is definitely one of the few companies that seriously gets people.
No fee charges for changing or canceling flights. Check.
Free bag check-ins. Check.
Free seating. Check.
Not having to wait on the phone for a rep while listening to annoying music. Check.
Part of the beauty of traveling is the realization that your world is a small one - how little you really know about the world, its history, its people and culture. You don’t realize it until then, despite learning time and again through oft-repeated platitudes, through Astronomy classes that show you the magnitude of the stars and the Earth. There’s nothing quite like being faced with architecture centuries old, Nature’s yellowing leaves, people you could have met had you been born in another life, time and place.
Traversing through different cities, different paths, you gain a sense of infinite possibility — all the permutations of life yours could take on; if you could just forget your version of life and view it through the lens of people in a new place. Wished I traveled more in my time here, but grateful for the opportunities (and budget) to do so.
I don’t know Marina Keegan, but already, reading about her life, her ambitions, her dreams have made me reconsider so many things about my life, my ambitions, my dreams. Like everyone else, I feel so immensely sad that life is so short, so unfair. It could have happened to anyone - but it happened to her.
I feel like too many deaths have happened in a year: Haas, Unit 2, another recent accident to a Berkeley student. The first one made me feel vulnerable. The second one struck me less. But all make me realize how we never know how much time we really have, and each passing minute spent not fulfilling our potential, not making the world a better place, is a minute wasted. We think we have all the time in the world to do what is right by ourselves, by the people around us. But we don’t know that.
Anyway, rest in peace Marina Keegan. May lessons from your life stick with all of us who know you through your writing.
I’ll be leaving for Yosemite tomorrow and am knee deep in move-out mess but I was just looking around this quite empty apartment and thought of all the good and bad times that have happened in the past 2 years. After 2 years of growing up, I’m finally entering my last year of college (after this summer). This semester went by so quickly that I almost missed it but it was by far a part of my best year in college: junior year. I complain plenty but this year held some of the best things to have ever happened to me. I joined TBG (yes I will admit - TBG has been a big part of my college experience..), made some of my best friends in and out of college, got what I wanted professionally and am learning just generally, what direction I want to go in. That’s not to say that I haven’t lost some along the way: some friends, my spiritual side. I’ve also had my moments of disillusionment with college — going to class this semester particularly, was a drag. It showed in my grades. But I have so much to be thankful for, and so much I can look forward to in the summer and in senior year.
There are still things I hope to work on, if not for my future then for myself. My on-campus job (I haven’t been very fair to my supervisor this semester - I’m just grateful she’s keeping me around), my grades (I have good reason to), my relationships with others, my relationship with God. Collecting more experiences, more memories. Being a kinder person with a bigger heart. Keeping friends.
It’s been a great year; one more to really make it count.
Even if you’re not interested in the start-up world, this is still worth a read (if you know about it already - good for you! wish I found this gem earlier): http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/ - a compilation of essays from Stanford’s CS183 Startup class taught by Peter Thiel.
so I feel kind of obliged to write about The Avengers because I just watched it.
Overall, I didn’t think it was absolutely AMAZING but I thought it was great enough to recommend to a friend and for a superhero movie, the writing and casting was amazing. It was also such a pleasant break from finals. Testament to the movie was an applause towards the end.
So first off the bad things about the movie: obviously the plot was cliched, but I didn’t actually think this was a big deal because there were enough small twist and turns in the movie to keep me engaged. AND I didn’t think the story was THAT predictable on a more micro scale, but I’ll explain this later. Second: what the hell was up with Loki? Tom Hiddleston is gorgeous but he was way too much of a simple-minded villain for my taste. Like that part where he and Stark were bantering:
Loki: Uhm like, all humans are meant to be ruled and I want to rule them.
Stark: There is no version of this that you will win - whatever way, if we can’t protect Earth, we’ll avenge it.
Really Loki? You didn’t see that coming?
But I mean there could be a reason why Loki wasn’t as threatening as he could be. It could be a comic book thing - I have no context for this movie other than .. the last Marvel movies so if Loki was the first villain, and he was always this weak, AND the movie was staying true to the book then fine, fair enough. Also, I guess this movie was just a first in the series so the first villain would be the weakest. Hey, Avengers need some credibility right and what better way to do that than to make them seem strong with a weak villain?
