Posts

Showing posts from July, 2013

Aucka Paulie

My Uncle Paul was always a goofball. Growing up he was the one who would horse around with my cousins and me. He loved to go fishing, watch AHL from the front row of the arena while yelling as loud as he could at the opposing players and referees, and coaching his kids sports teams. Growing up my father would always take me to visit him and his son who was a couple years younger than me on the weekends, I knew exactly how long it took to get from our house to his by the time I was about 5. The four of us were the group of guys who started the family tradition of traveling to the Connecticut Lakes every June for a week of fishing, hiking, canoeing and camping without any electricity or running water, about 20 miles from any sort of civilization in our family. He was always the guy who wanted to use the biggest minnow from the trap in the hopes of catching the biggest lake trout. Me and Chris (my cousin) would run around the Springfield Civic Center watching the Falcons play amateur hock

What's your favorite place you've ever been to, and why? My...

What's your favorite place you've ever been to, and why? My email doesn't dwell on this, but it's one thing I always try ask the people I meet from all over. Plus I'm curious how many people respond. (I know I've responded to an email or two, but there are several others I meant to, but never did.) I've always been told you can't have your cake and eat it too. But I don't like cake, I've always insisted on having pie on my birthday, and in the game of dessert rock paper scissors, strawberry-rhubarb pie would beat everything. I've always wanted to be multi-lingual, but the closest I've ever come to fluency is in gibberish Italian during bouts of severe inebriation.... But trust me, my friend and I knew exactly what we were saying to each other.... Thunderstorms are sexy, I love fall and winter. And spring and summer. The smell of wet autumn leaves and baseball infield dirt. I love the silence of snow and bikes and smiling eyes and smili

5 Questions — I'd like your thoughts

Hi Everyone! I'm using this email to share a few things I've been thinking about a lot recently. One has to do with friendships. The others with business. I'd love any thoughts you have on the topics. First, a bit about me. I'm 22. From Cali. Went to Wharton in Pennsylvania. Dropped out to start a company in New York that sold this spring. Worked briefly in India and now I'm headed back to Wharton. I'm interested in most things. With that, here are the questions. Would love to hear from you. 1. On Friends — I have a bunch of longtime friends I've known since grade school who are like family. We hang out a lot, but most of what we do is kill time — watch movies, talk about sports (I don't watch sports), gossip, etc. How do I transition the dynamic so that we start doing more productive activities together? (ie reading, writing, drawing, making beer, taking dance lessons.) Do you do any stuff like this with friends? 2. On jobs in the US — What will jobs

Stateless Mojo

Hi, my name is Mojo and I do not have a country. I hold an Eritrean passport like my father, but I have never even been to Eritrea. The country is unsafe. I am Saudi born and raised, but I cannot live in Saudi. The country does not grant citizenship or residency rights by birth. I lost my temporary Saudi residency while in the US studying at Texas A&M University. I am in a limbo. I cannot go to Eritrea. I cannot remain in Saudi Arabia. I cannot go to the United States. I have been removed from everyone I have ever known or loved. I have been a refugee for the past two years, traveling as a tourist to avoid persecution and deportation to one of the world's worst dictatorships and police states. What really matters to me? Music. However, I have let my circumstances dictate my life. In my religious Muslim family, music is considered the voice of the devil. I am torn between my passion and my fear of disappointing my parents. We all have our excuses for not pursuing our dreams. I’m

Productively Creative Thinking

Howdy, I teach. From my experience I know that delivering content is good but getting people to actually do something is better, much better. Two passions of mine are creativity and productivity, so in my 5 minutes of ListServe fame I want to get you productively being creative. Here is a list of things for you to do over the next day or two: - Find the most interesting reflection (in a window, on water etc) you can. You don't necessarily have to go searching specifically for this, just notice reflections as you're going about your day to day activities. - Rearrange your desk. Do more than just move an item for the sake of moving it though. Think about all the items on your desk that have just been placed haphazardly. Can you be more creative in how you organise them. - Get into a discussion with someone with very different views to you on a topic you are passionate about. You must end the conversation by agreeing with their point of view however (just verbally, I'

I won?

