As I wrote yesterday, each day I'll be completing a different writing exercise, all with the idea of improving myself as a writer and experimenting with new forms and methods. Today, I was to write a sonnet. I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope you enjoy it!

Breakfast

For breakfast I had naught but eggs
They left me hungry, being only two
I sit wistfully gazing at my coffee's dregs
Tis a lie to say that I'm not blue.
And worse, I've gone and smoked my last cigarrette cigarette 
Woke up late, this day's started poor
From here can it improve? I wouldn't bet
I shall remain hungry, hoping for more.

A good friend once told me to stay hungry
For hunger is the prime mover of all
Without it we'd never've left those idyllic trees
Hunger for the apple gave rise to the fall.

Hunger is humbling yet makes us bold,
Reaching for the fruits we would so anxiously hold.

I make no secret of the fact that I'm a dedicated (some might say obsessive) reader. To me, writing is the natural output of a lifetime of reading. Hence this blog, both to satisfy my craving to write and to provide a forum for sharpening my writing skills. Even if it's on a blog that no one ever reads (except for my Dad. Thanks Dad!), writing for an "audience" forces me to write better, to challenge myself, to distill my thoughts and to write them as clearly and precisely and beautifully as possible.

As I get more serious about my writing, two key goals emerge. The first is to make writing a daily habit. If I can make writing an automatic part of my daily routine, I'll have taken care of the hardest part of writing. That is, simply carving out time to put words on the page. The second is to systematically improve my writing.

To achieve both these aims, I'm going to be experimenting over the course of the next several months with a series of daily writing exercises. I came up with 15 of them, some culled from the internet and some from the shadowy recesses of my brain. I'll pick one each day to do in the morning after waking up. I have to do all fifteen before starting over, so in each month I'll go through the list of exercises twice.

Here are the exercises I'll be doing. I'm excited about them because I know they will stretch me to improve my writing in new ways. I already began this morning with the "freestyle poem." Anyway, I hope that the output of at least some of these will be worth sharing here on this blog. If you see any unusual content here that seems out of the norm for me, you'll now know why!

15 in total, repeat twice each month!

1. Write a freestyle poem.
2. Write a sonnet, following the rhyme scheme.
3. Create 10 unusual metaphors or similes.
4. Stream of consciousness/freewriting for 15 minutes.
5. Write a "top 5" article.
6. Critique a work of art (a film, book, poem, painting, etc).
7. Write a vivid, colorful description of a place. Really make it come alive.
8. Write a profile of a person I know. Make them come alive on the page!
9. Copywrite passages from writers I love. Aim for at least 20 minutes.
10. Mad lib- make a story from a random noun, adjective, and verb.
11. Write an old article I never got around to.
12. Write a 3 page short story.
13. Role play: write for 15 minutes from the POV of the first animal or person you see.
14. Write about a past experience, travel, or event as vividly as possible
15. Creativity & Connections: Pick one influential work, idea, or person and connect it in writing to as many other ideas, works and people as possible.

After my previous article on the ten craziest things that have happened to me so far in Bangladesh, I wanted to write a follow-on top ten list of the good things about Dhaka. I did have to think outside the box quite a bit to come up with ten, but here they are:

