Joyce Meng

I forgot to mention in my last post that I had a chance to visit New Orleans! As a big aficionado of Cajun food and southern culture (especially after reading Ernest Gaines book A Gathering of Old Men and watching Anthony Bourdain’s travel channel shows featuring New Orleans), I was so excited to explore “The Big Easy”. Given that my hotel was located on the fringe of the French Quarter, I had plenty of time to wander the quaint streets – truly, I can’t think of another city similar to NOLA. Although the streets sometimes get dingy (particularly on Bourbon), I found the atmosphere incredibly cheery, friendly, and inviting. Street musicians play merry Dixie jazz on every corner, artists display their beguiling crafts in the old square, and New Orleans locals hawk a huge variety of oddities, from voodoo dolls and spices to praline cakes and alligator heads.

I had a chance to sample some of the local delicacies too, from crawfish salad and jambalaya to bananas foster and plenty of sweets. Alas, perhaps I indulged too much!

April showers bring May flowers – alas, I’ve been tremendously busy with a variety of activities that I hardly noticed the change of seasons! On March 24^th, I returned to Penn as a panelist for the Microfinance Forum and as a speaker for the Social Impact Group. Even though it’s been four years since I’ve graduated, everything still feels exactly the same. I’m particularly impressed by the new wave of social awareness mixed with entrepreneurship. During my time at Penn, everyone wanted to do the banking/finance track – nowadays, many more students want to create their own ventures and change the world on their own terms. Similarly, the view on microfinance itself has changed. When I was a student at Penn, microfinance was almost reverently viewed as a panacea for world poverty with precious few people willing to challenge its drawbacks – in fact, I often felt alone in voicing the difficulties I observed when doing field work in Mexico. Nowadays, the criticisms of microfinance are much more openly voiced, discussed, and debated. As open dialogue is the best way to move forward and better serve the poor, I’m truly glad that that the industry attitude has shifted. Certainly, a high loan repayment rate doesn’t equate to a successful operation! From a personal perspective, it was truly heart-warming to see the reception that Givology received on campus – people still remember us! Walking around center city after the talk and visiting old haunts on campus, I felt no nostalgia, but rather, satisfaction that I had made so many great memories at college. Afterward, I had dinner with some of our Givology core team members still at Penn – it’s always a joy to catch up in person (and one reason why we need to plan a semesterly retreat soon!).

My parents came to visit me the first weekend of April, where we took advantage of the mild weather to enjoy the annual Macy flower show and a leisurely stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge, among other sights. I took my parents to an experimental dance show (which perhaps was too scintillating in a mildly embarrassing fashion), as well as a funny improvisational performance at the National Theatre (audience participation encouraged…I probably made the show more difficult for the performers)! I wish my parents would come and visit me more – when they are around, I feel completely relaxed.

Alas, the updates on Givology are particularly exciting for this month! We finally signed a contract for a complete overhaul of our website, and eagerly look forward to a refreshed look and feel. In addition, coinciding with the arrival of the spring, we launched our Givology in the park series, where we’re out canvassing in public parks to raise awareness for education. On April 14^th, we spent a day in Central Park collecting answers on blackboards to “Education gives…[fill in the blank]”. For each answer we receive, we have a donor pledging $1 to our cause. At first, I felt somewhat awkward approaching strangers (particularly since most were wary about being approached for money), but we found a rhythm over time and got some truly interesting responses, written in English, French, Russian, Korean, among other languages! I discovered that families tend to be nicer, and one has to catch the attention of a by-passer without being obnoxious within a VERY short period. We’ll be out in the park again throughout the late spring and summer – hopefully, we’ll reach our goal of 100,000 answers to our question!

Other than that, I’ve been taking advantage of the many cultural and theatrical delights in the New York City, from the slapstick comedy Psycho Therapy to a dark gangster musical the City Club. I even went to my first stand up comedy experience at the New York Comedy Club.

Grace came to visit me this past weekend – what a time we had together! On Thursday evening, Jin Akanishi – one of her favorite J-pop artists – happened to be on tour in New York City, and I managed to procure highly rare VIP tickets to the concert (only ~25 available). Not only did we watch the performance from a mere ~15 feet from the stage (we could see all of Jin’s expressions), but the meet and greet allowed Grace to meet her idol in person, receive a personalized signed poster, take a photo, and carry out a full conversation! Afterward, Grace was on cloud nine for the whole weekend, and I felt very proud as a big sister. [I on the other hand was able to arbitrage the meet and greet component of my VIP package for a ~100% return on capital – alas, if only my day job were so easy!]

