Ad-libbing liberal sentiments

I read a really interesting article today about multiculturalism in Europe and the pitfalls of various policies to either incorporate or destroy multiculturalism. I have quite a lot of views on the matter, but I still need to sort them out. In the meantime, I do just want to write about a few other views that I feel very strongly about. This isn't like a manifesto or anything, but I do feel the need to talk about some pressing social issues.

Same Sex Marriage

As a Bostonian living in Washington DC, I've spent nearly the entirety of my life surrounded by liberals, including my gay best friend. The culture that I'm surrounded by is one where displaying homophobia is a cardinal sin and thus homophobes, not homosexuals, are the ones who are alienated and disparaged. Same sex couples don't really surprise anybody in the city anymore, something that might not have been true even 10 years ago. Still though, it's not an easy step coming out and most who do have difficult stories, often dealing with family members.

I guess I can't speak for large parts of this country, but certainly here the LGBTQ community is quite accepted. And yet, once this word "marriage" comes out, much opposition arises, often from religious conservatives. It destroys the sanctity of marriage, ruins the institution of a family. As someone with strong religious conviction about the sanctity of marriage, I nonetheless come to the opposite conclusion and would like to espouse a view that I just don't hear very much. Marriage is supposed to be sacred because it is the ultimate goal of a relationship. Human romantic relationships are supposed to be about connecting two individuals as soundly as possible, emotionally and physically. Idealistically, I believe that relationships are not about having fun or messing around, but finding someone you love more than yourself and will continue to in perpetuity. Now this doesn't mean you have to approach every single relationship as a potential engagement, and everyone has to practice or learn from failed relationships, but I don't believe in a long-term relationship with someone whom you know is not a potential spouse. So taking away the possibility of marriage among same-sex couples means that they have nothing to shoot for. There is no reason to hold out for the right person, or to deny oneself sex until marriage because there is no marriage coming. And so this only encourages more promiscuous behavior and less stability. You can't just say, oh let's have our own marriage even if it's not legal. Societal recognition is important - it provides outside pressure for you to make a marriage work, instead of just running away

from problems. Marriage is a vital, holy sacrament, and to deny it to fellow humans is to deny part of their humanity.

One argument I've heard is that gays and straights all have the same rights. Both a straight person and a gay person can marry someone of the opposite sex, and neither can marry someone of the same sex. I think this argument is stupid - it implies that a gay person should try to marry someone of the opposite sex even if there is no love and attraction there, perhaps for the intentions of raising a traditional family. This demeans the sacrament of marriage even more! Marriage is difficult because it's so hard to find someone whom you will love forever. To find someone like this without any physical attraction? I believe that's impossible. I think a homosexual marrying someone of the opposite sex for the however noble intention of raising a family is as big a sham marriage as someone marrying an old tycoon for their money.

Immigration Reform/DREAM Act

I only became aware of this issue in the spring of my senior year while on the board of the Asian American Student Alliance. Beforehand, I had no idea what the term immigration reform even meant. Then I saw the documentary Papers, about high school students who had been brought to America illegally as a young child or baby, and grown up entirely as Americans. However without documentation, they find themselves in a sticky situation after high school. Applying to college is a huge hurdle with a social-security number usually required on applications. Some schools are understanding now and won't ask if you can't provide one, but you still aren't eligible for any federal student aid. You can't get a passport, can't get a driver's license and are often forced to cheat the system to find legal employment. The trials and tribulations of a super successful illegal immigrant were recently published by Jose Antonio Vargas, the Philippines-born Pultizer prize winner who shocked parts of the world last month. The documentary detailed smart, ambitious and successful high school students who had their American dreams brought to a crashing halt upon graduation in tear-jerking ways. Many face deportation to a country they have never known, without being able to apply for reentry for many years. The DREAM Act offers to give permanent residency (and pave the road to citizenship) to relatively high achieving illegals, high school grads without a criminal record, who were brought here young.

I'm not a policy expert and this isn't a policy proposal. I don't know how to get the DREAM Act to pass and I don't even think it does enough. I just very passionately stand for the principle that we all share this world together and no one should face such a significantly harder path than I faced just because they don't have papers. Like I've said before when talking about Obama's birth certificate, no one can positively know where they're born or have any control over it either. So I really don't see any difference between myself and most people who the DREAM Act would affect, except that I applied to any school I wanted to and have traveled to over 25 countries and never thought twice about it. I know the story of a friend of a friend Juan Gomez, Georgetown MSB '11, whose parents were deported to Colombia when he was in college and he was only barely allowed to stay in school (read here). The problems that he faced dwarf the ones facing his fellow students and friends. And I even know the story of my parents and my auntie's daughter Eva. My parents both came from Hong Kong to study in the United States, and had to stay in school to keep their visa active. They very likely would not have stayed in the US or become citizens had my mom's older sister not married an American, paving the way for my mom to receive a green card. My parents relationship then was rushed into a marriage upon my dad's graduating from design school, else he would have beeb deported to West Africa. Things could very easily have been very different for me. Eva came to the US from Hong Kong at 13 or 14, and excelled in some of the worst public schools in Boston. I don't know if she was a legal immigrant, but when it came time to apply to college, she took the huge risk of going to Canada to legally apply as a foreign student, knowing that if she was denied, she wouldn't be able to return to the US and even finish her senior year of high school. Luckily she got in and eventually graduated from Harvard, but difficulties with getting a green card dogged her for many years and really limited her career.

The opponents of the DREAM Act don't want to give illegal immigrants any incentive to break our laws and abuse our taxpayer services. This is our country and they have their country, and they shouldn't be allowed to just come and mooch of us. What these opponents don't ever seem to think about is that the life of an illegal immigrant is not glamorous. Many get paid under the table and work in terrible conditions with no rights or benefits. They can't complain about being forced to work 16 hours because their bosses would then report them to the authorities. They often don't speak English and spend a lot of their time being scared. And they choose this life. Does that give you any idea of what kind of life they would be living in their native countries? If conditions are so bad and hopeless where you are from that you would risk everything you have to live the average illegal immigrant life, I'm perfectly willing to give you a chance and let you drink from our public water fountains. We're all of the same world here, and the congressmen who are against immigration reform are the ones who don't realize how lucky they are to have been born in one of the world's greatest countries. So our country needs to be less xenophobic and remember that the original illegal immigrants in this continent were Caucasians from England, Spain, France and the Netherlands. I think their descendants should be more sympathetic to their fellow illegal immigrants.

Lastly, just a couple of notes about semantics. I do believe that words have a lot of power and that although the use of a word by society can legitimize it, there are still words that shouldn't be used in a certain context. I have been guilty of saying that something is "retarded" or "gay" meaning stupid, and it has definitely entered mainstream vernacular. It is also wrong. As long as "retarded" refers to the mentally-challenged and "gay" refers to homosexual, we cannot also use it to refer to stupid. I do apologize for using it and I'm really grateful to most gays I know that they usually don't take serious offense to getting slurred, but I'm going to do my best to not use it. On a lighter note, I really don't like the way the words "exotic" and especially "ethnic" are used. You hear terms like exotic clothing and ethnic food thrown around a lot, and I'm like what the hell does that mean. "Exotic" clothing typically refers to something worn by a culture we don't understand. Well to people of that culture, that clothing is simply normal clothing. If people refer to Chinese slippers or robes as exotic in front me, I'm honestly legitimately confused because they're commonplace. If you are white, would it not surprise you to hear khakis and jeans being called exotic? But they certainly can seem that way to certain people. Maybe you can say that something is exotic to you, but let's restrict its usage in public signs to things exotic to all of us, like 3-headed green aliens. Ethnic is even worse. Ethnic food here means food that we don't associate with white people. I've seen it associated with Middle Eastern, South Asian, East Asian, Central American, African and South American cuisines, but never with German, French, Italian or Eastern European cuisines. Well German, French, Italian, those are all ethnicities with very distinctive and well-respected cuisines. Why are those not considered ethnic? Very subtly there is an underlying assumption that white is the standard, and everything else is "ethnic." No. Stop using the word ethnic like that. We live in far too diverse a country to have such a term be so commonly accepted.

