The rise of the 'childfree'

The rise of the 'childfree': "'Taboo subject'

'The whole idea of the childfree lifestyle is beginning to be recognised by the media,' says Dr Hakim. 'Private feelings are being legitimised and people are beginning to feel that they are not being deviant in some way.

More and more people are questioning whether children are for them
'Very consciously people are more confident in saying they have a different lifestyle.'"

Quote of the week

The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is
great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what
you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.

- Steve Jobs

New addition to blog

The new addition to the blog is called a Flickrmap, you should get one too! They're really easy to set up and very cool. Makes me realize I need to visit so much more of the world.

Opinion Section of MIT Tech Student Newspaper

Mating rituals at MIT are something else entirely. Here, your personal worth is determined by your workload: your lack of sleep, your berth of problem sets, your number and difficulty of major. Your “hard coreness,” so to 5p3a|<. We’ve seen it time and time again. Two sullen students recognize each other in line at La Verde’s.

Tiredly, the first asks: “Hey, how’s it going?”

Confidently (but also tiredly), the other responds: “Oh, man, I’m so hosed. I just pulled two all-nighters and still haven’t started my third pset that’s due tomorrow.”

Faux-sympathetic acknowledgment: “Yeah … I just finished my fourth pset of the week and have to stay up all tonight to start and finish a stupid HASS paper.”

Evoking the triviality of his opponent’s assignments, the other continues, “I’d rather take a HASS test than read a hundred pages on something completely irrelevant to anything.”

Check: “The paper’s not as bad as the programming project I’ve got due at the end of the week. My group hasn’t even met yet.”

Suddenly, out of nowhere: “Oh, and I just added a UROP, so I’m now at 72 units.”

Checkmate.

The victor’s sub sandwich is up, he grabs it and swaggers off to the caffeinated drinks before gloating smugly at his inferior from the checkout line.

As a system of attracting potential mates, or dates, this process presents some obstacles. Why is mating at MIT so difficult?

Third: Winners of this competition are rarely the best to date. I’ve heard of a guy who’s girlfriend dumped him because he spent more time with his robot than her. Doesn’t sound too ridiculous, does it?

Piled Higher and Deeper

phd021006s, originally uploaded by eesley.

The author of this comic was at MIT a couple weeks ago . . .

Hotlanta . . . in the state of GA

Both of my papers were accepted for presentation at the Academy of Management Conference in Atlanta this Aug. 11th - 16th. The theme of the conference this year is "Knowledge, Action, and the Public Concern." Looking forward to it.

One year

As many of her friends have remarked, it's hard to believe it's been a year since Anoopa's car accident. Today I feel as though she has taught me as much or more after her death than during the time I knew her. I still read the comments people leave on her website and am deeply touched by every single one. It continues to amaze me the effect she had on those who knew her.

Anoopa has shown me the way that I would like to be remembered and the effect on my friends I would like to have.
To live life deeply and reflect often. To share my thoughts about life and lessons I think I may be learning with others and encourage them to share their insights with me. To share books and poems that make you think. To rise above the nitty gritty day to day and attempt to learn something bigger or deeper and then to live in line with those. I guess I always wondered if all those conversations we had in undergrad ever amounted to anything real being learned or just to more questions and discussion and time pondering. I've learned from Anoopa that they were indeed the most valuable conversations I've had and the amazing impact she had having the same type of conversations with so many others either in person or in writing.

It seems to me that each friend I have brings out certain qualities/characteristics in me (and
me in them) and it's like the beginning is this phase where you're
still settling on what kinds of conversations and what sides of the
two people will come out and its usually just an unconscious process I
think. It's like each person is a prism refracting out certain colors
of a rainbow. Usually it's so dependent on the initial circumstances
when you meet or where the common ground is perhaps. While I
definitely always appreciate being silly and chatting about day to day
stuff, it's neat when you can sort of dig below that because there are
always so many thoughts that flash by in any given moment about life
in general, you know, yet we select out certain ones to express to
certain people. I guess I'm thinking about it more too because grad
school is so specializing as it should be to really become
knowledgeable about a particular area, but I don't want to lose
thinking about the other aspects of life in a bigger sense or more
personal sense I guess. Modern life is so busy, it seems that I never
have time to really reflect like this on life until late at night...

Stata Center at night

Stata Center at night - 1, originally uploaded by mimopablito.

I found some great photos on Flickr of the Stata Center at MIT. If only I had time to take my camera around.

On Fri. I ran into Rudy at HBS from our Sun Dance Genetics team. Also ran into my freshman year roommate from Duke (Scott Orleck) at the Duke vs. UNC game last weekend, as well as Therese!

It's been beautiful weather here recently so I've been trying to squeeze in some time walking around outside. It's been tough though with problem sets and midterms coming up! Only a couple more weeks until spring break though . . . can't wait.

Josh Davis

Last night I was invited to a MySpace group that is holding a Fundraiser for Josh Davis (who also has a MySpace page).

The group's goal:
We are trying to raise money to get Josh equipment that will help with his short term goal of driving. Our first goal is a TILITE Wheelchair. However, there are many long term goals such as the potential, yet expensive, stem cell surgery, and many other adaptive technologies that would help make life easier!

If you knew Josh, please do contribute.

Also, this is the one year anniversary of Anoopa's accident and passing. Anoopa's family has set up the Anoopa Sharma Children's Foundation (ASCF). The Fund will provide support for a school in North India which Dennis and Anoopa visited together in the summer of 2004. The school is the girls’ high school in a small village called Atrauli, which is where her father was born. The Fund still needs to raise more money to complete this project.

Olympic Hack

olympic Hack, originally uploaded by eesley.

The athletes of the Winter Olympics weren't the only ones who received a gold medal this past Tuesday . . .

The Past

I wrote this back in 2002 and presented it at a conference in Florida. It's fun to see someone pick it up and post about it on their blog 3 years later.
mhaa562's Xanga Site

SSRN-Entrepreneurs from Technology-Based Universities by David Hsu, Edward Roberts, Charles Eesley

The first paper that I started working on when I came to MIT has been posted to the Social Science Research Network as a Sloan Working Paper. It is also now under review at a journal.

SSRN-Entrepreneurs from Technology-Based Universities by David Hsu, Edward Roberts, Charles Eesley: