Japanese have nicknames for each month of the year, usually based on the nature of the month, like june is "the month without water" or "the long month" for September or the funniest, "Priests Running" for December (because priests are preparing for New Year festivities). 弥生 (Yayoi) is the nickname given for March and means "new life," and I really felt like a new way of life this month.
1.) Yayoi Kusama is the current name big name at the Broad Museum in downtown L.A., as she's one of the most famous artists to come from Japan. My co-workers knew her mostly for having checked herself into a mental hospital, (look at her picture in her wikipedia page and you might begin to understand why), but she seems to have a very grand vision and from what I understand, her work is more than just polka dots and infinity rooms. (But I personally think polka dots and infinity rooms are really cool!)
2.) There were many, many upsets in the March Madness NCAA tournament this year, but no upset in my annual donation to my bracket league, where my winner (Virginia!) became the first No. 1 seed ever to lose to a No. 16 seed. Go figure. In other news, though, Chicago got some much-needed basketball energy due to the unlikely Final Four run by the Loyola Ramblers, a school most in the country probably had never heard of and is not well known even in the Chicago area, much less Illinois. It wasn't just that they made it to the Final Four, it's how they did it: as a No. 11-seed, which usually doesn't even win a single game, they had back-back-to-back buzzer-beating wins to advance, one of the most exciting things in sports due to the single-elimination structure of the NCAA tournament, and most importantly their team mascot, 98-year-old nun named Sister Jean who went to all their games in a wheelchair, rooting the Loyola Ramblers on. In America, and the world, really, you need some sort of symbol, gimmick may be too negative of a connotation, but something that tugs at the heartstrings, inspires others, and gives everyone hope: sometimes it comes in the form of Jeremy Lin and Linsanity living off his brother's couch to starting in the NBA, this year it was Sister Jean and her story and excitement for underdog Loyola. A welcome respite from the other news cycles involving the President, porn stars, North Korea, Russian investigations, and........stock markets.
3.) More lessons in the stock market! After February's near-meltdown in which I promised never to get complacent again, I got complacent again! and become too optimistic about stocks, assuming they would be never-ending stairs to gains and happiness. As it turns out, they're not, and the bottom can fall out pretty quickly, and all the gains from a month's worth of slow and steady build and eviscerate in a few hectic training days. That's the kind of volatile market (and world!) we're in now, ESPECIALLY if you invest in tech stocks like I do. When will Robert finally learn?
4.) I got really busy for three weeks at work, preventing me from writing in this blog but also preventing me from going to Korea and Shanghai! I had tickets booked already but had to cancel. I don't feel bad about cancellation costs, but sometimes I wonder if I'll look back at my life when I'm at the end of it and wonder, "should I have taken that March 2018 trip to Shanghai/Korea? It might have changed my life. The x amount of dollars I made by going to work didn't really do that much." That's the price we pay to try to make money: human life cost, the cost of not being able to live and do what one wants to do.
5.) Volunteered for the 3rd straight year at an Easter Egg hunt! Except we were told to call it a "Spring Egg hunt" for legal reasons that they don't want to exclude other religious affiliations. It all seems kind of silly to me in that there was a guy dressed in a bunny suit walking around giving out eggs, I'd say that's celebrating Easter, just like Santa Clause for Christmas but saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."
6.) Fantasy baseball draft happened! I once again slacked in preparing even though this year's draft was the 10th anniversary of our league and happened in Vegas!!!!!......kind of a letdown though as the most predictable things happened in Vegas: drink a lot, go to nightclub, pay a high resort fee, pay high prices in packed places because it was St. Patrick's Day weekend and March Madness weekend......great to see everyone though, and at my age in life I realize that each encounter with friends could be the last time in a while (people are getting married, having kids!) and it's important to cherish the moments together.
Actionable fantasy advice: still stay the course, get the old but proven guys like Nelson Boomstick Cruz, avoid hype like Yu Darvish and "The Next Big Thing" like Scott Kingery or Robbie Ray. Get good values: My general rule of thumb: I want the guy who you haven't heard from at all during the whole draft season or heard negative news about that went too far. Which is why I ended up with Paul Goldschmidt amidst all the talk of humidors deflating his numbers, or Ryan Braun and Robinson Cano (RB duo!) literally nobody getting excited about these guys but they play in good lineups and stayed consistent environments. I like the consistency.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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