Two Distant Strangers

When I was in the 2nd semester of law school, I did a crazy thing for first year law students to do: I joined an undergraduate class about community relations because it was required to become an RA, and I wanted to be an RA at the law school dorm I had spent my first semester in. I was still in my college phase and didn't want to go into my adult phase of renting my apartment, plus I wanted to make more friends in L.A. The class was pass-fail, so I wasn't worry about grade or anything, but apparently we were evaluated based on how often we raised our hands in class and contributed to the conversation. The problem was, there were about 25-30 people in the class, and everybody knew we were being evalulated based on that criteria, so guess what? Everybody raised their hands all the time. And the class dealt with important topics like race relations, ethics, etc., but everyone reaffirmed what everyone else was saying, so no difficult problems were solved. No one really said anything out of line of what the instructors were pushing, a lot of "agree and I have an example in my life to demonstrate this." (In hindsight, it was my first experience of what an echo chamber felt like). There was even a retreat at the end of the class where we spent time overnight at a camp, and one of the leaders/instructors kept drilling into us that we had to "change," and that we needed to follow the values that had been set forth in the class. Sounded a little cultish, but I still just bought into everything since I was trying to get something out of it. During the interviews at the end of the class, the instructors called me in and nicely, gently, told me that I was being "recommended with reservations" for a spot as an RA. I naively thought this was normal, just a tier down from "recommended strongly." Turns out those were probably the only 2 options there were, or if they didn't recommend us, they probably didn't even conduct an interview and just sent it through the mail. Needless to say I didn't get selected to be an RA. Perhaps I should have volunteered more and been more passionate about what I was saying, but I really just didn't feel it: I kept wondering, "How do they know I need to change? What if I was already fine?" 

I bring this up because I feel like this is the state of talking about race in America today, that there is just this one narrative, and we're all encouraged to speak up (silence is violence) but only as long as we say the right things. And the ones who raise their hands really high and say it with the most conviction, get prizes and are applauded for their bravery for speaking up. I stumbled upon the film "Two Distant Strangers" the other day while searching for time loop movies similar to "Groundhog Day," and this 32-minute short film popped up with a 94% Rotten Tomatoes movie. Short and sweet, good for me. I realized this was filmed after George Floyd soon after it began, when the African American main character was pushed to the ground by a white police officer and died because he couldn't breath. He woke up only to repeat the same day over and over again, always the white cop being the aggressor and killing him, either shooting him or some sort of violence. The white cop even barged into a private home to shoot him in one of the days. It was sensationalized, and just when I thought the movie would have a somewhat optimistic ending by having the white cop give the main character a ride home and be on the verge of surviving the day (spoiler alert), the white cop betrayed him and shot him in the back. Just a complete tear-down of the white character with no redeeming qualities. If I were a black person, or a black child without a full world view and watched this movie, I would be convinced that white people were out to get me every single day, around every corner, and even if I befriended them and they acted like they were being friendly, they were just waiting to kill me later. This kind of movie, I fear, was made not to help society "and open eyes to the world about what black people have to deal with," but it was made to win an award and advance a career. Or maybe it had good intentions when being made, but it certainly veered off that course. It reminded me of the people in my undergrad class who raised their hand and told a great story that confirmed the point the instructor was giving, but it only made themselves look good, didn't really help solve problems for the future, and no actual good was done. "Two Distant Strangers" just cuts out all nuance of situations and paints one side as completely innocent and the other side as completely at fault, acting mercilessly and cruelly. If only it were that easy, that there was a bad guy in a movie that we could pin all the problems on and if we just get rid of or fix that one guy, then we could all go back to living our lives again. Unfortunately, this wasn't the first movie that tackled this issue that I felt similarly about: "When They See Us," about the Central Park Five, had a similar vibe of complete good on one side and complete evil on the other. Rated 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, I agreed with the sound, acting, cinematography, etc., but I couldn't get on board with the message. 

I think this is another issue with conversations nowadays, is that when anyone speaks to a large group of people (I certainly felt this when I raised my hand back in that undergrad class), everyone feels like their whole image is at stake, the brand they have built for their whole lives of "I'm a good person," so they take the most popular opinion out there that they know will get "likes," "head nods," applause, whatever the audience is, which we like way more than hisses and groans or disagreement. Everyone is their own publicist anytime they post anything on the internet or say anything publicly, and everyone should speak up......as long as it's the right message. 

