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Written August 23, 2005 in between games of Word Racer and then after jogging campus loop, scanning overheads, eating lunch, sleeping, etc.

A lot has happened.  A lot I don’t remember.  Good and bad.  When I look back at what I’ve written, it’s interesting to note that a lot is just summary – not much feeling or emotion involved.  5, 10, 15 years from now, it might be interesting to read that I ate cold pizza for lunch and had corn on the cob at dinner, but I’ll probably forget the interesting conversations I had during the time.  I think that means I need more details in my entries, but that also means I have to spend more time writing which might not be possible given a busy schedule for next year.  When this college thing is over though, I hope I’ll have a lot of memories recorded.  So here’s to an optimistic update on the last two weeks of my life.

August 9, 2005

I occupied my day with research, a SIC course syllabus meeting, and a pretty mindless GSB study during the day.  The evening was full of excitement though – Harry and his brother met Chris, Jenny, and I for dinner at Manzanita.  It was the last time I would be seeing him until the year started; so we enjoyed one last summer hurrah of laughs.  I had to orchestrate a carefully timed load of laundry that included essential shirts for my trip to New York.  I took about 15 minutes to pack and was off to Chris’s where Lindsey picked us up to drive us to SFO.  She actually went the wrong way to the airport – twice!  But, we made it there as if there was no delay, basically because she drove at 100mph.  St. Louis drivers are much faster and better than California drivers. 

The plane ride to JFK was nothing too exciting.  I read some of No-No Boy by John Okada but couldn’t really get into it.  I eventually fell asleep and woke up landing into hot, humid New York.  

August 10, 2005

Thus began our troubles with the Empire State.  Chris and I met up with Brigette, but Chris didn’t push his way into the train that would take us to the rental car location; when he got there and we made it to Enterprise, we spent an hour trying to get a car but running into every possible obstacle – we needed a credit card linked to a bank account, but that card needed to be signed by the driver who needed to be over 21, but actually 25 in order to drive an SUV.  And New York doesn’t accept money orders even though there was an Enterprise sign that said it did and our order went through on the internet.  Fuckers. 

We took a cab to Grand Central Station instead.  We had an hour before our train to Poughkeepsie so we walked around the area – it wasn’t too exciting since we were really tired, it was humid, and it was smoky.  But, we got some New York style pizza (nothing too exciting) before heading back to get on the train.  I must say, Grand Central Station has lost its mystique since I last went there – there ceiling seems faded from too much flash photography, it’s dark, and having lots of guards in army gear (because of the London train station bombings) did not make me think “grand.” 

I think the train ride to Poughkeepsie would have been gorgeous but I was too tired to stay awake for it.  The Metro runs along the Hudson river and as you leave New York City there’s a lot of rolling hills and fields.  I’m not too hurt about missing that though.  I fell asleep, taking up an entire aisle.  At one point I woke up because there was a loud banging behind me – turns out a guy had somehow locked himself in the bathroom, so a guy had to pull on the door from the outside until it opened!  He came out pretty embarrassed but relieved.  

Poughkeepsie was not all that it was hyped up to be.  In fact, it was really run down.  Kevin picked us up at the airport and we checked into the Golden Manor hotel to change into some cooler clothes.  The hotel was definitely not “golden” – in fact, it seemed like none of the electricity and A/C worked!  (We later found out that you had to turn on a switch behind a curtain to turn on electricity for the room)…

With little sleep, it was off to FERI (The Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute) where we were meeting.  I met a lot of cool Yalies – Helen, Lauren, and Andrew.  Lots of people were running around doing random things to set-up, so I sort of jumped in the fray but since nobody was really in charge, I kind of did my own things….very slowly…and nobody seemed to notice or mind.  We later ran through the next day’s events and then went to “The Diner”, Hyde Park’s premier (and basically only) restaurant.  Dinner was an opportunity to meet some of the other Roosevelt Institution people – they’re all really nice, but there’s definitely this East Coast edge to them.  I think coming to the West Coast has made me lose my own edge.  Nonetheless – a lot of them are really committed to the student think-tank idea – they’re all interested in policy, most worked for the Kerry campaign in some way or another, and a lot are involved with a liberal-affiliated organization in some way or another.  It’s good stuff. 

