What are you doing after college?

Pretty much every conversation I have nowadays contains this question. It doesn’t matter if I’m having a nice cold beer with some buddies, mid-bite of a delicious (non-dairy) lasagna on a date, even if I’m trying to steer the conversation away from it, the question will inevitably pop up.

"So, what do you want to do after you graduate?”

I had no fucking clue. I kind of do now, but back before senior year, nothing.

I hated this question. Actually, still hate it. It waters down my beer with worry and sours my lasagna with discomfort. To avoid thinking about it, I drank more beer.

I’m currently in my last semester of college. In three months, my professor will hand me my overpriced piece of paper, shake my hand, then bid me adieu off into the real world. I heard the real world is a scary place, and for a while I didn’t think I was ready.

I had a great time in college, and for the most part, I think that piece of paper was worth it.  I didn’t do the best job of preparing myself for the job market, though.

My major is political science, which as one of my professors once said is only good for grad school or unemployment. My job experience consists of a couple of months of retail at Banana Republic and the few times I worked the desk at the dad’s dental practice. Not exactly the best.

I taught myself some marketing and got a minor in entrepreneurship to maybe improve my chances of getting a job, but this doesn’t do much when I am going up against business majors who spent the last three summers interning for Deloitte. 

Instead of focusing on my major classes, I took random classes on Roman civilization in American film, classic literature, and mountain climbing. While these classes were incredibly fun and interesting, they did not help me make money and caused me to take a lot more credits than I would have liked this last semester.

Instead of studying, or writing the papers I was supposed to, I wrote short stories that caused me to cringe weeks after their publishing and recounted times of my travels on my website.

I also have some brief (and I mean brief) experience in urban planning, IT, data analytics, physical training, and while my resume says I am fluent in Italian, you would not want me as your translator. 

Frankly speaking, I was going into my last year of college with no idea of what I wanted to do

Let’s table the answer to this question for a second. I obviously did not know. I wasn’t the only one, though.

“What do you want to do after you graduate?”

For less than 10 words, it’s a heavy question. It’s weighed down by family pressure to get a good job, by LinkedIn posts of people celebrating dream job offers and tweets by self-made millionaires at 20.

Another thing. Nowhere in those nine words does it say anything about the permanence of your decision, but there is an implicit suggestion that what you decide will be your occupation for the rest of your life.  I know this is not true, but I also know most spiders aren’t dangerous and I am still terrified of them.

It’s also a privileged question. It suggests that I have options, something that wouldn't have been available to my grandparents. My great-grandparents came to America with only their clothes and a promise of work on a farm. My grandfather had 15 dollars to his name when he married my grandmother and worked every job under the sun so that his kids wouldn't have to pay for college. Because of that, my mother was able to study law and make enough money to do the same for me, for which I am eternally grateful. I will do for my kids someday as well, so they too may have the privileged problem of having options.

Some people though are not as lucky as me. They face this dilemma and the wrong choice comes with real consequences. The opportunity cost of choosing the wrong career can imprison one in a job they do not like but are forced to continue because the alternative is just too expensive. The internet age has alleviated some of these costs, but they still exist, and still prevent people from following their dreams.

Let’s return to the question.

“What do you want to do after you graduate?”

Before the pandemic hit, I somehow landed an internship in Sacramento. I had bought a new suit and a few matching ties and was mentally preparing myself for the daily rush to work.

Then the lockdown. My internship got canceled (thank god), my classes were moved online, and I headed home.

Being immunocompromised, I wasn't able to leave my house. I went through a five-month period where the only fresh air I got was opening the window. And god I was bored. Privileged to be so, but incredibly bored.

One day I had an idea for a story. It happened in the shower, where all good ideas come from. I let it stew for a few days, but eventually, it got to the point where I had to let it out. I sat down at my computer, opened word, and five hours later that felt like five minutes, had a chapter of a book.

I spent those five months writing every day. Never before had I felt so sure of what I was doing, where I wasn’t worried that I was wasting time that I could have been doing something else. When I finished the first draft of what will become my first book, I got a little misty-eyed. The draft was shit, I knew it even then, but it was the first time in my life that I felt like I had accomplished something worth doing (outside of relationships).

So, the answer to the loaded question, what do you want to do after college? I want to become a writer. Some people don’t have the privilege to be as naïve as me, though, and I think this question needs some updating. 

The world is not the same place that it was when college became mainstream for the first time. It doesn’t guarantee a job like it used to, and the workplace has also changed dramatically from when my parents entered the workplace. People don’t remain in the same company anymore, as the latest startup from Silicon Valley is forcing these companies to change overnight or fade away. So with the workplace changing so quickly, this question should as well.

There are much better questions to be asked. What are you working on right now? What are you excited about in your future? Or just ask them how they’re doing today. It’s much easier to answer. 

Trust in Government

Today a new president takes office. Cool.

I’m just as excited as the next guy about the change. This country needs a breath of fresh air, but let’s say I’m not excited as I could be. Maybe this is a side effect of getting older, but I don’t trust the government as much as I used to. As much as I feel I should.

I’m not alone in this thought. Trust in the American government has essentially been in a freefall since Nixon, mainly due to his obsession with a certain Watergate office building. Outside of a few isolated jumps, the percentage of Americans that trust our government at least most of the time has fallen from the high 70s with Johnson to the low 20s with Trump. (Pew, 2019)*

This was before Covid-19, where somehow the wealthiest country on earth now accounts for 20% of the world’s deaths.

75% of people believe American’s trust in the federal government has been shrinking, and 64 percent believe faith in our fellow Americans has been shrinking as well. This is shown most starkly in younger generations and minority groups. (2019)

I’ve thought a lot about why this is the case, but like with everything in politics, there is no right answer.

It could be because the average member of the House of Representatives represents over 747,000 people-more than any other developed nation. That ratio is simply too large to consider that our population is fairly represented.

It could be that this country has gotten too big. Of course, there will be a difference in priorities between Alabama and Oregon; they’re thousands of miles apart and might as well be different countries for all the similarities they have.

Some blame the problem on our economic system, with more than half of those polled saying that capitalism, as it exists today, does more harm than good and 74% saying that there should be a change.

Whatever the reason or reasons you believe to be the cause, there is no doubt that trust is decreasing in the country. What follows, then, is whether or not this can be fixed.

I honestly don’t know. I don’t know if this is an actual problem or a problem of perception. If it’s something that actually can be fixed with our current system of doing things. I don’t have the answers, I only know that it is important.

That is enough of me rambling about politics, though. I might be exploring some ideas for fixing this problem in the future, but for the most part, this blog will go back to its regularly scheduled programming. I don’t know what that is yet, but I am pretty sure it won’t involve politics. At least not a lot of it.

*Note. I use a lot of polls here in this article. I used them because they fit my argument, but take them with however much salt you deem necessary. Polls are more often than not misleading. We all saw how well they did in the 2016 election.

Hypocrisy

I usually don't write about politics. But what happened last week wasn't politics, and I felt a need to respond to an opinion that began to circulate through the news. This is what I wrote.

About a week ago, our nation's capital was stormed by rioters and terrorists. They broke down barricades, overwhelmed an understaffed police force, and ran ramshackle through the capitol. They stole souvenirs, took photos, and for a good few hours, forced the house and senate to evacuate and pause the certification of last year's election. Five people died, including one police officer, but it could have been a lot worse. Much worse.

Naturally, everyone has something to say about this atrocity, and I've seen a lot of rhetoric on Twitter and in the news about how America is better than this.

No, we're not.

America is and always has been a country based on hypocrisy.

Our country was founded by those who fled persecution, only to persecute the natives already here. Our Declaration of Independence proclaimed equal, unalienable rights while our Constitution relegated slaves to 3/5 a human. We teach our kids about Ellis Island, how America is the land of opportunity, while at our borders, we imprison hopefuls, separate them from their families, and vilify their image. We preach democracy while installing dictators who give us great oil prices and call athletes traitors for kneeling when "patriots" are breaking windows in our nation's capital.

So no, forgive me when I say that America is not better than this. 

However, America can be better, and that is what matters.

Yes, there are millions of problems facing this country, most of them related. There is privilege and income inequality, racism and police brutality, all during a pandemic when 12.6 million* people are unemployed. Our infrastructure is crumbling, our healthcare is one of the most expensive in the world, and climate change is only getting worse.

Despite all this, I believe that America can get through it. Because the foundation is still there. The freedom of speech, the diversity, the ability to fight for what is right. The ability to point out something is on fire without repercussion.

This is still the country where a young boy from Akron, Ohio, living alone with a single mother, can make it to the top of his sport and leverage his skills into billions of dollars and opportunities for thousands of kids.

It's where a bartender from New York can become the youngest women to ever be elected to congress, and an immigrant from Somalia become one of the first Muslim women to do the same.

This is still the land of Alexander Hamilton; where a poor boy from the tropics can write his way to the highest levels of government and help found a new country, and it's the land where 300 years later, a young Puerto Rican playwright can create one of the best-selling musicals of all time based on his story with a cast primarily consisting of Black, Latino, and Asian American actors.

Are the chances of making it the same? No. Absolutely not. My sisters are going to have to fight just to make as much as their male colleagues. Entire communities have been set back years by racist urban policies and mass incarceration. Racism, sexism, xenophobia all are real barriers to people getting opportunities in this country. Many have started well behind the starting line. That shouldn't be. That's the first thing we should fix.