SPO: Top ten sports legends of our generation

This week in the sports world, Shaquille O'Neal retired, and Scottie Pippen argued that LeBron James was better than Michael Jordan. I think this is the perfect time then to break out a list I have been thinking about for some time. The concept comes from the annals of history. If you've never seen an athlete play live, you just hear stories and maybe some old footage but it's hard to truly understand their greatness. Thus sometimes legends are created, incredibly unique athletes who shaped their sports and whose place in history cannot be duplicated. This is an intangible quality immune to the inspection of statistics or tape, but instead are orally transmitted from one generation to the next. There was Babe Ruth, who once pointed to a flag pole during the World Series and then hit a home run there. Or Muhammad Ali, who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee. In one game, Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points, Gale Sayers scored 6 touchdowns and Nolan Ryan didn't give up a hit, seven times. Wayne Gretzky notched more assists in the NHL than the next player has points. And Michael Jordan, well he won an NCAA title, 2 gold medals, 2 slam dunk championships, 6 NBA Finals MVPs and defeated the Nerdlucks in Space Jam.

Legendary athletes are often the best athletes, but as you will see I think other characteristics, unusual ones that make a player unique, serve to truly create an unbelievable image. Some great but not too exciting stars, including Derek Jeter, Roger Federer, Albert Pujols, and Steve Nash, do not make the list. I also only considered athletes whose prime occurred at least partially after 2000.
So who will the next generation only be able to marvel at (or watch youtube highlights of)?

10) Tim Duncan
The NBA has had a few absolutely dominant big men over the years. One look at Wilt, Kareem, Hakeem or Shaq and you could probably guess that they were beasts. But if you saw this mild mannered, gentle-looking Virgin Islander with a degree in Psychology, you might actually mistake him for an ordinary guy, albeit an extremely tall one. Duncan's life story is rather fascinating - again he came from St. Croix, the US Virgin Islands which has produced all of 3 NBA players and dreamt of being an Olympic swimmer (imagine a 7 foot swimmer in the Olympics!). A hurricane destroyed the only Olympic sized pool on the island and he started basketball. Only Wake Forest really noticed him and there he went and there he dominated. He is the last #1 overall pick to play 4 years of college, an achievement I think will last, and from interviews his intelligence easily comes off. He even plays like a nice, humble smart guy with the least flashy go-to move ever, a fall away bank shot that gave him the nickname the Big Fundamental. Intimidating. Teamed with David Robinson, another smart 4 yearcollege grad, in a fluky NBA Draft, the two centers dominated and won 2 titles together. With an international crew of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, he won another 2 more. He was a ferocious shot blocker, rebounder and so technically sound offensively. He also only won championships on odd years.

9) Randy Moss
If you could create an opposite of Tim Duncan and have that man still be good at sports, you might end up with someone like Randy Moss. For most of his career, Moss played and acted without a trace of humbleness or selflessness. He was extreme off the field, getting his scholarship revoked by Notre Dame and kicked out of Florida State, getting in trouble with the law from every misdemeanor imaginable. He was extreme on the field, being faster, taller and better in the air than everyone else. The way he caught deep balls was almost unfair and he may go down as the most dangerous deep threat of all time. He scored 17 touchdowns as a rookie and 23 in the magical 16-0 Patriots season. Of the two most productive offenses in NFL history, the 1998 Vikings (556 points) and the 2007 Patriots (589 points), Randy Moss was the centerpiece of BOTH of them. His lack of effort though may be even more legendary as he has played his way out of 4 teams and will retire with an inexcusably up and down statistical career. I will always remember him running past 3 Jets defenders in the first game of the '07 season and hauling in a pass that Brady would never throw to anyone else, catching 4 TDs in a half against Buffalo, and then dropping a sure fire record breaking touchdown pass against the NY Giants, before running a deep route on the very next play and catching the record breaking score.

8) Kobayashi
Without a trace of sarcasm in my voice, I can honestly say that Kobayashi is one the most impressive athletes of this generation. Seriously, have you ever eaten a hot dog? 2? Did they make you full? Have you ever tried eating 6 and feeling so stuffed you didn't want to walk? Takeru Kobayashi can eat over 60 in 12 minutes, which I simply cannot fathom. The fluky body makeup that grants him this gluttonous excellence is comparable to the freak athleticism that makes Randy Moss such a force, even if athleticism is valued by our culture and eating immense amounts of food, not so much. What more, Kobayashi revolutionized this sport more than any other modern athlete revolutionized theirs. In 2001, as a 23 year old kid from Japan, he came over to Coney Island on July 4th and doubled the Hot Dog Eating Contest record from 25 to 50, a shattering so unexpected that the organizers didn't have high enough numbers to announce his count. The amount with which he raised the bar is just like Babe Ruth raising the home run record from 27 to 54. People simply didn't know that it was humanly possible to eat that many hot dogs. What more, the previous trend in competitive eating was to have huge competitors, cause fat, large people eat more right? Kobayashi showed that a small fit person could eat faster and store even more food. His techniques - expanding his stomach by chugging water, breaking the hot dogs in half and dipping his buns in water and swallowing, and even strength training - took the world of competitive eating by the throat. The Kobayashi shuffle has even entered pop lexicon has a means of swallowing a shot. After dominating the Hot Dog Eating contest for 6 years, Kobayashi was finally beaten by the larger Joey Chestnut and has since failed to dethrone him. Nevertheless, I can confidently say that without Kobayashi, there is no Joey Chestnut. Kobayashi turned Competitive Eating from a silly, gross challenge for fat people to a real competitive sport that gets plenty of SportsCenter airtime.

7) Peyton Manning

It pains me very much to have Peyton Manning on here and leave Brady off, but I think that while history will love Brady and his underdog golden boy story more, they'll be more intrigued by Manning. If you could manufacture a human being to play quarterback in the NFL, you would create Peyton Manning. The son of a NFL quarterback, Peyton was clearly raised from day 1 to throw the pigskin. He can make every throw he needs to but his understanding of the game and signature audibles will be his legend. In his prime from '03-'08, it seemed that no matter what defense you threw at him he would dissect it and find the open receiver. He turned ordinary or fine receivers like Dallas Clark and Reggie Wayne into absolutely terrifying names to opposing fans, myself included. Though Brady and the Patriots got the better of him many times, and I have plenty of memories of Manning throwing interceptions, it still chills me to see him leading a drive. For a long time, he was the gaudy numbers QB who played great in regular season games but choked in playoff pressure situations, but he has since adequately proven his clutch abilities with a Super Bowl win. The man seemed to live and breathe football and may go down with a ton of all time records and make the Brady-Manning debate one of the most classic of sports bar arguments.

