His Story

The story goes a long way back, probably all the way back to the day that I first laid eyes on her as she worked in the dispatch office at Hopkins. There was just something about her that intrigued me and I had to get to know more about this girl…and I did, but in the interest of time, I might as well skip the story a bit ahead. A more suitable starting point would perhaps be the last two weeks of my spring semester at Penn, right as I was getting ready for the last of my finals.

At this point, I had already made the decision that I would propose and I was eternally committed, especially given that the engagement ring sat on my desk as I prepped for my last finals. We had now been away from each other for a full year but the bond that held us together never faded even through the distance and the time zone difference. Through the trips back and forth and the late night Skype calls, we affirmed that we were going to go through this together, come what may. As I sat at my desk, I contemplated how I was going to plan the proposal. The first idea that popped into my head was that I would have to call her closest friends and share the news with them. I did warn them that I wanted to keep the proposal a secret but I wanted them to be available to answer her phone call in order to bask in her happiness after the proposal – or whatever it is girls do with each other after one of them becomes engaged.

After I shared the news with her friends, and also my friends since I could not keep it too well a secret, I started to envision what I wanted the proposal to resemble. Since I still had to fly to California for the proposal, I knew that maintaining specifics was impossible as I was still a bit unfamiliar with the area. One thing was certain – Daris and I were both traditional in our mannerism and I had to involve her family in the proposal if I wanted a hint of tradition. Plus, there had to be steak involved; Daris and I both love steak.

After the last of my finals, I flew to Florida to meet up with Daris. We had both flown to Florida to attend my friend’s wedding (Congrats Cuyler & Amanda), and we were flying back to California together where I would spend my vacation. During my time in California, we should celebrate the three-year anniversary of the day when we came together and this was the day that I would propose to her. While in California, I informed her mother of the news and set about planning the day. We (Daris’ mother and I) spent the day walking about Old Town in Pasadena until we found the perfect restaurant, the perfect location, and even brainstormed about the perfect way to include her family in the proposal, all very perfect.

The 14^th of May fell on a Thursday and Daris had already taken the day off from all her prior scheduled activities. I had asked to spend the day with her under the guise of our three-year anniversary. We were to spend the whole day together doing numerous activities but life got in the way and Daris was pulled into handling some personal and trying family matters. I tried to console her during this time because I knew that I wanted her, no, needed her to be in the best of spirits before we headed out for the restaurant that night. By the time she resolved all the day’s issues, we were running a bit late and I started to panic, as I did not want to fall behind our schedule. The tardiness, coupled with a bit of anxiety on my part, got me skittish and Daris now endeavored to get me to relax, a stark reversal from earlier in the day.

The restaurant was a perfect as when I saw it the first time. We had arrived at the Arroyo Chop House and Daris started to notice the little extras the restaurant did to better accommodate us. The atmosphere was amazing and the food was delectable, yet even better than all that was the company. Daris and I were happy to be together celebrating three years since we met each other. Those were some arduous years filled with their crests and troughs but we made it and we knew that more was still to come. We were going to enjoy being in each other’s presence and forget the world for one night.

Following a scrumptious dinner, I informed Daris that we were to have dessert at a different location and we set off on the new adventure. As soon as we arrived and were nearer to the prearranged spot, I asked Daris if she would do everything I asked from this point herein, and not ask any questions. She replied in the affirmative, and then I asked her to close her eyes. As soon as they were closed, I started to recite the lines I had written as I carefully escorted her down the pathway to where her family stood waiting.

“Sweetie, I just want to tell you how lucky I am to have met you and to have you in my life. I know that there have been a lot of ups and downs in our lives (mostly ups though) but I know that you are nothing short of my everything. I have found my true love and I never want to be apart from you. God has put us together for a reason and I will live everyday for that reason.”

At this point, I ask her to open her eyes and she sees her family standing in front of her and she immediately becomes hysterical. She immediately rushes to close her eyes as I say,

“Sweetie, your family is here for the same reason that I am, to hear your answer to a very important question.”