Cleanliness/Hygiene (卫生, 衛生, 위생)

 I've never been a very cleanly person, living not far removed from the college dorm room life my entire adult life. Recently, though, I've learned the creature comforts of washing the bedsheets once in a while, scrubbing out the soles of my feet for dead skin, and vacuuming more often than once every 2 months, or "when it becomes unbearably dirty," whichever comes first, which was my previous standards. 

Reading Bill Bryson's book "At Home" about different rooms gave me a wake-up call as to how lucky we are to live in current times, not only because of the technological and medical advances we have but also due to our developed sense of hygiene. People who lived just 200, even 150 years ago, likely smelled really bad, with no running water at the tip of their fingers, bad sanitation, and rats being much more prominent around homes than they are now. (MJ winces even when she gets in sight of a single mouse or rat, so imagine the horror of multiple nice in the night scurrying around in the bed area, or the sound of rats passing through above the ceiling of one's house. Even I found that a little disturbing). If we go even further back, people actually warned against being clean during medieval times, with the best minds of the age agreeing that keeping the pores clean would only allow disease to enter into the pores, thus clogging them with dirt and other material was preferable to washing with water. Laughable and absurd logic nowadays, but people must have been very scared of disease back then, since there was no way to cure it like we have now, no vaccines, no immunity, no treatment. 

It's only been in like the last 100 years or so that regular daily showers have been developed as the standard. For me, I can barely make it through the day if I don't take a shower- something feels missing. And on the occasional day after I skip a shower, I feel clothes getting a little sticky, the beginnings of dirty buildup on my skin. Not showering is really depriving myself of the best time of the day: coming out of the shower and feeling refreshed, and my skin almost singing out to the world like, "I'm here! Feeling great and ready to mingle! 

Another great feeling is the feeling of putting on fresh clothes: which apparently people in olden times did not believe in, certain people even wearing the same shirt (and underwear!) for years on end, to the degree of when they finally did take off their shirt, parts of their skin also came off with it. If you haven't been turned off by certain portions of the book yet, the book also mentions how many dust mites and small micro-organisms exist on toilet bowls, kitchen counters, and even on the beds where you sleep, no matter how many times you wash it. A neat-freak OCD person's nightmare of a book. 

But also, some practical advice from Bill Bryson (who has apparently retired from writing books, unfortunately): using the stairs is actually one of the most dangerous things people can do inside a home, as gravity gets involved and it really depends on the gradation of the stairs, as there's a standard slope angle of like 22 degrees or something. 90% of accidents happen when descending the stairs as opposed to going up the stairs, especially on the last 3 steps of the stairs (my old gym teacher broke her leg because she didn't realize there was one more step to go and tripped on the stairs down). A good lesson for older people, as my grandpa, before he passed away, was a major fall risk at the age of 90-plus, so we switched his bedroom from upstairs to downstairs, so he never needed to use the stairs at home again. I miss grandpa. 

Canada (加拿大, カナダ, 캐나다)

 There's a 23-year-old young woman who's in the midst of a 8-game run on Jeopardy from Halifax, Nova Scotia, and other than making me jealous of her trivia abilities that surpass mine (even though I'm about to turn 35 in a month) and reminding me that Canadians seem to know more about the U.S. than Americans know about Canada, has made me think that I don't know all that much about Canada. Pretty typical of Americans, actually: we think we're the best country (Make America Great Again!) so we tend not to learn about other countries, and the predominant language is English, which other countries learn as their second language, but America doesn't really reciprocate in learning other languages. I notice this when watching trivia shows like "The Chase" from other countries like Australia and U.K. versions: they'll know a bunch of facts about America like the names of all 50 states of America, but try asking Americans what all 10 provinces of Canada are, or even better one of the 3 territories....the lesson being that certainly America is home to a large portion of the world's culture, but it's important to still keep track of other countries as well in case something like Russia invading Ukraine happens, or for some reason one day Canada stops being the friendly neighbors and welcome Americans anymore within their borders....(kind of happened during Covid when U.S. was one of the worst-performing Covid countries in the world). 

I think most Americans think of Canada as "America's Hat," our neighbors to the North who occupy a huge area of land between us and the North Pole, and in general are like friendly neighbors who look like us (Caucasians) and don't cause much of a ruckus, and say "eh" a lot (I indeed witnessed this when I've visited a few times, this general tendency to be friendly and give an "eh" at the end). Much of what I know about Canada is through Jeopardy, and I find that most of it is about Canadian geography, as alas Canada has not been that consequential in world history. Makes sense when you realize the population of all of Canada is less than that of California. The country has so much land area up north with some of the world's largest islands like Ellesmere Island and Baffin Island, but it's just too darn cold, even with global warming, you're essentially living with polar bears. 

