Mountains Beyond Mountains

Written by Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond Mountains is a tale of a humanitarian effort led by Paul Farmer in rural Haiti to revamp or more appropriately to create a health system. The book tells an extraordinary tale of hope and determination in the face of utter poverty and suffering in Haiti, one of the most impoverished regions on the Earth.

Chosen as The New York Times Bestseller and picked as the best books by other rating groups too, it was the designated book as the Reading TUgether Program at Trinity University during summer for all Trinity students. It was also chosen as part of the summer reading program at other colleges like Syracuse Univeristy and Sewanee, University of the South of Sewanee. The book is very inspiring and a must read for everyone.

Trinity University also maintains a policy of inviting the inspiring person (usually the lead character) in its Reading TUgether Program book. Last year (2008), 'Three Cups of Tea' was chosen as its official Reading TUgether book and Greg Mortenson had come to deliver a very inspiring speech at Trinity that was attended by a large number of Trinity students and faculty including other interested people of San Antonio since it was made open to the public. This year too, expectations were similar. However, Trinity students were a little disappointed when neither Tracy Kidder, the author of the inspiring book nor Paul Farmer himself came to deliver the speech at Laurie Auditorium of Trinity University. Syracuse University, however invited Tracy Kidder to deliver a speech at its university after designating his book as the summer reading book. It should send a message to Trinity administration that a strong message is reverberated if the author himself or the inspiring personality himself/herself comes to deliver the speech.

Saying Bye Bye to New and Expensive Books!

(Image taken from New York Times.)

According to one study, the average student will pay almost $1,000 for books during a single year. An undergraduate student may end up paying up to $4,000 on books before he or she receives a degree. - Jamie Littlefield from about.com

The internet has changed it all. A digital revolution that unfolded with the influx of mass internet users has changed the way business is done today. And, textbooks sale is no exception.

Big textbook publishing houses such as McGraw Hill and big retailers such as Barnes and Nobles have started revamping the traditional way they did business. McGraw Hill has recently partnered with book rental businesses such as Chegg and is encouraging others to try out book rental programs and share revenues. Barnes and Nobles too has started pilot programs at many universities to allow students to rent textbooks. And, they have also started focusing on online sales. At Trinity University too, Barnes and Nobles encouraged students to order books online with ease of few simple clicks. Textbook rental Businesses have started flourishing along with other online textbook sellers such as half.com.

As revenues for publishing houses have decreased over the years since online businesses started biting into their pies, they have become even more innovative and have resorted to bringing out newer editions more frequently. More often than not, these new editions do not have that much of varying material except for same content on different page numbers or newer problem sets, also differently numbered. While this does compel students to buy new textbooks every year instead of purchasing used ones at a cheap price, some college professors have started to adopt policies that would frustrate these 'innovative publishing houses'. For instance, my mathematics professor for 'Differential Equations and Linear Algebra' course assigned second edition of the textbook instead of the third one so that we could borrow the textbooks cheap.

Not unlike students and publishers, college professors too must have started to realize that newer editions not necessarily have different or 'edited/updated' material. Also, for my 'Media Intepretation and Criticism' course, my college professor asked us to return back the textbooks if we had already purchased since she would make the texts available online in pdfs. This is what real digital revolution is, in my view- Saving a lot of resources.

If college professors can be okay with older editions and also make the necessary readings available online then, textbook publishing business could be in real trouble. But, that's good for consumers. Those publishing houses would probably get better at innovation and actually come up with newer and updated stuff in newer editions. That way, it would be a fair trade, I would say.

One of the best resources when you are buying textbooks would be to read this article on about.com from one of the experts.

Free Hugs in New York

What can you get for free in New York?

• Bad odour.
• Unsolicited pamphlets/flyers on streets.
• Free newspapers.
• Unwanted brochures slid under your apartment door.
• Scolding by cab drivers and busy pedestrians.
• Look of indiference on city dwellers.

What else? I can't think of anything that you could actually use or has some meaning to you. Who gives away anything for free of some signifigance these days?

I was surprised when I saw a guy, roughly 19-20 years of age holding a sign that read, "Free Hugs" in Times Square, New York. At first, I thought it was some kind of trap that first gives you useless free stuffs and then makes you buy something as a trade-off. Wary of such disasters, I moved on. Several steps further, I saw more young people holding the sign. And, this time there were girls too. While I was watching them with curiosity, I saw some people actually reached out and hugged the volunteers. I could not wait to take out my cell-phone and click a photo with my prized 5 Megapixel camera. (I call it prized because even I-phone 3G-S has a 3 Megapixel integrated camera.)