After dinner we all walked down route 9 to Chris Breiseth’s house.  It was a long walk in the dark which was sort of scary since there’s no sidewalks and cars weren’t expecting to see a bunch of us walk down the street since Hyde Park doesn’t get too many visitors.  Chris is the CEO of FERI and a former university president of Cornell.  He’s a nice old fella and he really believes in the organization, which is cool (that’s why we got free conference space).  We ran through tomorrow’s events one more time – I was noticeably nodding off during the discussion (but so were a bunch of other people).  When we got back we turned on our light switch for electricity and AC and I prompted went to bed.  A long day!

August 11, 2005 

Day One of the National Roosevelt Institution Conference.  Just like the organization, things began somewhat chaotic but came together like they always do.  Even with all of our prep work last night, things never turned out the way they did – people weren’t where they were supposed to be.  I, of course, randomly helped with set-up and happened to be in the right place at the right time; a photographer that had come for Business Week wanted to take pictures of the group, so he took the people doing set-up outside to take some cool shots of us in various poses around a tree.  Maybe I’ll be in the magazine hehe.  That’d be really cool!

With all of my ambivalence about the conference, I guess I can say that I enjoyed it.  There were people from around the country, even two students from Oxford, who made it up to Hyde Park to learn about the institution.  We all sat at tables – I was at a table with familiar faces – Megan, Vilas, Lindsey, but also Helen from Yale (who had just flown in from Russia), and David Felix, one of the Review authors from UCSB.  

We began with an icebreaker – the arctic survival challenge.  Oh la la – we’re stranded after our plane crashed with 15 items and we have to rate the importance of each item; the point was to recognize that when we worked alone, our scores would be lower than if we had worked together, hence working together helps.  I guess that’s sort of true, but we weren’t given much time – in fact, we were rushed during a lot of the conference, which really didn’t give any one a lot of time to process the things we were learning.  I suppose it was easier for me since our chapter is already up and running so a lot of the stuff was review, but as a general note I hope that the conference in the future gives more time to break and thing about things. 

The evening was equally fun – we were given a tour of the FERI grounds and saw FDR’s grave.  Seeing someone’s grave isn’t the most exciting  thing for me – I guess when you see something like a grave you’re supposed to think about what that person did in his lifetime, but when you see if with a group of people, it’s hard to have time for personal reflection – like when I was with the RI people I was distracted by side conversations.  Also, I was more focused on trying to get a nice picture of the tomb rather than doing some deep thinking.  Oh well – I guess I can say I’ve seen FDR’s grave.  Just something to say you’ve done. 

Dinner was at the Breiseth’s house.  It was finally time to “mingle” and for many of the people, to “network.”  I took the opportunity to catch up with Eric Kafka, a friend from St. Louis who’s at Yale.  I had debated against him a bunch in high school and hadn’t seen him for awhile.  He’s a pretty hilarious guy and had some funny stories about his times at Yale.  Too bad he didn’t go to Stanford (I even called him during Freshman year when Frosh had a chance to call Profros).

Later that evening I had a chance to get to know my roommate Sean Phillipi, a senior from Ohio State University.  Although I put up with him, he’s pretty arrogant and he talks your ear off – about being the best organizer of the Democrats at OSU, being the best bill collector for Discover Card (yup…) and being an awesome business major.  So it was yada yada yada for him while I nodded half heartedly for an hour or so. 

Even though it was a long day, I could not fall asleep, so I hid under my covers and worked on my speech for tomorrow and did the e-mail thing.  Guess I needed e-mail to stay in contact with people I miss back on the opposite coast. 