1. The street food in all its varieties. Costing anywhere from ten to fifty cents, it's both tasty and affordable. As long as you're not too squeamish about hygiene, that is. A big favorite here, especially among Bangladeshi girls, is a treat called Fujka. It's hard to describe it, but imagine a sweet and spicy filling inside a fried, tortilla chip like crust. I personally really like to get a snack (I don't know what it's called) made of an egg mashed up with onions, garlic, chilis, and other vegetables. They wrap it in an old flyer and give you a business card cut in half to use as a spoon. And while there are Western-style cafes where you can buy coffee for $3 a pop, the original Bangladeshi "cafes" are small roadside tea stalls. The tea costs six taka (about ten cents). There you can see Bangladeshis congregating, milling about, chatting, and relaxing.
2. Most people here are very kind. I've almost never had a problem stopping people to ask for help or for directions, and many times bystanders have helped me out spontaneously by translating when I was struggling to communicate with someone who didn't speak much English. People here can be so nice that I've literally been spoonfed by a complete stranger! And of course, there are the small acts of kindness, like when a restaurant worker gave me a free bottle of water when I was dehydrated after a workout, or when the tea stall workers take out a stool for you to sit on.
3. People here tend to be very optimistic, which I think is a good thing. They know their country has many problems, but they also recognize that those problems afford many opportunities, as well. Many times in conversation Bangladeshis have affirmed that now is the time to be in Bangladesh, when it is really starting to grow and take off. And they are always thinking about ways to take advantage of that opportunity to improve their situation! A staple conversation piece, at least with middle-class Bangladeshis, is about their plans to launch some kind of business or venture and made oodles of money. So far I've had Bangladeshis pitch me ideas like a paintball field, fish exporting, a garments industry middleman business, and a visa arranging service for Bangladeshis wanting to travel in the Americas.
4. Necessities are very inexpensive. At a street restaurants you can get a big lunch for anywhere from $1 to $3, and bottled water costs maybe 25 cents. Clothing is dirt cheap as well, mainly because Bangladesh makes so much of the world's garments. The factories routinely produce overruns or stock that doesn't quite meet the quality control standards of their clients. Usually, they are obligated by contract to destroy these, but most find their way into stalls on the street where you can buy them on the cheap. Good shirts can be had for less than $5, and pants rarely cost more than $10. Oh, and if you're a cell phone addict, the rates here are very affordable. I loaded my phone with $2.5 of credit about 3 weeks ago and I still have almost a dollar in credit left.
5. Dhaka pushes the expatriates together. I've met a few really cool people here from all over the world: New Zealand, Italy, Morocco, Hong Kong, etc. And perhaps because it can be so hard to meet new people in a small expat community in a place like Dhaka, you wind up getting to know your friends much better than you probably would at home. As an aside, one New Zealand woman I met works in one of the expat clubs as a hair stylist. She offered to cut my hair for free because she hated my haircut so much. She said it was worth it just so she wouldn't have to see it all the time!  This was right after I'd had my hair cut for $2 by a Bangladeshi barber who didn't understand my instructions very well, so I blame it on him. Teasing aside though, she did it free of charge because we'd become friends. I doubt I could have struck up a friendship with someone like her anywhere else but in Dhaka!
6. Western environmentalists could learn a thing or two about recycling from Bangladeshis. While Dhaka in particular has a major pollution problem, Bangladeshis are kings of recycling. Nothing here gets thrown away, but is rather passed around until it is falling apart. Then it is fixed until and used again and fixed until it is beyond repair, when it is dismembered and the pieces get reused to repair other second hand (or third, or fourth, or fifth) hand items. For example, I was chided by a colleague for throwing away an old hair trimmer that had stopped working. I had bought it for maybe $15 in Europe, and to me it was a cheap enough device that when it stopped working, I threw it away. My colleague rescued it and promptly tried selling it second-hand. This applies for anything: cars, fridges, air conditioners. Heck, the buses here get so much life squeezed out of them that they seem to be more rust than metal.
7. You can get away with a lot. In the US, we say death and taxes are the only two certainties in life. Unless you're in Bangladesh- then the only certainty is death. Seriously, it seems like there's very little that can't be accomplished with a bit of money to grease the grooves of the machine. Don't want to wait in line, or want to get an application fast-tracked? Cough up a little bit of money and the wait disappears. This corruption in general isn't a good thing, and I debated about including it in this list, but the option is there if you're willing to take advantage of it. Foreigners in particular seem to get a bit of a free pass. Again, not a good thing in general, but the discrimination definitely exists, and in this case, it can work in your favor. For example, when I flew into Dhaka I was the only foreigner on the flight. While everyone had to stand in line to get their bags checked, I was waved through security without so much as passing my bags through an x-ray machine.
8. While Dhaka is a huge city of many millions in a country of 160 million, it is easy to meet "important" people and move up the social ladder quickly. In the short time I've been here, I've been introduced (albeit briefly) to top level government ministers and some pretty successful business people in the country. Ultimately I think it's because the upper class and upper-middle class are such a small group, you've got to rub elbows with important people at some point just because everybody knows everyone else. This rule extends to other fields, too. For example, a musician I met here mentioned that because of how small and nascent the music scene is in Dhaka, it's easy to get gigs even as a mediocre musician.
9. The idea of exploring Bangladesh outside of Dhaka! In general, Dhaka is a difficult city to live in as a foreigner: it's noisy, polluted, hard to get around, and decently expensive. But I've routinely heard Bangladeshis say that Dhaka is the worst part of Bangladesh. That makes me eager and hopeful to explore the countryside, something I haven't yet been able to do because of the nature of my work here. But in the next month I'll have the opportunity to verify the veracity of this claim. Until then, it's comforting to think that Dhaka is not representative of Bangladesh as a whole.
10. If you can carve out a good life in Dhaka, then you can live a good life anywhere! Like #9, this one is a bit of a cop-out, because in a way I'm more making a statement about how Dhaka is such a difficult place to live in as a foreigner. Indeed, there's no sense pretending like it is a great city. But that doesn't mean I'm not enjoying my time here, or learning a lot. And that's exactly what I mean with this point. Yes, Dhaka is a difficult place to live in. But in spite of that, a good, enjoyable life can be made here. The city and its people have a lot to teach. At least, I am learning a lot about myself and the world. To me, these are empowering thoughts. If I can carve out a niche for myself and lead a fulfilling life in Dhaka, then I can probably do the same and make the most of my life anywhere else in the world. I suppose what I'm saying is that a good life (however you want to define that!) is location-agnostic.

Shesh- finished!

When I was a teenager, I became obsessed by the idea of being able to tune into my surroundings and learn so rapidly that I could adapt to and overcome any circumstance.

There wasn't any unusual need or mission that spurred this fixation, just the normal teenage angst of finding one's way in the world. I was more socially inept than most teenagers-  I can say that now with affection- so I suppose the idea of becoming some sort of super-adaptive ninja appealed to me.

The teenage-me reasoned thusly: if I could be really, really good at learning from my environment and adapting to what I learn, then I could circumvent all awkward social situations, always know how to make the best of fickle fortune, and ultimately acquire the quiet confidence and easy-going nature I so desperately desired.

In other words, my sixteen-year-old self desired some superpowerful, panacea-like mental framework that would not only cure me of my psychological ailments but also transform me into the exact opposite, the antonym, the antithesis, of who I currently was. I would be the ultimate badass because I could learn any skill and overcome any circumstance.

Let no one accuse me of not dreaming big.

Ultimately, my juvenile pursuit of this one-mindset-to-rule-them-all, like so many searches, was eventually forgotten to time as I became distracted with more immediate tasks like graduating high school and University, achieving some semblance of success with girls, and figuring out what I actually wanted to do with my life (unfortunately my University didn't as yet have a "super-adaptive ninja" major, but I hear one is in the works).

Don't get me wrong. My intentions were good. But I didn't really know where to begin looking for such ideas, or how to piece together the fragmented research I was doing. I became vaguely aware of the importance of east-Asian meditative philosophies to my research, and the idea of Mindfulness proposed by a Harvard researcher named Ellen Langer. That was about as far as I got.

Fast forward to about two month ago. 

I was reading a book called Boyd: The Fighter Pilot that Changed the Art of War. The subject of the biographical work is Colonel John Boyd, a near-mythological figure to those that knew him and know of his work. He did incredible things, and these accomplishments were all the more impressive because they were across such a wide variety of fields.
He was perhaps one of the greatest fighter pilots the world has ever seen. Nicknamed 40 second Boyd, he had a standing bet that he could defeat anyone in a dogfight in less than 40 seconds. He never lost.

He revolutionized the theory and practice of dogfighting and literally wrote the manual on flying fighters.

He discovered the Energy-Maneuverability theory, which completely changed the way fighters were flown and designed. In fact, he used these theories to help design the F-15 and F-16.

Later in his life, he stopped flying and instead devoted himself to purely intellectual pursuits. He investigated the nature of creativity, for example.

Perhaps most famously, he invented the OODA loop.

The OODA loop is short for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. It's a decision making framework for taking in new information and reacting to that information to make the best of the real-world circumstances and achieve success.

On the one hand,  seems too simple. We do these things (observing, orienting, etc) routinely, it doesn't take a genius to draw all four of them in a big circle, right?

The importance is in how the loop is explained and applied.

And more importantly for the ghost of the hopeful sixteen-year-old me, I felt the faint-yet-intoxicating spark of recognition, a spark that "lit my fire and fired my soul", to paraphrase Douglas Hofstadter (I am a Strange Loop).

