efozzie – Page 11 – Life, leadership & laughs as a social changemaker

Where do you find the time?

I thought I’d share this video I found on Lifehacker about how our society is currently at the next big shift from a very passive TV-obsessed half-century, to a more active and engaged future. It’s extremely fascinating.

So where do you fall on the paradigm? Are you still on the couch watching Gilligan’s Island?

Where do people find the time to do things like edit the Wikipedia? They watch less television, says author Clay Shirky in a fantastic, brief talk at the recent Web 2.0 conference. Shirky makes a compelling case that people are just learning how to deal with the “cognitive surplus” of free time modern life affords us. We’re waking up from the “collective bender” of mindlessly watching sitcoms and instead, we’re choosing instead to spend our free time volunteering, interacting, and Web 2.0’ing online. Hit the play button to watch Shirky make his case for the full effect, or hit the link below to read the text transcript of his talk. Next time your TV-watching friends make fun of you for opting to blog instead, point ’em to this talk.

Gin, Television, and Social Surplus [Here Comes Everybody]

100%

That’s the percentage of my class of seniors at BUILD who have been accepted to college (and are going to college, God-willing).

100%!!!

And that statistic is not the only phenomenal fact. This remarkable group of high school seniors has gotten into some great schools like UCLA, UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, St. Mary’s, Menlo College, SF State, San Jose State, Lehigh University, Augustana College, Bradley University, Northeastern University, UC Berkeley, and Santa Clara University. The last three colleges have even offered our students full-rides.

Full-rides!

These are students that four-years ago when we started to work with them were written off by the school system and tracked into remedial and non-college prep courses–because of the color of their skin or because their first language was not English or because they come from low income families, etc. These are the “better-than-their numbers” students who may have low-to-average GPA’s and SAT scores, but who have stories so remarkable that they will excel given any circumstances they face.

Needless to say, I am extremely honored and blessed to have the opportunity to work with my students. I’ve been working with this graduating class for three years now, and I will be the first one to admit that I will cry like a proud parent during their high school graduations–yes, I’m going to all four of them.

So to all of you who are graduating high school this semester and are going off to college, hang in there for the rest of the school year. Don’t get senioritis just yet. Keep giving it 100%.

On May 1st, you will have a very important choice to make. Be thoughtful. Be honest with yourself. And know whatever choice you make is yours and yours alone. Not your family’s. Not your teachers’ or counselors’. This is your future. You’ve made it this far, and I believe you know what will be right for you.

Know that you make at least one person (me, duh) proud, and there likely are many, many more.

Weekend with the Family in Las Vegas

My goddaughter Bea is here for about a month, visiting from the Philippines, and we rendezvoused in Las Vegas to hang out with my family and hers. It was great to see my family, although after a couple of months of traveling, I’m ready to settle down for a bit again.

Left: Me and Bea. Right: Bea Monster happily eating chow mein.

Check out more pictures after the jump.

Continue reading Weekend with the Family in Las Vegas

Looking forward to a College Summit summer

I just got back from five fun-filled and exciting days in St. Louis, MO, for College Summit‘s annual Workshop Staff Training and a day of Rap Director Training.

This year is heralding big changes (improvements, really) to one of my favorite national nonprofit organizations. They got rid of their clunky intra-net system, CSnet, and replaced it with a more streamlined and teen-friendly CSNav. They’ve drastically revamped the structure of workshops; instead of one-off workshops donated by willing colleges, they are purchasing space for 4-8 weeks at a time from a select few colleges in their 13 different regions. The new structure allows for economies of scale, reduced staff drain, and program efficiency.

Summer workshops this year will affect the lives of over 3,000 low income students nationwide from rural West Virginia to urban Oakland. And these trained Peer Leaders will go back to their schools to affect even more students who then will start to create a college-going culture in their communities. It’s no surprise that “79% of College Summit workshop participants enroll in college, significantly above the national average for low-income high school graduates. And 80% of those enrollees stay in college.”

And it’s no surprise that I am sitting here anxiously anticipating the summer to arrive so that I can go off to my serve at my workshops.

It’s easy for you to get involved too!

I highly encourage you to become a Writing Coach or College Counselor this summer. The commitment is 4 days (Thurs-Sun), and you must have your bachelor’s degree or higher. Check out College Summit’s website for more info. If you need more encouragement to apply, contact me.

Check out more pics from the weekend after the jump. Continue reading Looking forward to a College Summit summer

Check out one of my students in the Palo Alto Daily

Gilberto Soria, senior, was recently profiled in the Palo Alto Daily. Click here for the link to the article about Gilberto. It’ll give you a small taste of the students I work with at BUILD… And I know if Gilberto read this post, his ego would be inflated even more, but nonetheless, I”m pretty proud of him.

Fourteen acceptance letters later, Soria’s mind is running wild: the University of California at Los Angeles, or Berkeley – or maybe a chilly stretch in New England at Northeastern University, which has offered Soria a full ride scholarship.

Check out the rest of the article after the jump… Continue reading Check out one of my students in the Palo Alto Daily

Three Cups of Tea

Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

I loved the themes of facing insurmountable odds and overcoming even larger obstacles in this book. Greg Mortenson turned the huge failure of not climbing to the top of K2 into a life of even higher summits. This book was a fascinating and inspirational read, especially if you are interested untraditional nonprofit work. And by “untraditional,” I mean nonprofit work that we don’t always hear about or read in the newspaper, like Ashoka, TFA, or College Summit.

One of my favorite quotes from the book:

“That Day Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I’ve ever learned in my life,” Mortenson says. “We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We’re the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their ‘shock and awe’ campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.”