Times Square of New York has always amused me and encaptivated with its outrageously lively atmosphere. It is the only place in the world where you can expect to see and meet people from all over the world. And, probably also the only place where a camera never stops clicking. Click. Click. Flashes, everywhere. There were actually so many people with the sign, "Free Hugs" that I knew it no more could be an individual based effort. There must be something going on, I thought. And, owing to my curiosity or 'inquisitive nature', as I like to call it, I was tempted more than once to approach and ask one of the volunteers holding the sign. But that would mean, I would have to hug the person. This time, owing to my cultural upbringing, I moved back. You see, it's a cultural thing. I grew up in Nepal, a pretty conservative society where men do not hug women, it would be termed 'inappropriate'. I have hugged women in the past, but always with reluctance and yes, I did get nervous first few times. Now, they do it, I just give in.

So, when I got home, I could not contain my inquisitive curiosity and Googled at the first possible chance. And, I found a very interesting story. It was started by a person with a very noble mission. He was in helpless state at an aiport in the UK. So, he cut off a piece of card-board and held the sign, "Free Hugs".** People gave him strange looks but after few minutes a woman came and talked to him about her deceased dog the same morning. And this was how this "Free Hugs" campaign started. I think this is a very good campaign, a very humane one. I have lived in New York for a couple of months and have seen how they are one of the most unhappiest*, unsatisfied* people in the world and so, they are the ones who need the hugs the most.

**Find more information, here. http://freehugscampaign.org/

* I know I have made a very controversial statement and I do not intend to explain why I believe so. I will do so in my future posts.

The Best Brown Bread in New York

I was not really a big fan of breads before I arrived in the United States. Back home, bread was for breakfast. Here in the US, bread is their staple food; they eat anytime, anywhere. I actually spent few hours googling about where is the place to find the best brown bread in New York. Currently, I am staying in New York but I do not intend to buy any brown bread. I was interested because I recently watched an Indian film named 'New York' where this phrase has been used.

I was curious as to whether really a place like this exists and so started running a Google search. It reminded me of how the search on the term 'Illuminati' rose staggeringly after Dan Brown mentioned the word in his famous novel, 'The DaVinci Code' and 'Angels and Demons'. Sadly, I did not find any specific place that proclaimed that it provided the best brown bread in New York. If there were any place such as this, US Intelligence would have probably conducted a covert operation immediately after the film was screened. It would have been a terrific promotion campaign though and probably the film crew would have asked for trouble if such place existed because it portrays the place in a negative way (a place that breeds/fosters terrorism.)

The movie was pretty nice and is sure to spark rage and more hatred towards Americans as it depicts innocent South Asians being racially profiled and detained after 9/11 attacks. In fact, Shahrukh Khan is also soon featuring in a movie named, 'My Name is Khan' that shows sorry state of Muslims who were racially profiled after 9/11 attacks. As if it were a publicity stunt, which it clearly was not, Shahrukh Khan was illegally detained at Newark Airport after his name returned 'Alert' message in US Immigration database.

Indian Celebrities on Twitter

I have been using Twitter for quite sometime now. I do not use it profusely and neither do I have a big fan following. I guess, I have a little more than 85 followers, many of which I don't know personally, of course. But I like the concept of Twitter and am convinced that Facebook did use some ideas of Twitter when it introduced a new version of Facebook where not only friends' statuses but also other posts, such as photo posts, video posts and notes appeared on Home Screen. This concept was introduced by Twitter and after it became popular, was copied by Facebook.

Facebook has copied ideas from here and there, but that is not my point. I was fascinated to see quite a few Indian celebrities using Twitter to communicate with their fans. It was the unfortunate incident of Shahrukh Khan's detention at Newark Airport that brought to my notice the presence of hot and gorgeous Priyanka Chopra, an Indian actress on Twitter. She apparently tweeted about this incident and spit her wrath at the US Immigration Officials. Guess what; now, I follow her. She posts periodically about what is going on with her life. Knowing about what goes on in a celebrity's life interests everyone including me. Priyanka also takes time to reply to her fans' tweet replies. Apparently, she has never replied to any of my 3 tweet replies that I sent to her.

There are also other Indian celebrities like Dino Morea, Uday Chopra and Karah Johar (I hope they count as celebrities. Never mind).