And not just because it seemed like the key piece I'd been missing in my search for personal growth acceleration. In fact, I didn't even draw the connection to my long-lost quest of years past until I began writing this article. It sparked a burning recognition because I realized I already knew and understood the key concepts in the OODA loop. 

At least, I knew them as they were applied to entrepreneurship and product development.

I'm referring specifically to Agile methodologies and Lean Startup in particular, since that's what I'm most familiar with.

In Lean Startup, the idea is to take a rapid approach to validating one's hypotheses about a new product, service, or feature. Part of the ambiguity of a new business idea is that you don't know what your customers think. Lean Startup is a framework for getting customer feedback on a product iteration as rapidly as possible- say, two weeks instead of two years.

This is important because you could spend two years developing a product and launch it without getting any customer feedback. Your "loop" is two years long in that case.

But what happens if the product fails because it is out of touch with what customers want? You've wasted 2 years. You've gained valuable feedback on what your customers want, but it came too late in the game to be useful. By accelerating the rate at which you get real customer feedback on something tangible- be it a prototype, experience, or mock-up- you instead gain actionable insights, or what's called validated learning. The learning is actionable because you're getting it fast enough to feed back into your product to improve it.

And by getting these insights, you're effectively getting inside the mind of your customer. You're understanding who they are and ultimately, how to build a product that solves a real problem of theirs and that they will want to buy. The nuance here is that it requires a deep empathic understanding of the customer and their problems, frustrations, and aspirations. You've empathized and understood them so deeply that you've internalized who they are and what they care about. 

The faster you can perform all the steps, the faster you can assimilate new information and put it to use to achieve whatever your objective at that moment in time is. But as Coram noted, the key is to use each loop to understand the opponent. Your actions can't occur in a vacuum- they have to elicit a response or feedback of some kind from the opponent that serves to peel back a further layer of their mind and see how they think and how they work.

Each loop is an iteration of action and reflection, allowing you to course-correct each time. If you're directly competing against someone, or something, moving through the loop faster and using it to gain validated learnings about their behavior allows you to react more quickly, throw your opponents off balance, and evolve a winning strategy while everyone else is still struggling to get their bearings.

The goal is to "get inside the other guy's loop" and out-iterate him to whatever success in that instance means to you. If you're moving through the entire loop twice as fast compared to the competition, then you're learning and changing your behavior for the better twice as fast. It's not just that you're doing twice as much as the opponent- it's that the action that you do take is more effective, more deadly, and more in touch with the actual circumstances because you're assimilating and learning from the environment twice as quickly. You're gaining validated learning about his behavior and the environment more quickly than him, and each loop gives you the opportunity to reflect and assimilate that information before beginning the loop anew.

The ideal outcome in both the OODA loop and Lean Startup is the same: that you come to know someone else so deeply and intimately that you know exactly how they'll respond to your actions and decisions. In Lean Startup it's your customer, in the OODA loop it is whoever you're competing against. As stated before, this is a function of speed paired with the measured feedback from calculated real-world action. A sense for human psychology and a keen empathic sense also seem crucially important to reach this final, key stage of these cycles.

Josh Waitzkin wrote an insightful passage on discovering this experience in his excellent book The Art of Learning:

I think these are all powerful theories because they put the emphasis on being agile and in-tune with the ambiguous real world circumstances that any new initiative faces when implemented. Empowering the people you're working with becomes paramount. Technology, size, and resources become less important. According to Coram, Boyd's mantra was "Machines don't fight wars, people do, and they use their minds" (p. 367).

What strikes me is that both cycles, at their core, are about increasing the tempo at which you're able to act, learning from your actions, and adjusting to improve, all with the goal of getting inside the loop. The faster you learn, the faster you win.

What's key is that the learning is validated. It's not about reading a book or talking to someone or taking a test and having "learned" in the academic sense. It's about learning by doing. Your learnings are validated by the fact that you can actually see the effect your actions have in the world. This real-world learning can then be applied to change your behavior for the better. As my friend Eric Morrow puts it, "if your behavior isn't changing after an experiment you run, then you're wasting your time."

As with the OODA loop, the power of Lean Startup comes from moving through the entire loop as quickly as possible. The faster you can move through the loop and get customer feedback on prototypes, the faster you can course-correct and iterate your way to a product that customers want and will pay for. With each iteration, you're gaining insights validated by the people who are supposed to be paying you- in other words, the only people who's feedback about your product you should trust! If you halve the time you make your way through the loop, you've effectively halved the time it will take to iterate your way to a successful product. You've doubled the rate at which you're learning and improving.