The next evening, I took Grace out to see a true NYC spectacle – a dinner and performance at Lucky Cheng’s. Alas, I didn’t know what to expect – after watching Priscilla Queen of the Desert, I suspected it would be fun, but I was so unprepared for the actual content of the show! Nevertheless, I had a blast laughing and chatting with my dear sister, and the night ended raucously in true New York fashion.

The next morning, we headed uptown to visit some of our favorite midtown haunts – we never anticipated that we would be blockaded by drunken revelers eager to cheer on the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on 5^th avenue! We crawled our way through the teeming masses to visit Book Off, Kino Books, and Uniqlo (all Japanese themed, I realized), which admittedly, was no easy feat. Regardless, despite the travails, we got a nice snapshot of one of the craziest days in New York.

One of my New York friends had arranged a dinner/opera get-together, so Grace and I headed off for some tasty Mexican food followed by an elaborate performance of Don Giovanni at the Met. Having extensively studied “el burlador de sevilla y convidado de piedra” in my Spanish literature class, I really relished the chance to see this Mozart opera in particular given my familiarity with the plot. Unlike Nabucco which I saw earlier this year, teeming with heavy themes and choral accompaniments, this opera was funny and featured more simply melodies. Grace seemed to enjoy the opera a lot too (in fact, she helped keep me awake when my exhaustion over the last few days threatened my attention in the last 20 minutes of this 3.5 hour production).

On Sunday, after taking a healthy brunch at Whole Foods, we walked around in Soho. Since my sister is my best friend, even if we’re lounging around and doing nothing, I always have a blast.

On a different note, over the last few weeks, I’ve tried to take advantage of my weekends by doing something new. Some highlights include:

• Annual Huntsman Reunion at the Penn Club: even though I just landed from a business trip in Las Vegas, I had a blast catching up with old friends and seeing our program director again at the annual huntsman reunion.
• Meeting PennSem club members on their Spring Break Social Enterprise Trip: it’s always a pleasure to share experiences about social enterprises and to help encourage students to start their own ventures! Even though it’s been more than four years since I graduated from Penn, I still feel very connected to the community.
• Dueling Pianos at Times Square: I took Dave to see Dueling Pianos, especially after enjoying the show greatly with my family during their visit over New Years. Alas, they didn’t have my favorite performer from the last show, but I still had a really fun time listening to drunken song requests and improvised singing/theatrics.
•  Ted Greenberg Comedy Show: I bought tickets to a comedy show featuring Letterman Emmy-award winner Ted Greenberg (and his mascot)! He performed hilarious slapstick sketches, which delighted both Dave and me. As a grand finale to the show, Ted took a lottery drawing and selected an audience member to drive home in his cab (he has a taxi license). Against all odds and my expectations, Dave won! What an odd conclusion to the night – we were driven home by a comedian (and his mascot) and certainly gave the next taxi-seeking customer a big shock!

I’ve updated my website to include some of my photos from Oslo, taken in August 2011. Click here to view the album! I went to Oslo for a short trip – even though my schedule was hectic, I found some time on my last evening in the city to wander about and view some of the famous attractions, such as the Vigeland Sculpture Garden. What a beautiful city, from the quaint streets to the wharf area and the hilly parks! One day, I hope to return with my father to the Ibsen Museum and perhaps travel further north in the country to see the scenic fjords.

Click here to view my photo album from CES 2012 (albeit belatedly posted).

I went to Las Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. The scale of the conference astounded me – truly overwhelming in every regard! Learning about the new products and technologies was really enjoyable, as well as attending industry panels about sizing the market opportunity in different product categories. I met tons of interesting people, from entrepreneurs engaged in next-gen technologies to bloggers eagerly commenting on the latest product introductions. The company booths were also incredibly engaging as I had a chance to play around with pre-market gadgets firsthand (such as the Samsung Note, the Nokia Lumia 900, Intel ultrabooks, and an astoundingly large LG OLED television), as well as enjoy some of the more gimmicky publicity stunts (such as Monster inviting the Wonder Girls and JYP to advertise their headphone line, as per the video below). Notably, I was surprised by the diversity of products available and the competitiveness of local Chinese brands, such as Huawei and ZTE. Overall, the conference was an incredible experience, especially for someone like me who enjoys gadgets and electronics.

