Topic: eyes, ears, mind

Staring at a computer screen, I can look outside and see it’s warm out.  Office full of construction noises from outside.  David Sedaris book, “Me talk pretty one day,” on my desk, next to a yellow note pad I use for taking messages.  Beside that a BBC article I printed about the French protests.

Excitement bubbles over-me, as I read an article quoting a European economist who blames part of the unemployment crisis in France, as well as the precarious feeling that the working world is an unstable place, on higher education.  It drives me to want to learn so much more about this topic, and to keep searching out these people.  Like an artist, I am craving recognition.

Reading David Sedaris’ memoir, I get a sense that the want of recognition is one of the great struggles people face.  For David, he turned to conceptual art, doing speed, and scoffing at anyone who couldn’t appreciate his efforts as an artist to capture life in his display of himself shaving his head on stage.

I consider myself fortunate to not be that much of an artist, but it is a constant struggle to capture the absurdities of culture.  I would laugh more if I did not find myself suffering from it, but I do believe that the environment is not fully responsible for my mood.  My mood can fluctuate in 5min. based on a co-worker simply stopping by to have a discussion about a topic that interests me, and slam shut when things seem like a Dilbert cartoon.

Then, I just turn off the thinking part of my mind and see and hear what is real.  Black computer screen, black telephone, world map, metal mail slots, gold door stop with the grey button sort of thing that keeps the doornob from smashing through the wall. 

Yes…it is Friday.  Awaiting me is a cold beer or two, possibly a hike, reading, writing, phone, calls, movies.  Lazy in my own way.

 

The following article was posted on the left-leaning website commondreams.org  It is about the protests in France, and presents an argument that the French/European system of worker protections is not only best for workers, but it shows no negative effects on the economy.  The author argues that high unemployment in France is not a result of regulations that make it difficult for employers to fire workers w/out giving cause.  I’m not sure I agree with that point, as it makes perfect sense for French employers to not hire people because of the financial risk (score one for the gov’t/conservatives).  He does not that there are certainly other economic factors, such as the way France has handled economic troubles in the past, compared to the American method.  So, the author may have neutralized the argument that the regulation is a key factor in French unemployment (score one for the students & workers groups).    As for the general philosophy of putting workers’ rights into law, the author notes that despite Europe’s regulations that give workers 4-5 weeks vacation, that subidize higher education a great deal, that provide day-care, their economies are still running strong (score one for our author).   It’s difficult to understand all the economics going on, but what interested me most, as someone who is less an economic academic than someone interested in the general tone of human interactions, is how the gov’t could try to pass a law that would so completely piss off young workers and their allies (to the tune of 1 million protesting on Tuesday), in an effort to help them w/ this law.    French Students and Workers are Right

by Mark Weisbrot

More than a million people in France have taken to the streets against their conservative government’s attempts to change the country’s labor law. Here in the United States, these strikes and protests are generally seen as another example of France’s inability to come to grips with the reality of “the global economy.” According to the conventional wisdom here, “Old Europe” is in need of serious economic reform. But will the reforms currently on the European political agenda actually help most Europeans? One of the recommended reforms is more “labor market flexibility.” This is an economist’s way of saying it should be easier to fire employees and there should be less generous public pensions and unemployment compensation, and lower payroll taxes. Lower wages and benefits attached to employment, as well as a reduced influence of unions also fall into this category. The French government has proposed to allow employers to fire employees under 26 years of age without having to show cause. To Americans this may seem strange, since employers under U.S. law are generally permitted to fire anyone without having to give a reason. But this is not the case in most other high-income countries, and even in many developing countries. The government claims that employers will hire more people if it is easier to get rid of them, and that therefore unemployment (especially among younger workers) will be reduced. But the available economic research provides little or no evidence for this argument. For example, there is no relationship between the amount of employment protection in different countries and their unemployment rate. This is true generally for measures often portrayed as having as having a negative impact on employment: for example, unemployment compensation, national collective bargaining, or the percentage of union members. While it is true that France’s unemployment rate is relatively high (9.2 percent), there are a number of countries with high levels of labor market protections and low levels of unemployment: Austria (5.2 percent), Denmark (4.4 percent), Ireland (4.3 percent), the Netherlands (4.6 percent), and Norway (4.5 percent). This makes sense if we think about it in economic terms. First, it is not as though employers can’t fire people in France or elsewhere in Europe – they just have to show cause. They may prefer the American system, but if there are profitable opportunities for expansion, they will hire more workers. A country’s level of employment (and unemployment) generally has much more to do with the overall demand for the goods and services that its businesses produce, rather than the rules or benefits that affect individual employers. Why then is Europe’s unemployment currently higher (8.4 percent for the high-income countries of Europe) than that of the United States (4.8 percent)? One possibility is that the European Central Bank (ECB) has kept interest rates higher than it should have in recent years. As the U.S. economy slowed in 2001, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates aggressively (to one percent in 2003) and kept them low for three years into our current economic expansion. The ECB was slower to cut interest rates and has been raising them this year, despite relatively sluggish growth and inflation of only 2.3 percent. The idea that labor protections are the cause of European unemployment is part of an overall myth that Europeans would benefit from a more American-style economy. The U.S. economy is said to be more competitive, yet we are running a record trade deficit of more than 6 percent of GDP, and the European Union is running a trade surplus. The U.S. economy is supposedly more dynamic, but French productivity is actually higher than ours. Their public pensions, free tuition at universities, longer vacations (4-5 weeks as compared with 2 weeks here), state-sponsored day care, and other benefits are said to be unaffordable in a “global economy.” But since these were affordable in years past, there is no economic logic that would make them less so today, with productivity having grown – no matter what happens in India or China. French students and workers seem to have a better understanding of these economic issues than their political leaders. Hopefully, the wisdom of the crowd will prevail. Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC.

Topic: Protests in France

There’s about 300,000 people protesting in the streets of France today, in response to a new law passed by their parliament.  Before I talk about what that law is, I’d like to discuss the idea of people, especially students, finding cause to protest in such large numbers.

Many people, including myself, feel inspired when people protest.  It’s a sign that people are fighting for a better world.  It’s a sign of anger spilling over into action.  There’s the excitement of protest, the desire to shut down society in the face of all that is wrong with it.

More than anything, I believe protests are a way to combat boredom.  I think that’s the largest enemy people face in life.  It’s why people, like myself, take up causes.  Causes give life purpose, and protests are simply a massive amount of people saying, “We’re so bored and tired of talking, what else can we do?” 

I believe laws are an important part of our society, as they encourage peace and order, but I think there’s a part of me that believes people should take the helm, rather than be bullied by law.  And, as usual, I’m speaking in massive generalities without giving specific examples because I really don’t know what the hell I’m talking about

I need to stop falling into the trap of making universal claims, rather than focussing on individual circumstances.  But…isn’t that a universal claim?  No, it’s a particular claim that applies to me.  OK, onwards.

What I was getting at in discussing laws, which I don’t know much about, is that ultimately it’s the way individual people behave and act that matters.  For example, Congress is working on addressing immigration law, since the current laws on the issue are ineffective in preventing people like farmers from hiring illegals off the books.  The law change is actually intended to help illegals by giving them a pathway to become legal, rather than what was proposed which was to view them as felons, a violation of criminal rather than civil law, that would make citizenship impossible.  Either way, it will be a long time before the law has any true effect.

Laws such as No Child Left Behind require schools to meet certain testing requirements, or face losing federal money.  Clearly, this law has an effect on the mentality of education, and has in many schools resulted in the elimination of history and science to focus on math and reading tests.  However, there are schools that despite the law have been educating their students in a wide range of subjects, and without even practicing for the test, they have exceeded results in nearby schools (here I am referring to a particular Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound school I visited in Denver, Co.)  So, the law in this case, it seems, cuts both ways.  Effecting education in both a negative and neutral way.

Back to the issue in France.  The recent law is to allow employers to fire employees under the age of 26 who have worked less than 2 years, without providing them a reason.  This has workers groups and students groups protesting the loss of security that they believe the law will bring.  The government, and employers, believe this law will actually be good for employees, because with greater flexibility, employers are more likely to hire more.  Currently, many French employers are hesitant to hire new employees because if it turns out the person is not needed, it is very difficult to let that person go.  There is an unemployment rate of about 20% for those 18-25 (a figure that I’m not sure means too much to me, as I don’t know if that includes those in school, and I often think about unemployment in the US and the fact that there are always jobs available, the problem of course people not particularly feeling excited about those jobs).