I get down on one knee, and I ask,

“Daris, Will You Marry Me?”

Ecstatically, she screams, “Yes, Yes, Yes”… We hug and kiss and she slowly whispers in my ear “I love you”.

A year is over; I made it

I am tempted to start with the cliché – it seems like only yesterday that … – but I will not for the sake of avoiding ad nauseam. Still the reality is that an academic year has now passed and I am actually one year closer to whatever awaits at the finish line. Now that the year is finally over, I’m now enjoying a vacation in California before I return to Philadelphia, hopefully to work in a lab over the summer. Before that, there is one important thing that must be completed and …

Human Decision Making

As I struggle to finish my philosophy paper on freewill, my mind starts to wander off on its many tangents and leaves me to suffer the ill effects of my weeklong procrastination. Rather than focus on the task at hand so I can leave this despicable library that only brings forth misanthropic thoughts, my mind prefers to ponder on the nature of uncertainty and human decision-making.

I have come to the realization that there is nothing in this world that the human knowledge can ascertain to be absolutely certain, except for the truly trivial which is so trivial as to be irrelevant. Human nature and human intelligence is limited and not quite capable of achieving or coming to grasps with certainties and those among us that claim the ability of achieving certainty in their knowledge are nothing but modern day fraudsters (at best). All we are ever capable of is achieving a close enough probabilistic chance that allows us to just get-by in the stochastic world that we inhabit. None of the decisions we make are completed with any absolute certainty, but only with the knowledge that it is more likely than not that we are correct.

Forgive me if it sounds too philosophical (I am in that current state of mind), but do not throw the argument into the grave where other philosophical thoughts have been left. I say this because ever since I had this idea, I cannot help but see numerous examples where people, who should clearly see the stochastic process in their scenarios, instead disregard the uncertain (and the random) and pretend they possess 100% of the information and no other scenario is plausible.

We make predictions and forecasts that reject the unforeseen and the uncertain and we live by the predictions of these models. We make decisions believing them to be absolutely accurate only to shortly see errors in our decision, but in all these, we keep making the same heuristical errors in our judgments. We leave no room for uncertainty and act naïve in the presence of these unpredictable outcomes. We are not predisposed to believe that we are human, but maybe we need to start realizing our limitations before we can even start to attempt to surpass them (if at all possible).

Anyway, enough tangential thinking for me; it is back to the contemplation on the nature of freewill. Hooray (and yes, that was sarcasm).

I’m not quite dead

Dead Collector: Bring out yer dead.

Man: Here’s one.

Dead Collector: That’ll be ninepence.

Dead Body: I’m not dead.

Dead Collector: ‘Ere, he says he’s not dead.

Man: Yes he is.

Dead Body: I’m not.

Dead Collector: He isn’t.

Man: Well, he will be soon, he’s very ill.

Dead Body: I’m getting better.

Man: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.

Dead Collector: Well, I can’t take him like that. It’s against regulations.

Dead Body: I don’t want to go on the cart

Man: Oh, don’t be such a baby

- Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I just wanted to inform everyone that I haven’t abandoned the blog and I am quite alive (I was far away from the meningococcal meningitis scare). I have been busy juggling a few tasks the last couple of weeks that have left me without the necessary hours I require to think and compose a post for the blog. For the last couple of weeks, not only had I been trying to keep up with the blistering pace of the schoolwork (it seems all my professors had conferred and decided to include as much material before the spring break vacation) but I also had to contend with splitting my time between my search for an activity to occupy my summer and attempting to coordinate a research project (or at least a start to one). Coupled with the general winter malaise (why is there snow outside my window?), I just seemed to be too busy with my daily tasks.

Don’t fret, that all changes in a few days. Spring break for Penn starts this Friday (Thank God!) and with the much-needed break, I can actually complete some of the items of my agenda. I will be updating the blog with new content within the next few days and over the break. Taking a look at the economy and the stock market since my last post on February 12th, there is much to discuss.