6) Usain Bolt

I think Carl Lewis was the last sprint champion to grasp the world's attention. After his splendid career, Lewis lowered the 100m world record to 9.86 seconds. For two decades, no other sprinter became a household name, besides perhaps Michael Johnson. Those who set records and made a name for themselves, such as Tim Montgomery and Maurice Greene, were soon stricken from the books and our memories when they tested positive for steroids. Into this picture popped Usain Bolt, who ran a World Record 9.72 before the 2008 Olympics, though generally stayed under the radar. Then in the Olympics, he blew up and ran a 9.69 while unforgettably celebrating before the finish line, and also broke Michael Johnson's

200 m run. The competition was laughably far behind. A few months later, Bolt shattered both records with a 9.58 and a 19.19, simply unimaginable numbers and proving that lightning does indeed strike twice. He has never tested positive for steroids, and his fun-loving lackadaisical personality makes me inclined to believe that he is just a freak talent and not a cheater. At 6'5" he is taller than any other elite sprinter. With his Jamaican reggae celebration moves he is more charismatic, has a signature move "To Di World", and his last name is Bolt for goodness sakes. People has speculated whether he could cross over to American football (he would dominate), or rugby, but he'd rather play cricket. He hasn't done much since 2008, and I would personally like to see what he can do in 400m competition, but Bolt has already left his mark.

5) Michael Vick

Football used to be dominated by halfbacks and fullbacks. Then came the quarterback, then the passing quarterback, and then the running quarterback. And then came Michael Vick. Previous successful running quarterbacks had some speed, but never were they the fastest man on the field. His quarterback scrambles as an Atlanta Falcon formed the best highlight reel of any athlete of this decade. He was a good enough player to win his team games and justify the hype, but with enough flaws to give commentators, fans, coaches and NFL management plenty to think about. He became the first quarterback to go into Green Bay during the playoffs and win a game, and his career seemed to be going fine, before his dogfighting ring was discovered. This practice, little known to much of America, turned out to be his undoing and resulted in a 2 year prison sentence. Most of us never thought he'd be good again. After a year of not really doing anything for the Eagles, he went from 3rd string to 1st string one half into the season and made the most of his opportunity, creating an unbelievable comeback story. His highlight reel now included picture perfect spiral passes as well as creative runs. Finishing his best season as an MVP runner up, he revitalized his image, perhaps cemented his legacy as the best running quarterback ever (arguable), and definitely established himself as the best former convict ever. He may or may not be a Hall of Famer, but he's definitely a legend.

4) Ichiro
One-named Japanese stars seem to be the stuff of legends. You can even throw Toshiba and Godzilla on with Ichiro and Kobayashi. Now Hideki Nomo started a migration of baseball talent from Japan into the Major Leagues in the early 90's, and quality pitchers followed him. Nomo-mania and Japanese baseball captured the American mind, but it wasn't until Ichiro, the first position player came that the public went "wow." Nobody had really ever seen a player like Ichiro Suzuki before. Who was this skinny left handed batter, weighing in at 170, with the cocky batting stance spraying baseballs all over the park? How was he so fast, getting from the batter's box to first base in the blink of an eye? How did he have so much power, knocking out pitch after pitch in batting practice? And how did he also happen to have a cannon arm and be a terrific fielder? Had we not seen Ichiro, we would not have believed that such a person could exist. After an amazing career in the Nippon League, Ichiro came to Seattle in 2001 as a rookie and batted .350, stole 56 bases, won the Gold Glove and even slugged .457. He won Rookie of the Year and MVP, sparking a huge debate about whether he should have been counted as a Rookie (he shouldn't have been). That 2001 team set a MLB record with 116 regular season wins. He also led Japan on its 2 gold medal winning teams in the 2 World Baseball Classics that have so far occurred. He will go down as the ultimate "hits" guy, a player who sacrificed power for efficiency more than anyone else and never had a bad season. Though aloof from the media, he also proved himself to be a man of value when he chose to stick with the Mariners, though they never gave him a chance for the World Series. If he had chosen to sign with another team, like the Red Sox, he would have a ring now. Still he will go down as a one named legend.

3) LeBron James
If you're wondering why LeBron is on this list, well you probably haven't been watching much basketball lately. He is a prodigy, a freak, a diva and a villain all in one. Though he came out in an era where the spotlight on high school basketball stars was enormous, it was still surprising at the time and may shock future generations that he appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a high school junior. I remember watching him play for St. Vincent-St. Mary as a senior in nationally televised games and realizing then that he was the real deal. He was 6'8" 240 then, which is just not fair, and he's listed at 6'8" 250 now. His ridiculous body suggests though that he may be closer to 270, and I think it's safe to say that there has never been a 6'8" 270 lb man with the athleticism of LeBron James. He can truly overpower just about any small forward and burn by any power forward. His best natural talent, besides his body, may be his court vision and his passing. To think that he averaged 8.6 assists/game with a Cleveland team that surrounded him with mediocre talent. He has become a great defender when he tries, completely shutting down Derrick Rose in this past conference finals. He spent many years in the NBA as a subpar outsider shooter, but now effortlessly strokes threes. In this year's playoffs against both Chicago and Boston, he pulled up late in the 4th quarter, right in front of his defender, and drained 3 pointers, redefining the word unguardable. His "Decision" last summer will also go down in history, as a vain, foolish and even unprecedented move. This guy who we'd been following as an athlete since high school showed us that he's perhaps not a great individual, lacking any sense of perspective. But the concept of gathering great free agents together had never been done to that extent simultaneously, and certainly led to a very compelling NBA season.

There's been quite some debate during these playoffs over LeBron's place in history; the words "best ever" have even been mentioned. Erroneously, I may add. It's difficult to compare him to Wilt and Russell because of the differences in era and position, but I am very willing to compare him to Michael Jordan right now. Yes he's a better rebounder and passer than Jordan, virtue of natural gifts. With Jordan as a better shooter, scorer and defender, their gameplay is actually pretty close to equal. However, everyone always said that Jordan's greatest attribute was his competitiveness - he just hated to lose. You can talk about how great Scottie Pippen or Horace Grant or Dennis Rodman was, but Jordan willed his Bulls teams to 6 championships. He would get into crunch time and simply refuse to lose. He had so many great moments, from his 6 three pointers against the Blazers and shrugging in the Finals, switching hands layup against the Lakers in the Finals, shooting over Byron Russell against the Jazz in the Finals, dunking over Ewing and beating the buzzer of Ehlo - those are all ICONIC. LeBron has 0 iconic moments so far, and one iconic game (scoring 28 of his team's last 29 points against the Pistons to get into the NBA Finals). Jordan wanted to win and worked every summer to get markedly better. He transformed his greatest weakness, outside shooting, into a legitimate strength. LeBron's obviously gotten better, but if he truly cared about winning he'd have developed a post game and improved his free throw shooting. Yes he's a legend but Jordan is the best ever. Even if LeBron gets 6 rings I don't think I'd rank him over MJ. Right now with 0 rings, not a chance.