Lacrosse is the national sport of Canada! NOT hockey! Unbelievable! Just like I had a misconception that the moose was the national animal of Canada for the longest time......nope, it's the beaver. 

MJ and I are visiting Canada in a couple weeks! To the great city of Montreal, where I know the 1976 Summer Olympics was held, partly at the Jacques Cartier stadium, and the Canadians play their ice hockey games there, but otherwise I'm very open to what's in store. We might also skip on over to Quebec City, which was featured prominently on a popular Korean TV series called "Goblin," giving evidence that Canada is definitely on the map of destinations to go for other nations, maybe just not THE destination to go when given any choice of locations. That whole line of Montreal-Quebec City-Ottawa, which lie on the same stretch of Ottawa River/empties into St. Lawrence River, is just a little too far from the big populations on the U.S. East Coast, otherwise it could be a splendid weekend destination for large swaths of car trip travelers in the summer. Montreal is 7 hours from New York City, even further for Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C., making it not that appealing......I think the threshold for most people is like the 4 hour trip from L.A. to Vegas, or 5-hour trip from L.A. to San Francisco....any more than that and you're risking spending the whole day in the car and having that sinking feeling of wasting your whole day sink in. Fun fact: Quebec City is the only walled city in North America. Never really thought about cities that are "walled," but it does give a nostalgic medieval vibe to a city, like "in case of invasion" or at least makes it a candidate to film a battle scene from the Lord of the Rings/ Game of Thrones/ other old England-based fantasy show. 

The Presidential Fitness Test

This blog entry inspired by the Omnibus episode featuring Ken Jennings and John Roderick, where they went into detail about the dreaded Presidential Fitness Test that was subjected to middle school kids around the country for the stated purpose of "making sure America was fit and at the ready in case of battle." I was a chubby kid and always dreaded the Presidential Fitness Test because it was done in front of everyone in the class, so the humiliation would not only be my own private humiliation of failure, it would be on display in front of the entire class that I couldn't do a pull-up, or couldn't climb the rope. To be fair, very few people could climb the rope, so I don't know why they made us do it.......our gym teacher would offer pithy comments like "Mind over matter," which kind of (I hate to say it) explains why he was a gym teacher and not a science teacher......science and physics over determination, just ask the victims of natural disasters. 

The fitness test was even sent back to my parents as a report card! I remember being so uptight about getting good grades in all my classes, I got blindsided by this report that said I was in the bottom percentile here, I got a "D" grade in terms of strength, endurance, basically all the attributes that athletic kids should have. Credit to my mom, she didn't think too much about it and just encouraged me to get good grades in the "real classes." But that fitness test definitely shook my self-esteem! All of the most worrisome thoughts for kids came into play back then, like not fitting in, everyone's ahead of me, I'm never going to be cool.......it's tough enough being a kid and at the bottom of the social pyramid, now the school just added another element where the cool jocks of the class got to show off their prowess and the weakling/nerdy kids further reinforced how uncool they were. Really unfair, and really a testament about how bad school can make people feel, and there's really no help from other kids, and teachers/ adults at the school are too busy with other students to care about your feelings, only if you get into a physical fight or cause parents to get involved that they would do anything about it. Of course it doesn't seem like a big deal for grown-up me as an adult, but as a kid I didn't know how to handle it and had doubt, fear, low self-esteem, all negative emotions well up inside of. It's hard enough to be an unpopular school in the US and people suffer real problems because of it, and the Presidential Fitness Test did not help. (Schools everywhere seemed to agree as they seem to have abandoned the test in 2013). There's also a broader point about how there are kids left on their own in middle school and beyond that go unnoticed, where the bullies of high school capitalize on their brief window of popularity and dominance over other kids by put-downs, ostracization, etc. It's really a jungle out there, and I wish I could go back and help my younger self back then, or I'm sure there's kids out there just like I was who were struggling with it. 

The one good thing I will say about the fitness test, there was one event that I did try to do something about, the mile run.......I was so embarrassed in 5th or 6th grade about my mile time which was like 10 minutes-plus or something, but that may have motivated me to try out for different sports instead of just stick to the books and chess club, thus I wound up in cross-country, found out what a difference running every day makes, and ran the mile in 7th grade in 7 minutes 7 seconds. I can still remember the look the jock who I beat out at the end that ROBERT YAN, of all people, notorious for being unfit and unable to do anything on the Presidential Fitness Test, beat him at the mile run. One of the more satisfying feelings I've ever had, and probably what motivated me to play dodgeball later on in life and show the jocks that despite outward appearances I could play a little bit too. 