America is not better than this. This is how it has always been, and we have many a crime to atone for.

Humbled as we are, America can be better, though, and that is what will make all the difference. This is still where one can work hard and strike gold, where progress can be made despite what is seen on social media. We need to make access to this dream equal, but it's still there. 

It's going to be a long road and hard work, but we can get there. We can get there, and we will.

*As of September of 2020 

The Best Books I Read in 2020

Cover photo by Susan Ying

A read a lot in 2020. I certainly had a lot of time to do so. Of course, I didn’t read as much as I should have or could have and wasted most of my quarantine periods playing League of Legends (I’m not even good at the game, I don’t know why I play). Despite this, I am still proud of the amount I read.

And I got lucky. I found some good ones. I read a couple of books this year that completely changed my world view. A few more made the quarantine that much easier. Here are a few of those books that were special.

*These are not affiliate links

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

This was by far my favorite book of the year and ranks pretty far up there on the all-time list. It is heavy on the details, takes a while to get into it, and there is not so much of a plot per se, but once you get over that hump, each page is its own story. It was written in 2016 but is fittingly topical for the year of lockdowns in 2020, as you will see within the first chapter. Highly recommend. (5/5)

The Black Swan and the rest of Incerto by Nassim Taleb

This is one of those books that has been sitting on the old bookshelf for a while. Over a year, in fact, ever since I moved into my house up in college. It has been on pretty much every book list, raved about by people I respect on the internet but has an intimidating number of pages, so it was constantly pushed aside in favor of easier books with bigger print. But with the amount of free time I had due to quarantine, I no longer had enough excuses to keep it waiting on that shelf. I was not disappointed. Every chapter is filled with revelations about the world that seem so simple yet so profound that you are forced to close the book for a while and walk around just to take it in. These books will change the way you look at the world. (4/5)

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

Stefan Zweig was an author I was unaware of until this year, but in the 1930s and 40s, he had been one of the most popular authors in the world. The book is semi-autobiographical, half of it following his life though the 1900s, the other half giving his perspectives on those times from later in his life. This book is very much an ode to a time lost, and it can get a little sad because of it, but it is so well written that it is worth the read. (5/5)

The Red Rising Series by Pierce Brown

The day before the lockdown started in early March, I picked up this book at the local bookstore near my childhood home. I finished it that night and ordered the next two in the series off Amazon immediately. It’s the classic hero’s journey combined with a healthy dose of Hunger Games, instead in space rather than dystopian earth which can only make it better. The books reminded me of the Legend Series by Marie Lu that I enjoyed so much in my childhood and came at a great time. Before picking up Red Rising, I had been in one of the worst reading slumps of my life. This book reminded me why I love reading so much, something I was missing dearly in the pandemic. (4.5/5)

Those are the books I found most noteworthy. I have a full list here of all the books I read last year if that strikes your fancy. Thanks for reading about me reading and see you soon.

2020 Review

So, 2020. Not what we were expecting (if you were expecting it, why?) In 2019 I was traveling all over the world; in 2020, I rarely left my house. Last summer, I studied with people from Mumbai, Beijing, and Tijuana; this year, I barely saw my extended family. It was not a great year, but it was not a bad year either. I'll explain that later.

First, though, a review of what I did.

Early January saw my return to Spokane for the first time in six months for school. It was a tough return. I was still adjusting back to life in America, trying to reconnect with friends that, for the most part, I hadn't seen since school let out the previous summer, and it was cold and snowy-a typical depressing Pacific Northwest winter. By February, though, I had broken myself out of the funk. I started going to the gym early in the morning again, and I was in the best shape of my life. I re-found my group and was going out and life it was looking up to be a good semester.

That obviously did not happen. Spring break came, and we all headed home for what we expected to be only a week. That week became a month, then another, then the rest of summer. 2020 became the year of the pandemic.

Being immunocompromised, my family took covid-19 seriously, especially the first couple of months where we were still learning about it. Nobody left the house. We walked around with masks, even before they were recommending them. I think I left the house less than ten times before July.

Yea, it sucked. I lost time in college, which I was still paying for, and lost my internship opportunity, which would pay me. But I was still fortunate. My family didn't have to worry about bills; we could stay home and hang out in our backyard. The biggest problem we had to deal with was boredom and getting sick of each other. I understand the privilege I had and still have because of this, and I am incredibly thankful for it.

Lockdown wasn't all bad. The times I was able to hang with friends were fun. I got to spend more time with my family, which I don't know how much I will be able to in the future. I started writing again seriously. And the weather was pretty nice.

At the beginning of August, I drove back up to Spokane for school. My lifestyle didn't change much; just now, I could quarantine with my friends, people my own age. Which meant a drank a whole lot more beer than I did at home. It was good to see these guys again.

I was able to stay up in Spokane until November. At that time, cases started to spike again, and with the vaccine on the horizon, I decided to head back home. That's where I have been until we drove up to Bodega Bay yesterday afternoon.

Like most people, I set some goals at the beginning of this year, and like most people, I failed at most of them. Covid gave me a good excuse, but for the most part, I wasn't doing too hot with any of them before the pandemic hit. Covid may have canceled the marathon I had signed up for in April, but I still hadn't begun to train for it in March.

I was able to accomplish a lot this year despite covid and my laziness. I read 50 books and wrote my own, which comes out this March. I put together my two best semesters of college GPA-wise, though whether that's due to the classes becoming easier online or because I had fewer distractions remains to be seen. I finished some online courses, gave a few talks, and got a lot better at beer dye and super smash bros. Altogether, I got a lot done.

Next year comes with a lot of uncertainty. I have one more semester before I graduate, and after that, I don't know what I am going to do. I don't know where I will live, where I will work, or what the world will look like pandemic-wise. I'm not worried, though. If I've learned anything from this pandemic, it's that I have already have it all. I have a fantastic family that will be there to support me no matter how bad I fail. I have a group of friends that I look up to and can count on. I've been lucky enough to travel all over the world. I've loved and lost, succeeded and failed, and have few regrets.

I owe most of this to my family, friends, and simply being at the right place at the right time, and for that I will always be thankful. Even though I haven't seen most of these people this year, they've made the presence known, and I am grateful for all they have done. I hope they know that.

My grandmother has a saying, "If you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans." God's going to get a good chuckle with this one then. I may not know where and what I will be doing in 2021, but I do have some goals. I am going to publish my first book in March. I will graduate college with a 3.5+ GPA, take the LSATs, and begin the process of applying to law schools. I will try to read at least one book a week, two more than I did this year. My final goal is to get to a point where I can honestly say that I am fluent in Italian. Hopefully, God isn't laughing too hard.

I'm excited for 2021. Vaccines are near. I graduate and start a new chapter of my life. It still may be winter, but the days are getting longer, a new president will be sworn in, and spring is on its way. Here's to the roaring 20s.

Some Thoughts on my Sister and Healthcare

Last night after dinner, I talked with my sister for the first time in a while. She is home for the week from Sacramento, where she is going to med school.

Being the future doctor in the family, she gets the honor of fielding every medical-related question or worry that comes to my mind. If my back is hurting or have had a sore throat and I'm convinced I'm dying, she gets a phone call. In a world where Covid is behind every corner, she gets a lot of calls from me. She says she doesn't mind, but I don't believe her.

Tonight though, the conversation drifted from Covid vaccines and my hurt toe to healthcare and the few problems that come with it. Most people know our American healthcare system needs some work. Every week there are headlines about the rising cost of drugs and people who can't afford surgeries or medicines that would vastly improve the quality of life. It doesn't make sense that a country as wealthy as ours can't afford basic drugs.

I wanted to get my sister's perspective on the problem. As a second-year student in med school, she no longer works on the front line, but she used to assist in clinics all across our county. A county in the Bay Area; an area that contains some of the wealthiest area codes in California and in the United States.

She told me how most health problems she saw could have easily been fixed, but so many could not afford it. They knew the procedures, the medicine, the referrals that would fix everything, but could not help them. She told me about a woman with type two diabetes who could not afford insulin. How if they suspected a patient of having cancer, they sent them to the emergency room because that the only way they know the patient will be able to afford help. She told me about how she had to memorize all the closest food banks because so many of her patients could not afford proper nutrition.

This is a half-hour away from Silicon Valley, where in the past two decades more millionaires were created than anywhere else in the world.

As I listened to her describe how much farther she and doctors had to go to treat these patients, I had to stop and appreciate my sister. She had always been a hero of mine. The work ethic she put into her sports and studies that allowed her to go to a top 20 university and become one of the best Irish Dancers in the world was always something I tried to emulate, and I know she will be a good doctor because of it.

But my sister is not going to be a good doctor; she will be a great one. Her dedication to caring propels her to memorize food bank locations so her patients can get proper nutrition. What keeps her studying for hours on end while the people she is studying to help protest health measures outside her window (she lives a block from the state capitol in Sacramento). Which allows her to patiently answer all my invalidated worries and stupid questions even though she's probably heard them a million times.

She is going to do big things. Both my sisters are. But especially now, appreciate your friends and family currently in health care. They are fighting a disease that much of the population doesn't believe in with a system that inhibits them more than helping them. Yet they still show up.