2) Tiger Woods

Where do you start with Tiger? How about at age 2, when the rest of us barely walk, when Tiger Woods made his first appearance on national TV, putting against Bob Hope? Woods was a true prodigy, more so than any other athlete on this list and perhaps one of the greatest prodigies of this generation across all fields. The highlights from his early life include shooting a 48 over 9 holes at age 3, becoming the youngest Junior Amateur champion at 15 and won the NCAA Individual Champion at Stanford. His skin color drew much attention immediately, as he is to date the only black golfer to win a major, but his true racial history (1/4 Thai, 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Black, 1/8 Native American, 1/8 Dutch) make him even more compelling. He is probably

actually racially closer to me than he is to most African Americans. So anyways, here's this good-looking dark multiracial kid demolishing the ball on drives and beating everybody in a white man's game. He won his first major by a mind-blowing 12 strokes, at Augusta no less, the exclusive club in the deep south that had only begun accepting black members six years earlier. As he was finishing up his victory, black kitchen staff members memorably rushed out of the clubhouse to watch. He then completed the incredible Tiger Slam in 1999-2000, winning 4 straight majors and had a stretch of six consecutive tournament victories. Then in another 14 major stretch from 2005 to 2008, Tiger won six times, finished 2nd four times, 3rd once and 4th once. The 2008 US Open may have been his most impressive win ever, with him winning an 18-hole playoff on a fractured knee.

And then his life blew up, one Thanksgiving night, unexpectedly and unimaginably fast. What began as a mysterious car accident ballooned into an infidelity scandal encompassing over 20 women, resulting in a swift divorce. His career has not recovered since then. Without a doubt his behavior has deprived him of much sleep and confidence and reduced him to a laughingstock at times. An arthritic knee currently sidelining him has not helped either.

You can already argue that he's the greatest golfer ever. He's created the greatest golf highlight ever, no doubt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLKXvGE6kN8. He's definitely been his sport's most transcendent star ever, becoming the highest paid American athlete and raising the worldwide profile of golf to new heights. He's won 14 Majors. Next best is Phil Mickelson with 4. It's way too early to tell but he may be dethroned by golf's latest wunderkind, Rory McIlroy. As he approaches 40, it's becoming quite possible that he may never catch Jack Nicholson's record of 18 major championships. Nonetheless, he is a legend, and you should never count a legend out.

1) Shaquille O'Neal

I don't think I could explain this man to a generation that never saw him play. Most people in our generation will remember him as the 7'1", 350 pound center who led the Lakers to a threepeat. His size was insurmountable. There were other 7 footers in the league of course, but nearly all of them were twigs in comparison. Main rivals included David Robinson, Hakeem Olajuwon, Patrick Ewing and later Yao Ming and Dwight Howard, who all kinda held their own. But all stars like Dikembe Mutombo at 7'2" 265 and Shawn Bradley at 7'6" 275 rarely stood a chance against an additional 60 pounds of muscle. I don't think the world had ever seen somebody so huge, truly a modern day goliath. He was an above average shot blocker and rebounder, but on offense he could just corral the ball with one hand, turn, lower his shoulder and voila, he'd dunk the ball with incredible force. During his peak run with the Lakers, the only strategy was to get him to commit an offensive foul, or in turn foul him (the Hack-a-Shaq strategy). He was a miserable foul shooter, owing mainly to his oversized hands. Most casual fans would watch him and just think the game was unfair. He was dominant just because he was huge. These fans didn't realize how good of a ball handler he was for a big man, or how skilled he actually was around the basket, or what an insane athlete he was. If you don't know these things, you must watch the following clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br3AaISFc-A

Shaq was INSANE. Seriously, the person blocking the shot, running the floor like a guard and throwing the ball down is the same guy against whom Patrick Ewing would be afraid to post up. How is that physically possible? Career-wise though, I definitely think Shaq underachieved. Sure he won the 3 championships with the Lakers, Finals MVP each time, and another one with Dwyane Wade and the Heat. He made 15 all star teams, won 2 scoring titles and is in the top 10 in NBA history in points, field goals and blocks. But he amazingly only won 1 NBA MVP, and definitely ate himself out of further success. Buckets just came too easy for him, and the motivation to stay fit and practice hard came and went, but mostly went. Some of the injuries that sped up his career decline likely could have been prevented if he had been closer to his high school shape. Instead he was more interested in life outside basketball.

And that's where Shaq's legend really picks up. The man with the rhyming name and the great nickname was eager to capitalize on his marketability, and never shy of publicity. He gave himself over a dozen well-documented nicknames such as the Big Aristotle, the Diesel, Shaq Fu, the Real Deal, and team-specific names such as the Big Shamrock as a Celtic and the Big Cactus as a Sun. He also said he was the Pythagorean Theorem, because no one could figure him out - Shaq evidently never studied proofs. Anyways he built a huge media profile including ventures into Hollywood (who can forget Kazaam?), rap (who can remember Shaq Diesel?) and reality TV, as well as video games (there's a real game called Shaq Fu). He is a sworn in Miami-Dade police officer and getting his PhD in Leadership and Education. Just recently retired, this is far from the last we'll ever hear from him.

Regrettably I could not include Lance Armstrong, Tom Brady, Allen Iverson, Michael Phelps, Alex Ovechkin and Brett Favre.

Why birthers offend me

It's pretty well assumed among liberals that people who keep harping on our president to prove that he's a natural-born US citizen are foolish, barking up the wrong tree and annoying as hell. But this issue, which kinda incredibly still won't go away and has led to a book being published, actually offends me. I'm not saying it's so stupid that it offends my intelligence, I mean that it actually offends my core being as an American born to immigrant parents.

Here's the point that for some reason I haven't heard anybody else make: NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE WHERE THEY WERE BORN. Literally, no one has any memory of when they leave the womb. So you kinda just have to take your parents word for it and trust the birth documentation that you were born where it said you were born. For most Americans whose heritage is American for generations back, there is no reason for them to question whether they were born in this country. But for children of immigrant parents, that possibility is at least out there. I have an American passport, have briefly seen my birth certificate and been told I was born in Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, but if someone pointed their finger and accused me of being born in Hong Kong, the only thing I could do is show them documentation. My parents are from Hong Kong, they've definitely lived there and definitely could have lied to me and been living there on July 22, 1988. I don't remember. I just remember going to an American pre-school. For Obama, I'm not even sure if his mother ever went to Kenya. But he does come from an international background and there can be doubts in his mind maybe that some parental deception has forever ruined his dream of becoming president. Any true historian can tell him not to worry and he has the documentation to prove it, but this kind of immigrant insecurity goes far beyond paperwork.

For white American birthers to question Obama's true birthplace, they are not only acting ignorantly but also insensitively and with borderline racism.

Two ultimate stories

A big part of this graduate year of mine was the rare opportunity to play a 5th year of collegiate ultimate. Collegiate ultimate, as governed by USAUltimate, actually has strict eligibility rules that essentially mandates that players can only get 5 years of eligibility, starting from the day they first play in a USAUltimate sponsored event and continuous. This means that if you play all 4 years of college, take a year off and then go to law school, you can't play as a law student. You do wonder how much this is a factor for certain people. I know someone who played ultimate at Colorado, one of the top teams in the country. This year I saw that he was a law student playing at Cornell, also one of the top teams in the country (and going to Nationals), as well as a top law school. He seems to be in a situation that is both tremendous for his academic and athletic life, which makes me inclined to believe that ultimate was a significant factor in his decision to choose schools. For me, it was certainly a factor, an added bonus that made the the lure of staying school all the more attractive. I definitely wasn't going out of my way for a 5th year, and I'm certainly not a good enough player to justify that, but it was a nice reward. And incredibly, my 5th year exceeded all my expectations, taught me more about ultimate, athletics and myself, capping my college career better than I could have possibly imagined.

