The Pursuit of Happiness

It probably comes to no surprise to those that have known me for more than a week is that I am an absolute travel junkie. I think that happiness can be deeply rooted in geography—we tie our memories and all of our experiences to places—and therefore the more places we go, the more memories we have, the happier we are, quod erat demonstrandum. Stepping out of the ordinary and exploring somewhere new is exhilarating and always refreshing. Boredom is created out of monotony, but by placing yourself in a new place, everything—food, sights, smells, people—will all be new and one will actually have to make an asserted effort to be bored. And while Unfortunately, very few get to travel around the globe they want on a whim, but the good news is there are always new places to be found. Whenever I go home, I try to explore new spots in Boston and am still learning my way around Columbus.

As a whole, I love to travel because I love to explore and cross places off my bucket list, but I get the most happiness in places oozing with history. This may be a little abstract or too obscure, but I get a lot of pleasure from reading, learning, or seeing historic events and places. It may sound strange, but I just get joy from history. Growing up, my house was filled to the ceiling with books in every room of my house, almost all of which were about history from the emergence of man on earth to man's first trip to space. While most kids were reading Harry Potter my dad bought me collections of history books. Almost every car ride or dimmer, my dad would lecture and retell the exploits of Frederick the Great or Genghis Khan..those were my bedtime stories. Even when I stepped out of the front door I was slapped in the face with history. Going to hangout with friends in downtown in Boston, we'd be surrounded by the sites that the Founding Fathers started our country. Whether it is visiting a historical place or learning about an historical event, I think the warm glow I receive is because I vicariously am able to participate in what happened.

And last but certainly not least, of course home is the everlasting fountain of happiness. I have been blessed beyond measures with an amazing,  loving, supportive family that never ceases to positively build me up and give me the strength I need. Without them, I would have never been able to pursue my peripheral sources of happiness--traveling and indulging myself in history. It's all tied back to Boston and back to my family. Home is where the international experiences can be instantly grabbed, where history is unavoidable, and where I receive more positivity and rejuvenation than anywhere that I'd be able to travel to. I may not be able to go to Italy anytime I want but I can get to the Italian area of Boston called the North End and order food that rivals those in the trattorias in Rome and then be quickly transported to 18th century America by stopping by Paul Revere's house. Home is where my heart is and I could not have asked for a better place to grow up in, come from, and go back to. I'm "wicked" proud of where I'm from, happy to be where I'm at, and excited to be where I'm going. 

Challenge Check-in

Yes, it's a vlog!

Exploring the Other

 For this “putting yourself in the other” challenge, I was paired with Dan. To begin with, Dan and I are already pretty much complete opposites—he’s about a foot taller than me and is a chemical engineer—height and science are not my fortes. I assumed at the beginning we’d have a pretty easy experience doing this challenge.

For my part in this cultural swap, I thought the best way to communicate my global openness was through food. So, I treated Dan to dinner at a Korean restaurant with some European cake as dessert (although I would have preferred to show him the wonders of New England cuisine). I think in this dinner of kimchi and chocolate cake, I tried to give Dan a pretty clear understanding of what makes me, me—I place heavy emphasis on diversity and exploration of new cultures. I chose Korean because I knew that it wasn’t as popular as Mexican or Chinese, and it might break new culinary grounds for his palette. And sure enough it was his first Korean meal. Even though we explored a new cuisine and culture, I did not feel that that was all who I am, because I don’t have a drop of Korean blood in me. So I bought him two of my favorite cakes, Sacher Torte and Esterhazy Torte, from Mozart’s Café. I feel that the European culture has had more of a direct influence on who I am. While I greatly appreciate and am infatuated with many other cultures, my family still celebrates and follows many customs of our European roots and it was through traveling to Europe that sparked my interest in discovering new cultures.

