the ground with the same unexpectedness as the stock market crash of 1929.

Cover of the book

The book only gets faster as the rest of his life is unfolded for us. After an attack by Uncle Slim in desert of California on their way to Hollywood to start a new career, Master Yehudi kills himself. Walt searches for years and finally gets his revenge and takes over his uncle's job as an underling to a powerful mob boss. On the way he meets Mrs. Witherspoon, the benefactress to Master Yehudi and himself when he was still Walt the Wonderboy, who gives him an opportunity to clean up his act and work for her instead. With his pride, he refuses, setting up a new club in Chicago called Mr. Vertigo, where stars of the past come to enjoy a night with the booze and girls. Overnight Mr. Vertigo becomes the hot place to be but after a serious of mistake on Walt's part, he must leave. The story comes back full circle, not to St. Louis but to Wichita, Kansas with Walk taking care of Mrs. Witherspoon until her death and running her laundromats all over the state. 

The ending can use some attention, however. He writes in the present describing how he had come to write this autobiography. There are several points I think are relevant at this point. First, is the parallel between Aesop writing his autobiography after a successful entrance into Yale and Walt writing his autobiography after an eventful life. Just as Aesop died shortly after he wrote his book, if the parallel proves true, it foreshadows that Walt too will soon be joining his loved ones. Second and perhaps the most interesting is the last two words of the book: "like so." Walt speaks to the audience as though he is showing an audience how he levitates, which does not make any sense since it was implied that Walt would not be meditating because the consequence would be paralyzing headaches. I'm still not sure what the metaphorical implications of this last bit is. If I end up figuring it out, I'll write it here. I'm hoping a dinner date with my librarian will clear it up. I'm going to be reading Sophie's World next. 

Until then, 

Give and Take by Adam Grant

My first book post ever! It took a little while to finish the book, and I know it isn't what I had planned originally, but I got this book from a club at school because it is by one of our management professors. His name is Adam Grant and he teaches one of the most difficult undergraduate classes to get into: Management 238 titled Organizational Effectiveness. While I would love to cover all the grounds that he did, I'm just going to mostly go over what I found interesting, for time's sake.

The premise of the book is that people in the world are divided into givers, takers, and matchers. Givers and takers are self-explanatory; matchers are also coined after what they do, that is, preserving a balance between giving and taking, therefore "matching" what they have given and what they have received from that person.

The cover of the book! 

In his book, Adam Grant proposes that the world would be better off if more of the world were givers because givers are in many ways more successful than takers or matchers. But the world, at least the one I was raised in, taught me that actions have consequences and givers, too, see the consequence of their actions. The true difference it seems to me is that givers have the ability to see further into the future and invest in uncertainty; they are willing to "over invest" as Grant calls it in people because "we can't always predict who can help us." It is that takers and matchers are a lot more short-sided and unwilling to invest in relationships in which they don't see tangible or direct results. 

This tension between what really is the difference between givers and takers is one that Grant chooses to address towards his later chapters. I found his division of individuals into givers, takers, and matchers to be harmonic because I found I am normally motivated by multiple factors, some of which are selfish or otherish, as Grant likes to call it. The mechanism is that people feel empathy or oneness with another person that leads to helping. There may be a mix of motives, from true altruism to alleviating the discomfort of guilt but the end result is the same. For now, maybe that is the best we can hope for. 

Cover of NYTimes Article

While the conclusion is vague, the book does have several good points about what separates successful givers with unsuccessful ones. 

Givers are willing to be vulnerable. They prefer to give credit to other people rather than themselves and are willing to play up other people's strengths. It's something that I've acknowledge over the past year as important but hard to put into practice. It's the whole idea that the more prominent you become in a community, the more likely there will be someone who will see you as a threat or nuisance. You want people to be rooting for you and working to help you succeed. Vulnerability can make you more human and more likable and therefore lowering the other person's defenses. This includes using disclaimers and asking for advice. The latter in particular has four effects: learning perspective taking, commitment and flattery. We also show them prestige, or respect and admiration for their insights and perspective. 

Givers make decision on behalf of the team. This leads to not only highly successful teams but also highly successful individuals. Doing this requires they hold high expectations for themselves and for others in order to develop talent. Givers create group dynamics that creates psychological safety, or the idea that they can take risks without being penalized, creating an atmosphere conducive to innovation. They also engage in true conversations and remember them so that they can better play on the strengths of their team. Givers will commonly volunteer for unpopular tasks and offer feedback that allows them to be appreciated without making other team members feel vulnerable. 

Givers on the brink of burnout give more. When givers do not have a cause and do not see the impact of their giving, it is easy for them to burn out. A change in context with where and to whom a giver gives can be the solution-- that is, by giving more than he or she is already giving. The example used is of TFA, where teachers often burnout because they spend so much time disciplining their students that they don't feel like they are making an impact. The solution a particular teacher found was to volunteer to mentor high achieving students get into college that gave hope to the impact she could possibly make in the classroom. There are other strategies of giving: chunking rather than sprinkling volunteer hours helps to maximize impact and being wary of takers. It is also important to make clear through group-mentoring sessions (rather than one on one) that the giver expects others to do the same for those they can help. It just means being smart and strategic about the resources we give to create an environment that fosters giving. 

A last point unrelated to the other three is the idea that assertiveness and agreeableness are not mutually exclusive. People tend to overestimate how off-putting assertiveness can be. 

Last comment on psychology books like this-- I found once Grant set the premise that being a giver was to be desired, I imbue fit different traits he described of a giver into myself, rationalizing and recalling instances when I had shown these traits. It's the reason why some psychology or self-help books (which I would say this book is dangerously getting close to) become some of the best selling books in the world.

 At any rate, I'm going to read a book called Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster, which was also gifted to me by my high school librarian. I have full faith she was deliberate in giving it to me. It's one of those books I'm sure will reward me for attention-- the more i pick up on, the more pieces seem to click.

Until then,

Post-Philippines Evaluation

OML was pleased with our final deliverables; one of the core team members, Lance, actually made a point of printing out copies so that they could look them over. It was actually the greatest compliment they could have paid us, seeing that no matter how seriously we took ourselves, we were still college students. The students we worked with were incredibly bright and motivated, capable of a lot of what we did. I think we did manage to bring a third party perspective and impetus necessary to point out what needed to be changed.

Printed out versions of our final report 

I don't think that I had as much hard skills I was taking away as much as the relationships I have made through this trip. Both my team members and the OML board all are incredibly fun people to hang not to mentioned focused when it came time to work. I feel like I got a little too intense with work sometimes, but it was a learning experience.

I also saw how teamwork came together on this project. We had different members fill in different roles. Connie, for example, was able to flesh out a lot of the internal contents the team had discussed but had been unable to put into writing while Heena and I worked extensively on the Impact Assessment report that they could convert to an annual report (including the financial report) for donors. Another really cool instance of our team coming together was how the team though of the light being "an impetus for change" but Victor was able to wrap that not just impetus but spark (get it?) for change. 

Rewarding to work pretty holistically on their project and with any luck will be leading my own next year? Until my first actual book blog,

gunpowder <3