Choices and Opportunities

Life is unusual. I find it strange that some get so many opportunities and blessings while so many get so few. The moral I've learned is you take what life will give you because you don't know what tomorrow will offer. For many, life is a long path with only the occasional fork to choose from. My life forks regularly. And when I mean regularly, I mean monthly, biweekly, even weekly. I'll offer one recent tidbit that happened today

Today I interviewed for and was accepted into the exclusive Asia Business study abroad. You can learn about it here. This spring, if I accept my acceptance, I will be going with 21 other students and 4 faculty and staff from BYU. For three weeks we will visit various cities in China, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong (I know that's China, but not really), and potentially Malaysia and Cambodia. We'll be meeting with business leaders like the CEO of BMW China daily to learn how they do business. I still am reticent to go because of the cost (with grants and scholarships I hope to get the cost down to about $1,700) and the fact that May is the ideal time during the next year and a half to study and take the GMAT and LSAT.

But alas, not all of life is rose colored glasses. My computer is on the ultimate fritz. No longer do I bat an eye when "the frost" comes. A swift series of hooks, whacking my computer screen shakes it from the "sickness" as Thamina called it. The screen goes still and a frosty glow starts crystalizing in from the sides of the screen until it frosts everything in a dirty colored mist. But along with the keyboard falling off, the wireless internet card being fickle, and more, I fear a new computer might be in the immediate future. We shall see. I hope Dell will fix it all because it should be under warranty. Stay tuned.

Christmas Greetings!

Ah, the traditional Christmas Card. Well, my roommates and I got our creative and witty juices flowing, and in an attempt to reconnect with all of those we only send Christmas Cards to, behold, our apartment's Christmas card in all of its glory. Merry Christmas!

Our updates:

Andrew has been mourning recently after his failed coup of a small South American country. No worries, however, as he recently brokered a deal uniting the Somali pirates. In return for his protection, he gets 10% of their booty.

Steve got engaged this past October. His fiancée should be coming to Provo in the next couple weeks (mail order: Russia). Steve and Anita plan to open a business in Salt Lake selling small American flags and other patriotic memorabilia made overseas.

Dave wanted to give back to the community so he decided to switch majors this semester to Non-profit management. He leaves the apartment everyday with a smile and a bell in hand headed towards the Smith’s front parking lot.

Joseph decided to skip school this year and gather a bunch of capital. In the spring he will launch his new company creating internet pop up ads for the visually impaired.

Michael has been having a hard time lately because of the election. No longer being able to campaign for Barack Obama, he has no purpose in life. For the past 3 weeks he has been sitting in his room with the lights off, wearing the same old, stained Obama t-shirt, muttering the phrase “…Obama…change…now?”

Brady continues to surprise the apartment with his literary attainments. Although he restricts his reading to grade school books, he has recently won his second Pulitzer Prize for a probing psychological analysis of fifteenth century proto-feminism.

Richelle has spent countless hours dancing this past year. She has become such a sensational dancer that she has decided to take on new challenges. Her new routine includes somersaulting through a ring of fire and tango on a bed of nails.

Dictating My Undergraduate Career

My mother recently commented to my girlfriend that "things just tend to fall in Andrew's lap." I don't know why they do. They just do.

This has been a good week. It started out last Wednesday with BYU e-mailing me, telling me that a budget surplus had granted me an additional $1,025 of scholarship money this semester. But Friday night was the real shocker.

With graduation looming in 15 months, I decided that my year-long honors thesis should likely begin. Over dinner conversation with some friends, the idea of ethical development in business students was raised as a potential thesis. I liked it. I ran with it. I contacted a half dozen professors in the Marriott School and hashed out ideas with them. One agreed to be my thesis adviser with several more suggesting they would like to play a role in my project.

One of the professors I met with recently had dinner with a Marriott School Associate Dean. The Dean and the Marriott School had tested students using an ethical/moral reasoning test at entrance and graduation from the school for the past 2-4 years. He had no idea how to crunch the data, nor did he have anyone to crunch the data. The professor suggested that I do it. Friday, I received an invitation from the professor to meet with the Associate Dean.

I just finished my meeting about 45 minutes ago. I met with Associate Dean Thompson and fleetingly with Dean Cornia. They were thrilled to have a "win-win" situation. It's so much of a win that they would like me to work for the Dean's office on this and other related projects for the foreseeable future. What a blessing. I can not detail the multiplicity of significant blessings poured out upon me recently by a benevolent Providence. To do the project I will be coordinating with the faculty as a whole, doing more primary research, learning critical research computer programs, and doing a crash course on what they've done so far. I feel utterly incapable to do the task before me. I hope my inner mettle will prove equal to the challenge.

This post's humorous link (don't mess with an over-worked, over-stressed graduate student):
http://www.switched.com/2008/11/14/why-you-should-never-try-to-steal-a-law-students-laptop/?rss

The Beginning

A friend approached me several months ago and suggested I start a blog. She noted my expression of strong, but (attemptedly) educated, opinions on a wide variety of topics. Expressing those opinions in an open forum, she thought, might prove interesting to a select few. Following that advice, I started this blog but never posted anything, reasoning that those who wanted life updates would seek it themselves. I figured that my opinions were redundant among the expressive thinkers in the community, nation, and blogosphere. Above all, watching the woes of others who had their words misconstrued and distorted made me fear what the future could bring decades down the road. Such opinions from collegiate years tend to bite people in the rear end.

Despite these internal objections, I have become anxious enough about contemporary issues to air updates and opinions. With the recent campaign season and my inability to keep tabs on dozens of great friends, I felt strongly to start. Ensuing blogs will cover various topics like my personal thoughts on Proposition 8, the recent election, various moral and ethical issues, clever youtube videos and other links, as well as the occasional update on my life for those who actually care to read. Before I post anything political, know that I'm a political moderate, and like to have fun with both parties and their frontmen.

Pop in occasionally. I'll make sure to make this an interesting read.

Today's video comes from Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPBvFXf9Q2U