On My Way to China

Well, apparently the school trip to China last year resulted in a missed connecting flight or two, so this year, we have a 6-hour layover in San Francisco on the way there, and an 8-hour layover in Los Angeles on the way back to Tucson in a couple weeks.  Whoopee.

In any case, I've been getting some good reading done and have to recommend some books (even though EVERYONE recommends books, therefore rendering everyone overwhelmed with books to read).

Right now, I'm reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.  It's about the split-second decisions we all make without even thinking about them, usually unconsciously, that can give us more information to make a judgment than hours, days, and even months of careful deliberation and weighing pros and cons.  The problem is that we're often unaware that we've made the choice until a long time afterward, and then once we realize it, we can't explain why we made the choice.  So this means if we all learned how to train our minds to pick up these infinitesimal stimuli and recognize when these blink-fast decisions are made, we could save ourselves a ton of time and trouble and become better decision-makers, thereby succeeding more often than we fail.

He's written two others, Outliers and Tipping Point, which I have on hold at the library.  The other, I'll write about next time.  It's fascinating.

Flying 15 hours to China, and arriving at around 6 PM Beijing time, so 3 AM Arizona time on Thursday the 4th.  Then, going out for Peking Duck.  The REAL Peking Duck.  Delish.  Hope it's hanging well wherever you are.