sitting is the new planking

i despise the typical vacation photo: background = blurry, poorly lit snapshot of a monument that real photographers have already captured on post cards, foreground = you looking like a sweaty dweeb in your tourist gear. as such, i'm in very few of my vacation and travel photos.

however, on my recent trip to europe, my friend maria and i developed some great memes that renewed my love for vacation photos. it all started at the louvre when i sat down on the ground to take a photo of maria. as it turns out, i have quite the knack for sitting quietly in awkward places. you can check out the whole album of "jong sits" photos, but here are some of the highlights (photo credits to brilliant photographer maria lambert):

sitting at the louvre

sitting at the arc de triomphe

sitting with the eiffel tower

sitting at pompidou

sitting at notre dame

sitting at musee d'orsay

sitting in the hofgarten in munich

sitting in a museum in vienna

sitting in the haus der musik

sitting at lake spitzingsee

maria's go-to position is something we fondly call "glambert presents." definitely check out the full album of maria "presenting" various monuments throughout western europe. it's hilarious.

remembering steve jobs

steve jobs died on wednesday.

i already had an article ready to run on friday for my column in the daily muse, but as i lay in bed on wednesday night flipping through my instagram and twitter feeds, i noticed an interesting pattern and knew i had to publish a different article for friday. i stayed up late and wrote, "the man who became a logo: how we memorialize steve jobs." you can read it in the daily muse or on forbes.

on friday night, i stopped by the apple store in downtown palo alto. sometimes called "steve's store," because of its proximity to his home, the university avenue location was home to an impromptu memorial. colored sticky notes scrawled with personal messages of thanks and sadness covered the store window, and a vigil of flowers, candles, and gifts crowded the sidewalk.

i only had two classes after steve passed, but in both of them, my professors talked about steve at length and either quoted from or played the video of his 2005 commencement speech at stanford.