Coming Home, My Sweet Home

I came back yesterday evening, capping three and a half months of long distance commuting between Garden State and Cambridge, MA.

The final Greyhound bus ride was rather smooth. I spent the five hours chatting with colleague S and a Harvard freshman, reading Wall Street Journal, and mostly napping.

I feel relieved of having successfully completed my tenure at my company's Cambridge site. S was on the phone with realtors, trying to straighten an error of market pricing in preparation for selling his house.

The Harvard freshman is a Mathematics and Economics major. Here is an excerpt of our dialogue:

"How much are you paying your tuition?" I was curious, as a father who will send the elder daughter to college soon.
"45 thousand a year. But I am on a student loan." She clarified. She has a young brother. Her mom teaches Chinese in local schools. Her dad is doing business in China.

"What is the biggest challenge for you as a freshman in college?"
"Time management." she answered without hesitation, "We are allowed to take no more than four courses a semester, that is only 12 hours of class a week, far less than in high school. But we do have a lot more homework to do."

"So what do you do besides taking class and doing homework?" I dug deeper.
"I volunteer at least ten hours a week for the student run newspaper." She said with a measure of pride.

"Did you join similar club in high school?"
"No. I just want to try something new."

"How did you decide on Mathematics and Economics as your major?"
"I was good at Math in high school. And economics is something that interests me. But I will have to work 100 hours a week in first future job, which translates into about $15 a hour, pretty dismal." She intoned. Apparently she knows the market well.

"How challenging is it for you to study at Harvard?"
"Pretty competitive, lots of smart peoples there. But not as competitive as in UPenn's Wharton where my friend is attending."

"How so?"
"Well, they only give a certain number of As to students. So students compete with each other. At Harvard, you very much compete with yourself."

"Strange policy at Wharton. If all students get 100, they all deserve A." My voice was raised a bit.
......

The most interesting article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal was about Google.org, which is the non-profit arm of the for profit Google. Four years ago when Google had its IPO, it pledged to donate 1% of its equity and 1% of its annual profit as fund for non-profit purposes. In keeping with that pledge, Google.org now has about 2 billion dollars, which is no shallow pocket for bidders from the poor third world countries. This dual model of for profit and non-profit is charting into a worthy new territory. I salute Google for this visionary corporate charity.

What if most households donate at least 1% to charity? Or, if they prefer, simply spend an extra 1% of their income. Bush may not even need a stimulus plan for the recession-bound economy. I wonder if the presidential candidates dare to ask people to sacrifice a bit more to sustain a weakening economy.