Here are their twitter usernames:

• Priyanka Chopra : priyankachopra
• Dino Morea: DinoMorea9
• Karan Johar: kjohar25
• Uday Chopra: udaychopra

I will keep my fingers crossed that Priyanka will one day reply to my tweets :D

Apparently, there is rumor that even Shahrukh tweets but others deny it based on the mechanical nature of his tweets. Shahid Kapoor, Ram Gopal Varma, MS Dhoni (the star cricketer), Shreya Ghosal and few others too are on twitter. Good going Indian celebrities.

Facebook Wants to become the next Google, not MySpace

• Facebook has 250 million active users among which 120 million login at least once daily

• More than 30 million users update their Facebook status once a day, some do so more frequently than their underwear :D
  

I read a piece of article with the same heading that incited amusement and disappointment inside me. And the timing for the claim could not have been better, since Facebook recently bought FriendFeed, another social networking tool. Facebook is trying to stay ahead of the game and knows that it can leave behind Google in this race if it can make right decisions and cater to the needs of the future. And, Google founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page very well know this. Facebook can do to Google what Google did to Microsoft.

The official website of Facebook boasts a healthy 250 million active users and it also claims that at least 120 million users log into their Facebook account everyday. Wow!! Whopping numbers. Are Google duos losing the battle? Opinions vary. History is evident that socializing websites bloom and fade like seasonal flowers. MySpace, Linkedn and others are few of them. But, the case is not very different for search engines either, except for Google, of course. AltaVista, the once prominent search engine has become an endangered species after Google came into the ring. And, the same can be said true for web browsers too. Who uses Netscape these days? It was the only and the most prominent browser just a decade ago, wasn't it?

So, I do have my doubts over whether Facebook can really become the next Google. In fact, I have started to see Facebook users getting genuinely concerned over the potential misuse of the information and other private details. Media has been doing a pretty reasonable role in educating general people about the security loopholes while allowing Applications to pull out your profile information. Also, it is not uncommon to see people getting in trouble at work. Also, it has started to be believed that some company recruiters pull out workers' information from Facebook and also use it to base their decisions. A clean Facebook profile has started to become the popular slogan among wise Facebook users. If more and more users start getting responsible, careful and discretionary in uploading and posting images, videos or texts then, it should hurt viral expansion of Facebook users.

Facebook Statistics are very interesting to skim through if you are an active Facebook user. For instance, every user has on average 120 friends and 2/3 of its users are users outside of college even though it was originally created for students.

Check out the complete Official Facebook Statistics .

A Weekend at Georgetown University

Perched on a hilltop lies the beautiful Georgetown University. Boasting of a moderate climate throughout the year, it has very artistic buildings that carry a history of its own. And, the river Potomac that runs by the university makes it look more like an ideal residence place than merely a university.

The scene under the key bridge at sunset is something I thought only existed in movies and artists' imagination. Walking on the boardwalk overlooking the mesmerizing sunset view transports one in a world where there is nothing to worry, no traffic rules to follow, no 10 to 5 work to go and no desire to cater to materialistic vanity.
The location of Georgetown University is ideal for innovation, introspection and inquisition. Sandeep Gautam, my friend at Georgetown University tells me this location was chosen to encourage prospective future leaders to think peacefully and prepare to assume leadership positions in the future, nothing short of presidential ones. No wonder, Georgetown produced the very talented, articulate and humanitarian US President Bill Clinton. And, many more presidents and global leaders are budding under the serenic umbrella of Georgetown University.

Why Poverty still exists

I love Mahatma Gandhi's statement, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

And, this in a way hints at why poverty still exists in the world. Year after year, G8 and other rich industrial nations meet to discuss on this issue, make commitments to give away at least 0.1% of their GDP to developing nations. And yet, poverty seems never to abate. Some nations such as India, China and Brazil have made some progress and pulled out people from under the poverty line of $1 per day. Yet, more slip under the line in other nations, visibly more so in the nations of Africa. There are many nations which have had negative average growth rate in the last 50 years.

Millions are pledged and given away in aid by philantrophists too. Gates Foundation and another prominent philantrophist Bono of U2 have donated millions to these needy nations and people. So, where does the answer lie? Will the cows in Europe continue to be subsidized at 2 dollars daily while more than half of the world's population lives on less than 2 dollars daily? What do you call fairness?