So, if the protesters are victorious, and the law remains the same, nothing will change.  Perhaps, if the law stays, not much will change.  The law seems to be symbolic of the society as much as something that effects society.

Topic: Dan’s book #2 in the works

I watched Reality Bites last night.  It was just the movie I was looking for.  The story of idealism clashing with a world that spins idealism until you can barely keep a job serving up cue cards or french fries, and you end up paying $3.99/hr. to a psychic because nothing else seems to make any sense to you.

It was an entertaining movie, and made me want to entertain.  To write in order to make people laugh and smile, at topics that equally drive people to throw things through windows, and cry, and pop happy pills. 

I love that life IS the story of whoever tells it.  I hope to tell life in a way that inspires and makes people reflect.  That questions and attempts to answer.  That tackles a topic and then for apparently no reason at all goes on about jello pudding.

A funny way to look at office work

On the Road, You and Me

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

NDJAMENA, Chad

Where’s the best place to get an education? Some might say Harvard or Yale, Oxford or the Sorbonne. But maybe you should add Ndjamena to the list.

Universities are — oh so slowly — recognizing that they need to prepare students to survive globalization. But most overseas studies programs are both too short and too tame. They typically involve sending a herd of students for a term in France or Italy, where they study a little and drink a lot together, amid occasional sightings of locals.

That’s why I bring up Ndjamena, this dusty capital of one of the poorest countries in the world. A student living independently here could learn French and Arabic, and would emerge with a much richer understanding of the world than could be taught in any classroom.

Traditionally, many young Britons, Irish, Australians and New Zealanders take a year to travel around the world on a shoestring, getting menial jobs when they run out of money. We should try to inculcate the custom of such a “gap year” in this country by offering university credit for such experiences.

So here’s my proposal. Universities should grant a semester’s credit to any incoming freshman who has taken a gap year to travel around the world. In the longer term, universities should move to a three-year academic program, and require all students to live abroad for a fourth year. In that year, each student would ideally live for three months in each of four continents: Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe.

A student might, for example, start off teaching English and studying Latin American history in Ecuador, then learn Chinese intensively in Chengdu, then work at an AIDS clinic in Botswana while reading African literature on the side, and finish up by studying Islamic history in Istanbul. In each place, the students would live with local families.

Since the best way to learn about public health challenges is to endure them, I would also suggest offering extra credit for any student who gets malaria.

The cost of a year of travel would be far less than the annual cost of attending many colleges in the U.S. Third-class trains and buses are incredibly cheap; you can sometimes ride free on top of the trains. As a student backpacker myself in India two decades ago, I once lined up with the beggars and lepers of Amritsar to get free gruel from a Sikh temple — but that embarrassed even me.

In any case, all this suffering builds character. And students would get far more out of a year of travel than a year in classrooms.

Meanwhile, there’s no need for universities to take the first step. Spring break season is upon us, and university students are dashing off to party in Mexico and Florida. So, you student readers, how about dashing off instead to Mongolia, where you’ll find plenty of sand — the Gobi Desert — and get a truly exotic alcoholic drink: fermented mare’s milk.

As for parents, if you have a child graduating from high school or college this year, forget about a conventional graduation present. Instead, send him or her off with a friend with a one-way ticket to Timbuktu.

Over a year or so, the kids would figure out how to catch rides with trucks north over the Sahara, then hitchhike through the Middle East and across Central Asia. After a temporary job in Calcutta to earn a few rupees, they could migrate through East Asia and then make enough money as tutors teaching English in China to buy cheap air tickets home.

Now, that would be an education!

You may not know that one of the most cosmopolitan states is Utah. That’s because so many young Mormons spend two years abroad as missionaries. They learn languages, live as the locals do and bring back a worldliness that stays with them forever.

All this has been throat-clearing for my own announcement: In an effort to put my company’s money where my mouth is, I’m sponsoring a contest in which I’ll take a university student with me on a reporting trip to a remote part of Africa. We’ll visit schools, clinics and villages, perhaps chatting with presidents in their villas and Pygmies in the rain forest. The winner will write a Weblog for nytimes.com and prepare a video blog that will be shown on mtvU.

