Note

Hi everyone,

It has sure been a while since Life^3 in A^2. Mark, Ian, and I recently graduated together from UM, and the three amigos have since put many miles between themselves. Ian now lives out near Phoenix working at Intel, while Mark is finishing up a master's degree in Ann Arbor, prepping for even more years of college in med school.

Recently, I have been building a website called To Do in A2. It's a way to discover the coolest Ann Arbor events, so check it out if you're still around town. It's interesting, maintaining this blog was one of my first experiences with web design, so writing this now offers a lot of perspective on how far we have come.

The antics and adages of 2010 make up some of my favorite memories during college, and I miss them a lot. That huge, hot apartment, Germany's psychic-octopus-inspired World Cup run, deep discussions about politics and sustainability, and all those evenings of tennis and after-tennis smoothies. I wish I could go back, but unfortunately, that's not really how it works.

So instead, I suppose the best we can do is close our eyes, imagine some summer Ann Arbor fireflies, and for the last time, listen to the official, the amazing, and the only, Life^3 in A^2 blog ditty.

It's not very long, so enjoy it while you can.

Tyler

Last night, Mark and I headed over to North Quad

for some soccer and frisbee in the courtyard.  Ian is currently training as a community assistant there, and—as you would expect from Ian—he immediately introduced us to what seemed to be the entire group of CA’s and RA’s.  After trading a few greetings, frisbee passes, and stories about European volcanoes, the insects came out, and it was time to head in.  For a personal tour.  Through the “not open to the public” doors =)

As expected, North Quad is really nice—but maybe not for the reasons we expected.  I don’t know about you, but with all its hype, I had envisioned plasma TV’s in every room, luxurious couches in every lounge, maybe even some moving staircases and secret rooms for times of great need.  The truth is, though, that most of that was left out.  Sure, there are still plasma TV’s in almost every room, but the couches are simple and sleek.  Most of the rooms are not overly grand, and the elevators don’t even work sometimes.

Instead, North Quad focuses much more on developing community and cultural awareness.  The building has no front desk but rather a community center lounge.  Centrally controlled monitors, providing information about all kinds of North Quad activities, can be found almost anywhere within the building.  There is an enormous tower room for hosting community events, and there is a room where residents can make voice calls to any country in the world.  The lounges even contain trilingual trash cans.  They even have “freaky German” chairs… which are interesting. 

One thing has been bothering me recently, though.  If we would have turned on any of those numerous plasma TV’s, we probably would have seen a large number of reports about cultural misunderstandings and misled hostility.  It seems to be everywhere these days.  Even our president is wrongly accused and well… yeah.  It just makes us wonder what people are doing out there.  Are they listening with an open mind? Or are they just listening for what they want to hear?

Either way, one thing is certain: North Quad is on pace for the former.  And gazing across the city from the tenth floor tower room, we can hope that the rest of the country will soon follow. 

Bipolar Attraction International Debut

Hey everyone, it's been a while since the last post...I've been working on a few lo-fi jams in the meantime that I'd like to share with you!

Thanks to my sis' for supplementing the latest track with her beautiful vocals!

More to come soon - the summer has indeed doused me with inspiration.

Golden Opportunity

Last weekend I was on my way to a friend’s apartment. As I turned onto State Street I saw a couple people walking a golden retriever and headed my way. Being a dog person (especially fond of golden retrievers) I asked

“Hey, can I pet your dog?!”

Owner: “Sure, do you have any dogs?”

Me: “ Yeah, I actually have a golden retriever also.”

We started talking about our pets, and at some point during this dialog my attention was drawn away from the golden retriever and to the owner, where I did a double take. The owner was a stunningly attractive girl.
I would have liked to continue the conversation, but her friend (completely forgotten at this point) seemed eager to continue their walk. So we parted ways without so much as an exchange of names. If I ever see “Golden Retriever girl” again I would really like to ask her out to coffee.

Opportunity missed.

Some opportunities I missed and some I took advantage of, but it was walking along the sidewalk that afforded me these opportunities. I believe if I walk long enough more chances will come, so I encourage you to metaphorically start walking.

P.S. Does anyone have advice about anything different I should/could have done? I felt like it would have been weird if I had asked for her phone number since I had never met her before.

The Glass is 100% Full

Don’t look now, but it’s August!  I know, I know.  Summer is almost over.  But before we begin to get ourselves down, thinking about late nights in libraries, depressing football losses, freezing cold weather, and depressing football losses in freezing cold weather, remember this:  the glass is 100% full.

Suppose we are walking, and we forget what we’re doing and make a wrong turn.  What do we do?    Many people may keep heading in that same wrong direction.  What’s better, though, is to adjust our route for what is fastest (or most scenic, easiest on the joints—whatever we value most) at that moment.  If that requires pulling a one-eighty, we do it.  To avoid looking weird, we might cross the street beforehand, but still, we do it.

It’s like exponential decay.  Carbon 14 doesn’t know that 10,000 years ago it had a lot more of itself.  It’s just happy that it has so much of itself now.  From its point of view, carbon 14 is always normalized to 1, the present!  And by doing so, carbon 14’s attitude always remains aligned.

Er, excuse me for that nerdiness.

Anyway, it’s thinking about situations as if they are brand new to us.  If summer were only one month to begin with, we would all be quite happy that there’s one month of summer left.  It’s like we’re drinking our glasses, and they become half empty, but instead of wishing that emptiness were filled, we just get smaller glasses.

And there you have it, a full glass.  And as mother always said, let's be sure to finish our glass before we drink another.  I’m feeling a little thirsty for some smoothie about now, so feel free to stop by if you want some.  Cheers to August as the best month ever!