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. 

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!

Spoon Theory

PREFACE
Tonight we discussed some pressing issues which concern many people in Ann Arbor and across the USA. It all started when Tyler drafted a letter to the president (not a waste of time, as this girl proved) and inquired us as to what he should include. I drew the short straw and was denoted "evening scribe".

FOCUS/THESIS
1. Thinking about where our country was headed made us focus on three main areas: The economy, sustainability, and happiness.
2. These items can be summarized into a single, unifying idea. I call it Spoon Theory.

PROBLEM
The economy's current objective is to provide every American with plenty of goods and a house to store them in. But these days, work is scarce and many people can't afford the stuff that's become so vital to our lives. Raising taxes would cripple us further, and spending our way out without any cash on hand is what got us into this mess in the first place (source).

Happiness has become synonymous with material possessions. For decades, our society has been consumer driven, which lets us buy new toys as cheap as possible at the expense of our health and environment. It's no surprise, considering advertisements can make us want anything!

Hence, the Spoon Theory: We need no more than 7 billion spoons on this planet. Yet we keep making them! How many spoons exist in your house per capita? It's a waste! Everything is a spoon, from cars to gadgets. Why are we always spooning away, making more things we don't need? How can we reject this mindset, get off this never-ending treadmill of want?

RESOLUTION
We made our own granola. It's easy!

But it's not just the honey-sweet crunch that's brightened our spirits; it's the enjoyment of making something, the fulfillment of being sustainable, and the endless possibilities of what to do with that $3.49 we didn't spend at the store!

Healthy, home-made granola relegated to background by factory-farm fish sandwich.

CONCLUSION

We think that by getting back to the basics and limiting our impact, we can help out Barack with each of each of the three big issues we identified for him. Sure it's starting small, but dang, it tastes good on ice cream.

Colored Silhouettes

To reminisce in lemniscates
With lightning bugs for candlesticks -
Our summer flings and movie flicks
Create the perfect mood, I think.

With curly hair in humid air
We promenade through city squares.
How splendid is the time we share
When days are long and feet are bare!

Enduring dusks and early dawns,
We pass the time with busy yawns
And sunbathe on the diag lawn
Till spirit-warming rays are gone.

Then ripened hearts will take their chance,
Emboldened by the summer's trance,
To ask their silhouettes to dance,
To ask their silhouettes to dance.

Insight through Soccer

There is a reason the world cup is one of the greatest sporting events on Earth.

People from different backgrounds and ethnicities can get along so easily by such a small commonality as a game of soccer.

This weekend I played soccer with many people I had never met in my life. I walked on the field and was immediately accepted onto one of the teams. Good team work received more praises then selfish goals, and points didn’t really matter. I think something can be learned from this.

Soccer is not a gentle sport. While playing people were kicked, tripped, and tackled, and blood was shed. Yet there was no anger and confrontations. Perhaps another lesson:

Before my friend’s birthday party I went into a store to pick up water balloons. The clerk, a middle aged Middle Eastern man looked like he was having a normal boring day at work. We exchanged a few words, as I made my purchase. As I was walking out the door I asked him if he was watching the world cup. His face lit up as he told me that nothing would stop him from watching the final. I have the feeling we could have talked for hours about the world cup.

If such a small thing in common can help us overcome racial and cultural barriers, and the abuse of complete strangers (soccer game on Elbel field), what’s your excuse?

The We/They Issue: What LeBron, the stupid octopus, & war have in common & what we can learn from them all

Last night LeBron James announced his intentions to leave his Cleveland Cavaliers to put on a Miami Heat jersey next season.  About ten seconds later, former fans in Cleveland decided to help him along by physically adding heat to their once beloved LeBron James jerseys, lighting them up in flames.  Perhaps these fans just wanted to see the new look for themselves.  Actually, probably not.  They probably just hate LeBron James now.

But how did this happen so quickly?  I mean, for the last seven years, these fans called LeBron “king”.  I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any sudden changes in values, and he probably didn’t lose all of his basketball skills either.  The only change was the team for which he played.  For Cleveland fans, LeBron was no longer one of us.  He had suddenly become one of them.

