One of the better things to come out of this year was some extra time to read. This year, I got an Audible membership and was able to fit “reading” books on long drives. That, plus my pre-pandemic excursions to Powell’s bookstore in Portland meant I was well-supplied. I gamefied my reading by tracking it on a Spreadsheet, giving myself “points” for each book finished.
I was telling my mom about the spreadsheet on the a video call the other day. …
For ten months, between August 2018 and May 2019, I worked at Epic. Epic is the operating system for the modern hospital. If you imagine a hospital as an animal, Epic is its central nervous system. Every decision it makes, from clinical to financial, happens in Epic.
My job, in a nutshell, was to be a specialized mechanic for that operating system, and my responsibilities ranged from fixing things when they didn’t work to being a long-term guide to the hospitals using Epic, helping them plan out how to make the most of their technology.
In both market share and…
I’ve answered this question different ways in my life. The responses have been brief and uncomprehensive.
“It’s awesome.”
“It’s intense.”
“It’s great seeing my family.”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
It’s all these things. Any immigrant’s relationship with his place of birth is complicated, and each visit is an important moment in my life. Counting the first two years of my life, I’ve spent a total of 4.5 years in India. In that regard, it would be inappropriate to call it home, but it would be equally inappropriate to call it a vacation destination. It is one of the…
On the first of August, 2018, I boarded a flight from San Francisco, California, to Madison, Wisconsin. Within a few days, I would be starting my first full time job 2,100 miles away from home. That day, at the airport, I recalled driving out of San Diego two months earlier. It was a sunny Sunday morning in June. I got in my car, which was loaded up with all my books and clothes, and got on the highway. Incidentally, the first part of my road trip was the same commute I’d taken to get to school. It could have been…
Apart from complaining about the reality that it does get uncomfortably cold in California, winter is also a great time for reading. This is my third time recommending books, the first two being here and here. Along with the books here, I highly re-recommend the books on those earlier lists. If I had to dedicate this post to anything, it would be to the public library system. It’s been making me appear smart for 22 years now, and it can do this because it’s filled to the ceiling with the most interesting and inspiring stories humanity has to tell. …
I think we should all look at cave paintings more often. They should be the centerpieces of our cities and the images our religious texts begin with. Human beings are terribly forgetful about their own ancestry, especially when it favors us to do so. I think it takes courage to look at cave paintings and understand that yes, that was me too. It will humble us, make us more grateful for everything we have, and hopefully kinder to our world.
What did cavemen think the purpose of their life was? What of your tenth generation ancestor? The farmer who wrote…
Choosing to capitalize every first letter for the title words is hard (I’m still not sure I made the right choice). Reading three non-fiction books definitely sounds like it’s harder. But it’s not!
Actually, I read six, but three of them happened to be really great. They not only gave me a clearer understanding of the world, they also gave me a clearer understanding of myself. My passions, interests, and personality all made more sense after reading them, which is one of the great things about literature. Here are three books I really enjoyed reading this summer:
- Sapiens: A Brief…
If you can, try going a generation further back. What were the names of your ancestors that lived in the 1890s? You definitely had them, they were there, picking their nose and being told by their mothers not to. As well as ancestors alive during the Crusades, and 2000 BC, and 15000 BC (although their mothers might not have had a problem with booger-picking, we don’t know). Some might have seen mammoths, some might have frozen to a very uncomfortable death during a winter (can you imagine?!).
In fact, you have a maternal ancestor that was alive for every single…
It’s that time of year again, where Disney’s machine gears up for a few more billion dollars of international cash as the first of three Marvel superhero films is released. The first entry in the 2017 Marvel palate is Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.
Before we dive into the ins and outs of this space ensemble, here’s a tiny spoiler free synopsis:
The Guardians have saved the galaxy once already, and now they’re superheroes for hire, doing odd jobs to keep the galaxy from being destroyed. …
It’s the eighth Fast and Furious movie, and this time, it’s personal.
…again.
Before we get into this extra short review, here’s a spoiler free plot synopsis:
Dominic Turetto’s crew has taken on tanks, planes, hacking software, and even gravity. This time, however, they’re up against the one thing they can’t handle: Dominic Turetto himself.
Yep, the bald guy whose voice sounds like two rocks scraping on each other is now turning against his own family. Why is he doing this? What role does the mysterious new villain play in all this?
Watch the movie to find out!
…if you’re…
Nikhil Kanthi
Double Major, Engineering and Literature, spends his free time flirting with ice cream sandwiches, taking pictures, and writing about himself in third person.