I don't want to or need to recap the season, but there are two stories worth telling. Coincidentally, they both took place on the same field, the great turf fields at the University of Delaware.

I need to start off by saying I've always been interested in the mental aspect of sports, ever since my own mental struggles essentially caused me to quit tennis. I think the mental aspect of

sports, or really any sort of pressure-filled endeavor, is pretty relatable to most people. In athletics, I always had the most difficulty with moments where I had too much time to contemplate what I was going to do, such as free kicks in soccer or serves in tennis. That's one reason I'm in no rush to play golf. I love however when sports allow for instincts to take over, when you make plays without even thinking about it. Ultimate is mostly a sport of fast-paced instinctual response. However just like tennis, a poor play can linger in your mind and really dog you if you let it. Sometimes, the nature of the game is such that you make a bad pass and then don't have a chance to redeem yourself for quite some time. It took me years to learn to avoid dwelling on these mistakes, and to just go back out and play as well as I can. But I made a lot of progress over the past year and felt very confident in my mental game entering a tournament at Delaware this past fall.

I think it was a semi-final game against Shippensburg (a random rival). We were down 12-11 in a game to 13. Ship was pulling to us and we expected them to throw zone. I was handling on this crunch time point and elected to receive the pull. The pull fluttered in the wind so I chose to let it hit the ground, rather than risk dropping it. However at the last minute it flattened out and suddenly I decided to reach forward and grab it and get a throw off before they set the zone. The disc was nearly ground level by the time I reached out and before I had a chance to second guess my decision, I was staring at a disc that had most definitely bounced off my hands and hit the ground. I had dropped the pull, a cardinal sin in ultimate, and on game point for the other team no less.

Despite all my focus on preventing mistakes from affecting my play, I stood there catatonic. Nobody on the sidelines could believe what just happened. Several of my teammates were already cutting to get ready to receive the disc. Shippensburg was quick on the uptake though and yelled to get into offense. Everyone on our team scrambled to find a man to cover and I tried to do the same, but everyone I kept going to was already covered. In ultimate, when you make a mistake on offense, you really can't think about it because you have to immediately play defense. Yet here I was, catatonic and unable to find someone to cover. Finally I saw the other team's main handler go to pick up the disc, and I ran to cover him. He was at least 6 feet, that is to say a whole 5 inches taller than me, and was within 10 yards of the end zone. If he got a break throw around me, the game could easily be over and I'd be the scapegoat, twice on this one point. It took every ounce of my focus and intensity to force myself to not think about the drop, to just focus on guarding this handler. He immediately did go for a backhand break, but I sidestepped right with him and hyperactively flashed my hands all over the place, and he had to turn and dump it. I sprinted with him, terrified to let him score on me. The handlers swung it to themselves for what felt like an eternity, but didn't get any closer to the end zone. My guy caught it again and this time went for a high release backhand. Somehow I reached my hand up as high as I could, and I think he only meant to fake the throw. But somehow, some way my hand hit the disc and maybe he accidentally released it, but the disc came out and sputtered straight to the ground. We both stood there, shocked, and I half expected him to call a foul or a strip. But he didn't, and I yelled "TURNOVER" and sprinted into offense. I let someone else pick up the frisbee because I was pretty terrified of committing another turnover. Shippensburg set up their zone and our other handlers worked it up the field. I was at the far sideline, half hoping I wouldn't have to handle the disc, half steadying myself for the possibility that I'd need to make a pressure throw. And the disc did come to me, but I looked off more risky options and made the simple throw back to the main handler. We made some more low risk throws and the cup grew impatient and tried to stop those throws. The disc comes back to me and I look back to the main handler. The Shippensburg defense moved to prevent that throw and succeeded. Suddenly I saw a crossfield opening to hit the handler on the other sideline. It was a throw I had misfired many times in my life but I didn't think about that, I just reached back and flung it all the way through the zone. The other handler caught it and quickly had open men downfield. That throw had broken the zone and we marched upfield and scored. When our captain Pete caught the disc in the end zone, I remember running right behind him and then falling to my knees, so grateful that my stupid error hadn't cost us the point and the game. We won the next point, the game and finished second in the tournament.

The next story is from this year's Conferences tournament (formerly known as Sectionals). Conferences is the first of three tournaments determining a national champion. This year in a restructured format, 6 teams would advance from our Conference towards Regionals, and only the winner of our Region could get a ticket to Nationals. Due to the restructuring, a funny consequence was that our conference only had 9 teams. Reaching Regionals, which had once been considered an exceptional achievement, was now a complete joke.

So we approach the tournament with the mindset that we would try to win it. Georgetown never won a tournament during my 5 years, so I was pretty eager to go out with a win. However, Saturday of the tournament was rained out. We drove up to Catonsville that night and started play on Sunday at 8am. We rolled over our first 3 opponents including a resounding 8-3 smacking of arch-rival George Washington. However, after a bye, we switched fields and played terribly against a decent Towson team. Losing by two points, we then watched in horror as our best player Mike Drost came close to getting a d but ended up getting his shoulder pulled out of his joint. He headed to the hospital with a dislocated shoulder and we lost that game.

Luckily our record that day automatically gave us a top 4 finish, which meant we would make Regionals. Unluckily, Saturday's washed out games would be made up the following Saturday, which fell smack in the middle of our Easter Break. We were the only school that had an Easter Break and half of our team would be scattered throughout the country. Our team had many discussions and ultimately decided to field a team and encouraged anyone who could play to come play. I actually flew home to Boston and drove down with fellow Bostonian Matt Kerrigan and stayed the night at another teammate's house in New Jersey. 11 of us assembled on the turf fields of Delaware again for an opening game against the host. Now 11 is plenty of players for a pickup game, but for high level college competition, it is an almost embarrassingly low number. The intensity of the game demands at least two full lines of 7 players, and most teams usually bring 18-22. But 11 was a good number for us that day because it essentially meant as much playing time as we wanted. Several of the players present that day didn't normally get too much playing time, so we relished this opportunity. We also knew that there were no expectations on us, and every score we got, every turnover we forced would be a huge victory and build our confidence.

With Mike Drost watching from the sidelines in a cast, we came out with a lot of energy and played Delaware even to 6-6. Then while catching a score, Matt Kerrigan bumped into his defender and popped out his shoulder. It was pretty unbelievable seeing two dislocated shoulders in as many days, and a huge loss for our team. With Matt at the hospital, we barely scored a point and lost badly to Delaware in the second half. I particularly remember playing poorly that half and felt completely frustrated that I was putting in so much effort with so little results.

Next up was a rematch with Towson, who was keenly aware that they were facing nearly half the team that they had beaten just the previous week. Now playing with 10 players, we came out with both vengeance and desperation, the likes of which you read about in historical battles where a vastly outnumbered force successively defends themselves. Towson probably never saw that coming and quickly went down 3-0. From there we never let them back up. Our team played as hard on defense as they possibly could and somehow made as good throws and catches as we were capable of. Everybody was out there making highlights. One of mine was a strong crossfield hammer that I threw to Alex Bodaken for a score that left Towson shaking their heads. I think around 11-7, Towson gave up and decided they wanted to go home, their regionals berth already secured. We won that game going away.