Golf (高尔夫球, 골프, ゴルフ)

Every year when the cherry blossoms have bloomed, March Madness has ended, the last bouts of snow have passed, and spring is just around the corner, there's one event that always comes on in early April (except during the pandemic year).....it's an annual tradition, the Masters. This year I got sucked into the drama of Tiger Woods coming back from devastating leg injuries from crashing his car and watched a bit on Saturday morning......only to see him crash (no pun intended) and burn down the scoreboard on his way to a 5 over-par round (translation: not a good round). It wasn't Tiger that drew my attention, though; Tiger's been omniprescent in the little compartment of my consciousness labeled "golf" since I was 10 years old (and I'm sure the collective consciousness of the world at that time though).....it was the slick features of Augusta National Golf Course, the neatly mowed greens, the trimmed fairways....and it was at this time that I finally understood why people liked playing golf. 

I never got into golf as a kid, as the only exposure we got was to go to the local mini-golf course in town and do putt-putts; it was a pretty sophisticated course that was built on top of a hill, so even though I knew the course backwards and forwards I would still get excited whenever anyone wanted to go. There's something about trying to get a ball into a hole that is so intriguing for people, including me: it's probably why I've liked shooting at basketball hoops my whole life, that accomplishment each time you "make a shot" is better than the feeling when cash goes into my bank account. Better than any token economy, that feeling of "I made it into the hole" just keeps me coming back. 

I suspect, though, that golf is a little more sophisticated than just getting a little small ball into a hole 200, 300, sometimes 400 yards away.......there's a reason indoor golf is not as popular, and people would much rather do 18 holes of golf than stand at the driving range working on their shot the whole day. It's the thrill of driving around with a golf cart and enjoying the great outdoors but being able to call it a sport and let out some stress and frustration at the same time by walloping a ball as hard as you can, but also at certain times trying to delicately get just enough arc on it to get it onto a narrow strip of land. And your golf buddies are doing the same thing (and sometimes drinking while doing so). 

I always wonderered why there so many spectators in the crowds at all these major golfing events: don't these people have anything better to do? Imagine my shock when I realized there's a huge waiting list for these events, especially for Augusta National at the Masters.....just watching golfers all day is a dream come true, and I kind of get it: I've gotten tired of going to baseball games and sitting around in the same spot all the time watching the same action on the field from the same angle, but at golfing events spectators can roam around from hole to hole following their favorite golfers, enjoying the weather, the trees, the paths, the wind in their face, the sound of titanium hitting ball at a high rate of speed, and the shouts and applause of the gallery......a lot goes into a golf tournament, and the type of people who go are usually somewhat higher-class adhering to a more gentlemanly, sportsman code of conduct...I haven't heard of any fights that break out at a golf course, and I imagine alcohol is strictly prohibited on the courses. They're all just there for the love of the game, and what a game it is. An annual tradition unlike any other.......the Masters. 

Pet Peeves (令人特别讨厌的东西)

 My list of pet peeves has definitely shrunk now that I am a domestic creature (only get out of the house for about an hour a day and don't interact with people), but alas there are still things that manage to get under my skin. 

L.A. has a different culture, but I'm beginning to realize that its stringent pedestrian laws are preferable to what the rest of the country (especially the East Coast) has......a free for all. Pedestrians just act like they are the kings of the road with no regard for walk signals or even green lights for the cars, walking right onto incoming traffic at times. The most dangerous is this apparently consensus custom to start walking through the sidewalk even though cars are coming across the road, let the car go by within about an inch of hitting them, then keep walking. Basically, the pedestrian is anticipating the car's rate of speed and trying to time their steps so that the car will just barely get by. I call it the "walk-up," and the "walk-up" is super dangerous. My philosophy of driving (as everyone's should be) is defensive driving, so as to limit the amount of damage as possible and mitigate the risk of getting into an accident. So when I see a pedestrian up ahead starting to move into the cross-walk, I get ready to tap the breaks, not knowing if that pedestrian is going to slow down or not. The pedestrian gettin started on the "walk-up" basically forces me to read their body language and their eyes to see if they see my car and will let me pass, otherwise if they don't see me, they might just keep walking into where I am going! It's like a game of chess, and driving should never be like a game of chess. 