So if you’re a masochistic student — or if you have an ex you want to send into a malarial jungle — you can find out more information at nytimes.com/winatrip.

And even if you don’t win, you can do this kind of thing on your own. So I’ll hope to see you hanging out in Ndjamena by the Chari River, as the hippos bellow nearby.

Topic: Spanish teaching

Just thinking outloud here…but, i have 0 idea what my next job will be, and on the whole, i’m a bit directionless.  The job i want (study abroad advising) has no openings in my area. 

So, the idea just hit me to spend time over the next few years becoming fluent in Spanish by spending some time in Latin America, somethign I was planning on doing already.  But…add to that teaching experience (teaching eng. abroad), and perhaps find a program that would allow me to use this experience to become certified so that I could teach middle/high school Spanish.

I’m in the midst of a conversation w/ a prof. i once had about problems in education, and he brought up that teacher unions stifle innovation.  I don’t know enough on the topic to respond, although one reason I’d love to teach is because of the union benefits.  Steady employment, pension, and of course, summers off! 

Plus, get to coach wrestling!!!  That would make life complete. 

to do:

start studying spanish, and thinking about how i might teach it
spend time in ’07 becoming fluent in spanish in latin america
contact friends who are currently teaching spanish, pick their brains
look into masters possibilities so i am certified to teach in public schools, use the opportunity to learn more about education in general

i can be in a classroom around fall of ’08…2+ years to get ready

Topic: Goal setting for education book #2 and digging up some articles

So…it’s official, we are going to have a 2nd book.  I’m looking to have it ready in 3 years, although the timeline could easily change.  My initial thoughts are to put together a book that is simply a discussion about the many things I’ve been reading, writing, and talking about w/ regards to the role of schools in society and other issues pertaining to education, jobs, money, etc. 

At this point, I am taking this conversational approach, rather than picking an argument to ram down people’s throats.  I’ve sometimes felt pressure to write something pure and concise, but this topic is muddled and messy, and I think it’s appropriate if the writing reflects this. 

Beyond the content, the development of this book is my own piece of creative writing.  It’s a process as much as it will be a final product.  Like a painting on a wall, as I write I have visions of a book on a shelf, or on someone’s lap on the train, or wrapped in US Postal Service packaging, delivered to someone’s front door.  This is far different than handing in a paper to a teacher for a grade.  In fact, it slaps that experience in the face.

One of the hardest things in becoming a “successful” writer, however you want to define it, is getting readers.  At least to me, that is part of the definition of being a successful writer.  Every writer who believes in their writing, is in possession of a gold nugget.  But, to succeed as a writer as I hope to do, which means having a wide-readership and ultimately managing to build a career where I can sustain myself financially from writing, is an enormous task in itself.

That’s why, unlike when I wrote and promoted College Daze, I will assemble a team before moving too far forward.  I have a better idea now of what is needed.  More sets of eyes for editing, more people to bounce ideas off of for writing and marketing purposes, people to help with developing business strategy to help reach the market and keep publishing costs down, a morale team to keep me on task and motivated, students and professionals to add research and credibility, etc.

My 6mo. goals are focussed on building this team, and putting the initial heat into this project.  It will be a while till it’s boiling over, so this is the time to chop up and prepare the ingredients.  I hope to cook up something even more delicious than the last time, and with the right cooks at my side, I think we’re in business.

I’m re-reading Alfie Kohn right now, really juicy stuff! 

The Worthless Ivy League?

It’s no guarantee of success. Podunk’s competent grads will beat Princeton’s incompetents.

By Robert J. Samuelson
Newsweek, November 1, 1999

We all “know” that going to college is essential for economic success. The more prestigious the college, the greater the success. It’s better to attend Yale or Stanford than, say, Arizona State. People with the same raw abilities do better and earn more by graduating from an elite school. The bonus flows (it’s said) from better connections, brighter “peers,” tougher courses or superior professors. Among many parents, the terror that their children won’t go to the “right” college has supported an explosion of guidebooks, counselors and tutoring companies to help students in the admissions race.

The trouble is that what everyone knows isn’t true. Going to Harvard or Duke won’t automatically produce a better job and higher pay. Graduates of these schools generally do well. But they do well because they’re talented. Had they chosen colleges with lesser nameplates, they would (on average) have done just as well. The conclusion is that the Ivy League – a metaphor for all elite schools – has little comparative advantage. They may expose students to brilliant scholars and stimulating peers. But the schools don’t make the students’ success. Students create their own success; this makes the schools look good.

