Story Time with Uncle Michael

Episode V: The Brothers Schwartz Strike Back

Part 1

My brother and I are about to embark on an annual road trip down to the Central Valley of California. Now before you say, “What is worth going to in the Central Valley?” let me say that I completely agree. There really isn’t that much happening in the Central Valley (why do you think they named it Fres-no and not Fres-yes?). However, there are some truly wonderful people that Colin and I both love down there. But this isn’t an ordinary group of friends, either. These people are our camp family, and we are visiting our older sister for her birthday.

Camp works in amazing ways (and for those of you who’ve worked in such situations—I’m looking at you Papa Bhatti—I’m sure you’ve experienced it). It fosters relationships separate from the “real world,” where consumption, material, and social status have relatively no meaning. I feel like I get to know each individual as they are truly as a human being. And the goal of camp is to make campers’ lives as memorable for however long they are staying. This working environment fosters some of the truest relationships I have ever made. The tradeoff is that living and working at a camp is a serious bubble: I tend to miss out on large world events, such as the World Cup or Michael Jackson’s death, and only find out about these things through dial up internet.  Despite this, we will be visiting family in a couple days’ time.

This is a story about how someone single-handedly tried to mess all of camp up for everyone that works there.

First, a short history lesson. My brother and I have been going to and working at a YMCA camp at Sequoia Lake, a short distance from Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks in the Sierra Nevada mountains. It is approximately an hour and a half from Hanford, California, where my father was raised and where my grandfather still lives (yes, brother and I will also be visiting actual family as well on our road trip). There were two youth camps on the lake for a long period of time: Camp Gaines and Camp Tulequoia (TQ). My formative years had been spent at Gaines, and my formative years were also spent hating on the spoiled bitches that were working across the lake at TQ. Their camp always seemed to prosper. Our camp struggled with uncoordinated leadership, lowering enrollments, and a crappy YMCA that folded due to money concerns (yes, even though YMCAs are non-profits, that is how badly they fucked up. Additionally, we moved to Redwood, a smaller camp, the previous year because of our shitty enrollment). Here is a diagram, courtesy Paintbrush:

So I had always had some long-standing issue with TQ and all that it stood for. Some defectors who had been campers there for a long time but came (and stayed) on our side told us how bratty the kids were over there. But the whole lake was running into some difficulties, and there was an executive decision to put the entirety of it underneath the control of one YMCA and re-brand the lake as YMCA Camp Sequoia Lake, with each camp as one new “village.” Unfortunately, the YMCA that was going to be running the lake was the one that run TQ. And there were no longer going to be two youth camps. Just one. Situated at TQ.

Damn.

At least, that was my initial reaction. 

I was told that there was supposed to be a newfound camaraderie between these “villages.” The idea was that we were going to share personnel, share some traditions, get along, and make a wonderful summer for all of our campers. Simple right? Nobody told our boss… 

My Life Update

As it is now winter break for the grad students among us, it's time for our life updates!

As most/maybe all of you heard, I managed to pass my comps last spring, which meant that I got to kick back, sit around, and relax all quarter... oh wait, that's what I thought it meant. Turns out it meant that I got to work my butt off again last quarter, only this time I worked on slightly more advanced/specific projects and managed to feel like I didn't accomplish much along the way.

The second year of my program is all about finding your little niche in the world of economics. Everyone in the program takes the general "macro, micro, metrics" classes in the first year and then we all split off taking classes like "behavioral and experimental economics" or "international macroeconomics" or "industrial organization." I started off the quarter taking three classes: behavioral and experimental economics, econometrics (i.e. statistics), and industrial organization. I also decided to sit in on a matching and market design class to see if I thought it would be an interesting class to take later on. By the end of the quarter, I was auditing the economics class, had dropped the industrial organization class, and was taking the matching and market design class along with the behavioral and experimental class. My quarter was all about finding research projects, and I went through about 25 ideas for a research proposal for my behavioral class, which meant that I skimmed the surface of a lot of areas of economics and meant that I felt like I didn't accomplish much. But I'm entering next quarter with 4-5 research projects that I can launch into and hopefully turn from ideas to papers to... hopefully published papers. I won't punish everyone by describing the ideas in this post, but since some of you seemed interested I might do another post or two talking about my research proposal (and so I can get the "Isaac being nerdy" to be the most used label...)

