Tag Archives: Paul

Austin, Paul, Student Life

MPA is a Mixtape (cont.)

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One of my favorite places in Austin is in the Long Center. You can usually get in as a student, and you can usually get pretty decent seats. Doesn’t matter though–go all the way to the top balcony. On that top foyer, you can look out into the night sky. Usually the several minutes that anticipate Peter Bay’s initial downbeat display a night sky that looks like shades of blue are creeping over the buildings, dark enough to ensure tranquility for a night’s rest but light enough that the pink, blushing clouds still bump and compete for their place in the sky.

All of the buildings in the skyline are appealing; but from this angle you realize just why the Frost Tower is so iconic. It is from this angle, several stories above the green lawns of Auditorium Shores, that this building stands out in such a way that the same clouds which competed with the night sky steer clear. The lights beam just enough into the sky, but its majestic presence is made known in the reflection in the water below.

Suddenly, the lights are not from the sky above, but from the water so nearby. The reflections sing out back to the beholder. A smorgasbord of colors begin to satiate the eyes. Without doubt, it is the perfect aperitif to prepare one’s self for the next manipulation of the senses: the ears and the symphony itself.

And without undue superfluity, my mixtape plays on:


No. 8: “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain”—Willie Nelson

I didn’t grow up with country music, so Willie Nelson was pretty new to me my freshman year. Willie’s huge here in Austin, and if you’ve ever listened to his album Red Headed Stranger, you can truly appreciate his minimalist style of play. His simple guitar picking is like listening to a sun rise above the horizon and all the nature waking up with it; then he’ll completely turn it around with a crazy, swinging, riled-up honkey tonk song. “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” is not the quintessential Willie Nelson song, but it is what a Hudspeth County judge allegedly asked him to play to escape possession charges about a year ago.

No. 9: “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys”—Waylon Jennings

You can’t have Willie without Waylon, and it’s not uncommon for these two to sing this song together. I think this song screams to the genre of “outlaw.” Also, although I’m neither a doctor or lawyer, I’m sure that accountant falls under “such.” Continue reading MPA is a Mixtape (cont.) →

Austin, Paul, Student Life

MPA is a Mixtape

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It’s finally the time of year when you leave your apartment around eight in the evening or so and can still see a few shades of orange and red peeping from behind the tower and surrounding foliage. Clouds of purple come down to bid farewell to the sun for the day’s work and the dark, blue night creeps behind you.

I always try to look at Austin as if I’m looking at it for the first time all over again. I remember driving up Mopac with my family for the first time and noting how great the rolling hills looked. And yet, it barely sank in today while at work that I really am leaving. As much as I planned for it and knew it was going to happen, the finality of it never really occurred to me.

Sometimes, it is hard to put  into words everything one feels (no matter what the articles my psychology friends send me say). Fortunately, while the English language fails me, I still have music that is able to convey how I feel when words cannot. So, Austin, Texas MPA, here we go: Continue reading MPA is a Mixtape →

Academics, Austin, Career, CPA Exam, Events, Paul, Student Life

While you were Meme-ing…

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…I was studying with Becker. It seems that the relaxed semester is impossible under my terms and lifestyle. Nevertheless, it is what it is, and explains my hiatus from the blogging world for the past two weeks.

There is no shortage of stories though. Here is some recent Conversationalia from the past couple of weeks:

 

Texas to Host 2014 Menuhin Competition

The University of Texas will host the 2014 Menuhin Competition for violinists. It will be the first time the competition will be held in the North American continent. Read more about this in the Daily Texan’s article.

Yehudi Menuhin was born in America, but he spent most of his professional music career in the United Kingdom. He was a popular violinist during the 20th century, during which time recordings were available. My mom used to play a CD of Menuhin playing the Mozart violin concertos in the car. When you’re nine years’ old, you don’t particularly listen that closely. However, there was something about the last movement of Mozart’s fifth violin concerto that I just loved. I’m not sure if it was the sweet innocent opening theme or the somewhat raucous “Turkish” section in the middle, but this piece was my motivation for continuing to study the instrument throughout elementary school and high school, since it was only five Suzuki books away. (Otherwise, I’m not sure how much longer I would have lasted at the time…) Anyways, here’s Menuhin’s performance of that piece:

PitaLicious!

What I love about Austin is its entrepreneurial spirit. It’s awesome, and one of the great ways it’s exemplified is through the Trailer model. Here you save on fixed costs and experiment with your product in a small food trailer instead of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. One of my new favorites is PitaLicious on South Congress.