I stopped reading the listserve a while back because everyone seemed to be ranting about ways to live your life. I'm young (going off to college in the fall) and still figuring things out, so I don't exactly have any great wisdom to give you all, sorry. I thought about not writing this however, but it seemed cool enough to be a shame to give up. I'm pretty busy with things right now, so this is mostly just a rough draft. I'll leave you with the last book I read and movie I watched, maybe you'll like them too; "museum of innocence" by Orhan Pamuk and "Drive". Both are pretty good I thought. Good luck with things. Broholm Bromieholmie[AT]gmail.com Maryland, USA

Connections and Collaborations

It’s really easy for me to fall into a way of thinking that keeps me moving in the same direction. I don’t like how my life feels when I let that happen for too long, so I give myself projects. This coupled with some mild obsessive compulsive tendencies causes me to fixate on the end goal until I’ve thoroughly exhausted the point of the project. Sometimes this leaves me very satisfied with what I’ve done/made/experienced and other times I find myself oddly ashamed or empty. I don’t expect anyone to necessarily understand any of that, but I know how I feel when I’m in this kind of state and thought it could be helpful if others who might feel that way too knew they weren’t alone. I’m working really hard on being vulnerable, too. It’s a scary concept when you’ve spent your entire life believing (for good reason) that the best way to live is in a constant state of emotional vigilance. I’m finding, though, that I’m not happy. So I have made the decision to deliberately open myself up

The family that "lists" together...

It started innocently enough, this family list-making fetish. My husband, two children, and I were having a family conversation after dinner, and someone mentioned that it had been a while since anyone had spent the night with us. Something in me sparked an idea: how many people had indeed slept in our brick rancher over the years? The kiddos began rattling names of their friends while I got pen and paper and began recording. “Justin, Mark, Josh...” our son offered. Our daughter chimed in with “Amy, Ashley, Christine...”. My husband began reciting the names of relatives who have made the trek to visit us here in Alabama. Soon the list grew to over thirty people, which surprised us all. Then our son recalled that we hosted two young men from a visiting church choir one night; add two to the list! Didn't we shuffle beds around to accommodate our neighbor's parents when they paid a surprise visit? Add two more! And so it went, and when we felt we had exhausted all memory cells, ne

I never expected i would win this lottery

Woo hoo what a great news I received today in the inbox, YOU won the lottery. Let me first tell you that please ignore my grammatical mistake as English is not my first language and secondly I very excited to share my story with you. I have no general theme in mind I will write whatever comes to my mind. Hope you will enjoy, reading as I am enjoying writing. Everyone has the same question what should one write. I am a computer engineer 24 years old and live in a small town of India in state of Gujarat. Gujarati is my first language. I studied in an English medium school. And because I studied in an English medium school I can to talk to you. I thank my parents for what they have done for me. They have sacrificed many joys of their life to make my life better. I am Grateful to them and the Almighty. I am a happy go lucky guy. I live in the moment and believe that pain and sadness is momentary, and when it is too dark a sunrise is surely going to happen. I am still so young and what can

Your Story

Being a 17 year old who has only been receiving emails from the Listserve for 3 weeks, you could only imagine my surprise when I won this lottery (I repeated “Oh my God, oh my God!” about a million times). I sat in complete shock as to why me, out of 23,000 other people, got chosen for this insane opportunity to share anything and everything. The Listserve accomplishes an amazing feat of connecting people through stories and that’s why I first signed up when I found out about it. Every day, I have looked forward to read a snippet of another person's life and to be in their minds, even if it was for just 600 words or less. Because I’ve enjoyed this aspect so much, here’s a little bit about me. When I was 7 years old, my dad died of an infection. It was the most devastating time of my life but I learned that life really does go on, even though at that moment it seemed like my whole world stopped. Through endless love and support from my mom, I have grown into a person that I thi