Evidence of this comes in a new study by Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton, and Stacy Berg Dale, a researcher at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Until now, scholarly studies had found that elite colleges lifted their graduates’ incomes beyond their natural abilities. The bonus was about 3 percent to 7 percent for every 100 points of difference in SAT scores between schools. Suppose you go to Princeton and I go to Podunk; Princeton SAT scores average 100 points higher than Podunk’s. After correcting for other influences (parents’ income, race, gender, SAT scores, high-school rank), studies found that you would still earn a bit more. If I make $50,000, then you might make $53,500 (that’s 7 percent).

But Dale and Krueger suspected that even this premium – not huge – might be a statistical quirk. The problem, they write, “is that students who attend more elite colleges may have greater earnings capacity regardless of where they attend school.” Characteristics important for admission “may also be rewarded in the labor market.” What might these be? Discipline. Imagination. Ambition. Perseverance. Maturity. Some exceptional ability. Admissions officers may detect these characteristics from interviews or course difficulty (different from grade average). But earlier studies didn’t capture these factors.

To do so, Dale and Krueger examined the 1976 freshmen of 34 colleges. They ranged from Yale, Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore (highest in SAT scores) to Penn State and Denison University (lowest in scores). The SAT gap between top and bottom was about 200 points. Dale and Krueger knew which colleges had accepted and rejected these students as well as their future earnings. By 1995, male graduates with full-time jobs earned an average of $89,026; women earned $76,859.

Dale and Krueger then compared graduates who had been accepted and rejected by the same (or similar) colleges. The theory was that admissions officers were ranking personal qualities, from maturity to ambition. Students who fared similarly would possess similar strengths; then, Dale and Krueger compared the earnings of these students – regardless of where they went. There was no difference. Suppose that Princeton and Podunk accept you and me; but you go to Princeton and I go to Podunk. On average, we will still make the same. (The result held for blacks and whites, further weakening the case for race-based admission preferences. The only exception was poorer students, regardless of race; they gained slightly from an elite school.)

The explanation is probably simple. At most colleges, students can get a good education if they try. “An able student who attends a lower tier school can find able students to study with,” write Dale and Krueger. Similarly, even elite schools have dimwits and deadbeats. Once you’re in the job market, where you went to college may matter for a few years, early in your career. Companies don’t know much about young employment candidates. A shiny credential (an Ivy League degree) may impress. But after that, what people can or can’t do counts for more. Skills grow. Reputations emerge. Companies prefer the competent from Podunk to the incompetent from Princeton.

If you can’t (or won’t) take advantage of what Princeton offers, Princeton does no good. What students bring to college matters more than what colleges bring to students. The lesson has relevance beyond elite schools. As a society, we’ve peddled college as a cure for many ills. Society needs more skilled workers. So, send more students to college. College graduates earn much more than high-school graduates. So – to raise incomes – send more students to college. In that, we’ve succeeded. Perhaps three quarters of high-school graduates go to college, including community colleges.

But half or more don’t finish. A new study from the Department of Education (“College for All?”) reports that these students achieve only modest gains in skills and income. What determines who finishes? In another report, Clifford Adelman – a senior researcher at the Department of Education – finds that the most powerful factor is the difficulty of high-school courses. And the finding is strongest for black and Hispanic students. Not having enough money (inadequate financial aid) explains few dropouts. Tough courses do more than transmit genuine skills. They provide the experience – and instill the confidence – of completing something difficult.

How to motivate students to do their best? How to make high schools demanding while still engaging? How to transmit important values (discipline, resourcefulness, responsibility) to teenagers, caught in life’s most muddled moment? These are hard questions for parents and society as a whole. If the answers were self-evident, we’d have already seized them. But going to college – even Harvard – is no shortcut.

Topic: March Madness, the stock market, and the working world

The madness is underway.  My pics are in, and the games are on.  I didn’t do much research, as I have enough experience to know that picking winners in this tournament has as much to do w/ good luck as anything.  People will look back after and come up with an analysis of the picks, “Oh…I should’ve realized that team had no chance of advancing,” but someone who knows 0 about college basketball can do as well as an expert analyst.