Las Vegas is also completely over the top – sin city as a name encapsulates it all, from glutinous buffets and ubiquitous gambling to risqué shows and conspicuous consumption. Not quite my preferred vacation destination, but still an eye-opening experience, especially with the ostentatious casinos.

To help give a sense of the conference beyond the photos, I’ve posted some short youtube videos below that highlight some of the interesting exhibitions and booth displays. To view photos, click here.

I completely agree with my dad’s advice of posting shorter snippets of adventures as they happen. This past weekend, I went to Boston/Cambridge to visit Lauren, my best friend of a decade+. Lauren has seen me grow up and live through all my awkward phases, and we did everything together, from badgering Dave Berry and competing in Future Problem Solving (and winning internationals!) to planning weird social experiments in high school and spending countless hours in my basement for Destination Imagination. Alas, those were the good old days, but we’re still making new adventures and memories each time we meet!

Lauren has got to be one of the most creative people I’ve ever met – no wonder she’s a successful chemist at Harvard, immersed in her own world of creating new compounds! We painted together, made animal figurines out of Model Magic, rolled sushi (with raw fish! Lauren certainly is no germaphobe), watched a volcano IMAX movie, baited her cats, and experimented with the effects of a flame thrower. We saw an interesting street performer at Harvard Square that reminded me of our DI days. Maybe when I have some extra time, I’ll try and re-create his ensemble and bring my own performance to the streets of New York City!

In general, it’s great catching up with old friends and seeing familiar sights in Boston. Having worked at Sankaty in summer 2009 and gone to numerous tournaments in Boston/Cambridge through my eight years of competitive debating, I have a strong affiliation with the city. When Lauren and I were walking down Newbury Street and eating tasty Upper Crust pizza, I certainly felt a strong wave of nostalgia! Furthermore, we have Jiefei and Julia from the Givology team in graduate school in Boston – they’ve done a terrific job with a distance consulting project with our partners and we’re hoping to extend the scope and scale of the program. Our East Coast chapters coordinator Coulter is also an undergraduate at Harvard. With just a bit of concentrated effort, I’m sure we’ll build a very solid Boston chapter that melds the undergraduate, graduate, and professional communities together.

This past weekend, I spent most of my time preparing for a traditional kick-off meal for my first ever super bowl party! Normally, dinner parties require little preparation given my perfunctory style of cooking, except I’m cooking with Dave this time and he doesn’t do anything halfway. To make burgers, Dave buys chuck meat and grinds it himself. And for buns, we consulted Julia Child and raised the dough ourselves in multiple phases…over the course of 5 hours under Dave’s attentive watch. Well, at least this experience epitomizes slow food at its most contemplative, with much appreciation from the happy eaters for both taste and effort! With the Giants winning in a dramatic 3-minute show-down, New York City burst into excited and drunken cheers. I think I may have even learned the rules of football.

As an update, my life has taken a rather dramatic transition for a myriad of reasons. Change causes anxiety, but also opportunity. I’ve been reading Thinking Fast and Slow to check my psychological biases. Loss-aversion under prospect theory suggests that I’m about to undergo a rough patch in light of my reference point, but I refuse to look back and regret any of my choices. Needless to say, I now have a free week to explore, discover, and recuperate – translating to additional time for Givology, a bit of traveling along the East Coast to catch up with friends and family, lots of reading, Linebuster brainstorming, and random DIY moments. I even attempted rolling my own California rolls and suffering the stomach that ensued (who knew that I should have not chosen the hardest avocado at the supermarket?). Oh well, next time I’ll improve.

Other highlights of the week included taking advantage of Broadway Week to see Priscilla Queen of the Desert with center seats only 5 rows away from the stage! It’s such a fantastic show with over-the-top costumes, incredible dancing, funny songs and jokes, and overall great cheer. I also had a chance to attend a JWS reunion event where I caught up with Dr. Asher and Dr. Whitney, as well as enjoy a jazz show featuring Arturo O’Farrell and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra at Birdland. Amazing what I can do in the evenings now that I have more spare time!