Short Lived Opportunities and Lessons in Life

Dear Fellow Humans, What is our unifying core aspect at listserv? Our inherent humanity. Recognizing that our human experience transcends physical qualities, is a powerful notion. We as individuals are unique, but our commonality runs much deeper. As homo sapiens to our further primordial roots. We each experience emotion through the same framework. Synapses and neural networks, electrochemical signals pulsating inside. I am honored to be granted this opportunity to share. The listserv is a special community. If from this letter I can plant a seed in your mind and actions, that would benefit your experience, then my investment would forever be justified. ---------- You cannot force lessons onto anyone. You can only offer ideas to ponder. A good teacher guides her students on a path of discovery. Through this self-discovery, we as students incorporate and ingrain lessons. There are learning opportunities all around us. We are entities perceiving and absorbing experience, and man

Greetings from Germany

"Succeed is about to get out of your comfort zone. You only get forward if you take that next step. If you always do something you already are good in you are not learning anything, you are just playing" When I got the "you were selected" mail I wanted to share something meaningful with all of you. I picked this quote because it helped me with some decisions in my life and I think its worth reading it twice. Last year I started my own startup called bitstars and it was not a simple decision to make. I'm 26, just finished my Master in computer science and in Germany its not that problematic to find a well payed job in this field. Additionally the startup mentality here is totally different than in the US for example and normally you get one chance to succeed. An own company is often very stressful and you have to worry about a lot of things at the same time but I still think it was absolutely the right decision. I believe in our team at bitstars and I love to wor

don't give up on someone who's bipolar

I wasn’t as excited as I thought I would be when I received the email from the Listserve that I had won the lottery to send out a story to thousands of people. I thought about it. I took an hour lunch break away from my cube, made a phone call and took a quick car ride around the block before I realized this was a chance to become another spokesperson in a drowned-out pool of mentally ill awareness advocates. But there can never be enough champions for the mentally ill. I, myself, am bipolar. I was diagnosed two years ago after living with the illness since I was 19 years old. It was only when I walked onto a beige tile floor in a pair of hospital socks to a room full of doctors that I was told the diagnosis. I had a bipolar episode and was admitted to a mental unit in the city public hospital. I always knew something was wrong, and although no one wants to hear they’re bipolar, it was a relief to hear an answer to all the pain I had been dealing with. After I was released from the hos

It's a great day!

Wow, I just won the lottery and now I am sitting here in awe of the responsibility to communicate, in a meaningful way, with 25,000+ individuals who are spread around the globe. While we all share a basic humanity, biology would suggest that each of us is physically unique and also, most certainly, that uniqueness extends to our personalities that are the sum total of our origin, environment and experiences. It is that heterogeneous audience that makes responding to this ‘call’ so challenging but in a very good way. I congratulate my predecessors who have never failed to pique my interest and my admiration goes out to those who are seeking to change the world on some level. All of us can only hope that they never lose their passion. It may seem trite to refer to the Chinese philosopher’s words uttered more than 2,500 years ago but they remain as relevant and true today as when they were first spoken – ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.’ Through the years, both f

To Do...

I do love a list. My current strategy is to use monthly, weekly and daily lists. These are divided into sections and follow an ever-evolving layout. For example, ‘People to Call’ was recently promoted up the page due to lack of progress in this area. A good list must keep you on your toes; get too comfortable with the format and you’ll start neglecting areas, assuming their contents. After a leisurely peruse over the ‘Tech to Do’ section (this covers digital/online/phone-related tasks) I want to reach the bottom and then... Wham! Ah yes, we’re out of bin bags. Lists have to be handwritten. When I think of something to add, I make a note on my phone but will write it down at the first opportunity. Otherwise, how will I cross it off? The Backspace key cannot compete with the cathartic effect of a purposeful, conclusive pen movement. But a paper list can easily be lost and the thought of trying to remember as much as possible, knowing things will be forgotten (something important?) is ju

Surprise!

