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This shows the importance of having positive and influential political figures in American societies. The Gates family were heavily modeled after the Kennedy family. There's also this really great section on how Bill Gates perceived that adulthood is very busy and feeling so important that he is involved in small elements of adult life like pouring coffee for the adults when they're playing bridge.

the weird capitalization...
you succeed by choosing a definite goal, put in all your energy, effort and willpower until it becomes your obsession

i feel like i shouldn't have picked this up, this is boring. i dont really want to know what his early life is like

3 areas of prefrontal cortex: front bit (i want), right bit (i won't) and left bit (i will)
already the analogy is really long, can this person get to the point? also writing style is not very engaging

essay 1: already lots of information. feels really abrupt, no opening or easing into the essays

this book resonates with me a really great lesson on not letting your overly concrete plans blocking you from opportunities that you wouldn't even really think of. Really great storytelling of memories with Bill and the kids. Also there's a really great section on how to accept that you have flaws and shortcomings and just showing up and be willing to learn.

when you stick too much to your life, plans and expectations, your life loses the imagination of what it could be. Goals propel you forward, but sometimes it is important to know which one to keep and which one to let go.

writing needs a lot of work, analogy is all over the place.
weakness of man: knowing all the ways that something wont work. success comes to those who become success conscious. and failure to those who are failure conscious. to be successful, you need to have DESIRE, know what you want and have power/control over our thoughts

really good analogy of how your kids are born with 80% of their personality. your job as parents is to nurture the strengths and help them manage their weaknesses. really great storyline (w/ time jumps), great description of the pain of women wanting to "have it all" and balance everything

june has been trying to justify her basically stealing athena's book; her desperate attempt makes us wonder whether she's an unreliable narrator. however, i could see her pov: athena "grew" the book but june "birthed" it. this book also does a great job of getting the readers to really think about who gets to profit off of culture and suffering.

athena chokes on a pandan pancake and clocks out. the plot is cool but the writing is eh. you also don't get to fully experience how much of a "good" writer athena is, why isn't there any reading excerpts from her? whatever i'm thinking 3 stars

lots of weird capitalized words and phrases and very odd writing style. but great first point: when one is truly ready for a thing, it puts in its appearance. be relentless in what you want to achieve.

fresh starts are better for habits (no old habits working against you). the illusion of a fresh start can come from new year, new age, or assigning a label to oneself (reader, clean eater, etc).

intriguing plot and cool style of writing. already a 4 in my notes. theres this dialogue between audrey, bee and bernadette that was incredibly emotional

there are many instances of lack of traditional, gender roles in reproduction in nature, for instance, there is a sexual reproduction or reproduction where the female, serves less of a purpose than male species. However, a society has decided to pick and choose only the species that has a heavy emphasis on female reproduction and use that as the norm for our social construct.

Transformation take time. Practice daily, not perfectly. happiness comes within. And live with intention.

Service create long, lasting happiness in your life. Find different ways to serve others and better if it align with your strength. Service doesn't really have to be something grand, just small gesture.

In relationships, there is care, competence, character, and commitment. Any person, including you, cannot be all four to all your relationships. Determine which which of these categories the relationship you have fall into, and be grateful for the thing that they can offer you.

every energy we put into the world whether it's positive or negative, remember that it always comes back to us. The love that you give out to someone might not come back from that specific person, but comes in a variety of ways and means.

there's this really great analogy about how when you put a spoonful of salt in a water glass. It will taste really bad but if you put that spoonful of water in a lake, it will just taste nice and refreshing. Be the lake not the glass of water. Expand your emotional range, expand your life experience, the pain, a.k.a. the salt will be undetectable

practice gratitude because it is proven to positively affect outcomes of everything you do in your life. Also be grateful for setbacks and never judge the feelings in the moment, you'll never know what the future brings. Your current rejections might lead you to something better in the future.

isabel, charlie's wife kidnapped her 2 kids and went to an event a threw soup at astrid, thinking astrid and charlie had an affair. edison cheng is at davos. alfred shang got prof oon to treat shang su yi at mount e. lots of confusing side characters

not a lot of emphasis on the arts in education. arts not necessarily mean u will be an artist, but more on appreciating beauty, learning how to dress yourself or coordinate colors in regular life. when u try to experiment arts in your own life, u're perceived as vain and frivolous

culture is obsessed with achievement and will bend rules to achieve. contrast with prior generations get lower grades/higher standards but they turn out fine. nowadays we see higher grades but social culture is in decline. valid

pervasive casual violence. defending children arbitrarily instead of correcting their behavior in public (i feel like this totally depends)

even when you do good deeds for other people, you still have to like treat them with respect. A really good analogy for this is when you get married, you take each other for granted because you think, caring for each other in a relationship is a justified guaranteed, when it actually takes work and every day constantly having to do the work