Finally we faced Maryland, with fairly low stakes on the line. The winner would finish 2nd, the loser 3rd and seeding at Regionals would perhaps slightly change. Mike Malloy had finished the Towson game with bad cramps and talked the Maryland team into shortening this game to 11 points, instead of 15. With one great upset victory in hand, we did not come out with much fire this game and predictably found ourselves down 1-3. On the following point, I played with some sharp knee pain and took things quite gently. As such, my man blew right by me on defense and caught the disc near the goal line. He threw a break throw around my absurdly weak mark to a wide open cutter in the end zone. The Maryland cutter then committed one of the worst drops I have ever seen in ultimate, flubbing that soft throw into the ground. I stared in disbelief, before deciding to pick up the frisbee and try hard. Though we may have been jogging through the motions, I felt that Maryland had insulted the game of Ultimate with that awful drop. We marched that disc downfield and made a nice score that fired up our whole team (now down to 9). With our intensity back up, the game became fun again. It seemed that every score we got was a sheer act of defiance, and we impishly kept trying to cheat death. I wasn't playing scared of making mistakes, but excited to bring our team to yet another unlikely point. When we had a chance to tie the game at 4-4, Malloy came back to play and we became convinced we would win this game. I think from there we took half at 6-5, and just rolled through to 10-5, capitalizing on Maryland mistakes like never before. After Maryland fought back for two points, we marched downfield on offense again. From the handler position I cut deep but found too many people in the end zone. Coming back in I caught the disc near the sideline, 15 yards from the end zone. Turning around, 3 people cut towards the front corner of the end zone. Looking away from that mess, I saw Alex Bodaken in the end zone again, maybe a yard off of his man. I was in the same position to throw a hammer as I had last game, and as I started my motion I think Bodaken actually shook his head. Too late. I fired and despite our team's collective terror, Alex jumped up and caught the pass. We had won the game, and I had hammered the nail in the coffin on my sectionals career.

Obama Defeats Osama

Osama bin Laden blew up social networking last night, to an extent unseen since Michael Jackson met a similar fate. Ok perhaps its too soon to use the phrase "Osama bin Laden blew up" but I like to diffuse the moment with jokes. The best from social networking:

"Osama bin Laden (upper body injury) will not return."

http://i.imgur.com/09fM7.jpg

"Don't get too excited everybody, I heard he

made horcruxes."

Anyways I got the news via text last night and was immediately shocked. The announcement came out of nowhere - in fact, I can't remember the last time I heard Osama's name in the media. Then I thought, I wonder what the scene is like at the White House and considered going. Then I was like nah. But I happened to be on H street NE and near a Capital Bikeshare station at the time, and getting to the White House was actually quite convenient. I remember when Michael Jackson died there was a spontaneous commemoration with his music playing in Times Square, and I was living 8 blocks away and didn't go. So I thought, I owe it to myself this time.

As chance would have it, I was dressed in a shirt with the New York city skyline, and so I went. From four blocks away I could hear occasional USA chants and it was already a mob scene when I arrived. The atmosphere was electric and certainly very unique, although I had been to comparable experiences before. Obama's inauguration and the Rally to Restore Sanity and sports celebrations have similar levels of elation and/or patriotism and general crowd mania. But the real difference, the fundamental reason that last night was so special lay in its spontaneity. We had no idea this was coming. I had never heard anyone ever talk about what they would do if Osama was found or killed. Never. I don't know whether people thought it was a sensitive topic or inappropriate. I think if someone had said to me a week ago, "man i hope they kill Osama" I'd say something like, "that'd be great but that's really not the main issue." But then he actually dies and we all go ecstatic. I don't think anyone could have seen this coming but the moment brought spontaneous joy and triumph to everyone I met.

Which brings me to another point: should it? It dawned on me when we were at the White House yelling and screaming that we were exulting over someone dying. You can say that it was evil dying or terrorism being vanquished, but there's something quite sadistic about the whole ordeal. There's nothing wrong with being happy though. 9/11 is, and hopefully will always be, the most significant tragedy of my lifetime and a permanent part of our national identity. Its memory is still quite painful to recall. The death of the key perpetrator, so long just a cowardly face taunting us with videos from unknown locations, brings a sense of closure and justice to the event. To be honest though, I don't think the vast majority of us really understand what his death means in terms of global security. Is he still the mastermind spending his waking moments plotting America's destruction? Will his movement die with him? Most Americans have no idea. Most Americans probably don't even know what country Osama was from, or what his ideology was, and what other terrorist activity he was responsible for. But they do know he was behind 9/11 and that is enough for them, us, to rejoice in his death.

The desire for revenge can be hard to resist. In this case, it can also be synonymous with justice. Did Osama deserve to be punished? Absolutely. Did he deserve to be killed? Probably. Were Americans cheering on the night of May 1st because justice had been served? Absolutely. Were we also cheering because we had exacted vengeance on someone we fundamentally despised? Definitely.

The bottom line is that we don't need to apologize for being happy over the demise of Osama bin Laden. The whole situation is far from ideal, but ever since the planes crashed into the towers and 4,000 people died, nothing has been ideal. Yes, when I do come to a state of serenity and ponder the whole situation, I feel sorry that many in the Arab world feel resentment towards the United States. I regret that there have been selfish state actions mandated by American leaders that have negatively impacted people in the Middle East. I regret that the images that come out of the United States can come across as irreverent, arrogant and indulgent, and similarly that the images that come out of the Arab world can be suicide bombs and terrorist hate. I'm truly sad that this whole situation led a man from a very wealthy family to launch a personal war against my country. I regret that his ideology, which seems to me completely off-based and even nonsensical, attracts plenty of followers, some of whom give their lives for this cause. And I regret that they succeeded in damaging the very fabric of our country and that this resulted in a decade of war.

But I don't regret cheering.

My Favorite Holidays

Trivia question: What is the only month in which America does not celebrate a holiday?

As I write this during spring break, I realize that holidays are very important to me. Now they're obviously very popular amongst everyone, but I think I particularly like to break up the monotony of the daily grind by celebrating random segments of the calendar. It helps knowing that as the days tick by, there's something to look forward to every week or two. Case in point is Exelauno Day. Exelauno is an ancient Greek verb meaning to "march forth." Thus on March 4th, my classics-loving private high school "celebrates" by mandating that all of the student body wears coat and tie and every Latin or Greek class select one member to act out a skit in that dead language, in front of everybody. This is now broadcast live on the web. To me, I love this holiday because it is an institutionalized celebration of a bad pun. If we would all have lightsabre fights on May 4th (may the fourth be with you) then life would be even better. But anyways, now even 5 years removed from high school I still smile fondly when the calendar moves from 3/3 to 3/4. I also like wishing people happy holidays in other cultures, such as Bastille Day or 国庆节, and it did strike me when I first went abroad how cultural holidays are. The only holiday that most of the world shares is New Year's, and even that doesn't always hold true. This list here thus reflects absolutely no one's holidays except my quirky own. My eleven favorite:

11) Patriot's Day

The third Monday in April commemorates the Battle of Lexington and Concord, or the start of the Revolutionary War. This is not to be confused with 9/11, now memorialized as Patriot Day. Patriot's Day is actually only celebrated in Massachusetts and Maine, but here it was always a day off. Not only that but the Boston Marathon is staged on Patriot's Day, and runners go through Commonwealth Avenue within a few blocks of my house. The Red Sox traditionally play an 11am game as well, timed to finish at approximately the same time runners would reach the Fenway area. It's often a great, sunny spring day that celebrates all that is great about Boston. It's also still in April though, where April showers bring May flowers (and Mayflowers bring white people to America) so there are plenty of ugly rainy days as well to remind me why I went south for college. Patriot's Day can escape your notice outside of Massachusetts and I must admit I completely forgot about it last year.