Till then…

Underpants Gnomes

It is about one o’ clock on this day and I am already lethargic, even at this early hour. My usual morning cup of coffee does not seem to perform its usual trick today and that upcoming migraine that I am already feeling hints that it is best to avoid another cup. Out of nowhere, I am hit with a sudden rush of vigor as I bust into an uncontrollable laughter that must have reverberated at least six or seven cubicles deep as it brought concerned paralegals to my desk wondering what possibly could be the matter. I sit there and, through muffled chuckles, try to reassure my coworkers that I still have my mental faculties about me. Either eased by my sanity, or discouraged by the lack of excitement, they all scurry back to their respective desks to resume the humdrum I had so rudely interrupted. Meanwhile, back at my cubicle, I still sat there in this stress induced, sleep deprived, comatose existence and smiled to myself. I had underpants gnomes on my mind, and dare I say it, I was maturing.

The underpants gnomes were first introduced on the hit comedy central show South Park in Season 2, Episode 17. The underpants gnomes are a group of gnomes that collect underpants (duh) from the South Park children at 3:30am. Kyle, Stan, Cartman, Kenny, and Tweek (the children on the show) follow the gnomes to their cave in order to learn from the gnomes about how corporations work. Once there, the children venture to ask the gnomes why they are stealing the underpants of the South Park children. The gnomes’ answer is seen below:

Phase 1: Collect Underpants

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Profit

Click here for the clip. I could not find a way to embedded the video into the blog.

The clip satirizes the dotcom business of the late ‘90s as well as any ill-conceived business plan. Basically, as the show hints, all these ill-conceived business plans were created with an idea and the dream that having this idea was all that was required to create wealth. In essence, these businesses were collecting as many underpants as was humanly (or gnomishly) possible, assuming the next phase of the operation would be magically conceived, and wealth would be automatically generated for themselves and their shareholders. As we all know from the end of the dotcom era, many of these businesses without an economic moat imploded at the burst of the bubble, leaving only those corporation and business that had an economically viable Phase 2.

 As I reminisced about this clip, I started to draw up examples in my own life where I had devised such ill-conceived plans similar to that of the underpants gnomes. I sat and considered how many times I had idealized a plan of action due to the promise of the great profit I would reap in Phase 3 (metaphorically speaking of course), without actually considering the difficult steps between Phase 1 and Phase 3. At the end of the day, I usually found myself grasping for straws trying hard to achieve that oft romanticized Phase 3 due to my inadequate preparation. Phase 2 is the difficult phase and without a viable design for this stage, it becomes difficult to continue to plow ahead when the unexpected challenges arise. Take for example my childhood dream to attend medical school. I was young and had a dream and at the time, I believed that was all I needed. There was no need for a viable Phase 2 and I approached my situation as such;

Phase 1: Attend Johns Hopkins University

Phase 2: ?

Phase 3: Attend medical school.

As the years drew on though, I paid a penalty for the lack of Phase 2. When difficulties arose, I often wondered why I had undertaken Phase 1 in the first place. Being the young, bright scholar that I was, I ventured to learn exactly what Phase 2 encompassed: I would have to attend a university notorious known for grade deflation. I would have to succeed in an environment known for it vicious back stabbings. I would have to jump through numerous hoops that admission committee had predetermined. I would have to enter a profession that our political leaders are constantly destroying. I would have to sacrifice years before I could practice independently. I would have to work under a health care system that is slowly crumbling. I would have to wait years before I was financially compensated for my toils. As I learned more about this Phase 2, I began to regret plowing so hard into Phase 1. (Intro, One, Two, and Three). 

As I sat there smiling to myself, I knew that this self revelation was only a testament to my maturity. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I knew this lesson would teach me to look beyond the over-glamorized Phase 1s and Phase 3s and consider the Phase 2s before I take additional steps. By knowing what each Phase 2s of all the actions I undergo, I will be sure to limit any surprise that come my way and would rarely have cause for regret in the future.