August 12, 2005 

Day two.  I was up especially early to do wake-up calls.  There was the usually barrage of speeches about organizing a chapter – I got to talk about food donations (my forte haha) and in five minutes justified my being at the conference. 

I guess a note should be made about the excellent food during the weekend.  South on route 9 is the Culinary Institute of America, one of the premier cooking schools in the country.  One of the chefs that works the café at the FDR museum where the conference was held and the person who catered the food we ate, goes to school there.  So the food was quality.  The pad thai tasted like pad thai, the salad had fresh lettuce and crispy croutons, and the pasta tasted like pasta.  That’s all I’m asking for – good food.  Doesn’t take much to satisfy me.  Win my stomach and you win my heart. 

The end of the conference was cheesy and sappy – Quinn thanked a lot of people.  Brigette did also, but she gave out toys to those who helped her – I got a small football!  FDR’s grandson gave a short speech – that was pretty cool. 

Then to the party! 

What’s nice about RI people is that they know how to throw down.  After all of the work, we got to play.  We were able to use the pool at the Golden Manor and lots of people went swimming.  A lot of people didn’t go in the water though, myself included, so I got a chance to get to know a lot of the people from other schools – I spent some time with the kids at Wheaton who are all really nice and committed to starting a chapter there.  I even set up my New Years Eve plans – partying with Hilke and Lindsey along with Kafka (and hopefully I can convince my friends to come too!),  The alcohol got progressively worse during the night – we started out with Yellowtail wine, Coronas, Heinekens, but deteriorated to boxed wine and Natural Light beer.  Haha.

My roommate Sean, decided to make a fool of himself and drink about 5 beers and an entire box of wine within 30 minutes.  He basically was out for the rest of the night, sick.  I tried to get him to stop but he wouldn’t listen.  He even tried to throw Peter in the pool and drown Kai.  Punk. 

Lastly, when we were walking back to the Super 8 hotel, a cop drove up alongside us since we were walking on the side of the road late at night.  Whalen (from WashU) chucks his wallet into the bushes alongside the road, convinced that if the cop were to subject us to a breathalyzer test, he could claim his ID was back at the hotel because he wasn’t 21.  Needless to say, the cop drove away and he had to come back with a flashlight from the front desk to find his wallet.

August 13-14, 2005 

I’ve had enough of Hyde Park.  It’s humid, there was a bug in Kevin’s Starbuck’s fruit plate, and the guy at Office Max took forever to mail packages.  It was the 70^th Anniversary of Social Security today and there were tons of senior citizens (many a part of AARP) attending.  After that was over we got the hell outta there. 

It was a two hour drive to Nate’s house, but it was so much fun!  With a truck full of Kevin and Chris humor, Lindsey driving, Kai being Kai, and Helen adding some spice to the mix, we told jokes (thanks for the dead baby jokes Kai), riddles, and sang along to some CDs that Helen had.  Lindsey did get pulled over for speeding – the cop luckily didn’t give us a ticket because Lindsey wasn’t even supposed to be driving the truck.  Kai took over after that and almost killed us taking a turn way too fast.  But, we made it to Walton, NY in one piece.  

Nate lives in a place called Shakespeare on the Pond.  His dad owns a lake!  A real lake that Chris and I went out rowing on before it got dark.  We also went swimming.  RIDICULOUS!  After a really good dinner we went to his Dad’s library, a small collection of his work – he’s a dealer of antique and rare books.  In that library were first edition copies of Darwin’s Origins of Species, the Federalist Papers, and all of the works by Shakespeare.  Millions of dollars.  And apparently his main store has an original copy of the Bill of Rights.  Geez.

So the rest of the night was fun – drinking, socializing in his house and in front of the lake.  But, since a few of us had early flights on Sunday, we left his house at 3:30AM and Kevin drove to drop Chris, Brigitte, and I off at the airport.  Didn’t get much sleep on the bumpy car ride, but the night at Nate’s definitely made it worth it.  