Where does the solution lie? Is foreign aid ever going to help these nations come out free from this entangled web of poverty? I have my doubts. Instead, a new hope has been instilled in me after I came to know about the works of Muhamud Yunus of Bangladesh who started the idea of microfinancing through Grameen Bank. His organization, Grameen Bank today has several other sister organizations. And, it has made a significant difference in tens of thousands of Bangladeshi lives. He likes to call his style of business as 'social business'. This new term, 'Social Business' was alien to me before I came across his ideas, but not after that. I have started to believe the key to poverty eradication lies in social business. Foreign dependence in current form has not been able to alleviate poverty on a meaningul scale, let alone eradicate altogether.

I suggest you google the term 'Social Business' to know more about this term.

Wikipedia defines it as, "A social business is one which aims to be financially self-sufficient, if not profitable, in its pursuit of a social, ethical or environmental goal."

Impact of Recession on Students

What has the current recession done to students?

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  Left them jobless over the summer, which translates to less pocket money to spend
  
  
  
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  Increased the burden on students and their families.
  
  
  
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  More work during the college session to make up for summer income foregone
  
  
  
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  Increased competition for on-campus jobs
  
  
  
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  More work and increased stress will lead to lower performance
  
  
  
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  Deprived them of internship positions and among the few internship positions that have not been cancelled in light of recession, they have been transformed to unpaid ones
  
  
  
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  Affected their college choices. Many of them can not attend their dream colleges and opt for a less expensive one because their parents can not afford due to reduced financial aid or loss of job
  
  
  

The recession has hit the students really hard. Statistics are available to tell the story that this summer, teen unemployment was the highest in several decades. Hope the situation gets better.

Monster Diversity Leadership Program- New York 2009

I thought I finally got to attend a programme of considerable worth after a long time. In my first year of college, I hardly participated in any of the club activities. And the Monster.com, the organizer of this grand programme, to be simulatenously organized in other regions of the United States assured me and other participants that among 20,000 or so applications, only 2700 were selected. Big deal.
When I arrived at St. John's University in New York, the atmosphere was great, full of energy, positive vibes and participants were buzzing with excitement. I sublimed in the energized atmosphere and engaged in conversations. I met many good people, five from Nepal too and several from India. I was especially pleased to meet one of the facilitators, Ethan, coincidentally the first person I met at the event. Graduating from NYU, he was very excited and a person who loved so many things in life. Instead of working a 10-5 job like most of the humans in this world and even more so in New York, he worked with a zoo and other organizations. In the future, he wanted to become an actor.
To cut the long story short, I felt it was worth because I met new people and made connections, which might be useful in the future. But, I was disappointed with the way Monster DLP organizers treated us. It's not that they were rude or disrespectful. I felt they treated us like children, making us shout by throwing away little gifts (with sponsors' names) everytime some group made a loud noise. Personally, I am not a person who likes to engage in these kind of activities. No wonder, I never went to a pub/disco/bar the second time. The slogans they had come up with was very catchy. One of them was "Rock the DLP, Rock, Rock the DLP, Rock the DLP...Stop". (I hope I got it right.) And you had to virtually shout out your lungs while chanting this slogan. There were numerous ones like these. And everytime, any MC saw you not shouting out loud, you became the star of the show for the moment since you would be honorfully brought to the stage to become the victim and shake your ass while the excited crowd roars in approval.
Besides this childish treatment, which I thought was inappropriate, the sponsors joined in too to make the DLP program look very silly. Sponsors (apparently company recruiters) danced at Monster DLP like crazy everytime they came on stage. Many of the recruiters were in their early 20's and many of them were even student interns. And they were the 'so-called recruiters'. Can you believe that they were ostensibly to hire us and to advise us on our future plans. Many participants complained that every time participants asked any question to them, they replied, "I suggest, you log on to our website and check the information."
Scholarships were given out but noone knew on what basis they were awarded. And, sadly they were very few in number, much less than proclaimed by Monster, the organizer. Apparently, few of the sponsors who had promised bigger committments did not show up. The major attraction of the event, three laptops by HP were also cancelled since HP did not show up.
Monster DLP had good intent while organizing this event but I thought the event at New York was a joke, an indelible dent in their credibilty. And the participants who had been to other venues in the past years concured with the above statement.
I hope somehow Monster.com organizers pay heed to this message and take steps to make their programs in the future more suited to the college students' needs and not high school ones. Who likes to burn one's lung out chanting slogans?