Fall 2020

Cover photo taken from my backyard on October 10, 2020 in Spokane, Washington

Hello friends. It's been several months since I have posted anything on this website. It begs the question, where have I been? Please do not fret (I know you were); I have been up to stuff. Some of it fun, and some of it not so fun but important, or at least that is what people tell me. Let me tell you about it.

School has been a thing. Technically I still have two more weeks of classes, but there is so little work to do that, to be honest, I've checked out. The plan at Gonzaga was always to move to entirely online after Thanksgiving break, and since this move was anticipated, my professors crammed most of the work into the first three-quarters of school, leaving these last few weeks sparse.

I had many exciting classes this semester, including a couple of political science classes, two entrepreneurship classes, and a journalism class. I've done well despite the barrier inherent in online learning, but I am not sure if that is because I worked hard or my teachers made the course easy. Either way, I'll take it.

I spent most of my time outside of class on two things. One, I have been taking a lot of online classes on Coursera and other learning websites. The two biggest time sinks have been the Google IT Professional eCertificate, and a Finance and Quantitative analysis certificate from UPenn. I wanted to get these done earlier, but 2020 got in the way. This is all part of my grand plan to get hired by someone, as I heard that jobs are where people get their money. I would appreciate having some money. My credit card bill is due in three days.

The other thing has been my book. Yea, I wrote a book. Well, I am still writing a book. I finished the first draft, the second, almost, which just leaves me with the editing. This shouldn't take me longer than a month (the author said naively), so I should finish it by the end of the year. (Update, it took longer than a month. The official release date is now March 31st.) I am proud of the work I have done and am excited/terrified to share it.

There is just a month and some change left in 2020, and I think I speak for many when I say I am just about done with this year and ready for the next. I will have a full-year reflection done at its end. Until then, I hope to start posting more short stories and essays. I have a lot in the pipeline, and I hope you all enjoy them. Until then, stay healthy out there.

A Thank You to Mac Miller

There is a question I like to ask people. If you can only listen to one artist’s or band’s discography for the rest of your life, which band or artist would it be, and why?

I like this question because there are a variety of reasons people could have for choosing their artists.

Some people choose their artists because of the diverse songs they have that could be applied to different moods.

Others choose favorites that are tied to special memories. An old high school buddy of mine once answered Queen, not because he liked them, but because it’s what his late mother used to play in the car when she took him to school.

Others simply choose the classics, like the Rolling Stones or the Beetles, which come with the assurance that they will still be good later in their lives.

For me, Mac Miller was all of the above. An incredible musician, who was there for all the memories of my teenage years, and still my favorite artist. Still someone I look up to. Today, on the second anniversary of his death, I wanted to finally say thank you. 

“No matter where life takes me, find me with a smile
Pursuit to be happy, only laughing like a child”

The first time I listened to Mac was on way to school, the fall of my sophomore year. This is back when Apple music had just come out, and I still hadn’t migrated from the dark side to Spotify yet. While browsing the music app, I had noticed Mac’s face on top of the Good:AM album in the best new rap playlist and had queued it up for the drive. By the time the alarm rang at the beginning of “Brand Name,” I was hooked. From then on, he was by far my favorite artist.

Finding a new favorite artist is akin to winning the jackpot, especially if they had been around for a while. Mac had already released over seven full projects under a variety of aliases, and I got to listen to them all. “I am who I am” and “Objects in the Mirror” from Watching Movies, “Party on 5th ave” and “Smile Back” are absolute bangers, and I cannot believe I had never heard “Nike’s on my Feet” before then. Almost exactly a year later, The Divine Feminine was released, and I don’t think I listened to anything else for a full week after its release. Mac soon became the soundtrack of my life. 

”Ask her what she wearing, say it's nothing but a brand name
Baby, this right here is hand made”

When you have an artist on repeat, their songs inevitably become a part of your memories. Mac was with me during all the peaks and pitfalls that was high school. “ROS” and “Dang” were the soundtracks of my first real relationship, and I still think of a certain girl with pretty brown eyes every time they come on. “When in Rome” and “Break the Law” echoed throughout the locker room before Friday night basketball games. Every day on the way to and from school, I sang along to “We” with CeeLo Green or “Rush Hour” at least once. My little sister wasn’t the biggest fan, but she wasn’t driving.

”Your love's not too kind to me
I hate the pain these days of rain
You're playing games of hide and seek, my love”

I clearly remember the day his last living album Swimming came out, August 23rd, 2018. Music fans will remember that was the date that Travis Scott released Astroworld and YG Stay Dangerous as well. I was twenty at that point, a year into college, and a lot had changed since the time of The Divine Feminine.

The Mac Miller behind Swimming had grown as well. There was a weariness to the album, the sound of someone who had been forced to grow up a little too quickly. But the kid was still there, the same optimist believed in himself enough to know that the world was still his to take.

A few weeks later, my cousin called me while I was playing video games with my roommate. “Dude, Mac Miller died.” Just like that, the man who had been there my entire teenage life, who had inspired so many and had so far still to go, was gone. 

“And they don't wanna see that
They don't want me to OD and have to talk to my mother
Telling her they could have done more to help me
And she'll be crying saying that she'll do anything to have me back”

I think the part that gets me the most is not that he meant so much to me and millions of others, but that he still had so much more life to live. You could tell, with every project, he was growing as both a musician and as a person. With each lyric he shared we saw the struggles, related to the sad times, and rejoiced in the happy. His ability to connect through music was so great that despite him being a stranger, someone most of us had never met, we regarded him as a friend, a confidant, a brother. He had so much more to achieve and live. What could have been.

So, Mr. Mac Miller, thank you. Thank you for your music and for sharing your soul with us. Thank you for the countless memories that I get to relive during your songs. For hyping me up before games and dates, and for consoling me after losses and breakups. I really hope, for all our heroes, that those who have passed know how much they did. For so many people. Thank you.

Empathy in a Connected World

Thanks to NASA for the Cover Image, @NASA on Unsplash

I opened Twitter up yesterday to see Uighur Muslims in concentration camps, my home state on fire, and fellow Americans needing to take to the streets to fight just for the opportunity to be seen as equal.

Also, there’s a pandemic going on. Did I mention that?

All of this is constantly thrown at us, day after day, every time we open our apps, re-launch Instagram right after closing Twitter, every time I pick up my phone. These stories of people losing their homes and loved ones are interspaced between my friends complaining about class, Stephen A Smith ranting about Lebron James, and memes about the Dallas Cowboys. And they makes me guilty…but not for the reason it should.

The reason I feel guilty when I see these injustices and tragedies is not that I feel compelled to do something, (which I should) or not because I am complicit with the problem (which I am in some cases) but because I don’t feel anything. Compassion has become the hardest feeling to elicit on the internet, simply because there is too much. Too many tweets, too many status updates, videos, photos, podcasts, and articles. All competing for your attention.

So when I see a post about donating to victims of forest fires, I scroll past. Its deadening, I hate it, and I want to change it.

But first, why do we feel this way?

I found that two cognitive tendencies are the reasons our compassion shuts off after too much internet. The first is an umbrella term that a Nature.com study coined called psychic numbing. Psychic numbing describes how we look at multiple victims in a tragedy, and the study found that when the number of identifiable victims increases, our capacity and willingness to help “reliably” decreases.

A boy stuck in a well down the street induces more sympathy than thousands dying in a foreign war. A dog stuck in a tree outside your house will receive more of a response than thousands of dogs being abused all across the country. The dog in the tree receives more sympathy, not because it is a better-looking dog or maybe does cooler tricks, but because a single, identifiable object is a lot easier to relate to than an abstract number. The more you relate, the more you can empathize, as that same thing could happen to your dog or your son.

Stalin, a man responsible for more death and injustice than any other, knew a little bit about this principle when he said, “A single death is a tragedy. A million is a statistic.”

We know that an increase in victims leads to lower empathy, but this is only half of the problem. The other half is that we only have so much to give. Empathy is zero-sum, meaning eventually we run out of it and need to recharge our batteries before we can give again.

The first homeless person I see on the street, I’m likely to give them a dollar. On the 16th, I’m probably going to keep my eyes ahead of me.

Similarly, if your friend just broke up with a long-term significant other and is crying into their ice cream, you probably are going to be pretty sympathetic. If they are still crying five hours and three bowls of mint chocolate chip later, less so. It is not that you care any less, you just don’t have anything to give anymore. 

So not only do the millions of problems the internet exposes us to exhausts our ability to empathize, we only have so much to give. Going back to the original question, though, what can we do about it?

I will be the first to admit I'm no expert, but I think one needs to take care of themselves first before dealing with the internet.

If that means limiting social media, meditating, or even completely ignoring the news, I would encourage you to do whatever works for you.

Yes, there are a lot of problems out there, but none of that is going to matter the noise of it all paralyzes us. After all, empathy is only empathy if it inspires action. Without action, its only stress.

Take care of yourself first, and then let's go to work.

Summer 2020

Cover photo taken July 3, 2020, an hour south of Sacramento

What’s up gang. It’s another update post. This time I’m gonna tell you all about my summer. “But Matthew, I really don’t care.” Too bad, I already wrote it, you’re too late. Summer 2020, the last one…let’s go.

