A Pearl Jam Video I Hadn't Seen Before

A friend turned me onto this video - part of a larger documentary on a few shows Pearl Jam played in Italy. It reminds me of when I saw PJ at a hockey rink in Zurich, Switzerland in summer 2000 (with DC legends The Dismemberment Plan opening). We made it to the third row on the floor, PJ opened up with Of the Girl, Corduroy, then Breakerfall. We almost died because of the crush from people pushing forward, so crowdsurfed the hell out of there. I landed in the pit right in front of Mike McCready (lead guitarist), then was briskly taken away by security. We watched the rest of the show from the safer confines of the last row.

Anyway, check out this great footage, including a cool version of Immortality.

What Life Asks of Us

This article by David Brooks resonates very strongly with me (it also has the added benefit of quoting Ryne Sandberg, my favorite baseball player when I was a kid). The article juxtaposes Harvard's definition of the purpose of education (which encourages independent and skeptical thinking, and a personal entrepreneurship that focuses on individual growth) to a more institutional view (in which individuals find meaning from being part of causes, communities, or any entity "larger than one self").

An important part of my journey over the past two years has been a shift from the Harvard paradigm to the institutional paradigm. Now, I fully admit that I constantly strive to improve myself; this has forever been my nature and I assume it will continue. However, being part of certain institutions over the past two years has greatly rekindled my belief that my life's "meaning" derives in large part to my community.

At Rhodes College, I did feel like part of a bigger cause. In particular, my classes on Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Post-Colonial Literature inspired me to no end, and I saw myself following in the footsteps of these powerful movements. I also found a lot of satisfaction in my fraternity (I didn't miss ANY fraternity meeting in my four years at Rhodes) and intramural team sports (I still have great memories of our fraternity's frisbee team beating the Rhodes club team in the finals). After two years of post-college wandering and trying to find one of those organizations/causes for which I could work, I came to the Corporate Executive Board. At CEB, I drank the kook aid more than most. I was proud to be part of an organization that claimed "spirit of generosity" and "force of ideas" as their guiding principles. However, serving this mission did not speak to me as powerfully as I would have liked.

At Fuqua, I've been very lucky to have found institutions to which I want to commit:

• COLE (Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics). I am a COLE Fellow, and we are a fellowship which, in its ideal form, will continue at Fuqua for years to come.
• Education Pioneers. In a similar vein as COLE, this summer in the Bay Area we were a team committed to a cause (education reform) that's daunting and complex. Yet, the idea of working for a cause bigger than myself was a gamechanger - it motivated me, and gave me a great amount of personal satisfaction.
• Fuqua itself. Working on the student government on behalf of my classmates simply feels good to me. Like the other examples, the psychic reward I get outweighs (at least in most cases) the effort expended.

As I move forward with my career, I hope to build and sustain such institutions that give meaning to many other people. Actively striving to be part of something "bigger than myself" has been a revelation to me, and one that I hope to encourage others to do.

Colombia so far

I'm traveling in Colombia right now with 14 classmates (with another 5 to join us tomorrow). Here's what we've done so far...

Baranquilla

After three legs of a long flight (RDU - ATL - FLL - Baranquilla), we arrived in my classmate Nadia's hometown of Baranquilla at around 3:30 am. Since we arrived so late, Nadia took all of us to her parents' house, where we took every inch of her floorspace that we could. The original plan was to hit the town after arriving in BAQ, but sleep took priority. After a few hours of sleep, we showered, checked in at our hotel, then headed out to a Carnival parade. Baranquilla's Carnival festivities are the most famous in Colombia, and one of the biggest in South America next to Rio. The parade was pretty tame.

Later that night we all had some local food (a delicious mess of meat, something that tasted like McDonald's special sauce, another thing that tasted like those crispy asian noodles, and some rice), then headed to a park in front of the cathedral where we listened to some Colombian music. The weather here isn't as hot as I expected - I wore shorts and a t-shirt and was pretty comfortable.

Taganga

The next day we took a 2 hour bus ride along the coast to Taganga, which is a very small village at the end of an inlet. Taganga has become a tourist town, but I kind of like it. It's small - you can walk from one end to the other in about 10 minutes. Taganga is more of a jumping off point for the Tayrona National Park.

Tayrona

This place is where everyone told us to spend our time. Another 1.5-hour bus ride took us to this national park on the coast. We trekked about 2 hours, going through some forrest, then bouncing from beach to beach until reaching our destination - a popular (yet still remote) campground. The place reminded me of Interlaken, Switzerland, where hippies pretty much run the place. Luckily (or maybe not so luckily), our accommodations were away from everyone else. We stayed in hammocks on a two-level cabana, which was perched on the top of a 100-foot high rock formation. The idea of sleeping on hammocks on the beach is idyllic, right? Well, not in gale-force winds.

After a half day of hanging out, sleeping proved fairly impossible, as the cold, strong wind, and... hammocks proved not to be the best sleeping conditions. Rhianon, Dani, Jessie, Marcy and I stayed up until about 1:30 talking on the deck and sharing a bottle of rum, until we finally decided to "sleep." I probably got about 3 hours of actual slumber, but it didn't matter at all. This is a vacation, right? With absolutely nothing on my to-do list, being in top form isn't my priority.

Today I generally hung around the beach until we trekked back to the beach and boarded another bus back to Taganga. Tonight in Taganga, most of us were pretty beat, so Josh, Matt, Jess, Gordon, and I went to a fantastic pizza place (in Taganga, Colombia... who knew) and had a leisurely meal. Tomorrow we go to Cartagena, where we'll stay in two separate swanky houses (the one we're staying at has an ocean view) for 4 days, then head to Bogota.

Random extra thoughts:

• I get pumped up when I speak Spanish. This is a fairly obvious statement, but I have to remind myself of this. My friend Jessie and I have done some pontificating around why this is, and we have many reasons. Mine revolve around showing respect for another culture by speaking their language, and generally being able to connect with an entire culture. It's also empowering to be able to navigate a foreign country with relative ease. I also enjoy being relied upon to translate.
• I'm always amazed at the different professional passions and experiences that my classmates have. On this trip, I've learned from friends who work in solar panel manufacturing, diplomacy, politics, etc.

So, there's my narrative for the night. In all, having a great time in Colombia, and will have more details to share later. Tonight I just wanted to document the main things I've done thus far.