Chris definitely took way too long trying to find an Economist – I almost fell asleep waiting.  When we got to the gate we really did fall asleep.  Same with the plane.  So that made the flight easy.  Chris’s dad picked us up and drove us to back to Stanford.

So I’m home!  The conference was definitely great on two counts.  It got me more excited about a positive future for the RI and I got to meet a lot of great people and get away from Stanford for awhile.  Although I didn’t get to see the city, there’s always another time.  

August 15, 2005

It’s back to the grind now.  Sleeping in, doing research for a few hours, playing cards, eating at the Treehouse/Manz/out and just enjoying everything.  

Most interesting today was reading a thesis by Marvin Darsie, an assistant to Lewis Terman in 1925.  His thesis studied Japanese school children in California, finding that they were no less intelligent than Caucasians.  In fact, in his conclusion, he ranked the intelligence of races.  He wrote:

            1.  Northern European stocks, including Anglo-Saxons and native Americans
            2.  Mongoloid races, including Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans.
            3.  Southern and central Europeans (the so-called Alpine and Mediterranean sub-races which seem about equal, and inferior to the mongoloid).
            4.  Negroes 

It’s sickening how these were the views of the time.  At least Darsie’s didn’t persist – but that’s because lots of anti-Asian forces at the time did not approve of his study which found intelligence among Japanese.  And I’m not even sure things have changed – educational inequalities among the different races, but now it’s in issues such as funding towards facilities and textbooks.  Over time it seems that America has improved its quality of life, but problems are still systemic and only by looking at the history of America is it possible to understand how messed up things still are. 

Saw “The Aristocrats.”  The most raunchy and dirty film I have ever seen.  A bunch of comedians tell the same joke but add their own impromptu twist to it.  And it’s dirty!  You have to see it yourself.  I almost died from laughter.  I almost died also from a stomachache induced by pesto pepperoni pizza from Paxti’s this evening.  

August 16, 2005 

Today I almost died.  Chris and I had finally planned to go to the gym after a month of apathy, but as we were biking there, the front wheel of my tire came loose, and I flew over my handlebars and into the pavement, scrapping my chin, hands, and knees.  Luckily I didn’t break a bone, hit my head, or lose a lot of blood.  Now that I think about it, this incident is sort of funny, and quite an experience.  First, before the crash, Chris told me his bike had no air in his tires so it was a piece of crap.  Second, the gym wasn’t even open.  Third, I used vodka to clean my wounds.  Fourth, my Dad later told me I should have gone to the ER because I could have gotten stitches (that was actually cool because I took digital pictures of the wound, send it to my Dad, and did that while on the phone with him – gotta love technology).  Fifth, when I came back to Castano, I knocked and even kicked the door because I didn’t know if Jenny was in or not.  Nobody answered so I waited about 30 minutes and then got the RA to open the door – and of course Jenny was there.

But I was consoled later on.  Chris and I got McDonalds and I scarfed down a Big Mac, fries, and Chicken McNuggets.  And I later had wine at Kevin’s place where Peter, Eric, Chris, and I hung out on Kevin and Lindsey’s last night here.  

August 17, 2005

Kevin and Lindsey were late leaving for St. Louis, so Chris and I were able to say goodbye for a second time at the RI office.  This was after Chris and I ate at JingJing’s for lunch.  For the past few meals and a few future meals, I’ve been eating for free because Chris has owed me money.  Being on credit like that is great – it’s free food even though you paid for it a long time ago. 

I went to Cheesecake Factory tonight with Mike, Julie and Jenny.  That was good times – those two always have interesting things to say and since Mike works at Google and Julie interns with Microsoft I always get an interesting perspective on the working world.  And they also like to have fun – we played poker back at Castano and drank a bottle of vanilla Grey Goose to keep things interesting. 

August 18, 2005

Thursday?  Can’t remember.  Sorry. 