Like many of my friends, my internship was canceled due to something called Covid-19 and for the majority of summer, I was locked up at home with my parents and younger sister. Being immune-compromised, I spent the first two months switching between my room, the family room, and the bathroom. It was a blast. With the coming of June, things started to relax a bit, and sometimes I took a walk outside.

It goes without saying that I was extremely lucky to be in the position I was with COVID. My family was well off enough I didn’t have to worry about making it to next month’s rent or meal, my parents were able to work from home, and I had family and friends in similar situations that I was able to see on a semi-regular basis. This is a privilege that I do not take lightly as I see my fellow Americans needing to take to the streets just for the opportunity to have what I have. COVID has brought to the limelight the injustice and hypocrisy of our system that minority groups in our nation have been experiencing since its inception, and it will be up to our generation to change this. I won’t go into that now, but I will in the future.

I spent most of my quarantine either listening to music or reading. I tried to get addicted to video games, but I couldn’t find one that wasted the hours without me getting bored after the first one. (Though as soon as Skyrim 6 comes out, I will be re-entering quarantine until the game has been bested several times.) A quick favorite book list, the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown, The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig, and A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow in particular was one of the best books I have read in a while, and I have since gone and read everything else Amor Towles has written. That’s enough of me pretending I’m an intellectual though, let’s move on.

I traveled a bit, (safely). Earlier in the summer, I made the trip to Spokane with one of my good friends to grab my truck and drive her back down to the Bay Area. I had left her at the airport with the assumption that I would return in a week to pick her back up after spring break, but obviously, the plan changed. The problem was that the truck was sitting in an 8 dollar a day parking lot, and many days had transpired since I had been up there. Luckily the airport powers that be were nice to me and only made me pay a portion, saving me several hundred dollars. Later that summer, some of my favorite people and I traveled down to San Diego to celebrate one of my best friend’s birthdays. We quarantined for several weeks beforehand and after and spent the entire weekend in said friend’s apartment, so even I felt safe the entire time. I was happy to see the man; it had been too long.

I was productive this summer, just not in the way I planned it to be. As I said, my internship was canceled, so I had a lot of free time on my hands. A portion of that time was working on some resume-building skills so I can get this thing called a job when I graduate, which I am told is an important thing to have as they give you money. At the time of writing, I am about a week away from finishing the Google IT program and Quantitative Analyst program on Coursera. As someone majoring in political science (or as a friend once said, “unemployment”) I figured adding some extra lines to my resume was something I should probably do.

The other way I was productive was by doing this, writing. Yes, I can (kind of) call myself a professional writer. That is in the sense that I did freelance writing for several months during the summer. It didn’t pay much, but it kept me busy and I was able to convince myself I had been productive at the end of the day. In the addition to freelance, I also began posting a lot more on my site, with essays on topics that were interesting to me and short stories inspired by the traveling I have lucky been enough to do throughout my short life. Check them out and let me know what you think. (Unless you don’t like them, in which case you can kindly keep your opinion to yourself.)

The last thing I want to talk about is a passion project that I have been working on since the end of 2019-before COVID. I am proud and apprehensive to announce that I have been writing a book, a book that is 2/3 of the way there and I will be publishing it at the beginning of 2021. Self-publishing that is, on Amazon since they make it so easy and cheap. If I can be serious for a quick minute here, I have never had a project that has consumed me like this in all my 22 years, and while I’m sure I will be horrified of it two months after publishing, I am proud of the work I have done. More info will come out as I get closer to finishing.

That’s about it for now. Definitely a little different than last summer. Tomorrow I start my last year of college and school for the time being at least. Here’s to ending on a high note.

Why the Big get Bigger...

Photo by James Ting on Unsplash

Jeff Bezos probably has too much money. More money than he knows what to do with, and a lot more than the rest of us, that’s for sure. In fact, he and the other richest 10 percent own over 85% of the world’s wealth.*

That’s very little having a lot.

This is one of the more poignant examples of the 80/20 rule, discovered by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who noticed that 80 percent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 percent of Italians. This was back in 1896. Now it’s worse.

As the world has grown more connected and complex, this 80/20 principle has turned into 95/5, or even, 99/1.

99 percent of book sales can be attributed to only 1 percent of published authors. 

Over 90 percent of songs played on streaming platforms come from the same 50 or so artists.

And the vast majority of wealth in this world is owned by the richest ten 10 percent.

Now, this doesn’t seem fair. How are the rest of us supposed to go about our lives knowing that so much is in the hands of so few? And why doesn’t Bezos donate any of his billions for crying out loud? He has enough.

Well, I can’t answer those questions, but I can start to explain why the world ended up like this.  The reason the world skews to such extremes can be attributed to two different principles; The Tournament effect, and the Matthew Principle.

The Tournament Effect was coined by Economist Sherman Rosen and explains that in zero-sum environments, a player with only a marginal advantage can win the entire pot.

Let’s say my Golden State Warriors were playing the Sacramento Kings. Of course, the Warriors are better, and no matter how many points the Kings score, at the end of the game, if they have less points, they lose the entire game. They don’t get extra points for keeping the score close.

Likewise, in poker, you could have a pretty good hand, but if someone has a better hand than you, they are taking all your chips and most of your dignity along with it. No consolation prizes for you. 

This same principle can be illustrated in the marketplace. For example, someone would be a lot more willing to buy a book by Hemmingway for 10 dollars than a book by an unknown author for one. Hemmingway’s skill is in being perceived as better than the unknown author, therefore he can ask for a higher price and take away money that could have gone towards bolstering this new author’s career.

Similarly, Apple is able to charge absolutely criminal prices for an iPhone even though rival technology has caught up to a point where they are about equal in quality at lower prices, just because the image they have is of higher quality.

The second explanation for these disparities is called the Matthew Effect. This explanation, named after the same gospel author that inspired my own name, was produced by sociologist Robert K. Merton. The Matthew effect is more often referred to as cumulative advantage, in which a single success or win can lead to continued success and winning, while conversely a single failure or loss can lead to more of such.

The Matthew effect takes into account the effect luck could have, something the tournament effect misses out on. Despite being underdogs, the Kings could upset the Warriors, leading to a period of momentum that carries through to future games.

If I was lucky enough to grow up best friends with Elon Musk, I probably could have secured myself several good looking job positions at Tesla or SpaceX, which in turn could have gotten me hired at other attractive firms that other people may have been more qualified for.

The Matthew Effect also explains why things become popular or don’t.

As an idea or product reaches critical mass, it will become more attractive to its market audience. I was not a big fan of Snapchat, but once all my friends downloaded it, I followed in suit.

English became the dominant language of the world because it reached a point where the majority of people knew it. It became in people’s better interest to learn English because learning it would allow them to communicate with the majority of the world.

Once Amazon became the place that had everything online, every company was forced to list their products on it for lower margins or else lose out on the marketplace where everyone shopped. The same goes for Walmart in the physical realm and Apple’s app store in the digital. The big benefit from their size and are able to leverage it into trillion dollar companies.

So, are we doomed to live in a world where the big get bigger and the small get smaller?

Unfortunately, as long as we continue with the current conditions, yes.

But that does not mean that what is big can never fall. Eventually, someone will get lucky and replace those that were lucky before them.

Think of all the companies that disappeared because of a couple of kids making computers in their garage.

Of the 500 largest companies in 1954, only 74 were still part of that group 50 years later.

And it’s never been a better time to be lucky. The internet has removed traditional obstacles with the access it provides and the creation of allowances like self-publishing and crowdsourcing.

It is possible to become part of the 1%. All you need is an internet connection, a good idea, and maybe a rabbit’s foot for some luck.

*Global Wealth Report, Credit Suisse, 2013

Lessons in Urban Planning from Disney

I come from a Disney family. Yea, one of those families. The road trip down to LA once a year type family. I remember not being able to sleep the night before because I was so excited. I’ve grown a little bit now, to the point where I hesitate before buying the four-dollar churro, but Disney still inspires me.

Just now it isn’t the rides or the food, but the atmosphere Disney Imagineers have created throughout the parks. There is a sense of contentment walking through New Orlean’s square or a feeling of excitement in Adventureland that you don’t get in most cities. It's the same feeling that people get exploring the canals of Venice, or boulevards of Paris and I think the main reason why Americans shell out 200 bucks a day to visit Disneyland.

What are the characteristics that make these cities so appealing, and how did Disney capture them so well? Early in March, Disney put out a documentary called The Imagineering Story, which detailed the history of the Imagineers, the people who design Disney parks. As I was watching, I started to notice similarities between the design rules that Disney used and principles in urban planning. Principles that are best exemplified in these special cities like Amsterdam or Paris. These are the Disney design rules that are seen in the great cities in the world and should be used in all of them.

1. Attention to Detail/Pretty

The first thing one sees after walking into Disneyland is a giant Mickey head created out of hundreds of flowers, always perfectly in bloom. As you walk through the park, it is rare to see any sort of litter, and any exceptions are immediately swept up by Disney’s army of cast members. Everything, from the manhole covers to the water bottles, proudly display the iconic silhouette of Mickey Mouse.

