In October, the Santa Rosa Fire in Northern California hit home for me. I don’t live in Santa Rosa, but the reality that climate change is really happening NOW shook me.  I was nervous to leave my home for fear that the Santa Cruz Mountains fire would blow down our way and I might not be able to retrieve anything or save my dogs and chickens.  That’s when I got serious and created an Evacuation Plan.

I met with my IT guy and we started backing up all of my business and personal files in the cloud. The software scans my computers and uploads new (or newly updated) files to the cloud. I have already scanned my 200+ photo albums (1 TB) and digitized my 450+ videos (3.5 TB), and we organized a systematic back-up these files to physical hard drives that are stored off-site with my two daughters in different parts of the country. Phew!  That gives me peace of mind.

We also have Replacement-Cost insurance, so theoretically, our physical possessions would be replaced if our home is destroyed.  I took photos of every item in our house, including all books, albums, tools, clothes, and furniture. EVERYTHING!  And those photos are saved on our photo drives offsite. 

Knowing that I have all of my photos, videos, and a photo record of all physical possessions in our house, made it easy for me to create a Go-Bag.  Nicole, my daughter who is doing an EMS fellowship at UCSF, told me to create 2 Go-Bags: (1) Things we’ll need to survive for a week; and (2) Things that we use daily and can’t pack away ahead of time.

I made my Go-Bag (1) and filled it with clothes, contact lenses, hydrogen battery charger, water, and food.  I also packed sleeping bags, blankets, and pillows, and placed all of this in my trunk so it’s always with me and ready to go.

Then I made my Go-Bag (2) and stapled a list of things (with photos) that I would like to take in the case of an evacuation.  I placed these bags near all of the exits in my house so anyone in the house would know what to take in an emergency.  I listed my computer servers, files I use daily, medications, and jewelry. 

As our climate heats up and our droughts become more severe, wildfires are going to become the norm.  Set up your Go-Bags for your car and house, so you won’t have to make difficult decisions about what to take if you have to evacuate. 

Pack your Go-Bag!

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If you’re like me, you feel proud that you recycle your mayonnaise jars and juice bottles. Right? But lately I’ve noticed how many plastic containers fill our recycle bins each week.  Trying to reduce my plastic waste, I purchased large glass containers to store bulk flours, nuts, and dried fruit.  I was happy to see that my pantry was filled with glass jars that contain our organic staples. 

But the problem is that buying bulk foods at Costco or local grocery stores only slightly reduces my plastic intake because they sell everything in large plastic containers. Sure, it’s better to buy one large container than four smaller ones, but I wanted to stop buying food in plastic containers altogether.  

Health Food stores like Whole Foods, Staff of Life, and NewLeaf offer a bulk section where you can either bring your own container or use plastic bags to purchase large quantities of ingredients like nuts, seeds, and flours.  Then, at home, you simply pour the ingredients into your large glass jars. The only problem with that is that you’re still using plastic bags, and they don’t have bulk purchasing options for other things like cheeses, meats, drinks, and other packaged goods. 

I want to shop at a store that has no packaging at all –where everything is sold in bulk and you bring your own reuseable storage containers so there is no plastic usage at all. Sadly, there are no stores like that anywhere near where I live.

Leave it to the rest of the world to do the right thing:

Good news: Earth.Food.Love that sells groceries with no packaging at all.  They sell organic, ethical food in bulk. It is truly a zero waste store.  Not only do they ban all packaging, but allof the products they sell can be composted or recycled. Wow!

Bad news: It’s only in England

Good news: Germany has an anti-waste supermarket called Unperfekthaus.

More good news: Kenyans face up to 4 years in prison for using plastic bags.

Good news here in the US: Seattle plans to ban all plastic straws and utensils in restaurants by 2018

Support stores that sell bulk items and allow you to bring your own containers.  Try converting all of your food storage to glass containers – they keep foods fresher and the plastic chemicals don’t leach into your food. 

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If you missed the November 30^th deadline for transfer applications this year, you’re in luck!  For UC Santa Cruz, UC Riverside and UC Merced, the new transfer deadline is January 8^th! 

The UCs are making a concerted effort to enroll more transfer students across all campuses this year.  So if you were considering UCs and were worried you weren’t a strong applicant, try applying to these 3 campuses and you just might get in!  Good luck!

In August, Merit Academy hosted TEDxMeritAcademy at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz.

Hannah Faris was a featured speaker, and her TEDx Talk is embedded below.

“Creating a grassroots movement to inspire change”

Hannah presented an exciting advance in environmentally protective technology that can help alleviate and reverse the effects of global warming. She will be focusing on the grassroots movement that will help launch the technology in communities throughout the United States by developing Kids4Hydrogen chapters in each state.

About Hannah Faris:
Hannah Faris is a young environmentalist who became president of Kids 4 Hydrogen when she was a junior in high school.  She created the white board video that describes how converting internal combustion engines to use a liquid hydrogen fuel can stop climate change.

Harvard is being sued by the Justice Dept because of their discriminatory admissions policies against Asian-Americans (not international students).  Apparently Harvard restricted admission of Asian-Americans to 18 percent in 2013.  A Princeton study found that Asian-Americans need to score 140 points higher on the SAT to have the same chance of admission to private colleges and the Ivy League. 

History repeats itself — again.    

Back in the 1920s, when Jews were high-achieving minorities – just like the Asian-Americans today – Harvard, Yale, and Princeton changed admissions criteria from strictly grades and standardized test to considering leadership, volunteer work, and athletic prowess.  In doing so, this ensured that the Jewish admissions rates wouldn’t continue past 20% on this upward trend. These colleges needed to protect their legacies and aristocracies.