As for the social life, it was wonderful to go back to Stanford and have a group of friends all ready there as opposed to last year. But then classes started and I stopped spending much time with any of them. Unlike last year, this year includes a lot of projects that you do on your own, which obviously means that it is much more isolating that last year. As busy/stressful as last year was, the long days of difficult problems sets was a great bonding experience, and part of me misses that comradery (although all told, I'm so f-ing glad that the first year is done). Michael is completely right about the community aspect, and how it feels like the community aspect of my life is missing a bit right now. So I think I've figured out the solution; everyone just come to San Fran! It'd be so much fun!

All in all, I had a good quarter and am in a good place. Academically, I feel like I've finally found a few project to fully devote my time researching. Socially, there are a wonderful people at Stanford, and it's coming slowly. That said, I'm still missing the hell out of all of you guys and it's no accident that when describing my quarter I was able to write a massive paragraph about my academics and only a small one describing my social life.

things

"Dear Diary: Today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. [flips page] Today we were kidnapped by hill folk, never to be seen again. It was the best day ever."


http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/baf9/

Life Update

Hello friends! Ahhh, it feels good to finally stretch my fingers in a way that involves me not mindlessly word-vomiting onto a document that I will turn in for a grade. It feels really, really nice to have gotten this term over with, and I sincerely hope that everything will get a little bit better from here on out. My next two terms involve less classes as well as less difficult classes, meaning that I can spend more time at practicum (where I am based at an elementary school) and at my research assistant position (which I mostly enjoy). It’s been a really difficult term, so thank you all for being patient about my inability to reach and contact you. I miss you all—hopefully I will be able to still count you as a friend =)

Speaking of friends, I have had two recent, whirlwind visits from two of the authors of thishere blog (Emma and Elise), which have both prompted some life observations.

Something that I had struggled with all of last year (and to less of an extent, this year) was starting the whole making-new-friends-cause-you’re-in-a-new-place process. An obvious issue with these new friends is a general lack of history that is shared with new people. Gradually, that history will develop over time, especially as you figure out your sense of place.

Another obvious issue is the idea of community (as an aside, I’m starting into Community, the tv show, and all of you would find it hilarious). This sense of community and involvement also gradually develops. But what has been difficult for me, as a result of being in the Eug, is that I am so incredibly used to having a community built around me. My place, and my comfort within a place, has been easier for me to find and enjoy in the past (rather than the present), because I have been going to small schools in small towns for a while. But since I’ve been removed from these (beautiful) places and have been foisted upon the “real world,” community has been hard for me to develop.

Now, part of this is inevitably the result of being in graduate school. It is harder to get involved when the time to get involved has (felt like it has) hardly existed. The counter-argument to this is that time should be made to keep those things that you love in place. But, for me, it is harder to find motivation to do these things when I have other lists of things-to-do to do. (Let it be noted that ultimate, after not playing a lot of it last year, is booked on my Sunday schedule; when soccer is happening, that, too, is booked). Most of the time, it is easier for me to relax by lying in bed and catching up on How I Met Your Mother or other TV shows. Yet despite my poor efforts, I can feel a sense of community growing. I live with a good friend, I see another good friend in a different program on a daily basis, and I feel comfortable with people from a variety of programs in the broader College of Education.

On the other hand, it doesn’t have the same “level” of meaning that my relationships with all of you mean to me. To an extent, most people (here in Oregon) have other priorities: some people have partners, some people have family, and some people have their own business to attend to. I guess my rambling leads me to conclude that I haven’t quite figured it out here and I still miss all of you whole-heartedly.

Naturally, I am inclined to live in the present. This has happened at each of the places where I have had a big transition: middle school, high school, college. Since I’ve been here, I find myself looking more to the past. Is this a healthy thing? I’m not sure yet.

For now, I will focus on going home, unplugging, writing, reading, exploring, puppying, Christmasing, and socializing. Inevitably, there will be days where I won’t want to do anything outside of vegging on the couch. But I am also hoping to make this time off productive, especially since the last ten weeks haven’t felt like it. 

An open invitation...

... to all of you to come visit me in Snowmass, CO this winter!!!

YES I GOT A JOB!!!

I'm teaching kids to ski at Snowmass. It will be awesome. Then I'm probably going back to the huts, so if you don't visit me in Colorado, come visit me in my mountains in NH. Hmm does this mean that the Rockies are also my mountains now? Interesting. The Whites may get an inferiority complex, but I would like to publicly announce that they are still the background on my phone and computer and that they will always have a special place in my heart.

I start training Friday, December 9th.

I don't have a place to live yet, but once I do, my couch/floor/heart is yours. Not sure yet what the deal is with getting discounted ski passes for friends and family but I'll keep y'all posted.

http://emmaseverydayadventures.blogspot.com/