Disney was one of the first companies to understand that it's the details, even the ones that you don’t notice, that make the experience. A Harvard Business Review said that Disney “nailed attention to detail well before Apple,”(hbr.org, 2012) a company that has built its reputation off that principle. In the line for Indiana Jones, guests pass the time by attempting to translate the indigenous language Imagineers created for the temple. In Frontierland, hoof prints and wagon lines imprinted into the specially-designed concrete gives the impression that a covered wagon just passed by. In Tomorrowland, all the plant life is edible, an example of what modern farming could look like in the future. These extra details are what sets Disneyland apart from the competition and make the park that much more pleasant to visit. You don’t see this at Seaworld.

These details are usually glossed over during city budget meetings. Why would a city spend extra money on hiring an extra garbage truck to maintain cleanliness standards or increasing the budget on a freeway overpass and turn it into an art piece? In that same vein, why should I, a taxpayer, have to pay extra just for a couple extra sculptures in the park. I don’t even go to the park! (It's a long walk)

The thing is, attention to detail is what makes a place special and beautiful. The potted plants by the front door, the noticeably litter-free downtown with the cool new art piece in the middle. The prettier a place, the more likely the people who inhabit that place are going to take ownership of it and take better care of the said place, and the less the city is going to have to pay in upkeep in the future. Imagine if our freeway overpasses looked like old Roman aqueducts instead of the ugly concrete monstrosities they are now. Any sort of vandalization would be the scandal of the town. 

A modern freeway overpass versus an old Roman Aqueduct. Which would you like more in your backyard? Which would you spend more effort maintaining?

2. Blend of Old and New

But what makes a place attractive? Isn’t beauty subjective?

Science says otherwise, at least to a point. There is this concept called the creative curve that author Allen Garnet popularized in his book by the same name that explains the human preference for creative ideas. This curve is based on the principle that humans like things that are a combination of familiarity and novelty.

Let me explain. When our ancestors were hunter-gatherers and spent their days looking for food, they would often find plants and animals that they had never seen before. Let's say one of them, named Darryl, found a berry that nobody had seen before. Darryl would be more likely to try it if it had similar characteristics of a berry he already knew was safe. His first desire is to be safe, eating something he is pretty sure is edible, but it is also balanced by his desire for something new and the added benefit that might have. If this berry is edible, that's an additional food source for Darryl. 

We don’t need to taste test berries anymore (the Darryls of the world have already done that for us) but if you look at the globalized world now, a lot of the creative ideas that have gone mainstream make use of this creative curve. Viral songs remix beats and samples from the past. Each age of painting adds its own twist to the one before.

Steve Jobs, who knew a thing or two about design, made use of this principle with Apple products. Originally, the iPhone was going to have straight edges instead of rounded corners. Steve took the designer out into San Francisco and pointed out every street sign and traffic light he could until the designer relented. One of the reasons Jobs thinks the iMac sold so well was because of the calligraphy he insisted be a part of the word processor. All of these are familiar things people knew and understood which gave people the courage to try these products that had never been seen before. If they looked too unfamiliar, people would have balked. 

The creative curve is seen all over Disneyland Park. Main Street is a blast of nostalgia and familiarity with its typical small-town American design, but the street frames a fantastical castle in the distance. In the new Star Wars land, designers were tasked with creating an entirely new world never before seen in the films. To make this alien world seem familiar, the architects and artists drew inspiration from iconic architecture in cities such as Jerusalem, Instanbul, and multiple cities in Morocco. 

3. Constantly Evolving

The Haunted Mansion decorated for Christmas.

The problem with the creative curve, however, is that once an idea or concept becomes too familiar, people start to lose interest. There is no longer that novelty factor that keeps us interested. Even iPhones lose their luster after a few months of use and a brand new model hovering over the horizon.

Disney solves this problem by constantly evolving. Walt himself had the quote, “Disneyland will never be finished. It will continue to grow as long as there is imagination left in the world” Every Halloween and Christmas, Disneyland completely redecorates and changes the storylines of some of its rides like Haunted Mansion and Its a Small World. Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, and Star Tours have all seen upgrades in the last few years that improved the ride’s props, animatronics, and or completely revamped the story of the entire ride. In California Adventure, the last 10 years or so have seen the complete overhaul of its main street entrance, the retheming of Pixar Pier, and the addition of Cars Land. In a couple of years, an entirely new land will open up where the Bugs life area used to be, and it goes without saying that Disney has many plans already in the works for future changes and upgrades.

Every time a new skyscraper is added to the San Franciscan skyline I always want to visit, but it is important to note that change has consequences; consequences I do not have to deal with as someone who lives outside the city. With every change, both in cities and theme parks, the entire system is going to be affected. New apartment buildings and office complexes bring extra traffic and congestion to the city and could change housing prices to the point of gentrification. New lands in Disneyland and California Adventure increased the crowd size almost to unbearable sizes and took away from the rest of the park. When the new Star Wars land opened in Disneyland, the lines there were over two hours in length, while the rest of the park sat damn near empty.

So while it is important to keep evolving as a place, great care has to be made in the decisions to change. Theme parks don’t have to worry about gentrification or construction annoying the neighbors, cities need to. While the San Franciscan skyline has grown, gentrification has spread throughout the entire region as housing prices shot up to insane levels. While our NBA team the Warriors moved into a brand new arena downtown, our public transportation system is largely the same it’s been for 50 years. These housing and transportation problems might be a good place to start.

4. Enclosed

There is only one spot in all of Disneyland where one can see the outside world; the very top of the Matterhorn, and even then you only get glimpses. The real world is scary, and humans don’t like being in wide open spaces. It is a habit leftover from our less civilized ancestors who over thousands of years figured that being out in the open meant that you were exposed to all the scary cats and crocodiles that could eat us. Instead, we associated safety with enclosures, walls that keep out anything that might want to eat me for a light snack.

This works up to an extent, as once buildings become too tall they start to become overbearing and not a little bit scary, especially in earthquake-prone California. I remember driving through San Francisco as a child and gazing almost directly up at the 70 plus story Bank of America building and imagining just how bad of a day I would have if an earthquake decided to happen exactly at that moment. Contrast cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York with that of Paris, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. Walking through those streets bring about the safe feeling of enclosure all without blocking out the sun with an 85-story monstrosity of glass and steel.

What walking down the street looks like in New York City

Walking down the street in Amsterdam.

At Disney every single building is at most three stories, providing this gentle density that we crave while not blotting out the sun. In addition to this, natural-looking barriers block our view from other lands and the outside world, keeping our focus in our current environment without distracting our brain with things that don’t belong. Think of the way the desert wall of Cars Land gently wraps around the town of Radiator Springs, or how walking through New Orleans Square, one would have no idea of the existence of the alien environment of Star Wars land that sits just over the hill. Tom Sawyer’s island would look weird with the Millenium Falcon in the background of the Temple of Indiana Jones with New Orleans square.

This artificial topography wraps around Cars Land and obstructs the view of Anaheim city behind it and Pixar Pier to its right.

5. Weenie

The Weenie is one of Disney’s greatest tools, even if also one of their biggest failures in naming. A weenie is a landmark or objects the provides orientation around a given area. Cinderella’s Castle is one. The Matterhorn replica could be another. In California, the Ferris Wheel works just as well. Easily recognizable and distinct, usually due to their looming size, spotting a weenie will immediately tell the observer where they are in relation to the weenie, and therefore where they are in the park/city. It's like a compass, just larger. 

A great example from an urban environment would be the Duomo in Florence. While I was a student there, most of our directions revolved around the Duomo. The book shop is just three blocks past the Duomo. That cafe is a block past the Duomo to the right. If you were lost, all you needed to do was find the Duomo spire in the sky and you knew exactly where you were. (This is an added benefit of gentle density with few story buildings. It would be hard to spot the duomo if it was surrounded by skyscrapers.) 

College campuses have similar tools. The Campanile at UC Berkeley is a good one, it can be spotted by a lost freshman from pretty much anywhere on campus. Up in Spokane at my own college Gonzaga, St. Aloysius church does a great job as well. If by some chance I was stumbling around lost in the neighborhood surrounding the college, all I need to do is find one of its spires in the sky and I know exactly where I am. 

Note how the Duomo stands tall over the rest of the Florentine skyline.

The Campanile at UC Berkeley

You can fault Disney with a lot of issues; their near-monopoly over entertainment, its poor treatment of workers, its prices, (4.75 for a churro should be a capital offense) but one thing that you cannot take away from them is that they make damn good theme parks. The reason they were able to do this, by following these five main design rules, rules that they derived from the world's greatest cities. 

If you would like to learn more about what makes a city great, I definitely would recommend this video made by the School of Life. There are many more principles that go into making cities great, principles I didn’t include because they were either not important enough to mention or not applicable to theme parks and therefore Disney. (Or because I was lazy, you decide.) 

All of these rules, like all good things in our world, require money, something cities always seem to be lacking. In my next article, I will outline some interesting ideas from the book, The New Localism, that might be able to help in that aspect. That can be found here, once it's finished. 

Photo Credit

• Cover photo by Jonathan Körner

• Overpass photo by Aaron Munoz

• Aqueduct photo by Sébastien Jermer

• Haunted Mansion photo by Ben Lei

• New York Street by Brandon Green

• Amsterdam Street by Vinícius Henrique

• Carsland photo by

• Florence Picture by Gonzaga University

• Campanile photo by me (Can’t you tell?)