For any superficial differences, these two decision-making methodologies from very different fields are talking about the same things once you reduce them to their core principles. In particular:

• Taking deliberate action to "test" real world circumstances and learn how to improve the approach for the better.
• Getting immediate feedback on a small deliverable, action, or outcome and iterating quickly rather than planning and executing an entire project in a vacuum.
• Moving through the entire loop as quickly as possible in order to iterate one's way to success and out-maneuver the competition.
• Understanding and getting inside the minds of the key players- in Lean Startup that would be the customers, in the OODA loop the mind of your opponents.
• Decentralized power structures. Whoever is going through either loop, whether he be a CEO or intern, a general or a private, must be empowered to act on the validated learnings he gains.

These same principles lie at the heart of all Agile methodologies, not just Lean Startup. There's the emphasis on getting feedback from customers and clients through rapid prototypes or "potentially-shippable features", and moving through "sprints" as quickly as possible. Team structure is decentralized, as the team members need to have the freedom to design the best possible product based on client feedback, not mandates from an out of touch manager.

What's interesting is that many of the disparate Agile methodologies all evolved independently and have only been lumped together post-creation. While programmers invented the Agile philosophy and many of its most popular applied methodologies, like Scrum, Lean actually evolved from Japanese car manufacturers long before. Lean Startup, while inspired by Lean manufacturing, evolved from the particular issues entrepreneurs faced.

The funny thing is, this isn't the first time I've recognized these same ideas packaged in the jargon of a different field or profession. I had the same feeling of recognition about a year ago when I read Christopher Alexander's A Timeless Way of Building and A Pattern Language. Alexander describes these same concepts in different words, and applied to architecture and urban planning.

Alexander's approach includes:

• The same emphasis on designing with, and not just for, the end user. This is analogous to what I described earlier of getting inside the head of the key players. In this case, the key player or stakeholder is the end user. If the building doesn't allow those using it to reconcile conflicting human needs and desires and empower them to live better, then the design has failed. So the architect must understand the user and his needs and desires, and ultimately include him in the building process.
• Rapid prototypes that the user can experience, which gives validated learning to inform the next iteration. How else could the architect measure how well he's accomplished his goal of enabling and empowering the daily actions of his build's end user? This includes using inexpensive, easy to use materials that can be used for rapid building and prototyping. And while there's no emphasis on "getting through the loop" as fast as possible- architects aren't usually in a race against time against competitors or in danger of running out of cash as startups are- in a certain way Alexander has short-circuited the need for this. Theoretically, by including the end users in the design and construction process, you've collapsed the loop. You're always getting feedback from them.
• Using a "pattern language" to design buildings, which is basically a database of universally applicable validated learnings about the rules of thumb behind good architecture. This is a unique feature of Alexander's approach which perhaps can be cross-pollinated to other fields. Indeed, Alexander inspired the idea of programming pattern languages, which feature heavily in Extreme Programming- another Agile methodology.
• Careful observation of the site and the users to apply the pattern language and adapt the build to the particular circumstances. As with Lean Startup and the OODA loop, the idea is to get away from abstract planning as soon as possible to make the best of real-world circumstances.

Again, there isn't as much of an emphasis on "getting through the loop" as quickly as possible, ultimately because speed isn't usually a determining factor in the success of a new architecture project. But all the pieces are there to allow for rapid action tempered by reflection on client feedback. The hierarchical building principles or rules of thumbs can be quickly applied to a specific site to create rapid prototypes of varying levels of detail that can be presented to the end user for feedback and incorporated into the next round of experiential prototypes.

Then you have Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design, similar philosophies to the aforementioned which evolved from yet again distinct fields. Both encapsulate nearly all the principles I've discussed previously with the OODA loop, Agile, and Alexander's Pattern Language. Their unique angle is that they focus above all else on empathizing with the user to fully understand their problems before working with them to develop and test rapid prototypes.

So far we have what appears to be a set of universal decision-making principles designed to guide us to success in uncertain and ambiguous circumstances. They vary superficially based on the unique application in various fields of human endeavors. Entrepreneurs, soldiers, designers, and architects call them by different names, but at heart they're talking about more or less the same thing: a way of engaging with the world on ambiguous terms and guaranteeing good outcomes.