Dear fellow Listservians, I'm not ready to address such a vast amount of people, 23,337 to be exact, but as it often happens in real life, opportunity strikes when least expected or prepared for, and who am I to cower? The Listserve caught me at a strange point in my life: at the beginning. I'm 19 years old, just finished my first year of college, and 2 days ago, scored my first real job, as an assistant to a historian (thanks Andrea's dad!)Also, in just a few days, I celebrate my first anniversary with my boyfriend (hey Francisco!), who was also the person who told me of The Listserve. So this is me, full of the start of it all. Seeing that I'm writing this at the last moment, I might as well go at this stream of consciousness style (Go Holden Caulfield!) Well, I'm currently thinking that friends are the most important thing, ever; there's college and work and family but it's friends that really make our life worthwhile; friends, and maybe children, but tha

Filling the Tanks

Ten years ago I saw “Toy Story” and vowed to work at Pixar when I was older. Now two-and-a-half colleges and a dozen internships later, I work there. Eleven years ago I stood as a bar mitzvah in front of my peers and family members, all smiley Chesire cats, only to realize that I had no idea what religion really meant to me. Now over a decade later, I’m currently in Israel meeting four cousins I’ve never met because the only truly religious experiences I've had since my bar mitzvah have taken place at the four Beyoncé concerts I've attended. Twelve years ago I realized I was gay, or at least different enough to feel defeated when a classmate called me a faggot while playing basketball in gym class. Now I’ve been out to everyone in my life for almost three years and am learning that writing helps me channel my earlier negative anxieties into something positive. This is all to say that I’m learning about the power of knowing your history, of being able to continually connect your

a Dutch girl living in Sweden

Hi there, First of all; thanks for all those wonderful e-mails I received from you who already won the Listserve-lottery! And now, this is my story. My name is Britt. When I was fourteen, my parents told me they wanted to emigrate, together with me, my little brother and sister. A year later, we moved from Holland to Sweden. It was such a big step, but after a few years living in this wonderful country, we have learned the language, have contact with a lot of lovely Swedes, feel happy in our house and are going to school and have jobs. My mum, my dad, my brother, sister and me, we did change. In a positive way, I would say. We are more comfortable with unknown situations and like to get to know new people. I am absolutely sure that if we never had left Holland, I still would be that shy girl who I was before. So, with this story, what I want to say to you is JUST DO IT. And yes, that's the slogan of a big sportbrand, but also a very good quote to keep in mind when you want to chang

Paper&Tape

Greetings Listservians! I am an artist and art educator in New Jersey where I have spent nearly two decades working with high school students to develop creative and innovative thinking skills. My approach to the studio arts has been one of breaking down preconceived notions of "art" and "artist". Many of my students will enter class on the first day and announce themselves with "My name is... and I can't draw". As a culture we have created some mystical idea that many teenagers adopt thinking: drawing and painting well (read: objectively) are inborn, and artistic folks are magical in some way. Further, all other non-objective or conceptual expressions are questionable, and deserve scrutiny. I posit that artistic folks are magical, but not because we are naturally talented, but because we work hard at understanding and promoting creative and innovative thinking. Two years ago, a colleague and I started a little program in our high school as an experi

what´s your passion in life?

Hi! I wanna tell you about a few things that I´m passionate about. In my opinion I think it´s important for your own well being to have something to be passionate about. One of my biggest passion is is ballet (and all kind of dancing). I love to go to a good performance or show. The things I love are a bit weird. I loved the excitement in the audience, I love to see the dancers sweat (my sister have never understand that!) and see how they muscles doing all the work while they try to show the audience with there faces that this is peace of cake (which it isn´t at all!). I also love the costumes- especially the tutus in a ballet performance. I love to see a dancer do point work in their point shoes, and I know a lot of the French name of the movements, even though it´s several years since I danced myself. Ballet is so graceful and elegant and so hard to do! One of my favorite buildings in Norway (where I´m from) is the opera house. Whenever I get the change I will go to a ballet show wi

Sixty seconds' worth of distance run

Hi All, I've been thinking about changing careers for the past 10 years. I turn 43 next week and I’d like to go back to school, get an engineering degree, and enter the rehabilitation engineering profession. I want put my energy into something that will make a concrete difference in the lives of others. I’d like to use my talents to help others achieve more than they thought possible in their own lives. Fear and my perception of the challenges seem so monumental that they've frozen any real progress for literally years. I'm afraid of failing. I’m afraid of succeeding and it not being what I imagined it would be. How am I going to pay for school? Is it smart to take out loans? It is the right thing to do to leave a profession that I've been successful in for the last 20 years to follow a dream. Is that the responsible thing to do? Am I being selfish? The truth is that I don’t know and I’m not actually sure what I’m going to do. I’m not sharing this to tell you