Anyway on to the things I thought the movie did REALLY well:
The writing AND the comic timing: There were so many good lines in this movie I was just crying! Well Stark has always been this witty so I wasn’t surprised but I was surprised at how funny some of the characters were. Every main character in this movie had a one-liner (well except Hawkeye I guess) and the one-liners were so good. The Legolas reference to Hawkeye was great. The trading cards were great. The general smart-ass things that Stark said were great. This was by far the greatest:
Everyone: Something about Loki being evil.
Thor: But he’s my brother.
Natasha: *stare* He killed 80 people, in two days.
Thor: *straight face* He’s adopted.
Okay, I don’t know about you but that was hilarious.
The casting: I really, really liked the characters. Usually with superhero movies they tend to be boring because there’s one obvious leader and there’s not enough back-story to each person to make them stand out - so the rest end up looking like sidekicks. X-Men first class did a good job of giving each character a personality. The Avengers could do a great job because it could a) build on all the previous movies of each individual and b) everyone was a leader in their own right; everyone had their individual heroic stories. Everyone held their own in this movie and there was really no sidekick, which I loved.
Also, was Captain America super badass towards the end or what? How strategic and what an N (.. haha) - he’s also so likable and genuine. I sense a consultant path in the near future if this super-heroism doesn’t work out.
And I really liked the Black Widow in this. I actually didn’t even remember this character from Iron Man 2 but Scarlet Johannson did a great job with the character; it was really bad-ass and really believable. What I didn’t like was Robin from How I Met Your Mother. Every time she spoke, it just felt like acting. And I was expecting a joke.
Tangent: the whole time during the movie I thought - damn if I were a consultant, I can’t do ANYTHING in the event of an extra-terrestrial attack. I would be so useless. I would be one of those people in glass buildings screaming at flying out-of-space monsters wanting to destroy my world. I need to build survival skills.
Anyway besides the casting - I really, really liked how the entire story was never really built on some kind of oh-my-god-we-have-to-save-the-world sentiment. I liked the defiance at the start, I liked the coming together only because there was a need. I liked that they all had separate lives. Not your typical team-superhero movie I guess.
Plot: Okay so the plot was definitely cliched but small twists and turns in the movie were good. I couldn’t predict Loki’s little magic tricks. Random things like where Iron Man just rammed right into Thor when Thor was about to do something to Loki was unexpected. Also did not expect that bromance between Captain America and Iron Man - always saw more of a Hulk x Iron Man combination.
Also, I liked that I could reason out each character’s motive, which made me think. I don’t think all movies do this very well. This movie already had an advantage because there is already so much context to the heroes from their previous movies, so it was easy to tap into each person’s psyche. I like being able to just understand why each character thought and acted the way they did.
Anyway the plot wasn’t a huge deal to me - I liked each character enough, the writing enough and the small twists and turns enough to ignore the predictable plot.
Would watch this movie again - not in the cinema, but would definitely watch it again.
I’m going to miss this one next semester.
“Because of this ceaseless creativity, we typically do not and cannot know what will happen. We live our lives forward, as Kierkegaard said. We live as if we knew, as Nietzsche said. We live our lives forward into mystery, and do so with faith and courage, for that is the mandate of life itself. But the fact that we must live our lives forward into a ceaseless creativity that we cannot fully understand means that reason alone is an insufficient guide to living our lives. Reason, the center of the Enlightenment, is but one of the evolved, fully human means we use to live our lives. Reason itself has finally led us to see the inadequacy of reason. We must therefore reunite our full humanity. We must see ourselves whole, living in a creative world we can never fully know.”
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman08/kauffman08_index.html
words cannot describe how cute this is
(Source: vacancyprojects)
“Promoting change” Sounds about right.
Somehow I get the feeling that I give off an impression of being the typical prestige-whore: being affiliated with good clubs on campus, good companies once I graduate, good schools. To a large extent it’s true — I do pride myself on my affiliations. But I will never let my affiliations make me, not now at least.
There are a lot of reasons why I want to work in consulting and why I want to do it at a reputed company. I don’t see the name in and of itself as my only accomplishment to brandish. I see it as credibility. I see it as leverage to do something else, something bigger - start an organization, a non-profit, what have you. I see it as a great learning experience — this has so far proven to be true. A lot of my motives are still the same and I don’t expect them to change much in the future. I just wished there wasn’t such a quick generalization of people who choose to work or interview at these companies as those who chase “success”,”wealth” and “prestige.” True, but not necessarily.