Later in the week, Dan brought me to a place I never thought I’d enter—Koffolt Lab, the home of the chemical engineering department. When I walked into the building it was like landing on another planet—the lighting was different, a strange odor filled the air, and anxious students rushed from classrooms into the computer labs to finish their projects. Dan was kind enough to show me the computer lab where he spends about 6 hours a day computing and simulating complex experiments on some pretty sweet touch screen computers (I was trying really hard to remember the correct terminology for the project he is working on right now but I don’t want to do an injustice and incorrectly describe his work). I had always thought that engineering was a pretty singular discipline subject, so when Dan showed me the project he was working on was for chemical engineering economics it took me off guard. My stereotype of engineers only limited to taking science and mathematics courses was completely debunked…maybe engineers aren’t so different after all. Having an insider’s perspective on what makes engineers tick also made me realize that engineering students don’t choose their major because of the cool touch screen computers, but value the problem solving skills that are developed. The engineering discipline is about solving problems and answering questions—two skills that can be translated across every discipline and career. Not every engineer wants to build bridges, and a good number of students who study engineering go on into fields that aren’t related to the subjects they study, but their problem solving skills are invaluable. I had very little awareness of what was going on in the typical engineering student’s mind, but now I can see that the skills learned in this field can transcend into many other disciplines.

Besides making me feel technologically inept, the trip to the Koffolt Labs really gave me a deeper appreciation for engineering students. I admired them for their abilities in math and science--but to hear the real reasons for pursuing an extremely difficult major was really awesome. It almost made me think about engineering...almost. 

Vlog Round Deux: Retreat Reacts

"Pressure Pushing Down on Me"

Stress is the most fundamental college experience. Nothing else finds itself into every aspect of college life--it is with us during finals week as we cram months worth of notes into papers and exams...it is with us in our social experience as we try to reestablish ourselves in a new setting...it is with us in our professional aspect as we figure out what we want to do with our lives post-college...and it is with us on Saturdays as we worry about Ohio State's woes in the secondary.

 It is impossible to fully eliminate stress from our lives, but the best way that I lessen the amount of stress is to think forward and plan ahead. I feel that I have a really low stress level when it comes to work and school, for the most part, because I am a follower of the "don't bite off more than you can chew" philosophy. I'm really obsessive when it comes to planning things out so I can see the bigger picture. When it comes to stuff I can do, I don't worry because I'm confident that I can get it done and the effort I out in will dictate the result.

School doesn't stress me out too much...things that I can't necessarily control by preparing cause me to feel the pressure. I get really stressed after meeting meeting people and replying my interaction with them in my mind: did I come off as too goofy or too serious or too quiet? In response to this I have a real big problem of retreating and foolishly worrying about something that I can't control that already happened. Through all the self analyzing tests that we took, there was a common theme: I look in the past...a lot. I may worry more about things that happened because I have a tendency of breaking down the past more than focusing on the future. The problem might be simply fix my attention more equally to the future than just the past.

Successive Success

At first thought, success is usually defined by quantifiable and tangible things--the number of cars one drives, the number of degrees from ivy leagues one holds, or the number of Nobel Prizes one has won. When I first thought about what success was to me, I first thought about the accumulation of things and accolades....but this doesn't characterize what success it, rather they are indicators of achieving certain goals.

Going against my (somewhat misguided) intuition, success isn't defined as doing most things better than others—that’s the end result of success, not the core of it. Success is and begins at the individual, at the internal level before public applauds are given.

Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it —Maya Angelou

I interjected Maya Angelou's quote here, not only for a progressive-new age blog feel, but also because I couldn't have put it any better myself. As cliché as it sounds, being proud and enjoying what you do and who you are will allow you to do everything better. You'll have the passion confidence and be empowered to do amazing things. Success is internal, all the material rewards that may or may not come are just laudatory from the outside commending you on how you enjoy and handle your aspects.

Right now I get a lot of questions about what I want to do after school and what opportunities do I have in the real world not being a pre med or engineering student. I could do engineering. I could be training to be a doctor.  But would I reach my full potential? Probably not. I love what I'm studying and I love the world perspective I'm gaining. I see a lot of people forcing themselves into studying subjects that they feel will have the biggest payoff, all the while not enjoying what they're doing. I don't have a major where I'm guaranteed a six-figure salary, but I'm doing what I want to do. And I may have not received a car or a Nobel Prize, but I assured that I am successful in who I'm becoming over the past 2+ years here at Ohio State.    

Who am I?

Goodwillin'

Unexpected. That would describe the first challenge announcement experience. Not only the practically earth shaking revelation of our challenge, but the multifaceted involvement of Goodwill in communities and diverse business pursuits opened my eyes—I only knew Goodwill for their stores and didn’t realize the amount of personal development programs and empowering opportunities it gives to those faced with obstacles that inhibit total assimilation. When I heard that the challenge was going to be at Goodwill Columbus, I knew that the challenge was going to be philanthropic—maybe creating a platform to display some of the issues we were going to learn or developing a proposal for an organization with similar missions as Goodwill…but never a car/boat/trailer collection. Collecting these donations with success will rely on a ton of creativity. Getting people to donate these major investments is going to take a lot more persuasion than convincing people to give outdated clothing or preserved goods to a drive. The most exciting part is that even if we end up with one car that will still be hundreds of dollars worth of donations.

            This project will definitely help me to improve my skills in networking and outreaching. These cars and boats aren’t going to fall into my lap, so this challenge will really force me out of my comfort zone to extend myself to all kinds of people and resources to look for unwanted cars and boats. However, I think that I can use my strengths of being conscious of practical methods to pursue the most beneficial and realistic ideas. It can be easy to get carried away with idealistic and maybe unrealistic ideas on how to approach this challenge. This challenge will help me innovatively and tactfully complete this mammoth challenge, and hopefully give me some tips on how to get my own first car!

A Hapsburg Retreat

 I returned back home to Boston without any concrete or major plans, without any job or internship, and without any real prospects. Usually, I’m not one to live spontaneously, so I was a little worried that my summer could be pretty unproductive and also excited to see if I could handle making a lackluster summer into something extremely valuable. So instinctively, I assigned myself a small list of objectives to complete under the title “Man-up”. To be honest, I am missing many of the basic skills needed to survive alone: I literally cannot cook a single dish nor do I have the capability of repairing any problems with the house, and I’m a pretty small guy, so I thought if I didn’t develop some talents of a functioning human being I could at least look like I could. These seem like easy problems to fix, however I didn’t fully complete all my goals. I am still a tiny twenty year old who cannot cook but who CAN fix up a house. I will not go into much detail with my little home-ec stint, but let’s just say if my life depended on flipping an omelet I would be in some serious trouble.

In the midst of my “man-up” agenda, one of the senior fellows posted an article about the “busy trap” (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-trap/), which really helped me to appreciate and understand the benefits of not always going 110 miles an hour all the time and taking some time off to just unwind, clear my head, and relieve some of the stress from the past school year. So I ended up reading a lot, roaming downtown Boston exploring and finding hidden or overlooked gems of the city, and spending time just sitting on the beach looking out on the ocean like some cliché scene from a movie. However, being a hermit can only last so long.

The second half of my summer was European-ized. I’ve been really lucky to have a family that places a lot of importance on travel, and this summer marked a trip around the heart of Hapsburg Europe…Vienna, Budapest, (a drive through Bratislava), and Prague. Aside from the smorgasbord historical sites, those cities may have been the most delicious places on earth. But all 3 cities have developed differently in the past century, even having been united for 400 years throughout history. Vienna is still strongly tied with the proud Austro-Hungarian Empire. Budapest was less ornate, but maintained the feeling of an extremely old city. Most of the buildings around the city were 18^th century or older. The Czech capital had picturesque scenes around every turn, but extremely difficult to navigate. It was really interesting to see how after the fall of the Hapsburgs, each city developed a unique culture all based on a similar history.

In the past two weeks, my family has been hosting a German girl from the town where my father grew up (I learned most of my handyman skills from fixing the room she’s been staying in) and we hosted one of my friends from Serbia for a few days. It has been really amazing and refreshing to get to know and get reacquainted with my friends from abroad.

While I may have not met all of the goals that I set for myself, the “freestyle” method for this summer wasn’t as scary as I thought. It allowed me to have the flexibility to do a small retreat, to host a couple of Europeans, and to go on a trip to Europe…although I still would like to know how to feed myself before I take the mammoth step of living alone!