A World we dare to imagine Part 3

As you all got to know me through the semester, I'm really passionate about sports. One thing that strikes me is the story behind some of the success in every athlete. "Open" is Andre Agassi's autobiography, and one of my favorite books. There he mentions his foundation, Andre Agassi Foundation for Education, which he created in the middle of his career.

Later in his life after he dropped out of school while in Florida to pursue his tennis career, he realized the importance of education, and how important it is if you're not to become a tennis champion. What I love about this organization is the great opportunity it provided to kids who would have never had the chance to go to college and how quickly they reached their goals.

I believe Anima Mundi should invest in this organization as in the past they proved to be successful and achieved high college acceptance rates in districts where it was really low. I really believe education is a powerful tool to succeed in life. As their vision states: "We believe every child has the right to thrive."

A world I dare to imagine

Many times I wondered what I would change in this world if I had the chance. Of course change starts from small actions on a daily basis, and it then amplifies thanks to everybody's contribution. Among all the things that could be fixed, I believe education is one of them.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" said years ago Nelson Mandela. And with the presidential campaign going on, and the dream of free universities, I believe it's something that definitely needs to be changed, anywhere in the world. But before thinking of American colleges, we should probably worry about educating in countries where most of the people cannot read or write, and college is not even in their minds. Educated people would make better decisions on a daily basis, and this would lead to solve many problems at their roots. In developing countries, education can be used to teach them safe practices and daily advices. But if we are thinking we, as western countries, don't really need to change our perspectives, we are wrong. Education doesn't stop. Even after we graduate from college and we get a job, we still need to educate ourselves on what surrounds us. Last weekend in Italy, country where I'm from, people where called to vote to decide whether to keep or remove permissions to oil companies for their platforms in the sea. What turned out was that only 30% of the population went to vote, and the remaining majority didn't know what they were voting for. Education can make us choose best in every situation, allowing us to get out of a dark zone where we take everything media and politicians say for granted.

Cardinal... and GOLD! Part 2

Last time I talked about my top picks for a Trojan gold at the Olympics. Of course they don't stop there, as many other athletes will have a great chance to step onto the top of the podium. Let's continue our trip to the nation's most successful collegiate program.

Beach Volleyball
Copacabana and its sands are ready to host the top contestants in this young Olympic discipline (first appearance dates back to 1996). Team USA is on top of the medal counts, with 6 golds, 3 from the men's side and 3 from the women's, where the legendary pair of Kerry Walsh and Misty May-Treanor were able to repeat themselves three consecutive times, starting in Athens all the way until London. As Misty May-Treanor retired from the scene after her last gold, the pairs are a little different from the ones that competed in London.

Tri Bourne
Hawaiian class of 2011, Bourne lead the Trojans to the NCAA Final Four in 2009 before stepping on the sand. He was named 2013 AVP Rookie of the year and Most Improved Player in the same year. A year later he was named Top Rookie in the men's FIVB Tour. Partnering with indoor veteran John Hyden (two Olympics indoor appearances, in 1996 and 2000, both played with Jeff Nygaard, current head coach of USC men's volleyball team) they are currently in the Top 20 of the FIVB Olympic Race. However, due to country quota limit, they will have to take over American second best-ranked team Dalhausser/Lucena to gain a spot in Rio. With a gold in his palmares at the Berlin open in 2014, he could be a dark horse in the men's draw.

Jennifer Kessy
Class of 1999, she decided to play on sand after two years as an indoor pro. Her longtime partner is another Trojan alum, April Ross. Together they won the World Championships in 2009, when they were held in Stavanger, Norway. In 2012 their Olympic dreams were stopped by compatriots Walsh and May-Treanor. After their silver medal, they parted and having a baby, she will try to qualify together with Emily Day. They will have to take over second best-ranked American team of Fendrick/Sweat.

April Ross
Class of 2004 from Costa Mesa, CA, she helped the Trojans to win two back-to-back NCAA titles in 2002-2003, which are also the last ones for the Women of Troy in this sport. First team All-America, her number is currently up over the student section at the Galen Center. After a short experience indoor, she moved on to play on sand, where she achieved her best results with Jennifer Kessy. After losing the final in London, she split with Kessy. She's now partnering with three-time gold medalist Kerri Walsh-Jennings. This season they already won the FIVB Grand Slam in Rio de Janeiro and fell short in second place at the Vitoria Open. They have a great chance to get a gold over the summer, however the Carioca crowd will be definitely cheering for the Brazilian pairs.