On January 28^th, Givology and More than Me hosted our “Night of Promise” at Marquee, with our 350 attendees. In one night, we raised over $21,000 towards the construction of an afterschool center for the girls! The NYC chapter really pulled together a great event– it was such a pleasure to work with an incredibly talented, friendly, helpful, proactive, and truly dedicated team of people. In addition, as a co-event, we really benefitted from the support, inspiration, and creativity of the More than Me team.

100% of the proceeds that we raise go to More than Me’s “I Promise Project”, and I’m just so happy to see that we’re closer to the $100,000 goal (we still have a ways to go so click here to contribute to the project). To give you a sense of why I think the More than Me cause is truly exceptional, check out the video below. A special shout out to Katie Meyler, Katie Borghese, Kevin Kim, and the More than Me team, along with our sponsors Wodka, Radeberger Beer, Bacardi, and Marquee! The music was really good and people seemed to enjoy themselves – we had a great DJ duo and live band! Even close to the 11 PM ending time, few people left. (As a funny tidbit of the night, a guy bought Lorenzo’s auction offer of a private plane ride.) Notably, my mom came to visit me that weekend – she was such a dedicated volunteer at the event, fastidiously collecting pledge forms at our donation corner. Sometimes, thinking back to when Givology was only an idea in my dorm room, I’m astonished by how much we’ve grown and how expansive our network has become! For me, the most gratifying aspect of Givology is how we are constantly adapting, coming up with new ideas for events and campaigns, retaining our entrepreneurial spirit and urgency, remaining completely volunteer-driven and first and foremost committed to supporting our grassroots partners in every capacity we can. Givology has “grown up” alongside me, and I see our networking maturing in age, yet still reaching deep into the high school/college ranks.

Earlier in the week, I met with the SparkNYC chapter and spoke to 10×10 documentary group about potential opportunities to partner. With collaborative events on the horizon, I’m really excited about the 2012 calendar of events for our Givology NYC chapter. Alas, so much to look forward to so stay tuned!

It’s been a while since my last update – 2011 finished with much needed rest and relaxation at home, while I’m ushering in 2012 with fresh expectations and anticipation for new adventures and epiphanies. Given that so much time has transpired, I’ll list the most eventful highlights over the last few months (in no particular order).

Thanksgiving at home: Since discovering a newfound passion for cooking, my dad has mastered the art of turkey roasting. As my little sister has taken a part time job at Whole Foods, we had the great joy of relishing a succulent, all-natural turkey – perhaps the best I’ve ever eaten. My little sister now drives regularly (unlike me who has a driver’s license only in name…heavens forbid that I’m actually on the road), so we left our parents at home to do our own midnight excursion for Black Friday and a (special) movie with much tradition! Dave also came to visit us for the weekend, joining us for some tasty Peking Duck and a mind-boggling visit to the Marine Corp Museum. After pulling a Flags of our Fathers marathon earlier this year (read the book, saw the movie, and then watched its compliment Letters from Iwojima), I had a better appreciation of Marine Corp history, notwithstanding all that I’ve learned from covering defense as an investor. At the museum, we even met a veteran of the Iwojima, one of the few survivors of the famous 28^th battalion!

Reflections on Givology: In November, we published our 2010-2011 annual impact review that highlighted our accomplishments over the past 3 years. Looking back, I’m really proud to see us grow from just an idea to a vibrant online community of 2,500+ donors and 44 grassroots partners, raising over $225,000 to help over 2,800 students in 23 countries! We underwent a couple key core team member transitions, but I’m very confident of my new team in place and excited to see where 2012 will take us. As a 100% volunteer-driven organization, it’s inevitable that people move on as they face personal transitions, but the beauty of our network is that our supporters remain a body of knowledge and expertise we can draw ideas and inspiration from. We’re launching our Spirit of Giving campaign with the intention of publishing a book at the end of next year. In addition, with funding from the M. Night Shymalan Foundation, we’re undergoing a substantial web re-design to improve our features and engage users more fully. In December, See Beautiful selected us as their featured non-profit ($1,030 raised for the Kakenya School!), and we had chapters & individual donors organize creative fundraisers within their own communities. As a personal reflection looking back, I’ve learned so much from experimenting with ideas and initiatives on Givology – testing what works and what doesn’t (right now I’m focused on analytics and social media engagement). Moreover, in building and growing Givology, I’ve discovered so much about the meaning of teamwork, community, and friendship. Given the length of my working day, it’s sometimes hard to go back home to a cluttered inbox of unread emails and ever-growing list of tasks, but when I think about our network of partners, volunteers, team members, and supporters, I feel such a high sense of gratification and inspiration that motivates me so strongly from within.