So Harvard, Yale, and Princeton were able to change the merit-based admissions policy to a quota system that would limit the number of Jews admitted each year.  Read the book ­The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton by Jerome Karabel to learn how elite colleges blatantly discriminated against women, Jews, blacks, and others.

Look at colleges that don’t ban students based on their ethnicities.  Asian-Americans made up 34.8% of the student body at the UCLA and 42.5% at Caltech in 2013.  Elite colleges are worried that if they removed the race factor from the admissions process, Asian-American admissions would rise, while white, black and Hispanic numbers would fall.

Sounds to me like admissions committees are making discriminatory policies about whom they are admitting.  Why can’t the best students be admitted based on their own merit?

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With all the terrible things that have happened so far in 2017, I am still thankful. 

No matter how grim the future looks when you consider the climate change nay-sayers and the disastrous Trump administration, I believe that because we are descendants of pioneers and risk takers we will continue to lead the world as a superpower. Every one of our families at some point were immigrants (except Native Americans) and all of them weathered the discrimination of being “outsiders” to become successful here in the United States of America.    We are leaders and innovators. Let us not forget our roots and appreciate the diversity that has made us a great country.  Today, I am thankful to have my family, my health, and my future.  Tomorrow, I will fight like hell to make sure that we ward off climate change by getting America, and the world, on board to save civilization as we know it today.

If you’ve taken the November SATs or plan to take the December SATs, enter the dates of the exams on your online application form.  Then, after you receive your scores, go back to the UC application (even if you’ve already submitted it) and enter your new scores.  You only need to do this for one of the UC campuses because all of the UCs will receive your updated SAT scores. 

If you have any questions, just contact us at 831.462.5655.  

As we prepare for big holiday meals this year, don’t wrap your yams and potatoes (or anything else) in aluminum foil!  Yup. According to researchers at the American University of Sharjah, the neurotoxic nature of foil negatively affects brain functioning and may trigger the onset of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Foil also impacts bones by leading to loss of calcium.  And even worse, it can cause pulmonary fibrosis and other respiratory issues.

Cooking with aluminum foil may contaminate food with up to 400 mg of aluminum. The higher the temperature, the more leaching.  Acidic foods like tomatoes, citric juices, or spices are the worst because they absorb the most aluminum.  On the other hand, foods cooked in salt or alcohol absorb the least amount of aluminum.

According to the World Health Organization, just 40 mg of aluminum is safe to ingest daily.  Food wrapped in aluminum might have 6 times that amount. So for this holiday season, bake your potatoes in Pyrex dishes!

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Be careful when reading the U.S. News & World Report’s ranking of “Best Colleges” because, well, the buzz among college advisors is that it is FAKE NEWS!  Yup.  Their rankings are really just measures of parent affluence and cater to the wealthy.

3 reasons why rankings are skewed:

1^st: Student Selectivity:
Students who have better grades (private tutoring), strong SAT/ACT scores (private tutoring and test-prep programs), and don’t need financial aid (apply using Early Decision) have parents with deep pockets.

2^nd: Faculty and Student Resources:
Professors who receive higher salaries and students who receive more resources cause tuition to skyrocket – often discouraging low-income students from applying.

3^rd: Legacy Admissions:
Wealthy parents who donate generously to their alma mater, receive preferential treatment when their children apply for admissions.

Because parents rely too heavily on these college rankings, colleges redefine where their marketing dollars go to ensure that they inch their way up the U.S. News & World Report rankings. What’s missing in the criteria for these rankings is the college experience with professors, programs and opportunities.  Instead of reading these fake news rankings, read what the students say about their classes, majors, careers, and reflections.  Isn’t that what really counts?

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Just returned from a whirlwind visit in Chicago where we ate our way around the city.  We started out with Chicago’s famous deep-dish pizza at Gino’s, enjoyed their unique Eatily, where a medley of artisan chefs prepare gourmet dishes, and tried dozens of other specialty restaurants on just about every block downtown.  Jaclyn and Alex (and Radar!) live on the 40^th floor right downtown and just 1.5 blocks from Kellogg’s grad school. 

We stayed in a suite with a conference table and a Murphy bed (love Murphy beds!) in their building, where we hosted a mini family reunion with Jean and Davis Tatsui-Satake.  It was our first time meeting the Chicago Tatsui relatives who left California right after Pearl Harbor.  Rather than be interned like the rest of the family, this part of our family moved to Chicago and has stayed there ever since.  We immediately hit it off with Jean and Davis, and have already made plans to get together again this year.  It’s exciting to make connections with family members, learn new facts, and hear interesting stories about our ancestors.  They contributed to our genealogy database and plan to help us fill in stories and data about our Chicago family.

We also had dinner with Rob’s brother Bill and his family in the suburbs south of Chicago. Rob and Bill exchanged stories about their youth – the ones you don’t want your children to hear – except, oops Jaclyn sat there in shock with her mouth wide open as she learned about her father’s earlier days. She kept looking at me to make sure these were real stories!  It’s shocking that Rob and Bill are alive today…

Jaclyn hosted a get together with her Kellogg friends (Alex, Rob, and Kelly – yup, weird coincidence!) so Rob and I could meet them.  As always, we love her new friends and had a blast with them.  We plan to return to Chicago in June for Jaclyn’s graduation ceremony.  Time flies; and we can’t wait to get her back to California!