The New Localism

Photo by Monica Bourgeau on Unsplash

It is crazy to me that cities work. That millions of people manage to live their lives together every day with (mostly) no mishaps. That buildings are powered and watered, streets are cleaned, garbage collected, and that Sam is more or less cordial with his neighbors Jane, John, Peter, Susan and the rest of his floor and building and block. How that all works is insane.

And cities are growing, or at least they were pre-COVID. There might be some adjustments in the numbers now, but the UN estimated that in 2050 almost 70% of the population will live in urban areas.  Already in the United States, a country much less dense than similar states in Europe of Asia, 2/3 of the population live in cities in an area that composes of only 3.5 percent of the total land area. The growth of cities may slow due to COVID, but they will remain an important factor of for the lives of billions for years to come.

Why are cities such a big deal, and why are they growing? Authors Bruce Katz and Jeremy Novak think they know.  One, cities have always been useful to society due to their natural agglomeration of resources and opportunities. There are more jobs, homes, and opportunities in cities than there are in the country, just because everything is closer. Also, cities have benefited from the rise of the global economy. Bruce and Jeremy state in their book, The New Localism, that “many urban institutions have become more relevant in the global economy. Medical facilities, universities, and other research institutions attract tech startups and venture capital.” Tech startups like Google, Apple, Microsoft have an unparalleled impact on the economy, and rely of the connections and institutions that are only available in dense urban environments. Stanford and San Francisco were a huge part of the creation of Silicon Valley. Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh worked with the city of Pittsburgh to create a similar area of innovation in robotics in Pennsylvania. Boston owes a lot of its success to the fact that there are hundreds of world class universities within a 20 minute ride from downtown. 

As cities have grown with the advent of globalism and the internet, so have its problems. Cities, as a combination of private and public space, theoretically should be democratic and equal in its accessibility. Bruce and Jeremy again write “Low income should have access to just as good schools as high income. Unfortunately, that is not the case in many places and erodes shared identity and creates divisions.” Columbia University thrives while the surrounding neighborhood of Morningside Heights declines. San Francisco, while experiencing unheard economic growth from Silicon Valley faces a crushing housing crisis that drove out many people from the city to lower-income areas in the suburbs. A single policy, such as redlining which was popular in the 20th century and still used today, or the construction of a freeway overpass can deny whole neighborhoods of people from many benefits all of the citizens should share.

The burden of fixing these problems falls not to the state or federal government, but to the cities, a problem that Bruce and Jeremy think that cities are well equipped to handle by utilizing a theory called localism. Localism describes a broad range of philosophies but can be boiled down to preference for the local. It can be seen across many different domains, agriculturally in the slow food movement that came out of Italy, socially in the preference for smaller communities over large ones, in business with the idea of small fast companies over large corporations. Politically, it speaks to the devolution of power from federal and state levels to the local levels and redistributing it to the people who actually live in said area. Instead of asking permission from D.C. or Olympia, WA, the city of Spokane has the agency to solve its own problems. This can come from two different areas, the local government, or the locals themselves. In The New Localism, two different types of strategies of localism are used to solve their cities’ problems.

 One could assume that to get anything done in a city, they would need to go through the famously inefficient city hall to get approval. Rather, the citizens of the city can do a lot without having to spend 10 years waiting in the chamber of commerce waiting room. Bruce and Jeremy talk of one-way citizens can come together to create change in their communities by bringing business CEOs and institutional leaders-like university presidents and hospital directors, and their combined power together to form collaborations. These groups devise regional strategy and research, create funds based on pooled resources, and then re-invest those funds back into the community, all without thinking about a permit.

An example of this is the Central Indiana Corporate partnership, (CICP), which is composed of 60 of the region’s best CEOs, presidents, philanthropy directors, and other institutional leaders. Free from the bureaucracy of city hall, the CICP has a lot more agency to spur economic growth in the region. Their methods include identifying key points of strength in the region, helping businesses craft business plans to capitalize on said opportunity, then supporting the new venture with help in marketing and fundraising. Collaborations like this better utilize the community’s resources due to its consolidation and fill in the void government was supposed to fill as investors in their communities. Similar ventures have sprung up since. In Cleveland, a similar group of leaders formed the Cleveland Tomorrow Group to revitalize the crumbling city center. In Cincinnati, the mayor encouraged the CEO-led Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation that oversees the re-development of the greater downtown area. Makes you wonder though, why the mayor couldn’t do it himself. What would it look like if cities were able to leverage their power business leaders and philanthropies? Do cities even have enough assets at their disposal to make a worthwhile impact. After all, they aren’t making that type of money. Bruce and Jeremy think they do.

One of the main ideas the book The New Localism promotes is that cities have a lot of underleveraged power at disposal, but this power is too spread out and disorganized amongst a million different authorities to be properly utilized.  Land and other assets are divided between airport authorities, parks and rec departments, water and gas agencies, the list goes on and on. While this decentralization prevents corruption it also prevents utilization. Cities can use these assets to grow their city in a process called the Copenhagen method, an idea that came out of the Danish capital to solve a housing shortage in the city. This method involves the creation of a public corporation that is transferred land and other required assets by the government to do its job. The government then goes and rezones the transferred land for commercial/residential use, which increases the value of the land. The corporation borrows based off that that increased value, creates infrastructure (gas/electric lines, access to public transportation) so that the land is more appealing to developers, and sells/leases that land at its increased value to service its debt.

An example of this can be seen in the development of transit villages by my local public rail line, BART. BART has stations in almost every major city in the Bay Area and are surrounded by these huge parking lots. In an attempt to ease traffic congestion and provide additional housing in an area facing a shortage of such, BART began building transit villages where these parking lots stood. To do so, they worked with local government to re-zone the land where the parking was, which then allowed them to lease/sell the land to developers. All this revenue goes towards the continued upkeep of the BART transit system itself, which has been struggling in its later years.

These ideas and methods seem like they should perfectly.  I’ll admit that as I was reading this book, all of these sounded like no brainers. However, a city is so much more than an economy. There are a million other factors at play here; how will this affect the community, the identity of the neighborhood, the people who live there. Will the community be able to grow with new development, or will the lack of opportunities force them out like it has done in San Francisco? Will business leaders and University Presidents be able to use their power for the betterment of the community, or will one fall prey to temptation and ruin it for everyone. Race, equitable access, and regional foresight all need to be a part of development and planning. I think the authors were on the right track, they just failed to see past improving the economy. 

As cities continue to grow, so will their power. Eventually, the big cities of the United States, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and many others will no longer see a need for state and federal oversight. The people of the city will begin to do what they always used to do before the creation of big states; they will begin to solve their problems themselves.

A Solider In Florence

The solider began his post early in the morning and stood by the Duomo and its campanile until the sun was high in the sky. He stood with his rifle, kept guard over the city's greatest landmark, and was often bored. They told him it was a great honor, but all he did was point people towards the ticket office or pretend he didn't speak whatever language the tourists were using that day. Today it was Mandarin. He didn’t speak Mandarin anyway.

As he stood guard, he watched the horse riders who gave rides to the tourists feed their steeds and the painters and the souvenir merchants sell to the tourists and the tourists crane their necks and ignore all these people. He wished there were fewer tourists sometimes. Then maybe he wouldn't have to stand in front of this old church and look threatening. Maybe he could sleep in.

The soldier had never wanted to become a soldier. He had wanted to be a cook. Unfortunately, he wasn’t a good cook and there isn’t a lot of money for cooks who can’t cook. So, he joined the military. There he found he could shoot straight and could run fast and became a captain and then a major and then part of the honor guard in Florence. They say it is a great honor. The soldier thought it was stupid.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to protect the church. He thought it was a pretty good-looking church and would prefer it stuck around rather than being blown to bits. He just didn’t see how he was going to be of any help in preventing such an event. If someone wanted to blow up the Duomo, a couple of soldiers scanning a crowd of thousands probably weren't going to stop them. So, he stood there and looked pretty and pretended to be dangerous and did absolutely nothing all morning long.

The sweat forming on his forehead told the soldier that it was growing close to 11 in the morning. Florence was never hot until 11, at which point the sun is high enough to see the entire city and make bake everyone. Only an hour left. In the corner of his eye, he noticed a couple wearing University of Florence t-shirts, which meant they were tourists and pretended to not see them coming. He hoped they would get the message. They were American so they did not and walked right up to him.

“Scusi, sir,” said the man. “Do you know where we can find the nearest bathroom?”

It takes a lot of bravery or a lot of ignorance to approach a tall man in full camo and with an automatic weapon and ask about bathrooms. Americans were the worst because usually their bravery came from their ignorance, so they never knew which situations to be brave in and which situations not to be. And he talked loudly. Very loudly. The soldier did not want to give this couple directions and very much wanted to get back to standing alone and being bored. He tried his go-to strategy.

“Mi dispiace, Signor, non parlo Inglese.”

The Americans did not go away easily. He had a bushy mustache and a sweaty face. His wife was small and had a hat with a large brim that hid her face.

“Il bagno.” The American raised his voice as if the volume were the determining factor in getting his message across. He added some erratic gestures for good measure. “Dove… il bagno!”