January 28^th “Night of Promise” Event at Marquee: The NYC chapter of Givology has expanded with new members and exciting ambitions! On January 28^th, we’re holding a joint event with More than Me to raise funding for the construction of a community center for girls in the slums of West Point, Liberia. Since meeting the More than Me team at the Ford Global Test Drive in Madrid, I’ve been so impressed with their complete dedication to the mission and impact (check out the video below). Hopefully, we’ll make a dent of at least $20,000 to give more than 500 girls a safe place to stay off the streets and engage them with extracurricular activities & educational seminars for empowerment. In addition to a keynote speech by the founder of More than Me, we also have Skip, Katie, and Lorenzo Borghese from the Italian Royal Family in attendance. Notably, Lorenzo Borghese recently starred in ABC’s “The Bachelor” – hopefully, this will help us get more media coverage! To reserve your spot today, check out our event website and purchase advance tickets today to guarantee entrance to this unforgettable night!

More Than Me from What Took You So Long? on Vimeo.

Columbia Social Enterprise Bootcamp: I had a chance to present at the Columbia Social Enterprise Bootcamp for the second time, which was a lot of fun! The event had so many inspiring and phenomenal speakers, from the founder of Seventh Generation to key investors at the Acumen Fund. Most notably, the seminars have such an incredible level of energy since nearly all the participants have an idea in mind or have started their own enterprises already. As such, the presentations featured practical advice and hands-on experience.  If you’d like a copy of my presentation, please email me.

Life in NYC: With the winter more benign than anticipated, I’ve taken full advantage of wandering the streets of Manhattan with an occasional excursion to the other boroughs. With the city awash with Christmas lights and cheer in anticipation for the holiday season, I delighted in just walking with no particular aim. After a full year of living in Manhattan, sometime around late November, I suddenly felt like a native New Yorker. I’ve grown to truly love the city – the collision of cultures, amazing restaurants, world-class museums and exhibitions, never-ending bustle, and endless possibilities of things to do, all accessible by public transportation. Notably, I highly recommend the New York Historical Society – what a great introduction to the rich history of the city, packed with photographs, mementos, and odd curios of the past to the present!

Winter break at home: For the first time since joining Goldman, I took a week off for vacation. Rather than travel to an exotic destination, I chose to go home to fully enjoy being with my dear parents and sister. As I spend almost the entire year looking forward to Christmas, I delighted in giving my family the gifts I bought them and to celebrate all together! My dad had the great idea of taking us to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. I was amazed at how they preserved the town and captured the history of its evolution, almost in a similar set-up as colonial Williamsburg with historical buildings to enter and explore. Notably, we learned about John Brown and the polemic of his raid – the debate over his role as either a martyr or violence-loving incendiary. I hope to return to Harpers Ferry for the hiking trails one day, appreciated by Jefferson himself as one of nature’s greatest splendors. The next day, we went to Charles Town casinos (the first casino I’ve ever been to). Grace and I had little interest in gambling, but we sure did enjoy seeing the horses! We didn’t arrive on a race day, but we got up at 6 AM to view the jockeys and trainers practicing with their horses. How beautiful they run (alas, despite the cruelty of their fate after retirement…)! My family then drove up to NYC on Thursday to enjoy being in the city for the remainder of the holiday. I booked a lot of different theatre, dance, and musical extravaganza performances, including Shake, Rattle, and Roll at Tobacco Road, a piano duel at one of the last remaining dive bars in Manhattan, which was a lot of fun! In treating my family to tasty food and fun events & sights, I had a really terrific time. In continuing with our family tradition, we wrote our New Year resolutions together and discussed our hopes for 2012! Grace stayed an extra day, which made me very happy! We went to Mitsuwa for some tasty Japanese food and mocha pounding, followed by wandering around town for some of our favorite snacks. Alas, taking a full week off left me refreshed and excited for the opportunities upcoming in 2012. Nothing really beats spending time with my parents and sister.