Constructive summer

In 2009, I encountered a book that introduced me to some important ideas and shifted the way I saw the world. That book was Pulitzer-winning journalist Tracy Kidder’s biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, Mountains Beyond Mountains. Briefly, it chronicles Dr. Farmer’s experiences administering healthcare to impoverished patients in Haiti, Russia and Peru during the 90’s, but more importantly it illuminates the vast health inequities our world faced then and still faces now. It introduced to me the concepts of structural violence and the oppression of the poor, and bluntly asked me to face some very unsettling truths. For example, after administering antibiotics to an impoverished TB patient who had been suffering for months, Paul wrote, “When she received them, she soon began to respond- almost as if she had a treatable infectious disease.” I hope that quotation makes you uncomfortable; it should. We live in a world where people die of treatable diseases because money is not allocated for the

How do you mourn?

CATHEDRAL OF THE WORLD I grew up in a family of muslims, catholics and atheists from four different countries. More than anything growing up in this environment made it clear how similar we all are. All of us share universal life experiences and emotions that cross cultural boundaries - we just express ourselves differently based on our own context and culture. When you grow up with so many different kinds of people you can see these behaviors and practices for the social constructs that they are. The "Cathedral of the World" metaphor from Unitarian Universalist Forrest Church exemplifies it best for me: "(1) there is one Reality or Truth ("God"); (2) this Reality shines through every "window" in the "cathedral" of the world and out from every perceiving subject; (3) it is never perceived directly; (4) yet it is reflected and refracted in a myriad of meaningful patterns on the floor of the cathedral and by every perceiver; (5) thus, every wi

Thank you, Marissa Mayer...

In the United Kingdom we are asked to make a decision at the age of thirteen that will inform the rest of our lives. The subjects we nominate for our GCSE exams will determine our A-level choices, and then our University nominations and then our careers; which might affect where we live, our financial and social class status, the people we meet and the children we may bear. Asking a thirteen year old to make this decision is reckless. I was told to choose subjects that I was good at and I followed that advice; I studied Mathematics, Electronics and Information Technology, and then I studied Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science before starting my career as a computer programmer in London. I lived miserably in London for four years. I never made friends, I had nights out with colleagues and partied with the people I grew up with whenever they visited; I never met anybody serendipitously. I didn’t once take advantage of the city because I was always busy working and commuting. I s

"This old curiosity shop of a world"

I’m Emily and I’m newly 21 and celebrated my birthday in Paris next to Canal St. Martin. Things about me—no one can pronounce my last name; my hair might be red or might be blonde but it’s definitely curly; I say y’all; I have a brother and a sister, of whom I am fiercely proud. I’m from DC, but have been working in Paris, first with an association that works with African immigrants who have HIV/AIDS. I expected to cry at that job, or to feel pleasantly selfless, but instead I realized the obvious fact that in some places, even Paris, a freckled American girl with a mostly-working knowledge of French doesn’t quite do the trick. Once a man named Jean with a velvet voice tuned for the radio held my hand and cried because he could never go home, and I couldn’t tell him in his own language that it would be okay, because I don’t speak Wolof, and because I knew it wouldn’t be. Well, that gutted me. Now I work with the regional center for AIDS prevention and we talk to high schoolers about p

A Whole Lot of Somethings, or Nothings

What I want to get most out of my ListServe opportunity is the chance to connect, so feel free to contact me with whatever’s on your mind (maybe read the rest of this before you do, though...). I wanted to write something unique and intriguing, of course, but I’m rarely that creative. Probably tomorrow I’ll think of something fascinating I should have written. There’s a writing ‘experiment’ further in. My introduction is at the end because it is typical and boring. Try sunflower butter with honey on rye toast. I intended the bulk of this e-mail to be about Tolkien and YouTube (as two separate topics, though now I wonder if there are any good Tolkien-focused YouTube channels?), but I really don’t know what to say about Tolkien other than I am utterly fascinated and enamoured with his creation of Middle-Earth and all that relates to it (I’m going to Oxford at the end of August as a kind of pilgrimage). I have a bit more to say about YouTube. I’m always fascinated when people don’t unders