An interview with Lynne Twist

In her interview Lynne Twist covers different topics related to her life. She first starts talking about the big role religion had in the early stage of her life, after her father died when she was only thirteen years old. This was in contrast with her other life, being the star cheerleader in high school and dating a football star. These two lives never collided, until she could finally mix them together with the Hunger Project and the EST training, allowing her to take "a stand in life". She also wrote a book called "The Soul of Money", exploring different stories that engage the reader around the topic of money, including previous works from her. There also a website with the same name.

This interview really showed me how sometimes many beautiful things can come out of bad situations. Lynne Twist was able to change her life after the death of her father, and finally accomplish something she always wanted to do, helping less fortunate people. Her story is really inspiring and I would suggest everybody to read more about her.

Faith, Hope, and Love

In the introduction, the author mentions three perspectives of financial transactions, which are faith, hope, and love, and he wishes to bring more consciousness to money and its uses to an evolving appreciative economy by letting people understand these qualities. The author pictures an appreciative economy, valuing the warmth of recognition. One way the author uses to explain faith is by relating it to brand allegiance: if customer’s experience with the product confirms the promise of the brand, the product earns customer loyalty and makes itself a shopping habit of the customer. Loan transactions is another example: the lender look over borrower’s creditworthiness and financial history to establish enough faith for himself to make the decision, while borrower need a faith of himself to honor the loan commitment before he asks for the service. The author says hope is a future bearing since it processes over time and gift transaction, one example of transactions based upon hope, to charity is entirely future bearing because no one could expect what the outcomes of the charity activity are and what impact the activity sponsored by this gift could bring to the world. Purchases have values in the equality of exchange at the time and by saying purchases for need are practices for love, the author is questioning what the real needs of an individual are and whether the decision of purchases affects the needs of others. Love is refereed to the author by something that is only present, influencing transactions, happening in a single action and making us value money differently every time.

I believe that faith, hope and love are 3 characteristics that exist in most transactions that take place in our daily lives, whether it be economical or not. Faith in regards to that the idea that you must have faith that what you are doing and where you are going in a given moment will end up okay. Hope that we need to look forward and believe we can be better and work towards a goal and love in the way that you must love who you are and the process of who you are becoming. All three characteristics are intertwined in our everyday lives both personally and economically.

When we take a deeper look at our economic life, the way we conduct financial transaction is similar to the way we look at our soul. By slowing down and think carefully, we recognize the deepest meanings of faith, hope, and love in financial transactions. This allows us to transform the way we look at our economic life and to conduct businesses with faith, hope, and love. “So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

Genius of money chapters 5 and 13

Adam Smith, known as the father of economics, believed that self-interest and competition were two key factors that would guide the economy. Nevertheless, author John Bloom analyzes the social paradox this theory has built in it. He points out that "the shadow side of Smith’s socio-economic theory is created when an individual’s (or corporation’s) self-interest turns to greed and suffers from the condition of 'never-enoughness'"(Bloom 19). As the gap between the rich and the poor widens, and the presence of the middle class seems to diminish, this shadow seems to be growing in size. The author also references to JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve and how they handled the recent economic crisis.

This chapter also focuses on technology and its limitations in being able to solve the world's largest problems. Bloom references the speech Bill Gates gave in 2008 at the World Economic Forum. Gates claims that technology does have immense capabilities to solve problems and to improve the lives of the underprivileged. Nevertheless, he states that "[technological] breakthroughs change lives only where people can afford to buy them – only where there is economic demand. And economic demand is not the same as economic need” (Bloom 20). To support the argument John Bloom uses alternative currencies that use technology to provide a better service, like the TimeBanks, based on time rather than time.