Actually, the holiday season for me doesn’t end until Chinese New Year. Due to timing, I’m going home early this weekend to celebrate with my family with traditional dumplings and festivities. The year of the dragon will hopefully bring many new exploits! I’m actually heading to Las Vegas right now for CES 2012…really excited about it!

December is just around the corner, and the spirit of goodwill and cheer abounds.  Radio stations won’t stop playing Christmas music, while the high street entices shoppers with lavish holiday displays and sales. Some say the holiday season has gotten quite commercial (we won’t open that debate!), but regardless, the meaning of the holiday spirit remains the same. While not quite on the same scale of Ebenezer Scrooge’s transformation, we all find ourselves opening our hearts a little wider and giving a bit more. And what a difference this makes!

 To celebrate the holidays, we’re asking you to submit to us stories, photos, youtube videos, reflections, artwork, letters, comics, personal essays – basically whatever comes naturally to you – about what giving means to you. As part of our “spirit of giving” campaign that kicks off this December, your submissions will be posted to our project website at http://www.meaningofgiving.org/, shared with our entire network. We know we have incredible partners, supporters, and volunteers within our Givology family– this is the time to let your own personal story shine through and inspire others!

How this works:

1. “What does giving mean to you?” Take the time to think about this question and answer in a way that comes naturally to you, whether it be a personal essay, a photo, youtube video, comic, artwork, or any other medium

2. Email your submission to joyce.meng@givology.org with your name and a short bio of yourself. Or, mail your submission to the Givology team to the address below.

Givology
3732 Locust Walk
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6231

3. Your post will go up on www.meaningofgiving.org, and will be tagged up on Givology’s front page at www.givology.org. We’ll tweet and facebook your submission, as well as aggregate it into that week’s newsletter, to be read and enjoyed by our entire network. We’ll contact you about when your post will be featured so you can share it with your friends.

 Why you should participate:

 Everyone has a story to share – there’s so much we can learn from each other and especially during this holiday season, we can draw inspiration from heroes all around us. Small acts of kindness can create a movement of change and we want to give thanks and celebrate YOU!

 In addition to getting your cause and story featured on our website, each week, we’ll let readers vote for the post that truly inspires them. The weekly winner will receive a special surprise from Givology!

Our intent is to aggregate all submissions into a publishable e-book to be shared among our community, capturing the spirit of volunteerism and giving.

My quarter-century birthday came and passed in the company of good friends. Despite the hectic lifestyle as expected of the “city that never sleeps”, the wonderful aspect of life in New York City is that you never run out of interesting activities to do. After a summer of wanting to go, I finally had a chance to visit the famous Bronx Zoo. Teeming with strollers and families, I found the zoo rather crowded, but that did not detract from the experience of seeing some of my favorite animals. I enjoyed the tiger exhibit greatly, along with the polar bears, mouse house, reptile house (brings back memories of high school!), and the giraffes, among many other animals. The most interesting fact was that there used to be 20 million buffalo roaming the United States before overzealous settlers killed them in mass quantities to near extinction – herds used to be 1 mile wide by 4 miles long!  We saw the famous baby cobra that escaped the reptile house (she was clearly the most hyperactive within the exhibit), and I even saw my favorite naked mole rat colonies. There were at least several types of mongoose at the zoo, but alas, no cobra vs. mongoose showdown…

Through Goldman Sach’s Community Teamworks program, I had a chance to volunteer for a day at Three Sisters Farm in New Jersey in a “Pony Power / Horses for Heroes” service project. Having never been around horses, at first, I felt a bit anxious about my own ability to contribute, but the day passed affably and comfortably. For the first half of the day, we worked with severely disabled children from a local high school, leading them around their horses for both mental stimulation and physical exercise for core muscles. For the latter half of the day, PTSD veterans came in from a nearby homeless veterans shelter to work with the horses, using the animals as a valve for relief, self-expression, and vocational training. Working with these two very disparate groups opened my eyes – both demographics don’t intermingle much with conventional society, existing within their own kind. The children seemed to enjoy the ride greatly in the moment, although they demonstrated little ability to recall their own experience just minutes after it ended. The veterans found comfort in the horses – in fact, some of them had owned horses before joining the war effort! In working with the staff of the farm, I learned a lot about taking care of horses, their personalities and tendencies, and their relationship with humans. The premise of Three Sisters Farm is to own donated horses for therapeutic uses – both exercise (insurance reimburses) and also psychotherapy. As much as I enjoyed the visit, I doubted the overall scalability of the effort, as horses are very expensive to maintain ($8,000+ per year) and the labor-intensity to conduct therapy sessions safely is significant (for each rider, 3 volunteers had to provide security and guidance, let alone the overall trainer). Even at a breakeven cost to non-profits and schools, Three Sisters Farms charges $60 per rider per hour! At this cost, on Givology, we can pay for a year’s worth of tuition for an elementary school student in a developing country! I communicated my views to my fellow program participants, who probably disagreed based on the principle that the project “seems to help”, but given my background in development economics and focus on the return on every dollar spent in aid, I felt that even though the principle was elegant, it’s simply not cost effective. Maybe for wealthy parents who can afford these sessions for their own children on a private basis, perhaps, but certainly a niche market.