August 19, 2005

The highlight of the day was going to San Francisco where we used American Studies SRC excursion money to see “Wicked.”  WHAT A GOOD SHOW!  Since we were in the city, Jenny and I rushed to Chipotle (8+ blocks away and got back just in time for the start of the show).  Jenny had made a list of food she wanted to eat before going to Beijing, and Chipotle was on the list, so we made a special excursion there.  It was worth it, definitely. 

We sat stage left in row K, so we were really close to the stage.  But, we were the farthest to the left so we sometimes had difficulties seeing what was going on at moments.  But, no worries – the show itself was really good.  I really enjoyed the plot (which is the Wicked Witch of the West and her life before Dorothy came).  It gives a lot of sympathy to the traditionally evil character and it also gives some interesting explanations for the other characters in the Wizard of Oz.  The pit was also excellent.

Going to the theater definitely made me seem sophisticated and cultured.  When I think about it, I’m glad my parents and friends have taken me to the theater.  I’ve seen a lot of great shows and I’ve definitely come to appreciate their value as art and music – Rent, Camelot, Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, and my high school productions of Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.  I played in the pit orchestra on cello for Guys and Dolls and Oklahoma! so whenever I hear a performance I always enjoy listening to the pit orchestra because the parts are always challenging but really fun to play.

August 20, 2005

Jenny and I took it easy this Saturday.  We watched “Once Upon a Time in Mexico.”  That had some great quotes…Johnny Depp saying: “Are you a Mexi-CAN or a Mexi-CAN’T?”  Genius! 

We later went to Chris’s place and watched some TV.  We even played Mortal Kombat which was really hilarious.  TV was crappy – Starship Troopers and a Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson.  I guess the quality of television has gone done.  We couldn’t even watch SNL, it’s so bad these days.  We later went to Jack and the Box and I got a sourdough jack on the money Chris owes me. 

August 21, 2005

I went to SF this morning to meet Diana to put together an ACT mission statement.  During the ride there and back I was able to finish No-No Boy by John Okada.  It was a pretty depressing book about a man who was jailed for night fighting in WWII because he and his parents were in internment camps.  Just another reason to be upset about internment even after it was over.

Dim Sum was amazing of course.  I walked back to the CalTrain depot so that helped me work off the excess food.  When I got back to Palo Alto I found that someone had stolen the bike I borrowed! 

Great.
Just great.

So now I’ve been almost killed by a bike and now a nice one gets stolen. 

But let’s look at the bright side.  I watched “Stage Beauty” which was about an actor who played female parts having to deal with the King of England not allowing men to play female parts.  So he had a traumatic experience with his female stage servant showing him up in the part he use to play.  But, of course they fall in love and equilibrium is restored in the galaxy. 

August 22, 2005

I had a SAAAC meeting with Linda today.  Much good came out of our discussion so we’re going to rebuilt the structure and make it a good, sustainable organization during the fall.  There’s work to be done but that’s what organizing entails, I suppose.

At night I went to Chili’s with Chris and Jenny.  Another food item off the list – an awesome blossom.  I also had their BBQ ribs but it was quite a disappointment, I suppose because I’m spoiled at home with my dad’s excellent cooking. 

August 23, 2005

My meeting with Professor Chang went well.  I now got assigned scanning former overheads onto the computer for him to use on powerpoint for his class this fall.  Even though he has about 400 overheads to scan, the scanning machine is able to do large quantity scans with a feeder like a photocopier has.  So I’m going to speed along with this scanning and he’ll think I’m the shit for doing this so quickly.  Ahh the pleasures of understanding technology.

I went running tonight for the first time in awhile.  I even met up with Tammy along the way and we finished up Campus Loop together.  I really really really hope I can continue to run about 12 miles a week during the school year.

Ok, so now I’m caught up.  Whew.  Jenny told me that for every 1 person who comments, there’s another 5 that stalk Xangas.  So this ones for the people who comment, not for the fuckers who stalk.