Hello Motorcycle/muscle cars who make a lot of noise with your vehicles for no reason, you are giving a bad name to all motorcyclists/ loud car owners. A terribly negative externality, especially in urban areas with lots of other people having to listen to such a jarring noise, and especially bad for people like MJ who just did a night shift at the hospital trying to get some sleep during the day. Have some respect; your loud motorcycle revving doesn't make you look cool, or give you positive attention; it just makes the world a worse place for everyone around you. If you do choose to do it, my hope is every time you try to go to sleep someone revvs up their engine and makes sure you're not able to fall asleep. 

People who take up the whole sidewalk even while seeing me coming. Most people will notice aother person coming along and give way to accomodate, but some will just play a game of "chicken" on the sidewalk daring the other person to keep going straight; if neither person they'll just bump nose-first into each other. 

Taciturn ( 沉默寡言, 口が重い, 말없는)

 I gave a wedding speech when MJ and I married in 2017 (Is giving a speech at one's own wedding already a sign of talking too much) where I expounded on the idea of Korea non-communicativeness, where older gentlemen from the Busan region in South Korea would place value in speaking as little as possible, only uttering 3 phrases to their newylwed wives: "Let's go, let's eat, let's sleep." (가자, 먹자, 자자). It's really all you need, huh? I am not like way. Ever since I was a kid I have been bursting to speak, jumping onstage at Chinese school when I was 5 to tell a story in Chinese. It's only been social norms that have slowed me down, made me choose my words carefully and subdued my eagerness to let the whole world know my thoughts.

Which is why I've been a little depressed at home, not being able to speak. It's similar to not realizing I haven't laughed all day: it's not very noticeable until I actually do laugh and feel how good it is, and the sudden recognition of not having laughed enough for awhile, or like when I haven't drank enough water all day and finally get a sip of cool water that immediately goes down into my stomach and I can feel my body greedily absorbing it. That's what conversation is like for me now that I work from home; no one to bounce my thoughts off of, no one to ask questions to, no one even to say hello or goodbye to. I did my fantasy baseball draft this morning which is just a cornucopia of jokes, greetings, stories, one-liners, and catching up with old friends, and I realized how big a hole I've created by just working continuously from home without speaking to anyone: I've made a career out of knowing multiple languages, but ironically it's made me not be able to speak any of them to anyone (well, that and Covid-19).

Not speaking to others has given me the mildest, mildest form of depression, but I consider myself lucky in having great physical health and seemingly more importantly nowadays, great mental health. I find the writing of Matt Haig, author of international bestsellers "Reasons to Stay Alive" and "The Midnight Library," particularly interesting because it explains what it's like to feel depressed and have suicidal thoughts, something that is very foreign to me, like an alien from the planet of Depression needs to explain to me what depression is like (credit to Haig for this metaphor). Apparently Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln, and a whole host of famous people in history have battled depression, people I wouldn't necessarily associate with depression (as opposed to say, Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath). It's really jarring that people want to die because they don't just feel like their life on a scale of 0 to 100 is a 0, it's actually a -100 and it's getting worse, or that they are trapped in a tunnel that's being closed in from both sides and can't seem to find anywhere safe to go to. Haig does a great job breaking these down for target audiences of depressed people and sympathizing since he also considered suicide, but his fictional book "The Midnight Library" is just fascinating in exploring something most humans fantasize about- if they could go back in time and change decisions they made in their lives that were forks in the world, and to see how those different realities would have turned out. I've often played these scenarios out in my mind, and I've always looked on the bright side of those realities, like "oh if I had just gone to UCLA instead of University of Illinois for college I would have had such a better college life!" and thus getting upset at myself. (I imagine this self-loathing and regret is much harsher for depressed people and often is a main source of their regret). Haig does a great job of (IMO giving a harsh reality check) that those other forks in the road might not have turned out that great neither, or you'd be sacrificing something that you take for granted in the path that you did take, like maybe I wouldn't have graduated so quickly at UCLA, or I would have gotten in with the wrong crowd and done drugs..... all leading up to the idea that even if you have a Midnight Library to go back and change your decisions, you might find that the current life (the one where some people hate and want to ask out of) might just have some redeemig qualities about it, and you might just find something to live for. Important, important ideas in our times of social media, loneliness, instant gratification, and infinite choices. 

As for my forced taciturnity (I checked, it's a word), I guess it could be much worse, and I could just go out there and make some new friends, since Covid is hopefully, crossing my fingers, about to end. Happy April! 