Continuing on the theme of “Goldman Sachs Gives Back”, I participated in the Susan Komen Breast Cancer 5k Race that took place in Central Park. Despite being exhausted by traveling (came back late at night from my home in Virginia), I found an incredible, inspiring energy in the thousands that gathered to raise millions for their mothers, daughters, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, colleagues, and friends. The sheer amount of goodwill and encouragement really overpowered me. On the backs of the runners, who swarmed Central Park completely, many wore plaques dedicated “in celebration of” and “in memory of” their loved ones, let alone the many survivors who led the pack in a great show of resilience and hope. Many of the runners had immensely personal causes to share, all united with a deep conviction to stamp out breast cancer.

Europe and Greece continue to weigh on investor minds – one day, it’s all doom and gloom, the next, all hope and the possibility of a breakthrough. Work has been progressing nicely – with my first year under my belt, I feel a lot more comfortable in my current position and have found efficiency gains in the speed in which I complete tasks (albeit I have to make sure I stop making careless mistakes)!

Givology progresses well – we have a new joint event with Shining Hope Foundation for December 3^rd in New York City, which we hope will attract a lot of attention and attendance. Shining Hope has done some truly extraordinary work in the Kibera Slums of Kenya, from constructing water towers to help thousands in the community access clean, safe water to starting a school for girls focused on empowerment and achievement. The founders were undergraduates at Wesleyan University – CEO Kennedy Odede who grew up in Kibera himself, and his partner COO Jessica Posner, who now resides full time in Kibera to carry out their program. Both were awarded the prestigious 2010 Echoing Green Fellowship, and have been featured on Do Something, Dell Social innovation Competition, Clinton Global Initiative, among other channels. We’re very proud to support their work, especially since the Kibera School has helped some of the most at-risk girls achieve their aspirations, mobilizing creative curriculum and experienced teachers to deliver inspiration. Without this tuition-free school (the first of its kind within the community), many of these girls would have turned to prostitution or would have married young, continuing the cycle of poverty and abuse. By pooling our resources together, I expect we’ll throw a fantastic event to raise over $25,000 in one night!

Unfortunately, however, several key team members of Givology have departed, so we’re in the process of rebuilding parts of our core team. Alas, it’s the nature of a volunteer-driven organization to go through these cycles. Nevertheless, these team members have shown great dedication in assisting with the transition, and I expect that we’ll have these holes in our organization filled soon. If you are interested in learning more about the roles that are currently available or getting more involved with Givology, please contact me or leave a comment! There’s no one ever too young or old – everyone can join the team, inspire others, lead a project, and ultimately, make a difference!

My birthday in NYC passed in the company of my closest friends. From walking the newly extended High Line in Chelsea and sampling Korean-French tapas at Danji to visiting the Arts & Design Museum at Columbus Circle and gathering with friends for Argentine food, I truly enjoyed my birthday weekend in the presence of my favorite people. And now, I have a new Nook reader to conveniently take with me, and a netbook for all my mobile computing needs! Just yesterday, I received the sweetest cards from my mom and dad, reminding me that I have the strength to overcome my bad days and that regardless of any obstacles or challenges thrown my way, I have my family to count on unconditionally.

On a completely different note, I’m enjoying my new apartment immensely. Compared to the dingy conditions I endured for my first year, this new place feels like palace! My roommates are nice, which is a big plus, and Battery Park City is only a few blocks away for a beautiful and scenic run with the skyline of New Jersey and New York in full view!