Service to Humanity

I'll start off with my story and then we'll get into why it matters. I love basketball, but we'll come back to that. Went to college hoping to become a doctor, didn't quite work out. Didn't feel so great about myself for letting my parents down. Met some great people. Some not so great. Both groups were equally important to me. Met this girl, but that ended up like my med school dreams, just slowly drifted away. Missed my little brother a ton, made sure to keep checking up on him. I've always raised him like a son, and he's always seen me as a cool older brother - so it works out for both of us. Decided I'll be joining the Navy Hospital Corps in a year, I'm pretty damn excited about that. I think that sums it up pretty well. So basketball... it's always been my sanctuary. I've been playing since age 4. I love everything about the sport. I can watch it anywhere, anytime, no matter who's playing. Right now I'm coaching a group of middle

A Day Without Excuses

I was always the type to make excuses. I had an excuse for why I was running late, why I didn't exercise, why I was moody, or why I was overwhelmed. Recently, I decided that I would no longer make excuses for myself. I would begin to hold myself accountable, but still honor what I was feeling. I would exercise more, eat locally, make new friends, enjoy my job, and quit letting external factors determine what my next excuse would be. I would now hold the key to my destiny, as it is not predetermined by anyone besides myself. Since the day I eliminated all excuses, I have finished my first triathlon and will be doing two more this summer. I have lost 25 pounds. I have opened myself up to new friendships. I am a better person, partner, friend, and companion not only to others, but also to myself. And I feel great! I have learned that you truly must love yourself first, inside and out. I have learned that if your outside doesn't match your inside (or vice versa) you have the means

Fireworks: An Alternative Perspective On A Booming Business

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou Fireworks are truly a cross cultural, worldwide phenomenon. Pyrotechnics as we know them today date back all the way to ancient China where they were used to ward off evil spirits. Today however, they are used as a way to celebrate things and events around the world, whether it be a national holiday, religious celebration, or the beginning of a new year. But I'm not here to dwell on the fantastic, awe inspiring beauty, and downright awesomeness that IS the modern day firework. No, rather to draw your attention to the work that goes on behind the scenes, where hardworking men and women come together to put on a spectacular show, literally risking their health and well being doing something that they love. Planning for a show (in the U.S.A. at least) typically begins months in advance with client meetings and gathering of permi

I’m changing my baby’s name

I need your help. I’m changing my baby’s name, which it has had for four years. I should clarify that my baby is not a human baby, but rather a company that I own. Right now, my baby is called Fresh Prints. We make custom-design apparel. I’m a senior in college, and all 40 people that I work with are also college students. I’ve spent my entire college career living and breathing this company. Unfortunately, for complicated trademark reasons, multiple lawyers have told us that we need to change our company name. The past year has shown me that the Listserve community is filled with smart, funny and diverse people. I can’t imagine a better group of people to rely on when I need to make such an important decision. So, I’m asking for your help in 2 ways: 1) Send me ideas for a new name! We want a name that is clever, easy to pronounce and indicates what we do. Here's what you need to know about us: we're all college students, our top-notch graphic designers provide clients with fre

Human Nature

I teach. My fellow teachers would probably describe me as calm, patient, positive, and disorganized. I genuinely love my job and I enjoy working with students and helping them learn, grow, and succeed. I have a knack for connecting with some of the toughest students to connect with and I pride myself on not judging my students and repeating the mantra of one of my professors from college—hate the problem, love the student. I am always willing to give my time and effort to help a student, fellow staff member, or friend. I also, fundamentally, feel that humans are naturally selfish. We are incredibly self-interested. I don’t believe true altruism exists. I do believe, however, that selfishness and wickedness are not linked. Rather, I believe that all humans can be taught to be, as I like to call it, selfishly selfless. I love my job because it makes me feel valued. I enjoy seeing my students succeed. It brings me pleasure to lead a life of meaning. I am unbelievably selfish. I do what I