Twice-Told Tales

 The Twice-Told Tales was a short-story collection by a famous New England writer, you might have heard of him...Nathanial Hawthorne, who wrote them based on the idea that many stories were just re-tellings of other stories: some famous ones are like "The Lion King" is based on Hamlet, the musical Rent is based on the opera La Boheme, and "Bridget Jones's Diary" is based on "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen. I like the name because it fits with a theory of mine: that in order to learn something and remember it, you need to read it/watch it/absorb it at least twice. It's like painting: the first time is just to cover the old coat, but the second coat is needed to really smooth out the color, fill in the cracks, and complete the picture. I first noticed this pattern when I studied for tests that required memorizing a lot of facts......I just couldn't remember much if I just read my notes once, but if I just read it again I'd be able to notice things I hadn't before, and the second time through I could see familiar patterns and make links in my brain, almost like things "clicking" the second time around. I wonder if that was the secret to test-taking, where my sister always complains she's not a good test-taker. It certainly might be that she's not gifted in that area and brain is not wired the same as mine, but another factor may be just not going over enough times to get a full understanding, so when the test comes she wasn't totally ready for it. 

Reading books or watching movies, I feel similarly but instead of trying to remember/ memorize something, I'm looking to see the story from a different perspective and when looking at it from the bigger picture or catching just the tiniest detail, I can just blow my mind with what I just glossed over on first watching. I just watched the movie "Sideways" last night with Paul Giamatti, which I watch soon after it came out in 2004, didin't really think it was that funny and remembered it just as 2 guys getting drunk in California and doing some ridiculous stuff and lying to get to sleep with 2 women. So much has changed since my 17-year-old self watched the movie, I grew up and realized the despair that Paul's character was in, how much failure hurts, the power of alcohol, what the Hollywood scene is like (in a negative way), so I felt much more empathy towards the Miles, the main character, but also realized how bad his mental health was, something I've just noticed recently (read Matt Haig's books like Midnight Library about suicide/mental health) and that he was suffering through depression. Then, the tiniest detail at the end where Miles has the class reading a book, "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles. The book is about 2 boys, one shy and reclusive, the other successful and living life to the fullest, and one day the shy one shakes a tree and forces the other one to fall off a tree and break his leg, thus ending his sports career. Did the shy boy do it out of spite, or he was lashing out due to his own internal struggles??? ALMOST EXACTLY the trope in the Sideways plot! Sideways is the modern version of "A SEPARATE PEACE!" Mind blown. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should re-read books/ rewatch movies you didn't really understand the first time. Only deep books in need of a re-read though; don't need to watch "Fast and Furious" movies again to understand them. 

And yes, I absolutely do watch Jeopardy episodes multiple times. I find if the answer to a clue is someone/something I've never heard of, I'll have almost no chance of remembering it later on. But if I watch it again, it's like the first time was to just holding a spot in my brain for that new information, but not inserting the actual piece, the name of the person/thing. That's what the second time is for- I hear the clue again, Oh I know where in my brain that fits, but what is the actual name of it? The 1991 novel by Jane Smiley that is a modern re-telling of the Shakespeare play "King Lear?" Oh, glad I re-watched it, now I can fit in that it's called "A Thousand Acres." 

How about Coach K retiring from Duke after 41 years coaching basketball? I can't help but marvel at the longevity of his tenure, especially with how millenials and young people in general change jobs so often. Granted the head coach of probably the most decorated college basketball program in the world pays pretty well and a nice job to have, but it still amazes me that he's been doing the same thing for 7 years longer than I've been alive. Many companies now complain that their employees come on the job, get trained for several months (even up to a year) and absorb all the knowledge that the company gives them, then soon after just jump to another company, so it becomes hard to retain employees and less incentive for companies to train new people if they're going to just leave. In large law firms there's the allure of "making partner" and in academia the allure of "tenure" that incentivizes employees from staying loyal, but outside of that it's hard to convince people to stay except for some outdated sense of loyalty to the company. That used to be what it was like, as I understand: people started with a company and expected to stay with them for their entire careers (this is still the main system in Japan), but that's just not how most industries work in the U.S. Even in Coach K's field, basketball coaches don't stay on for long anymore..... often jobs are just a steppingstone to get to the next job; I can barely keep track of who coaches at major college basketball programs anymore, something I used to pride myself doing during high school/college. Anyways, happy retirement Coach K! If it were me I'd do a giant whirlwind tour of somewhere OTHER than Durham, North Carolina (not that Durham's vacuum, but there must be so many other places in the world! Oh the Places You'll Go (Dr. Seuss book)