Hey, I’m Juan. I am a junior Aggie, consultant, researcher, runner, sexual assault advocate, and aspiring therapist; I also write words.
On this website, I want to…
Publish essays and ideas✍️
Upload useful presentations🎤
Review books📚
If you have any thoughts on my content or just want to call me an idiot, feel free to reach me on any of my socials or email.
Below are my latest posts and the newsletter. Enjoy!
Listening: The Secret to Finding Your Next Life Adventure
It turns out, the best adventures stare us in the face every day, but we don’t bother looking twice. To see them, it only takes some good listening.
Storytelling: the key to compelling application essays
How to instantly get any of your applications accepted with storytelling
Chasing the sublime: how to live your life like an adventure
Can anyone experience excitement or wonder without spending hundreds of dollars traveling the world?
After a few months of tweaking my mindset, I think so.
Here are three simple ways anyone can turn their life into an adventure:
My favorite things of 2023
With all these negative headlines, I thought I would share some highlights.
Here are just a few:
My Favorite Piece of Art
If you were to ask me what it feels like to watch this movie, what I would best compare it to is like driving in a horrific motor accident.
It’s ugly, frequently morbid, and ultimately induces stress. And yet, you can’t stop yourself and just stare at the whole thing as you pass by.
Sports and the power of the modern day storyteller
In the same way books or movies have this ability to provide narratives in people's lives, I believe sports accomplish this very same thing; letting us belong to other realities outside of standard everyday life.
Think about it.
Storyworthy Notes
Learn to effectively find, craft, and tell better stories in public. From starting your narrative to adding the perfect stakes, Storyworthy gives the peak behind the curtain on all the ways writers hook/scare/excite or depress you.
A First week in coding: sets, strings, integers and many errors
In all seriousness, after the first “real” week of python, I have some thoughts.
“And what's psychology got to do with CS?” you may ask. I don’t know either, but I always like experimenting so I thought I’d take a crack at this.
Here are some insights after week one:
FAST reading: how I fly through a book every week
Until a year ago, one of the few books I had finished was The Giver. As of early 2023, I've run through 40 novels.
Three things changed my approach: a product, service, and habit.
Brave New World Review
In this novel Huxley depicts a bleak dystopian future. One where babies are manufactured from bottles, movies feel so real they touch you, and humans are conditioned into a class and role from birth. Throughout the story we follow a few characters wandering around this brave new world.
My favorite things of 2022
With many negative headlines, I thought I would share some highlights. Here are just a few:
My biggest win ever: and how you can be a leader.
I’ve been reflecting a lot on this story, and what it means to be a leader. It inspired me to write down some lessons I learned. This is the word professionals love, so I thought I'd throw my hat into the ring with a few ideas.
The Catcher In The Rye Review
Holden Caulfield has just been expelled from yet another high school. He decides to run away from home, at the young age of seventeen, getting lost in New York. The book follows his journey of reflection as he runs into old friends, new ones, and trouble.
The History of the Future Review
This is the story behind the origins of modern-day virtual reality. It follows the 19-year-old kid, Palmer Luckey, who grew his experiments from a tiny RV into a multimillion-dollar industry.
Saving Virtual Reality
In this essay, I'll outline three key issues plaguing Virtual Reality, and offer some solutions businesses can take to save it.
The Tipping Point Notes
How do trends start? What causes some behaviors/products/ideas to stick, while others fall into obscurity? Who or what plays the biggest role in news spreading through word of mouth? In The Tipping Point, Gladwell explores the single moment and factors that contribute to the spread of ideas.
Steal Like An Artist/Show Your Work! Review
Learn the secret of creativity, restructure how writing works, and grow your online presence. In these two mini publications, Kleon reimagines the way artists should create digitally; sharing countless anecdotes and lessons he has accumulated over the last decade of writing online.
People We Meet on Vacation Review
Two “friends'', Poppy and Alex, have been going on yearly summer trips to exotic locations around the world. Some time in between these ten years of traveling, they had a falling out. That is, until now. Poppy invites Alex to one last trip, attempting to rekindle what they had for the last decade.
The Picture of Dorian Grey Review
An extraordinarily looking young man, Dorian Gray, enjoys a simple life of studying philosophy, attending social gatherings, and having his picture painted. That is until one day a stranger, Lord Henry, tells him a new perspective on life. This single little parasite of knowledge slowly rots Dorian’s character. He suddenly begins to commit all sorts of heinous acts, his picture gradually tarnishing like his soul.