The soldier thought about giving a straightforward answer so he could get on with it. The nearest bathroom was just around the corner, after all. But he was invested in this conversation now, so with a big smile and in the fastest Italian he could manage he responded, “Ah, certo, Signor, ci sono alcuni nella questo edificio sulla Via San Gallo, un nella questo negozio, an altro in il Duomo, ma dovete aspettare nel linea primo…” and rattled off several other options until the American's mustache began to twitch and his wife’s head bobbed. This type of Americans can’t handle that much information at once, let alone in a language they don’t understand. Realizing their mistake, the couple began to bow away.

“Uh, gracias…I mean grazie, Signor, we’ll be on our way…uh, ciao.”

The soldier waited until the couple was a few steps away and then called out to them, “Sure thing, buddy. You guys have a good rest of your day!” And then he settled back into his stance to watch the crowd. He was still bored but now he was bored with a smile.

Spring 2020

Hey. It’s been a while. The last time I posted was January 10, just a week before heading back to Gonzaga for my spring semester. A lot has happened since then. Despite everything that occurred, I accomplished a lot this past semester of college, and wanted to make a post about it. This is that.

This semester I moved into an off campus home for the first time. It was an adjustment for sure, but definitely a positive change. I still can’t cook though. (Somehow this is still true through quarantine, though not for the lack of trying.) Since I was returning from a semester abroad-did I mention I went abroad-I got to connect with a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a very long time. That was fun, but it took a while. Again, it was an adjustment for sure. 

I had a lot of interesting classes this semester. For my political science major, I got to take International Law, Intro to International Relations, and the Developing World. All of these classes had some interesting intersections and was fun to go through in the same semester. Outside of that, I simulated running a multi-national lemonade corporation-don’t ask how it went-in my entrepreneurship class and learned the basics of Islam in an introductory course on the subject.

Like the rest of the country, I was sent home during spring break and moved to an online platform for the rest of the semester. I didn’t like it but considering the circumstances I was very lucky. I still managed to do very well despite a crippling lack of motivation during the last couple weeks, scoring my highest GPA of my college career. (I am definitely not bitter about being a thousandth of a point off from making President’s list.)  As of right now, I am heading back to Spokane in the fall, but we will see what happens.

Outside of classes, had a great time returning to the business fraternity and social fraternity that I joined Sophomore year. In Theta Chi, I was elected Philanthropy chair and planned several trips to the local Habitat for Humanity site. In Alpha Kappa Psi, I was on the formal committee that quickly cancelled formal but was also elected VP of Member Engagement for my senior year, which I am very excited about. Finally, I helped a senior member of Alpha Kappa Psi realize his goal of establishing a Net Impact Chapter at Gonzaga, a club that I am proud to be president of next year.

Obviously, it was a bummer to miss out on a significant portion of my junior year and the foreseeable time of my senior year, but I understand that it is a privilege to go to college in the first place and be able to continue my education from a safe space at home. I know that many people can’t afford that luxury right now. I am proud though of what I managed to accomplish during the school year and am optimistic about what can be done in the coming months.

In the next couple of weeks, I will begin to release what I have been working on since the end of school. I am very proud of it all and can’t wait to share it with the world. Check back here for more updates. Or don’t, I’m not your dad.

Florence Study Abroad

On September 7, 2019, I left San Francisco International for Rome Fiumicino Airport. For 3 months and some change, I would be studying abroad in Florence, Italy. I had been looking forward to this since I got to Gonzaga. After all, this was one of the main reasons I chose Gonzaga in the first place. I was not disappointed.

My time abroad consisted of three main things: School, travel, and exploring/experiencing the city of Florence. School was fairly straightforward, and well, easy. The classes in my program were significantly easier than those back at Gonzaga. (Don’t tell Gonzaga.) I only took four classes; Italian 301 and 350, Small Business, and the Philosophy of Ethics. That means I had a lot of time for the other two activities.

Of the 12 weekends I was there I traveled 6 of them, with one of those including all of Thanksgiving week. I traveled to, in order, Barcelona, Amsterdam, five cities in Switzerland, Paris, and Prague. Oh, and some day trips to places like Rome and Venice. I wrote a post about each of these trips, which can be found here, but out of all of these places, Amsterdam was the place I loved the most.

I spent the majority of my time though exploring Florence. One of my favorite parts was going out with friends and trying new restaurants or gelato places or a cool view that we heard about. Gonzaga also had a lot of programs that got us into the city. For example, I worked as a tour guide in the Duomo, a famous basilica in Florence. A couple of my classes took us on tours of the city, showing places of history or interesting shops like a fifth-generation metalworker shop or a place that does mosaic paintings. However, my favorite thing to do was a Gonzaga program called English for Pasta. Every Tuesday, a friend and I would take a 20-minute bus ride deep into Florence to meet with an Italian family. For the first hour, we would play games with the kids while only speaking English. However, for the rest of the night, we could only speak Italian. In exchange, they made us traditional Italian dishes and we got to eat dinner with them. I probably learned the most during these nights, and my host family became my second family. I miss them.

Now I am back. Leaving was the most bittersweet, polarizing experience I have ever felt. Half of me wanted to spend the rest of my life there, the other wanted to get my ass home. Being home has allowed me to look back at the experience from afar, (literally) and I have some reflections on the experience. Before that, it must be understood is that there is going to be an obvious bias here. I am Italian, sometimes pretentiously so. I grew up in a family that identified as such, and it is something I am very proud of. So, I may be looking back here with rose-colored glasses.

Italy is a contradicting country. Everything that makes the country special, the culture and traditions, the history and art, the food, don’t forget about the food, is also the very things that holds it back. An example of this is window shutters. In Florence, every building must have window shutters so that the city maintains its traditional look. It looks great, however, that means no windows have screens, and mosquitos can enter as they please. We fought a losing war with mosquitos all semester.

Another thing that I found interesting if not a little bit sad is how the identity of Italy’s cities is changing. Italy’s economy is not doing well, and unemployment is at an all-time high. That means most Italians don’t actually live in Florence or other big touristy cities because of the cost of living. Rather they live in the outskirts and commute in, while Florence and similar cities pivot towards the tourist. Every other person you met/saw on the street was a tourist, most likely not even being able to speak Italian.

This all being said, the times when I did experience the true Italian culture, it was incredible. Italy is a passionate place. They are proud of their culture and country and love to share it. They are fiercely loving and protective of their family members. My Italian family would talk for hours on the history of the dish they made or proudly talk about their children’s basketball team and dance recitals. I saw a lot of what I loved about my own family in the families I was lucky enough to get to know while there.

Regarding the experience as a whole, I learned more this semester than I did for the rest of my college career. Seeing all those different ways of life is eye-opening. I wish there was a less cliché way to describe that feeling but traveling around Italy and the rest of Europe I learned so much, about my friends, myself, and different and better ways of doing things. Amsterdam and Switzerland showed me that public transportation can work, can even be better than cars. Barcelona opened my eyes to foods my uncultured ass didn’t even know existed. I didn’t even know Prague existed before this trip, and it was one of the most alien yet welcoming cultures I visited.

It seems surreal now. That I woke up and lived in one of the most famous cities in the world, where people like Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo lived. We got drinks in the shadows of Palazzo Vecchio, ate dinner right across the street from the Duomo and played poker on a balcony overlooking the city. If money was not a problem and my friends and family were nearby, I could have lived there forever. Until next time.

If you would like to read up on the entirety of my time there, I created a blog just for that trip. You can find it through one of the buttons below.

If you are going abroad, I created a google maps link with notes of all the places that either my friends and I found or were on one of the many lists alumni of the program have made. You can find it here. Make sure to try Sandwichic.

2019 in Review

From January 1, 2019

The theme of 2019 for me was travel. I was lucky enough to travel all over the Pacific Northwest, my home of California, and all over Europe. I did a lot. Here’s a quick summary of it all and what I have learned.

The year started off with lacrosse. I returned to school early and out of shape for fitness camp, which was a fun wake up call. The season was a blast though, even though we had to travel most of it. We traveled all across the Pacific Northwest, from Missoula, Montana to Seattle, Washington, to Boise, Idaho. That might have been the last season I played for the Zags, (The team has gone under due to financial reasons) so I’m glad we ended on a high note.

Despite traveling almost every other weekend, I managed to rush Alpha Kappa Psi Business Fraternity. I learned a great deal professionally and met some incredible people. It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in college. Since I went abroad this semester, I still haven’t had a full semester as a member, and I am looking forward to coming back as one.

Summer was just as busy for me. I started work at the Banana Republic as a Brand Associate, which basically meant I was supposed to stand at the entrance and look pretty and greet everyone coming in. I think I did a pretty good job. I also worked the cash register and standardization for a while. I was great at the register; I was terrible at folding.

I also turned 21 this summer. I’m told that is a big deal. I got to celebrate in Vegas which was a lot of fun with my family and my grandparents. My grandpa taught me how to play poker when I was young so it was pretty awesome to play together in Las Vegas of all places. I lost a lot of the money I made at Banana there.

Early July I quite Banana to start The DISC program at UC Berkeley. I wrote a lot about that experience here. I learned about urban planning, land analysis, and architecture from some incredibly smart experts and met some awesome people from all over the country and world. I actually visited one of the friends I met there later in the year in Barcelona. I also get to say I graduated from UC Berkeley.