What decides whether or not we like people?  Probably a lot of things—like whether or not they say nice things, whether or not they’re good-looking, whether or not they’re blocking our view (cough Mark), whether or not they comment (cough you) on our blog posts…  But I’m convinced that the largest factor is how we think of them in the plural form, whether we think we or they. 

Just think about it.  Seriously.  The we/they issue is true with the LeBron scenario (he's now one of them).  It’s why the Big House hates Ohio State quarterbacks (eww, he's one of them), and it’s why most Germany fans now hate that stupid octopus (what the frick, he's now one of them?).  It’s why we get upset with other drivers in traffic (jeez, what is wrong with them?).  It’s the problem with democrats and republicans (let's just not listen to them), and it’s even the reason for racism and war (wow, I hate them because they're them). 

The cool part, though, is that this we/they boundary can be easily influenced.  I often—and I’m guessing a lot of people—subconsciously place strangers in the “they” category.  It happens almost by default.  With no previous interaction with these people, why should we think about them in the we sense?  It's mostly a thoughtless thought, however, and there's no real basis for it.  With just a little effort, we can rethink our "we-group" to be much more inclusive and spread the love a whole lot more.  

Usually it only takes some conscious thought to recognize common values.  For instance, yesterday I was driving home, annoyed with the dense traffic around me.  I almost felt as if the other cars were my competition, preventing me from getting home quickly.  After thinking about it, though, I realized everyone else was just like me.  We all just wanted to get home quickly and safely.  It sounds weird, but suddenly, the other drivers became my friends as we all worked together to get home.  Believe me, it was a lot less lonely, I felt better about society, and with our newfound camaraderie and compassion, my friends and I all made it home in the end… brings a tear to me eye :'-|

Anyway…

 

So do it.  Look for commonalities, think about “them” a little, and find reasons to love-not-hate.  After all, LeBron is from Ohio just like Clevelandians, the octopus just wanted a nice meal, and those people we’re fighting across the world have families too.  After all, all of us are one of us.

Heck, maybe someday an alien attack/other severe threat to our planet will arrive, cause our nations to unite together, and create world peace at last… er, that is, if a third of the world doesn’t argue that the threat doesn’t exist.  But that’s a story for another day.

Summeresolutions

Roughly six months ago, when the world semi-simultaneously flipped a decade, billions of people did two incredible things. Firstly, they counted backwards from ten while being moderately to severely buzzed. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they set their sights on the new year, the clean slate of a fresh era, and collectively pledged to make themselves better. How inspiring it was to shake ourselves free from memories fond and forgettable, to focus on the dropped crystal ball and the optimistic future within.

Whether we've followed through with those resolutions uttered ages ago or not, a half-year lays ahead, leaving time aplenty to make a change, live a dream, and embark on our declared adventures. It is time to renew and realign our promises to ourselves - Summeresolutions!

Here in the apartment, Ian and I made a resolution to run a 10-mile route around Ann Arbor. Last week, I felt physically unprepared and mentally freaked-out, since Ian told me how marathon runners finish races shorter in stature than when they begin. I'm 5' 7" tall, and really can't afford to lose precious centimeters. Despite the serious risks the run could potentially impose on my game, we went for it. We marked our heights on sticky notes on the front door and began playing mythbusters.

I received my first cramp at mile marker 0.5, experienced bouts of sobbing hysteria a half-mile later, and we got lost three miles in. Aside from a possible big foot sighting, the rest of the run was smooth, and even scenic at times. And by smooth, I mean that I could feel my vertebrae compressing with each impact and that the emotional distress I was in overshadowed any actual pain.

Finally, having conquered the adversity of ten pounding miles, we returned to our apartment. Before celebrating our triumph, I kicked off my shoes and slammed by back to the front door. Ian's grim look told me I didn't even need to gaze at the mark. I was a full centimeter shorter than 1.5 hours prior. Ian also posted a statistically less-significant loss in height.

Myth Confirmed: The run was free, but it cost Mark a dime.

Was I scared? Yes. But after a good night's sleep, I came to a few realizations. Running 10 miles is sort of like living a decade. Even though you face setbacks 1/20th into it, get lost along the way, or run into dangerous mythical beasts, you must press on and push through. When I woke up, I returned to the post-it note and noticed that I recovered my lost dime and then some - I was at the top of the note!

Aim high and keep it up - you'll come out a bigger man.