10) Easter

The most important holiday in the liturgical year, Easter is ranked a little bit lower than you might imagine. After all, there's usually a lot of chocolate, a delicious brunch, eternal salvation and the chance to do everything you gave up during Lent. The problem is that I am often coming off 40 days of trying to not do whatever lofty goal I failed to meet. Easter is of course a family holiday, but not one that most people get days off for and so rarely justifies any type of travel or reunion. But since it's a family holiday, it's not a time where one meets up with friends either. In addition, though recently changed, daylight savings time used to start on the first Sunday of April, which often fell on Easter. So we'd lose an hour of sleep, which did not make the long morning mass any easier. But going to a Jesuit University, I've had Thursday-Monday off for a few years (an awkward break, but good enough to come home and relax) and appreciated the holiday. On top of that, the secular benefits include spring weather, bunnies, chocolate eggs, painted eggs, the White House egg hunt and good spirits all around. Easter loses some points for it's absurdly complicated dating system: First Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. How good can a holiday be if no one can figure out when it occurs?

9) April Fool's Day

Really just a great day for those who love to take part in practical pranks. However, for a large portion of the population, this day is completely ignored. For another small part, this day is mishandled and filled with bad, lame jokes. But then there's me. I once convinced my mom I was dropping out of school, then convinced my roommate he had an STD. Yeah. Only MIT students can top that.

8) Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is the holiday where we celebrate all the things we are thankful, but especially food and football. I love all of that so so much. The reason this holiday is lower than you think is that we also celebrate family during this time. For me this time has tended to be a joyous break on Wednesday, a great feast on Thursday, and then 3 days to kill in the worsening winter. In my experience I've found it hard to get people together in those times since so many people travel for reunions. Also traveling is never worse than during Thanksgiving - they say the Wednesday before has the most traffic.

7) New Year's Day

I like New Year's a lot. Though I've yet to be out of school so it's always been a part of my winter breaks, New Year's is essentially just one party. However it's a great party, where many people who don't normally get drunk will make an exception. There's champagne, decorations, countdowns and new year's kisses, of which I think I'm 0 for 23. But if you really think about it, the countdown looks pretty silly and arbitrary. And New Year's resolutions are just stupid. I think I have this a little bit lower than I perhaps should because I've had some pretty mediocre New Year's in recent memory. Nevertheless I'm convinced that house parties are the way to celebrate this - nothing appeals to me less than spending hours in Times Square in the cold without easy access to bathrooms or booze. That said, I do hope to make it to Edinburgh for NYE at one point in my life, where they supposedly do it best.

6) Super Bowl Sunday

This is also a one day party, but one that people talk about for 2 weeks or 2 months ahead of time. It's an American tradition unlike any other, that gets girls to actually watch sports. This past decade has featured some great Super Bowls, including 3 Patriot wins, so I have very positive memories associated with this holiday. It's great for those who love sports, funny commercials, making fun of bumbling commentators, guacamole and salsa dip, junk food and beer. The Super Bowl is basically our country's largest annual cheap banquet where everyone faces the same direction.

5) Halloween

I waffled a lot on the following few holidays before ultimately placing Halloween fifth. It's a great holiday for a few unique reasons: 1. Almost any crazy costume that you ever wanted to wear becomes socially acceptable 2. These costumes give you the opportunity to make your puns visible 3. Girls, and guys, often wear extremely revealing and occasionally attractive outfits 4. It is socially acceptable to stare and comment on these outfits 5. There's a lot of candy around, and trick or treating is still fun. In past years, especially this last one, some of the best parties I've attended were Halloween parties. This year also marked the first time that I gave away candy to trick or treaters. In time I've grown very accustomed to Halloween to the extent that I'm bouncing costume ideas off people in September. In fact this is one of Halloween's added bonuses - it provides good conversation material throughout the year. However, I've still come up with some lame costumes over the years and being well-dressed is often a very stressful and costly activity. Neither spending $100 on a costume nor cutting a hole in a trash bag and going as Darth Vader (as my brother once did) are very appealing options. Also, whenever Halloween falls in the week, it creates a very awkward situation. Do you celebrate the Saturday before? The Friday after? Or that day? Sometimes this splits into 3 parties, none of which are as good as they should be.

4) St. Patrick's Day

Not everybody likes stupid excuses to drink. Not everybody enjoys getting drunk during the day for no apparent reason. Not everybody like the taste of Guinness. Not everybody would be the one Asian who studied abroad in Ireland. I am very clearly not everybody. In the last 3 years, I've planned my week and wardrobe around St. Patrick's Day. Two years ago, I was walking/stumbling to my combinatorics class when I ran into Liz. I wished her a "happy St Patrick's Day" and she asked me what I was doing that night to celebrate. I replied, "same thing I've been doing all day." Last year, I bought lots of Jameson and Baileys in Tulsa, OK where the prices were much cheaper, and dragged it all the way back cross country with me. I spent Monday gathering Irish music. Then on Wednesday when I had the most classes, I finished all my homework and looked over notes beforehand, then pregamed all four of them with an Irish Car Bomb. I wore green and spoke with an Irish accent the entire day and ended the night with an awesome party. So yes, I like St. Patrick's Day for entirely juvenile reasons. But tomorrow, I can also see who else share these same tastes just by the color of their clothes.

3) Chinese New Year's

This is without doubt, 100% serious, one of my favorite times of the year. The highlight here is food whereas the highlight of the preceding holiday was drink, and in the end food is much more important. 年糕, the year cake dessert that I've only ever eaten around New Year's remains timelessly delicious. Dumplings are also strongly associated with the holiday and are always tremendous. The festivities are so grand in Chinese communities, greater than anything Americans ever do for days like July 4th, probably because cultural celebrations are more important in older cultures. While I'm never excited for Lion Dances, I like the general atmosphere and hope to be in Asia at some point in my life for CNY. It's also the biggest windfall holiday in my life, with laisee and new clothes out the wazoo. At some point when I'm the one handing out the money on CNY, perhaps I'll think of this holiday differently. But for now, it's so great.

2) July 4th

As pointed out in the previous holiday, July 4th is less of spectacle than Chinese New Year's. However, it is as big a festival as we have in this country and it's a good one. It seems to me to be always a sunny day off with good barbecue, watermelon and fireworks. It's a little bit like New Year's Eve except in the summer and with patriotism. America really is a great country and it's easy to feel that way on the fourth of July. I've been abroad two of the past three July 4ths, and while that's tough it's a great occasion to bond with fellow Americans abroad.

1) Christmas

It's impossible to top Christmas. A season more than a holiday, the three weeks of overplayed music and overcrowded shopping is too much for many people to handle, but I love it. I love snow in December (but hate it in January and February when it's gotten old and cold), shopping for those closest to me, breaking my alternative Christmas music playlist and the long winter break. I love giving, I love getting, and I love the spirit and hearing "happy holidays" from strangers and saying "merry Christmas" back. As a secular holiday, it celebrates all the right things in life, to the extent that it doesn't matter that it's spawned from a religious holiday that not everyone celebrates. As a religious holiday, it celebrates the birthday of the most important and most admirable person to walk the Earth. For all the Hallmarkness and consumerism that modernity has brought to this ancient holiday, I still love waking up on Christmas morning and feeling like a kid.

