Reading creates a place in time

There's been a surge of decluttering in my life lately. Among other things, I have been sorting through my books and reading lists, crossing off books I've read and making sure they are present on the spreadsheet I've been keeping since middle school to document my bibliophilic triumphs. As I've looked back through the list, the strongest impressions I have are where I was when I was reading some of these books.

I remember reading Quicksilver by the pool on a cruise, although Eliza from System of the World is linked to my bedroom during grad school, where I read every night before bed. Books I wouldn't have remembered that I had read remind me that I read them and learned about social connectedness from Six Degrees primarily on the stationary bike during undergrad while I was dealing with knee injuries. And I have read an awful lot of books in airports, DTW in particular, it seems.

I don't know if this location associative memory is common for other people. Thinking about it, I realize it's quite distinct for me, even beyond my reading. When someone reminds me of a conversation, I frequently ask them where we were when we talked about it and that context triggers the entirety of the discussion. My best theory is that I've moved so many times that knowing where I was is almost as good as knowing when something happened. My next question is whether this will be an equally pronounced effect as I'm starting to switch to e-books.

How do you know an extroverted engineer?

He looks at your shoes when he talks to you.

Engineer jokes abound for a reason. I think we get trained to think in math and look at everything as a problem to be solved. Plus we seem to have a lot of introverts. A lot of the time most people spent practicing social interaction, we spent hanging out in our heads and never finessed the people skill set. Personally, I think we hang our old posters up in academic buildings so we can look at something besides the other people in the hall as we walk by them.

However, yesterday I walked across the engineering quad and was looking at someone who had a sweatshirt I liked. In that awkward moment when he realized I was staring, instead of the standard everyone-looks-away or the territorial stare-down, he just smiled and everyone's day carried on a little more smoothly. Now, to implement a new interaction algorithm!

The $100 Startup Review

Chris Guillebeau's book The $100 Startup has been out for just over a week. I finally finished it a few days ago and got my post up on Amazon, but I was really excited to read it and highly recommend it.


"In the interests of full disclosure, I received a copy of the $100 Startup in advance, but was so slow reading it because of all the notes I was taking that I’m just now getting to writing my review.

I found this to be a very understandable and approachable guide to starting a microbusiness. There’s no background knowledge assumed or exclusive demographics. The whole book builds on your intentions to provide something worthwhile and your desire to accomplish something independently.

There is very actionable guidance for all stages of starting your own business, from generating your ideas and setting up, to relationship building and marketing up to scaling (or not!) your business operations. I particularly liked the case studies across a variety of industries. There are also worksheets (and additional resources provided online) to work through questions, business plans, product launches and on and on...

Regardless of the stage of your small business, this book has insights waiting to be yours."

I know you from *somewhere*...

An encounter with social grace is always a good moment for me. Today, I ran into a department head when I was going out to lunch. I'd previously met him when I'd been visiting as an industry partner rather than my current persona of a slightly disoriented first semester grad student. I said a “hello” and slowed down past his table, and he stopped me, “I know I recognize you, but I can't remember where from.” After a quick refresh, he was very interested in how I was doing here. As one of those people who is great with faces and shamefully poor at remembering names (the faces are so effortless and the names such a struggle...what makes this happen?), I've often used a similar line to re-engage with people and wondered how it felt to be on the other side. I certainly preferred it to the minimal acknowledgement I was expecting, and it was nice to know he recognized me.