Why do I love it so much? Two reasons: the first is that the owner is Lebanese (where my great-grandparents emigrated from, thus earning extra points in my book) and serves kafta (which is a dish my siti loves to prepare for my brother and me when I visit El Paso). Second, and more substantially, is that the owner and his girlfriend have full-time jobs. (He’s an engineer, and she’s a nurse.)That’s right—they operate this food stand for fun. When talking to him, he told me that this was one of his passions and always wanted to do it. And that is what I love about Austin—the culture of doing things because you want to and taking some chances with life! PitaLicious is open on Thursday and Friday nights as well as the weekends. Follow your dreams.

Final Thoughts

Speaking of music, the University Orchestra—of which I have been a member of for my entire five years at Texas—is performing Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony, “Pastorale,” on Tuesday, February 28 at 7:30 p.m. The piece is awesome, invoking a lot of imagery of nature and minimalism. This is, to me, one of the best pieces ever written—a true work of art—and a great piece to listen to even if you are not a hardcore classical music person. This is simply a must-hear.

Career, Paul, Student Life

A Stand

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Lady Justice

Most people that know me hopefully see me as jovial for the most part. I pray I am slow to anger and generally cheerful. Every once in a while, though, I see something that upsets me.

Last week I read a story about a girl in Philadelphia that angered me. I am truly irate. My jaws were sore on Saturday morning from clenching my teeth all day Thursday and Friday. Even after trying to give myself some time to cool down, I am certain that I can’t. See, this little girl was denied a kidney transplant because she was mentally disabled, and I cannot keep silent about that. It’s a blatant slap in the face of civil rights.

Why is this important to MPAs? I have said on several occasions that MPAs, because of our role in society, need to be civil role models as well as corporate role models. That is, we need to go vote, volunteer, etc. Our actions need to reflect the values we hold. It would be hard to look up to someone in the boardroom when you knew that that person was slime when he left the office.

For me, this is no exception. It would be difficult for me to stand by passively on a topic too close to my heart with such a responsibility on my shoulders. So here it goes:

Amelia Rivera

Amelia Rivera is three years old and has Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome. She needs a kidney transplant within a year, to live. However, a doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (“CHOP”) told her parents that she could not receive a kidney transplant there because she was “mentally retarded” and because of her “quality of life.” More upsetting is the fact that when her parents told the doctor that they would try to find a donor on their own, the doctor insisted that he still would not perform the transplant.

This is clearly discrimination against those with mental disabilities. Even while I am cautious to go to an extreme on this issue, it seems that there was no other rationale from this doctor to deny this child her right to live. Had several other reasons been given for this child to be denied her kidney, I may have been more understanding. As it is, I am not at all understanding. Continue reading A Stand →

Paul, Student Life

Paul: A work in Progress

A co-worker of mine once warned me “beware of the person you may become.” I wasn’t by any means doing anything wrong, so don’t let that counsel change your impression of me. However, the idea that my actions today will escalate and snowball, forging either a respectable creature or a leviathan, haunts me. Aristotle said that “excellence is a habit.” Conversely, I could say that to achieve excellence, I need to practice good habits and that poor habits impede the quest for excellence. When I was given this recommendation though, I merely resolved that I needed to be the man today the man I want to be when I was fifty.

And what constitutes greatness anyways? Little things or big things? In my agenda to continually improve my being, how much can I change in a given year? If I cannot sustain my actions then I have not really accomplished much. I’m still excited that I can remember to floss every other morning (one of the great accomplishments of 2009).

I continue to struggle with what I perceive to be the ideal Paul, I attempt to keep three things in mind every day.

First, as Coach Wooden put it, “What [one] learns after [he’s] learned it all counts most of all.” I see this as a way of saying never stop learning. As an accountant I’ll testify that once I’m done learning, I must be a “finished good.” Hopefully, that means I wouldn’t be a finished good until I’m finished as in buried.

Second, be open-minded. It would be foolish to expect to improve one’s self without considering feedback from others. This advice must be taken with a grain of skepticism; discernment is needed to distinguish between those who look to exalt you and those who are trying to hold you back. Overall, if I enter every conversation knowing that I’m absolutely correct about everything I’ll be missing out on an opportunity to gain insights and perspectives I may not otherwise have. Continue reading Paul: A work in Progress →