Who's to say where these same ideas will crop up again? And in what untapped human pursuits could these principles be applied to create new value? After all, one of the easiest ways to innovate and create value is to take innovations and ideas from one field and cross pollinate them into a new field. Lean Startup is just old concepts (the scientific method and hypothesis testing, plus the Lean manufacturing idea of maximizing value and minimizing waste) applied to a new field (the traditionally ambiguous and unscientific field of business).

These principles don't inform what the ideal outcome is, rather, they describe the process for reaching it: Make a bunch of small tests, and use the data to gradually improve each time. Make each iteration of the process as short as possible to learn as quickly as possible. Each test should be as close to the real thing as possible. Accumulate a database of validated learnings that allow you to empathize with and understand whoever will be reacting to your test: the client, the end-user, the enemy. Empathize with them and understand their problems and frustrations, to design the best way to overcome those problems (or use them against them in combat). 

I mentioned that when I was a teenager, I obsessed about the idea of finding the ultimate mental framework that would allow me learn anything, adapt to anything, overcome any obstacle to achieve anything. I never did get anywhere close- ultimately I was too young, too scattered, too unsure of where to even start looking for such a framework. 

But now that I think about the suite of principles circumscribed by Agile, the OODA loop, Design Thinking, and Pattern Languages, I think I may have found something pretty damn close to it. I'm excited to think about how these can be applied and used to accelerate something new.

After a half-year long hiatus from posting on this blog, I'm back at it! Though, to be fair, I have been writing- and editing- a lot, just on a new project. Hopefully I will be able to share it soon.

Since I last wrote a blog post, a lot's happened. Chiefly, I moved to Bangladesh for a 2-year long position with an economic development company. The job didn't work out, but it did give me quite a few memorable experiences. Here are ten of the crazier things that have happened so far!

If the list seems slanted towards the bad things, it's only because I wanted to share the crazy anecdotes and hard-to-believe occurrences that come with living in a new place and culture, before everything becomes normal and mundane. 