Honorable mentions (no particular order): Pi Day, Labor Day, Festivus, Groundhog Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Earth Day, Ides of March, Leap Day, Harry Potter's Birthday, Handover Day, March Madness.

Trivia Answer: August

End of the year charts

2010 has been a great year. You can never say you've seen it all this year, but I've seen a lot. From the slums of India to the Andes of Peru, from mono during graduation to getting my mind blown at Inception, from late hours in Wudaokou to long hours in St. Mary's, from observing someone else's logs on a plane to finding my own bottle of beer underneath 18 inches of snow, from line dancing to piranha catching, from a visit to a Chinese mannequin factory to a night as a Georgetown Cupcake, it's been a good year. It's a shame that it has to end but I think this is the nature of years - they end and the one that follows is bound to be greater. At least mathematically, 2011 > 2010. Yeah it's funny how that works.

But trying to understand the world mathematically, instead of in flowery superlatives, has been a big part of this year for me. I almost stopped blogging after starting full time graduate studies this fall because work has been so busy. This semester has felt next to nothing like college and sometimes I wake up Friday morning and wonder what I did all week, and it's hard to remember because it's been a blur of math. But for delving so deep into the subject I can now see many more layers to the world - probability distributions, random variables, functions and vectors that define our surroundings and happenings. Nearly everything can be put into a mathematical model which often makes us better understand, or differently envision, phenomena. Sometimes these models can be used to make predictions, but sometimes they are meaningless without larger context or a multi-disciplinarian approach to understanding the forces behind our data.

For example, in this year's NFL MVP race, Tom Brady and Michael Vick stand out. A lot of numbers are thrown around like Brady's 8 game interception-less streak and Vick's 9 rushing TDs. However it's hard to understand how amazing (or not) Brady's streak is unless you take a deeper look into the types of passes he throws (how many of them are risky?) and if he's abnormally lucked out by defenders dropping picks. Similarly many of Vick's rushing TDs are not equal - some are 1 yard dives, some are flashy 20 yard sprints, some are 3 yard scrambles that involved a half dozen jukes. Thus, it is often said that statistics is math + bullshit because it can be so easy to mislead with numbers. I find it good protocol to always view stunning statistics with a good dose of skepticism and try to visualize all the complications that the simple number effectively masks. Did you know? Tom Brady has more touchdown passes (34) this year than Michael Vick (21) and Brett Favre (11) combined. Did you know? Michael Vick has more career jail time (23 months) than Brady, Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers, Drew Brees and Aaron Rodgers combined.

Anyways here are some ridiculous graphs I created.

The 2010 US Census told us that there are 308 million Americans. Over half of them were aware after the US national soccer team tied Slovenia 2-2 on June 18 that there was a country named Slovenia. A considerably smaller percentage of our geographically inept country was aware before that. And the population of Slovenia (just over 2 million) is in fact represented accurately on that graph.

This graph shows how "blown" my mind is on any given date, going back to late September. As you can see I'm normally not too thrown off by any surprises and keep a relatively level head that varies around a 0.75 on the Berfatz-Julenweiss Scale (named after two pioneers in Mind-Blowing). However you may notice that in early December my mind was devastatingly blown apart upon a monumental event. On this occasion I was informed that Willow Smith, she of the song "I Whip My Hair," was none other than the 10 year old daughter of Will and Jada Smith.

For more on pop artists and age, here is a graph of the Billboard year-end top 25 artists, with their positions vs. their age. When the artist was a band I just picked their most famous person. We have an interesting scatter here with people near my age already successful such as Lady Gaga (24) and Jason Derulo (21). Outliers include Lady Antebellum (Linda Davis is 48) and Susan Boyle (49) on the high side, and Justin Bieber (16) on the low side.

World Cup Bids

Did you know that tomorrow (Thursday, December 2), a FIFA committee in Zurich will decide the host nations of both the 2018 and 2022 World Cups? Probably not. This news just caught me by surprise. As I loved speculating on the locations of the Olympics, I wanted to write something about the World Cup. However, not that I know very much about the inner workings of the IOC, but I know even less about FIFA. Nonetheless, I can still speculate. For some quick history, 2018 and 2022 will be the 21st and 22nd World Cups respectively, with the first one taking place in 1930. The Cup will be held in Brazil in 2014 and of course just occurred in South Africa. Europe and South America have the primary hosts, with a few Cups in North America and one each in Asia and Africa.

2018

The 2018 World Cup will be in Europe. That much we know, because the only bids now are England, Russia, Belgium/Netherlands and Spain/Portugal. Yes those last two are joint bids. If you recall, the 2002 World Cup was the only previous joint bid in history, taking place in South Korea and Japan. Both these joint bids make better sense, as none of these nations are separated by open sea and have closer linguistic and cultural ties than South Korea and Japan. Belgium and Netherlands have even successfully joint held Eurocup 2000. Some things to be aware of here are that all host nations automatically qualify, so with the joint bids, this would mean two automatic bids. This is probably less of an issue with Spain/Portugal, two very strong sides, and more with Belgium, which has not qualified for the last two World Cups. England is a very strong candidate here, as the birthplace of modern football has not held the Cup since it won in 1966. I think Russia though has a very attractive offer here though, as the Cup has never really approached Eastern Europe or Central Asia. Fourteen geographically diverse Russian cities (though none in the far east) are prepared to host games. Spain of course won the last World Cup, which I imagine can only help their bid. In addition, the Netherlands/Belgium bid has plans for some sort of mass transit bicycle distribution, which I think is quite cool.

Prediction: Russia. Globalizing football by bringing the World Cup to new places has been a big theme for FIFA in this millennium. Russia is a logical new choice without the infrastructure concerns of South Africa or even Brazil.

2022

The bids are South Korea, United States, Japan, Australia and Qatar. The latter two would both be first time hosts which always helps. South Korea and Japan are recent hosts, which always hurts, enough to even rule them out. The United States always has a strong bid, and their message this time, delivered by former President Bill Clinton was diversity. No matter who is represented in the finals, the stadium could be filled by those nations' supporters. The 1994 World Cup was an attendance bonanza though its lasting effects on promoting soccer in the US is debatable. Nevertheless, the infrastructure is undeniably present. Qatar is a very interesting choice. The FIFA president has already stated that he wants to bring the Cup to the Arabic world. Qatar successfully hosted the 2006 Asian Games and may be the most experienced Arab nation in hosting large events. Doha was even a bid for the 2016 Olympic Games although their desire to move the events to October was shot down. There are no plans to move the World Cup out of the traditional June and July slot, which is a problem because temperatures reach over 40 degrees Celsius in summertime Qatar. In response, the nation has stated it will show off its oil wealth and unveil air-conditioned stadiums. So yeah there's a lot to take in right there - Qatar's bid has the most extreme positives and negatives. (An additional Qatar negative: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtHIa9AHgLk) The Australian bid is also very interesting. FIFA does want to bring the Cup to Oceania and the infrastructure and passion seem to be in place in Australia. It is a very remote country which makes international travel difficult.

Prediction: Australia. I think it'd be tough for Qatar to overcome all the doubts and I don't see international clamor to bring the Cup back to the States. Australia would be just different enough to be cool.