Four Years Ago: When I bought my first car

Here’s a post from the past! After I moved back to the states from Japan, one of the first things I did was to buy my Honda Element. RIP Utada. After re-reading the post, it sounds extremely anti-American! 😉

The Open Road Ahead

I bought my brand new magnetic grey 2008 Prius today from Fairfield Toyota, and immediately went for a joyride to Napa Valley with my visiting aunt, uncle and god daughter. In less than the ten hours, I logged close to 200 miles on my new ride, and words can hardly express how totally sweet it is to drive. It’s the most high tech toy a boy could want!

Left: I’m getting a lesson on how to drive the new Prius and some of its cool features, like bluetooth phone capabilities. Right: Tita Badette and Bea check out the back seat at the dealership.

Left: That’s me… so much in love with my shiny new vehicle… it’s unnatural. Right: Tito Bong and Tita Badette grab a seat at Trefethen Vineyard.

Left & Right: After Napa, we drive back to San Francisco and stop by my favorite spot in the city, Dolores Park.

I feel pretty good about what lies ahead, despite the recent down from the accident. Things look great from this new perspective, and I’m extremely excited to see where the road and my new car take me.

And the winner is…

The Prius!

By a small margin.

Toyota Prius – votes: (11) 33.33%
Honda Civic Hybrid – votes: (9) 27.27%
Ford Escape Hybrid – votes: (6) 18.18%
Smart Fortwo – votes: (5) 15.15%
Honda Insight (Used. 2000-2006 only) – votes: (2) 6.06%

Thanks for voting… I’m getting a Prius soon, and will post pics. 😉

Six Car Dealerships and Four Test Drives Later

It would be really fun to write a play-by-play rundown of all of the characters I encountered today during my hybrid hunting jaunt, but let me just say that my overall experience today with car salesmen was quite positive and not as scary as I had experienced before. One of my friends at the chorus (he just so happens to be a car fanatic and pretty much an expert on cars) volunteered to join me on my test drives, and I am sure that helped immensely. It was not as intimidating walking into six dealerships with knowledgeable Henry by my side telling me every aspect and tidbit about every car that was on my list. It was like having my own little wikipedia right next to me.

Anyway, I visited Ford, Saturn, Pontiac, Toyota, Mercedes, and Honda, and test drove the Ford Escape Hybrid, Pontiac Vibe, Toyota Prius, and the Honda Civic Hybrid today. I wanted to test drive the Saturn Vue Hybrid and the Smart Fortwo, but the Vue Hybrid wasn’t in stock, and the Smart… well those Mercedes folks are pretty freakin hoighty-toighty. I had to sign up for an appointment, and the next available one is a month away! I have an appointment to test drive it on April 25, 2008.

Test Drive First Impressions

Ford Escape Hybrid Escape Hybrid: I like the spaciousness and the SUV aspect. I like that the gas mileage was good for an SUV of that size (it’s 34 city/30 hwy). At a base price of $26,000, though, it’s not that affordable (although they still are offering about $3,000 for a tax credit if I buy soon). The test drive was pretty good, smooth, but the braking felt really forced and unnatural. I can see how I would get used to it, but it just felt weird. Because of the price point, I’m going to rank this the 3rd choice.

Pontiac Vibe: Every year I take my students to NUMMI (New United Motor Manufacturing Company), which is car manufacturing plant in Fremont and is a joint venture between GM and Toyota. For the past three years, I’ve gone on this tour and watched the workers assemble Toyota Tacomas, Corollas and Pontiac Vibes. I just found out today that the Toyota Matrix is pretty much the same thing as a Vibe, so I test drove it just for fun because the Saturn Vue Hybrid wasn’t next door. It handled just like a sporty little car, but it’s too small and not what I’m looking for.

Toyota Prius: Besides all of the confusing options, packages, hybrid technology levels, and other ridiculousness that the salesman from New Jersey was trying to explain to me (not quite as successfully as Henry), I actually really enjoyed driving the Prius. It felt like driving a spaceship with all of the cool tech gadgets and gizmos, and unlike the Escape Hybrid, it was easier to drive and accelerated like magic. And how can you beat fuel economy like 44 mpg? This was easily my #1 by the end of the day. The salesman kept hawking a price of about $24-$25,000 at me, which is still far above what I want to pay.

Honda Civic Hybrid: Walking into the Honda dealership made me instantly nostalgic and kind of sad about not having my Element. She was just a really good and reliable car with no frills. This is exactly how I would describe the Civic Hybrid as well. It looked as plain and boring as a Civic, but with some space-age looking hybrid technology, which was neat. There were no frills about it at all. The backseats didn’t even fold down. It’s gas mileage is the closest to the Prius with 40 city / 45 hwy, and it handles pretty well on the road, except for the slow acceleration. Another good adjective to describe this hybrid would be spartan. After being treated to some neat standard features on the Prius and even the Escape Hybrid, I was expecting a little bit more from the Civic Hybrid… but no. It’s just like a regular Civic, which happens to have a hybrid motor. At a base of about $23,000, though, the price was getting closer to what I would actually want to pay, so this is my 2nd choice.

Smart Fortwo: Oh and about this “smart” car. This one is totally off the list already. Not only is my scheduled test drive a month away, which for practical reasons will not work because my rental car is due in a week, but apparently in order to get your hands on one of these cars, you have to make a reservation online at the website for $99. And then they have to build the car in France, which for some reason takes six months, and then it takes another few months for shipping. All in all, even if I really wanted it, I wouldn’t get it for at least another year. Too bad, Smart. The $11,500 initial base price was appealing.