Getting It Off of My E-Chest

I just have to say this:

I REALLY WANT THIS ELECTION TO BE OVER.

Even though I voted for Ralph Nader, the thought of what “could” come with Obama – not the starry-eyed pipe dream hopes of those who apply to the “cult of O,” but specifically the thought of finally getting universal healthcare, finally getting sex education that makes sense, a leader who has no preconditions for talking with other leaders, and most overwhelmingly importantly the prospect of what a new wave of science, technology, math, and engineering (STEM as the Obama campaign has branded it) can do for the country, for energy, and for the world (and of course for my own career path) has me more than excited. I’ve done a fair amount of studying up on this and all indications are, with the right mandate in the legislature, it’ll be a true new industrial revolution.

So, I just hope nothing happens to bring the predictions crashing down. I’d be an extremely sad engineer, a sad AIESECer, a sad American. And a sad person.

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Hallelujah

Twelve years ago, in 1996, AIESEC United States moved to dissolve its own compendium, and thus ended the student-run nature of the organization on a national level.

Sound familiar?

On Sunday, October 19, 2008, in Kresge Hall at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, the National Plenary of AIESEC United States held the first legislation since that time.

Twelve years of struggle, strife, anger, high times and low times, opaque structures, “need-to-know” bases, CNDAs, sidelinings, secret conversations in hotel rooms and across the world, member obliterations, and my own Local Committee’s obliteration came to an end.

We got the history, unfiltered and full-on, for the first time. We heard the shocking current state of the organization as it has been dropped in our hands. And then we took on responsibility and we got to work.

Normally we’re running out the door at six in the evening on Saturdays for national LTMs. We groan when we get outside, and we make coalitions to talk about the farce that went on in the meeting. We roll our eyes, get very frustrated, threaten to quit. We despair.

This time, we voluntarily forewent dinner until nine, and even then wanted to stay and order dinner in to keep working, but at that point we were pretty ahead of schedule so it wasn’t necessary. We all had such high spirits, and a delicious dinner with Chicago-style deep dish pizza did nothing to diminish that. Neither did the beer tower that Dave, LCP Austin, and I shared that night.

We reconvened again at nine in the morning to do legislation. After a humorous education by Naoufel and Missy, we arranged ourselves, LCPs the ones to wield the votes. We established our structure, our elections process (the part I worked heavily on), and our business development structure. All were passed by acclamation, but not after some good discussion and amendment.

Notably, LC Madison was the proposer to open legislation, and LC Georgia Tech was the proposer to close legislation, with LC Yale seconding. I used my speaking time for the proposing to express how proud I was to be in that room with those people, after our struggle together and unfortunately at times against each other, to come to this seminal moment in the life of AIESEC US, in my own life, and I believe in AIESEC as a global organization. After Alina from Yale noted that this was the first legislation in twelve years, we closed our legislation by acclamation.

There is a huge amount of work to do before Winter Conference in St. Louis. There is so much to be careful about due to the financial mess we have been left in and our vulnerability to litigation, albeit unfounded. Despite all of this, we have risen above, we have taken on responsibility, we have come into the role we are destined to play and are bound to pass on to generations of the future, generations who have a world to change just like we do.

It’s cool to be an LCP!

Three Voyages

I’m disappointed I haven’t gotten to write about this yet, but this past weekend was our Fall Break, and myself, Madison, Rob, and Morgan spent it hiking for three days on the Wolf Ridge / Twentymile Trail in the southwest extremity of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.


On the second day, Sunday, we did a pretty solid uphill hike and finally came out at Gregory Bald, a majestic wonderland on “God’s Mountain.” We spent most of the afternoon there. It is on the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, and the tree here we dubbed the “Tree of Life.” Madison’s trail mix came in handy. We made camp about a half mile down trail and came back to watch the sunset in North Carolina, and the magnificent stars in Tennessee, although a bright moon obscured some of the night’s jewels. All in all, it was one of the best weekends I can remember, and a much-needed experience.