In chapter 13 John Bloom analyzes money and its value in society. It affects everyday choices and yet we don’t feel comfortable talking about it. The author brings the example of J.S.G. Boogs, a contemporary artist who was able to pay with fake bills drew on a piece of paper and get change in real bills. He managed to repeat this action many times, to a point where he became famous that he was able to make it to art shows, increasing the value of “nothing” exponentially. The author also covers the dilemma presented in Grimm Brothers’ story “The Grave Mound”, inviting us to reflect about how we use our money.

This chapter invites you to reflect on how money can assume different values and shapes the way we behave in our everyday life. This chapter made me reflect on how we relate to money in society and how would society work without money. At the end an arbitrary value on a piece of paper might not be any different than old currencies they used in the past. The example of the fake bills that created value says a lot about it.

Cardinal and... GOLD!

Trojans in Rio are ready to capture the top of the podium

2016 is a leap year, and for sports fans around the world this automatically translates into one thing, the Olympic Games. And if you are in a way related to the Trojan Family, this should be even more interesting to you. For the last 104 years, USC has been the only University to have at least one athlete compete in summer Olympics and bring home gold every time. The streak hopefully won't be broken in Rio, and here some events to look carefully, where Trojans will try to make "The Star-Spangled Banner" play out loud in front of the world.

Volleyball

Played in the Maracanizinho Arena, both teams have Trojans in their squads. The men's team qualified after winning the World Cup in Japan last September. They previously got gold in Beijing, but fell to Italy in the quarterfinals in London. Among the favorites, they will have the hard task to prevent home team Brazil to win a long-time missing gold medal (Athens 2004, win over Italy) in front of the home crowd. The women's team qualified at the beginning of the year after winning the North American qualifier in Lincoln, NE. After two back to back silver medals (both times loss to Brazil in the final) they will be haunting for their first Olympic gold in Rio.

Micah Christenson

The Hawaiian setter will be a crucial point for the team coached by John Speraw. Graduating class of 2015, Christenson started to play with the senior national team well before the end of his college career, when he was called to play at the NORCECA Championships. A year later he conquered gold in the World League Finals in Florence, Italy. He helped team USA winning the World Cup in 2015, where he was voted as best setter in the tournament. After he graduation he moved across the ocean where he's playing pro for the Italian team Cucine Lube Banca Marche Civitanova, where he's currently in 1st place in regular season and competing in the European Champions League.

Murphy Troy

From St. Louis, MI, the opposite graduated from USC in 2011. He was also part of the squad that won gold in the World League Finals in Italy and the World Cup in Japan. After graduation he started playing pro in Europe, starting in Italy playing for Top Volley Latina for two seasons. He then moved to France and Poland, where he currently plays for the Lotos Trefl Gdansk, competing in the European Champions League as well.

Natalie Hagglund

Class of 2013, the 5' 10" libero from Encinitas, CA took gold at the 2015 Pan Am Games in Mexico and fell short to directly qualify for the Olympics in Japan, finishing third. After graduation she started playing pro in Europe for Volero Zurich, winning both the Swiss championships and Swiss Cup in 2015. She competed in the Club World Championships and is currently playing the European Champions League

Swimming
Coached by Dave Salo, both swimming teams have produced a great number of champions who will try to step on top of the Olympic podium in Rio.

Katinka Hosszu
First competed at the Olympics in 2004, when she was 15, the Hungarian star will haunt her first gold medal at her fourth attempt, after reaching a fourth place in the 400 meters medley in 2012. Nicknamed Iron Lady due to her incredible abilities in all the styles, she currently holds five world records. Her palmares includes 5 gold medals at the world championships and 9 at the European championships. A gold medal in Rio will definitely qualify her for a spot in the history of this sport. She graduated from USC in 2012 with a degree in psychology.

Haley Anderson
Class of 2013, she qualified at the World Championships in Kazan last summer. In Rio she will try to take revenge of her British silver medal, after falling short in the end of the 10 kilometers open water to Eva Ristov from Hungary for less than a second. Her palmares also includes medals from the world championships. In 2013 she won the 5 kilometers in Barcelona.

USC, if treated as a country, would rank 12th for number of gold medals. These five are not the only ones with a chance for gold. Less than 200 days separate us from the opening ceremony. We'll see who is going to show the Trojan pride to the Cariocas and the whole world.