I traveled a ton this summer. I was all over the Bay Area with my DISC program, but I also made several trips down to LA, Sacramento, and up to Bodega Bay. I logged a lot of miles in my beautiful truck, ending it with a quick 17 hour trip up to Spokane at the end of the summer. The West Coast has to be the best place in the world to road trip and was one of the things I missed most while abroad

Abroad was the biggest part of my year by far. I’m writing a stand-alone piece for it right now, but I am having trouble with it. It’s hard to capture the experience solely in words. Right now, I will say that it was one of the best times of my life, I miss it dearly, but am happy to be back home. I will link the article here when I have finished it.

It seems cliché’ to say, but 2019 was the best year yet. Here’s to the next decade.

Prague

Prague was not what I expected. To be honest, I had never heard of Prague until right before I left for abroad. A friend who had gone the semester right before had said that it was her favorite place she visited, and I had to look it up. The last free weekend of abroad one of my best friends and I decided to visit some of his hometown buddies who had been studying there all semester. I only got two nights out of the city, but I will go on record saying that Prague was at least top three out of the places I visited all trip.

My friend and I left right after our 9 o clock class on Thursday. We may have skipped our philosophy class. After a small layover in Germany, we arrived in Prague late in the afternoon meeting his friends at the airport. The first night we saw the Christmas markets. Every other stall has mulled honey wine. I now like mulled honey wine. They showed us all the landmarks, the main square, the observation tower, and the local casino of course. It was cold as hell though, like 20 degrees out, so we went back to the apartment and played poker and drinking games until bed.

The next day we spent the day walking around the city. We got hot dogs for breakfast, went to the overlook of the city, had some more mulled wine, and then went to the castle. The castle was immense, the biggest I have ever seen. (It is important to note that I have not seen many castles.) I actually ran into my mom’s best friend and basically my second godmother here, which was surreal. I was not expecting that.

After the castle, we went to a famous bridge, took some pictures, and found a bar. Prague is known for its beer, but I missed my watered-down American beer.

Once we had our beer jacket on, we found a train to a soccer game. The atmosphere here was incredible. It was two pretty mediocre teams, but everyone was acting a fool. There was riot police, people running around without shirts on in sub 20-degree weather and beer everywhere. It was nuts. W

e stayed until the end of regular time and then dipped to head to the main square to take part in a poker tournament. It was only a 2000 crown buy-in, which in dollars was only 20 dollars or so. Everything in Prague is much cheaper. Most of us busted early, but my best bud stayed in for a couple of hours. We actually left him there to get in line for a club, but it was a lot busier than we expected and we were unable to get in.

I left the next morning to attempt to see some family in Italy before heading home, as this was our last weekend in Europe. I was impressed with Prague; its public transportation, its architecture, organization, and beer. Would recommend this city.

Paris

I was excited about Paris. I mean it’s Paris, who wouldn’t be. But I was especially excited about this trip. The group of people I was going with were some of my favorite people. Also, as someone who grew up reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald and all the other famous early 1900s authors, Paris held a lot of expectation for me. It did not disappoint.

We all met late in the afternoon at our Airbnb, almost in the exact middle of the city. We were all coming from different places. I came from Switzerland, the girls from Prague, and another buddy of mine from London. While we were waiting for my buddy we found a bar and had some wine caught up. After my friend arrived, we walked the city for a little, but everyone was very tired and it was Thanksgiving so we got some food from a local market and made our own meal to celebrate at the Airbnb. It was a great meal, even though I burnt the pasta.

The next morning, we got to explore Paris. It is easy to see why Paris has been the inspiration and home of so many artists throughout the years. The streets are as chaotic as they are beautiful. On that first morning wandering the streets, we found the best baguettes in Paris, (according to Google) went to Notre Dame, a church nearby with stunning stained glass, and the Shakespeare and Co book shop.

After a late lunch, we spent several hours in the Louvre. Many hours. We still only saw a small bit of it. Then we had dinner. Dinner was good, the wine was better, the bill afterward …not so much. We lost track of time at dinner and had to race to the Eiffel tower to try and catch the last light show of the night. It was worth it.

The next morning, we got another late start. We rented scooters and scoot scooted all the way to the D’Orsay Museum to look at the pictures. There are a lot of famous paintings here including a few Van Goghs. Afterward, I strolled down some streets to grab some souvenirs, then I met up with the gang again to head back to the Eiffel tower to see it in the daylight. It is still very impressive in the daylight.

This was our last evening in Paris, so we decided to walk to the streets. The cold forced us into a Brassiere where I discovered spiced wine is a fine beverage. We also had a cheesecake that very well might be the best in existence. We spent the rest of the night wandering for a while before the cold overtook us and we returned to the apartment. We returned to Florence early the next morning for two more weeks of school.

Switzerland

I do not know why I decided to go to Switzerland. It wasn’t the obvious choice on how to spend the first half of my Thanksgiving break, the cheapest choice, or even the most fun choice for that matter. I could have gone to Sicily, Budapest, or Amsterdam again. For whatever reason, I decided to spend six days traveling through Switzerland, alone.

I left Florence by plane for Zurich early Saturday morning. I was to spend a few hours walking around Zurich before boarding a train sometime in the late afternoon for Luzern. To avoid lugging around a lot of baggage, I only packed what could fit into my 32L backpack. All for 10 days. Earlier in the month, I had purchased a Swiss travel pass, which theoretically allowed me transport on all Swiss trains, buses, and trams, excluding a few, as well as free entrance to many Swiss museums. This would be a problem later.

The Zurich main station let out right by the river, so I decided to follow the river down to the lake, which was about a mile away. This was my first time traveling alone, and I didn’t have any sort of plan, so I followed my feet for the first couple of hours.

Zurich might have been my favorite out of the four Swiss cities I traveled through. It was situated around a river that led to a large lake with snowcapped mountains looming in the distance. The roads followed a strict grid on the flat banks by the river, but as those banks grew into hills the city turned into a wonderful maze of alleys and walkways.

The city was a giant contradiction. McLarens and Ferraris rumbled past name-brand stores, but also welcoming firelit cafes that looked straight out of a hallmark small town. I walked along the river, through a few interesting alleys, and down their main fashion street. There were a lot of watch stores. I made my way down to the lake where while waiting to take a photo, I met a nice couple from New York that had moved to Zurich to retire. They were kind enough to recommend some attractions along my way for the next couple of days. By this time it was starting to get dark, so I decided to start heading back to the train station to grab the next train to Luzern. On the way, I stopped by the Swiss National Museum, but there was nothing of interest in there.

On the way to Luzern, I discovered that my Swiss travel pass had expired. Rather the conductor discovered it and informed me that I now owed him 37 francs. More money down the drain, which was the theme of my Swiss trip. I got to Luzern, checked in to a hostel, and walked around for a little bit to check out all the cool Christmas lights they had, but at that point, I was tired and overwhelmed from being alone and decided to hit the can.

The next day I walked around a little in the morning and then grabbed a train headed towards Mount Rigi, about an hour and a half by train. On the way up the mountain, I got to ride one of Switzerland’s famous mountain trains, which lumber up sometimes worryingly steep inclines to the peak. This train was well worth it, as the views I saw at the top incredible. I stayed at the top longer than I expected despite the wind and snow, then made the trip back to Luzern to catch the 5 o’clock train to Interlaken, where I was going to spend the next couple of days.

Interlaken is a cozier town than the big cities of Luzern and Zurich. Its population fluctuates with the tourists and primarily consists of small hotels and bed and breakfasts. I was in Interlaken for one purpose only-to skydive. Some of my friends had talked me into it, and I am glad that they did. I woke up early the morning of and walked around town for a while. There was not a lot to see, but what was there was beautiful. It was beginning to become too cold for tourists, so most of the shops were closing. I got picked up near the train station by a kind Canadian, a Korean couple, and Australian who took us to the landing strip.

The fact that I was about to jump out of a perfectly good airplane was not fully realized until they opened the sliding door at 25,000 feet and I looked down and saw nothing between me and the earth so far down below. My tandem partner and I rolled out of the plane and my brain went haywire-the rational part trying to console the irrational, adrenaline like I have never felt before. It is unique in this world.

After I got back, I crashed almost immediately without showering, waking in my clothes the next morning. I showered and checked out, grabbing a train to Geneva, my final city in Switzerland.

At this point, the burden of traveling alone was starting to weigh me down. I had only had two or three conversations in English during the entire trip, and the cultural differences were weighing me down. So much so that when I saw a Five Guys right outside the Geneva station, I broke down and my budget and paid a cheap Swiss 33 francs for a burger a fries. Switzerland is expensive. I spent the first day exploring Geneva while waiting to check into my Airbnb, but once I checked in, I did not have the energy to go out again.

The next day I tried to see the Red Cross Museum, the United Nations Building, and the Patek Phillipe Museum. I saw all of them but was only able to go inside the Red Cross museum. I spent the rest of the day walking all across the city before I retired to pack for my trip to Paris in the morning. I walked 11 miles that day. Geneva is a fine city; I just wish I was in a better mindset when I had visited. At that point, I was done with traveling and was starting to feel homesick. Switzerland is an awesome country that I think America could learn a lot from, and I hope to return one day.