I didn’t get much sleep this week but I did manage to hit up the first InterNations Atlanta gathering. It was really cool and there’s a lot of potential for AIESEC there as well. This photo is from the event, at the Bar at Trois:


And, EB applications have wrapped up. Eleven people applied! Amira will have a hard time choosing between them. But it’s a good sign for the health of the LC.

Now I am off to the meeting which I have fought three years for, and which AIESEC US and AIESEC around the world have waited ten years for: AIESEC United States National Presidents Meeting 2008. It’s going to be extremely interesting opening the book on a new era and writing in its first pages. I’m glad Amira is coming with, to be a part of it.

Letter to the Editor of the Technique: On Third-Party Voting in the United States of America

Two weeks ago I turned in my absentee ballot for the upcoming general election. I voted for Ralph Nader, an independent candidate, for President.


When I tell someone I voted for a third party candidate, they elicit a puzzled, jeering, or even hostile reaction. “Way to throw your vote away!” “A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain.” Only one person left it at “cool.”


How can such an attitude be adopted in the USA, where we claim to bleed and breathe democracy? What kind of a “free country” do I live in when I am verbally abused for my choice in any election? People are unable to see the whole picture or relate the ideals of our country, and even their own beliefs, to a more relativistic, free, and truly choice-based electoral system. Our parents, our friends, the media, the candidates themselves, and even our teachers prop up our imprisonment to the two-party system every day, at every meal, and during every news hour whether intentionally or not. Even the question “Are you voting for McCain or Obama?” reinforces the false notion that there is only a binary choice to be made when it comes to leadership and policy in the United States.


Nader is derided by Democrats for “winning the election for Bush” in Florida. Almost all of these critics are probably intentionally unaware that all eight third-party candidates in Florida each received over 537 votes, the amount by which Bush defeated Gore in the Florida election.


So why is Nader the bad guy? It is simply because he is the easiest person to target as the most prominent third-party candidate. As true Party loyalists, those Democrats were and still are unable to put responsibility on Gore for not even winning his own home state of Tennessee. They are representative of a huge, loud swath of voters (and non-voters!) who cannot or will not escape the two-party paradigm. Because people do not understand the third party candidates, it is their propensity to fear them, and they do not give themselves a real choice when they damn their own freedom by engaging in the Orwellian “duckspeak” of their precious Party.


A more representative voting system like range voting is the major key to breaking the illiberal monopoly held on power in this country. Until such progress can be made in our systems, I call on all US Americans to vote the way their heart tells them, not according to Party lines. Meanwhile, respect your fellow citizens’ right to choose their leaders for themselves. Freedom begins with you.

Unfortunately due to word count issues I had to delete the phrase about Orwellian duckspeak.

Horizon-Fingers

SoCoLDS 2008 was great, the best RoKS the Southern Comfort region of AIESEC US has put on since our re-establishment in Spring 2006, in my humble but officially and experientially-informed opinion. I’m pretty proud of the group we’ve got right now as well, check them out at the Atlanta blog.

I slept the second I got home last night at about 6:30, woke up at 11 to drink some tea and watch the rest of the third season of Weeds, then conked out at 2:00 to wake up at 9:45. A necessary length of sleep, given how little I got this weekend – but oh, it was worth it!

I’m in the lab tonight to work on a lab report, and on my way in I saw a flyer that caught my eye, for Free Culture @ GT. I looked up the website for Students for Free Culture and realized that it clicks a whole lot for me. I may have found my next commitment after my LCP term is over. Plus the first meeting of the organization ever is next week, so I can help be a part of starting something new on campus… again.

In VLSI and Advanced Digital Design on a Monday at the Autumnal Equinox

My day is one of path effort delay and flip flops and latches, of masculinismo y marianismo, awful sushi with green Tabasco sauce to make it palatable, reading the news on my Smackberry, fretting for my homework and grades, trying to conquer it all with AIESEC and being conquered by my environment. It is a day of overstaying familiarity and futility of the dream of escape and breaking bonds, of fulfilling my Pyramid and occasionally descending (or ascending?) into a different Way just for it not to be the same Way.

I feel like after graduation and my traineeship I would benefit from one year in a place where the bulk of my day would consist of reading and running, so I could descend into my own underworld, discover the boon, and return it to this plane. Then I would be The Conqueror to our enemies and The Liberator to us.

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“12-year-old William Yuan’s invention of a highly-efficient, three-dimensional nanotube solar cell for visible and ultraviolet light has won him an award and a $25,000 scholarship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development. ‘Current solar cells are flat and can only absorb visible light'” Yuan said. ‘I came up with an innovative solar cell that absorbs both visible and UV light. My project focused on finding the optimum solar cell to further increase the light absorption and efficiency and design a nanotube for light-electricity conversion efficiency.’ Solar panels with his 3D cells would provide 500 times more light absorption than commercially-available solar cells and nine times more than cutting-edge 3D solar cells. ‘My next step is to talk to manufacturers to see if they will build a working prototype,’ Yuan said. “If the design works in a real test stage, I want to find a company to manufacture and market it.””
– from Slashdot

Well, that just makes me feel even better about being here in the lab after midnight, trying to make VLSI programming work in my fifth year of college. It’s reasons like this that I feel a constant burning hatred of being in this place, while young Billy in Oregon is already doing something spectacular in 7th grade.

WHERE IS MY SOLAR CELL LAB, GEORGIA TECH?!

I think I have already shaved ten years off of my life with the stress of ennui and rigamarole.

Soundbite Generation

Had my first test of the semester today, in fiber optics. I think I did pretty well considering I only studied two hours. I also finally decided, during said study szechuan, to add classical music to my Pandora account – why did I not think of that before?

In order to form a more perfect union with the Cloud, I am going to try and hold myself to Twittering thrice daily – or maybe five times in the direction of Mecca. Does anyone know of any good apps for Blogger or Twitter that let my Twitterings sync with my blog status, FB status, etc?

Supposed to have dinner with a crazy old roommate tonight. Should be interesting.

Why can’t I drop out and get paid to do something high-profile, explosively social, and sweet?

Gaussian Curve of Exhaustion

The weekend was good – Friday night I hung with Dave, John & Christina on the blessing of some just-received coupons for Cameli’s, played a bunch of Super Mario Galaxy, and hit the hay at midnight in anticipation of the next day’s festivities – but not before giving Ben James some much-needed ice downstairs.

The next day was something we’d waited for a long time – the Hong Kong Dragon Boat Races. We got up to Lake Lanier at 8:30 in the morning on Saturday, and stayed until after two. In between those hours almost 25 of us in the LC hung out in the AJC Foods tent (our partner and sponsor) where we enjoyed plenty of free food and free beer from 5 Seasons Brewing, and racing in the two time trials and finally after the opening ceremonies in the actual race. It was hard but a lot of fun – between our first heat and the third and actual “this-one-really-counts” heat we halved our time due to better teamwork and rowing, and we even won our division! No matter that there were only two teams in our division and AJC was the other one… we win a sweet paddle.

A picture from the event can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/hkatlanta/HongKongDragonBoatFestival08#5245683001560340482.

I returned from the dragon boat races exhausted but happy at the fun we’d had all before 2 PM. I went to Dave’s and watched GT lose to VT (ugh), and was really bottoming out from exhaustion for a bit. But later things were okay – my man Matt from the BHMpire came with his band Hayden Corner to play Phi Delt, and we got some Majestic beforehand and then after his show we hung out at my place. Today I did homework and had LTM.

Potluck dinner tomorrow night. I just sent out the LCP application. The end is nigh, but I don’t want it to be.

Threads

I caught a film that met my need for disaster and chilling feelings: Threads.

Threads was aired as a television play on the BBC in 1984, at the height of the cold war. It’s one of the only long-format films to display in depth the effects of a nuclear winter on society. Some of the images are pretty disturbing and I was pretty surprised that they showed it on TV, but then again in Britain censorship isn’t like it is here. I was sufficiently chilled and was pretty afraid I’d have nightmares. The quality of the transfer is poor but the point definitely gets across. I recommend it.