Yesturday I also bought some stock for my retirement account.  The process is similar in many ways to filling out college basketball brackets.  All investment sites will tell you this, “Past statistics cannot predict future results.”  What’s hot today could trip-up tomorrow, and vice-versa. 

The stock market is largely emotion based, and as an individual investor it is even more.  My goal in investing is to sock away a few grand a year, hope for 8% returns annually, and hopefully that will provide me when I’m in my 60′s and beyond.  What happens when a fund starts dropping?  I’ll probably expeience that eventually.  As we speak, Oklahoma, who I picked to get to the elite-8, is getting beat by UW-Milwaukee, but my picks are done.  You hope for the best, but need to adjust yourself mentally for the worst.

I think the parralel I’m drawing is you can’t expect to get rich, and you have to know how to enjoy life without that.  My friends in law school are looking at making $125,000 when they graduate, and I’m not so sure I will crack half that amount in the next few years.  There’s an instinctual emotion to feel poor, especially when comparing to others.  Wouldn’t life be “easier” if you were making twice what you are now?  Or, do you just think it would? 

The stock market could collapse when I’m 60, and we could be in a depression like in the ’20′s.  Much of the world has been through economic ruin.  I want to know more about how these people live, and how they view their lives.  Clearly there are always people who have less money than you, and have “harder lives.”  But maybe the idea of the hard vs. easy life isn’t comparative.  I think that’s the case because life is hard for everyone.  I can sympathize with the rich athlethe who can’t sleep at night because of a sick family member, or because of the stress of not winning a championship ring that that person probably dedicated their entire life to, as much as I can sympathize with the financial struggles of the poor.

For the next 4 days, I will struggle and rejoice, for the holy grail, March Madness, has arrived.

Topic: Repitition

What is repitition?  My next book idea.  For starters.  What’s it about, what am i thinking about.  I’m thinking about the idea I once heard that everything important to be said has been said.  The problem is, things have these words have not been effective in creating change, therefore, they must be repeated but said in a different way. 

If you’re banging your head against a wall, over and over, there’s only one thing to do.  Stop.  Yet sometimes, we need to repeat even the most fruitless tasks.  We need to keep knocking on doors, picking up phones, and writing.  There is no telling how much time and effort will be requried for someone to answer, but, if the desire is still there, than the call for repitition continues.

I am a self-published author.  I have distributed about 150 books.  It is likely that more than 200 people have read at least part of my book.  It’s a good start.  It’s a start.

I am daunted by the idea of writing a book the traditional way.  Finding a professional editor, agent, and publisher.  That process is daunting, and the odds are extremely low.  The traditional way of book publishing requires a certain form of writing to be accepted by the gatekeepers of the publishing industry.  In order to succeed one must be able to write in the limited ways of the industry, and have an understanding of the keys to the publishers gates.

For my next book, I will not do this, just as I did not for my first.  I won’t because it will take tremendous effort to write in the accepted style.  A part of me still feels like an F student, a bad writer, unable to meet the formal criteria that good writing calls for.  But, I now know that writing is about meeting the criteria of your readers, and that I know I am capable of doing.

I know I can self-publish a book anytime I want, and I know what it takes.  I know that without a traditional publisher, my book will not be sold in stores, but that it can still be sold.  I know that with the right advertising, I can sell 150,000 books, just as I sold 150.  The question is, how can this be done?

Repitition. Do it again, but do it better this time. 

I am not quite sure what I want to write about this time.  When I think about writing, I think about people like myself.  I think about the things that people are told and not told on a daily basis.  The things we don’t think about, but we would be better off, I think, if we did.

I guess the book I aim to write is a bit of a self-help book. It’s also a book that attempts to explain the way things are, so it’s a bit of a sociology book.  It’s a book that will touch on culture, the media, and politics.  It will be a book that will give advice for parents, so it will be a bit of a parenting book.  It will also talk about high school and college aged students and life after school, so it will be a bit of a career book, and an education book.  It will incorporate my experiences thinking about and writing this book, which will hopefully involve me travelling, so it will likely also be a travel book.  It’ll also be a book about writing itself, and self-publishing.

3-5 years.

Thousands of books.