1. Getting my smartphone stolen on my third day in Bangladesh. I was at a posh event at a swanky convention center, and I left my bag at our table with my colleagues for about five minutes. Unfortunately the lady sitting next to me (opposite my new colleagues) turned out to be a famous thief. We saw a post on Facebook a few days after she stole my phone. The post claimed she'd been doing this for years and had stolen quite a bit. I suppose I was lucky I didn't lose my wallet, too! The worst thing about losing my phone is that it was what I used to take pictures. So apologies if this post is lacking in imagery- now you know why!
2. Eating in street restaurants. And by street restaurants, I mean makeshift eateries set up in a muddy patch of land 10 feet from the dust and grime of a busy road, with a tarp for a roof and plastic tables and chairs covered in swarming flies. Giant vats of dahl, curry, biryani, and more simmer on gas stoves right in front of you. Once you sit down, the cloud of flies parts momentarily and the servers bring you plates of rice, curry, fish, eggs, vegetables, and more. You wash your hands right at your chair, with a jug of water they provide, and you'd better wash your hands, because you'll be eating with your right hand like an authentic Bangladeshi. You mix up your curry and rice into little balls with your fingers and then use your thumb like a lever to shovel it into your mouth.
   It's fun once you get the hang of it- it makes me feel like a little kid again.
3. Sharing food with Bangladeshis. One night, when I went to the street restaurant I almost always went to for dinner, I was invited to sit down at the same table as a stony-faced youth. As soon as I sat down, he offered me some of his chicken and rice. Being vegetarian, I declined. He insisted, so I gingerly picked up some of the rice with my right hand and ate it. "Please, have some more." I declined, as I had my own food on the way. I began chowing down on my dahl as soon as it arrived, and was promptly chided by my new friend for eating too fast.
4. That was nothing, though, compared to the very friendly guy on the street who spoon fed me puffed rice. In most places on the street there are tiny stalls where you can buy different treats for anywhere from 10 to 30 Taka (10 to 40 cents, more or less). Sometimes the sellers don't even have a stall, they just carry around the ingredients in a big bowl they carry on their head. Anyway, I stopped in front of a guy selling puffed rice mixed with lime, chili, and veggies. He would mix it all together, then put it into a little cup made of an old flyer stapled into a cone shape. To top it off, he stuck a business card, cut in half, into the top of it. That's your spoon.
   Anyway, someone who had just bought the puffed rice treat saw me eying the food. He offered me his paper cup full of food for me to try. Not wanting to offend, I scooped a bit off with the included business card spoon and handed it back. "Tasty!" I said. "Thanks!" "No, no. You didn't get enough!" And before I could even think about it, he'd scooped up some more. My jaw dropped- is he really going to spoon feed me? He deftly deposited the business card full of puffed rice into my newly opened mouth. All that was missing was the airplane sound effect.
5. Narrowly dodging motorcycle-riding thieves. One night I was going to the gym in a rickshaw. It's night out, and though we're on one of the main roads connecting Gulshan 2 to Gulshan 1, there isn't much traffic. I'm already in a bad mood from a bad day at work, so I have my head buried in my kindle to distract myself before my workout.
   I hear a motorcycle hit the accelerator beside me and as I look up, I see bike with passenger come veering at my rickshaw from my right side. I'm staring right into the greedy eyes of the passenger, rapidly approaching, with his arms spread wide to grab my kindle. Instinctively, I pull my body back, and I feel his fingers barely touch my e-reader before slipping off.
   The motorcycle speeds away like a coon chased by hounds, and all I can think to do is stand up in the rickshaw, triumphant, and shout obscenities at the would be thieves.
   Right after that, my rickshaw got hit by a car. Lovely night. (That was actually the second time a rickshaw I'd been riding in had been hit by a car).
6. Public Nudity. One day me and a colleague were coming back from Dhanmondi to our office in Gulshan 2. Now, without traffic, it's perhaps a thirty minute drive. Traffic was bad that day, so it was more like an hour and a half. To make matters worse, I was riding on the back of my colleagues motorcycle as a passenger. We were stopped in traffic for what seemed like ages, sweating terribly. An old man wandered by wearing nothing but a lunghi, or man-skirt. He stopped right next to me and my friend on our motorcycle, a blank expression on his face and his eyes vacant. Without warning, he dropped his man-skirt and stoodnaked in front of rush hour traffic. After about five minutes of airing out his private bits, he refastened his man-skirt and continued on his way.
7. Speaking of motorcycles, I've ridden three to a motorcycle now several times. That can be rather harrowing, especially given how small Bangladeshi motorcycles are! No big choppers here, only tiny 150cc bikes.
8. Having first hand experience with corruption. I had to come to Bangladesh on a thirty day arrival visa. Since I would be working in the country for potentially up to two years, I needed to get it extended. Part of that process involves a police interview to make sure that you are actually here to do what you say you're here to do- in my case, to do business. My colleagues, who were working with me through every step of this process, filled me in on how it works.
   The cop will come for the interview at your home, they told me. You'll offer him some tea, but he'll decline. "I'm hungry, I'm not thirsty. I'm hungry, bhai (brother)". You then take out half your bribe (500 Taka or about $6 in our case) and stick it in his shirt pocket, patting his shoulder and saying "here you go". He'll then say, "no, I'm still hungry." At which point you'd take out the other 500 Taka and hope he still wasn't hungry after that.
   Ultimately, we wound up having to go to the police station for the interview. The cop was initially very hostile and kept asking me the same question, "what are you doing here?" We kept giving the same answer- I'm here to explore partnership options with local startups- but it was obvious he wanted to cause problems. Until my colleague took him aside and stuck a couple 500 Taka notes in his shirt pocket. Then he was all smiles.
9. Being asked to falsify data for a report to a major NGO. I don't want to get into too many details on this one. I will say it was in a professional setting, and I was very taken aback. I replied that I wasn't going to falsify data of any kind. The person who proposed this then corrected himself- he would falsify the data for me, I would just have to put it in the report. Um, no thanks.
10. The many money-making schemes of my friends here. One thing about many Bangladeshis is that they're always dreaming about how to make more money. For example, my current roommate has ten different schemes he wants me to get involved in. The one that seemed the most promising?
    Writing invitation letters for Bangladeshis seeking American visas. Apparently you can charge 3,000 USD, if not more to help someone get an American visa. And Latin American visas are quite popular too.

I hope you enjoyed the list! I am having quite an interesting time here in Bangladesh- there are things both good and bad. More coming soon!