Poverty

It's probably because of my personality, but I like books that provide clear step by step instructions on what they are about.
With "The End of Poverty", Jeffery Sachs does this, providing an operations guide for countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals agreed upon in 2000.

What was interesting was understanding some of the causes of poverty, and getting rid of some of the myths, especially of African nations. Some causes, such as corruption and mismanagement, affect a countries state a lot less than I had previously thought, which geography, disease and nutrition causes countries to get stuck in the poverty trap.

What was also interesting was that birth rates for poverty countries are high most likely because parents understand that they will lose some of their children and in order to compensate have many more kids. This in turn leads to population growth that the country and land cannot support adequately. If mortality rates of children goes down, then there is less risk of losing their children and parents will naturally reduce their family size (similar to richer countries).

I read an article once about how the human mind has difficulty comprehending large numbers. When you see a statistic 1 million children die from malaria each year, it's sometimes harder to imagine that than the 4000 that died in the World Trade Centre. 1 million is a staggering number from a preventable disease, but these people are nameless, faceless. Say what you will about Bill Gates, he can comprehend that large number, and recognises that significant amounts of money needs to be invested to combat that disease.

Here's to hoping we reach those Millennium Goals by 2015. Given the financial crisis, it's going to be a tough ask.

Acting

Acting class is still going strong. Having asked for some new material, my teacher pointed me in the direction of some plays written for American-Asians. Playwrights such as David Henry Hwang and Philip Kan Gotanda have contributed to plays that address the issues migrants face in belonging to this country.

Frankly I never knew that these types of plays existed! And it is refreshing to read scripts that I can relate to, at least on some superficial level. My previous attempt at a monologue had me as some "Southern gentleman", out of Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie".

Of course, we still have some shockers, Hangover being the current movie that I can think of. Unfortunately, Asians are now being typecast not in their mannerisms but more so in their job line. Great example would be that nerdy analysis guy in "CSI", the nerdy Princeton Korean guy in "Harold and Kumar".

It's also great to see that there have been more non-stereotypical roles for Asians in cinemas these days. John Cho seems to be doing well, acting as all sorts of roles (yes, I am a fan, did you know he's 37?), from space cadet to some cop.

I still have an aim to get in a play here, but given the sheer talent of the people around me, it's going to take a lot longer to achieve the goal. Still, it's good to use that part of the brain, and once in a while we all want to be someone else for a change!

Perhaps the best indicator that we are on even ground is when people don't write about these issues any more. It's just, "he's a good actor".

Achievements

Reading the book "Against the Gods" (thanks Baba!), it details the history of risk, and how society moved from thinking of the future as pure uncertainty to one where it can be (sometimes) quantified.

The book describes the many people that contributed to risk assessment, from philosophers who thought about probabilities in life to mathematicians that provided the theorems on calculating the utility and expectancy of events.

What was more remarkable was the amount of achievements that these people had acquired by such young ages. Fibonacci wrote his book Liber Abaci when he was 27. Edmond Halley was a member of the English Royal Society by the time he was 22. Daniel Bernoulli was Professor for Mathematics by the time he was 24.

I don't know if it's because the life span of people in those days were shorter, but people seemed to be awesome early. Of course, history would have a bias to people of note, so we only read about famous people who would have been the top 1% of their society.

We are definitely getting to an age where I can see some of my friends really powering ahead in their pursuits / professions, and it's fantastic to see that. It just makes me think that I need to do more with my life. What's my contribution? What can I do that will make an impact?

I could be approaching this the wrong way. Perhaps the better question should be "what strengths do I have so that whatever I do has the greatest impact?"

Of course, as I write this, having come off a massive night in town, perhaps the focus is in the wrong place at the moment!