Dear Hiring Manager,

I’ve been loosely following Notion since my younger sister first introduced me to it, 6 years ago. I was impressed with its attention to detail and care for the end user, and although the tool didn’t perfectly align with how I prefer to record my thoughts (I like old school paper most of the time), I’ve kept my eye on it. However, since then, I’ve become a software engineer, and developed a penchant for note apps and AI. 

I’d first like to highlight my work on note taking apps. I’m not talking about a tutorial project for learning React, I’m talking about the production app Co-GM—a fully fledged, online rich text editor with numerous integrations with tools built for GMs (game masters, the people who run games of Dungeons and Dragons). The app has attracted over 1,500 users and over 50 of them paying monthly for the premium subscription version. I highly encourage you to check out the app yourself so you can see what it’s capable of, but at a high level, it’s got a sleek and innovative UI, a marketplace for users to build and share GM-ing resources, and a number of advanced tools for taking notes extremely quickly and effectively. I built the app myself, from the ground up, using React, TypeScript, Node.js, and MongoDB. The project took nine months while also working full time as a consultant. I learned a great deal while building this, and would love to share more!

Secondly, I’d like to highlight my work with AI. Since I began studying computer science, I was deeply interested in the subject, and built several models for making stock market predictions (one of them looked slightly promising, but trading is not my passion). After that, my undergrad capstone project for my major was implementing a novel (at the time) “pass-through” AI model to generate realistic reddit comments. As a team of four, we made deep customizations to the model, using the PyTorch library to manually force some layers to output to multiple other layers. I was honored among graduating computer scientist students by receiving distinction for my exceptional work on the project.
In more recent years, although my jobs and projects have steered me more towards web development, I have recently returned to AI, with my latest work on Mystica: a text-based, AI-powered adventure game. Without getting into the details of the game itself, I was tasked with designing and implementing the fundamental game loop interaction between player and AI. Rather than building our own AI from scratch, I decided to use an LLM API. However, LLMs return text, not data, and are trained to behave like chat bots, not game engines. Initially, I solved this by using a sequence of prompts where each step wraps user content in specific instructions on processing and output-format, spits out some xml, and then gets repeated until the steps are completed. However, in efforts to reduce costs and increase reliability, I’ve since improved the design by fine-tuning the LLM on our specific use cases, reducing the need to include instructions on processing or output-formatting. Despite fine-tuned models costing more, this new process reduced our input token-count by over 50%, saving us 30% on our projected operating costs. 

All of this is to say, I’d love to work at Notion. I’ve admired Notion and stayed up to date with its developments, so I’ve known that Notion’s been working with AI more recently. I was working on a creative project earlier today, and thinking to myself—“Gosh, I really wish my note-tool was fully integrated with AI so that it understood the full picture of what I’m trying to accomplish here, because manually inputting this into GPT each time is awful!” That’s what made me remember that Notion was working with AI. However, from what I can tell, Notion’s not quite doing what I want it to yet, which only made me realize that maybe I could have a chance to help implement it. I’d love to have that opportunity. 

Silas

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Over the last two years at Carleton, my work has grown considerably better. I hesitate to say the writing is good, but I think that at this point in time, I can sufficiently write in most formats and styles in ways that clearly convey whatever information is needed. My thesis driven arguments have become more persuasive, my analytical writing has become more precise, and my use of citations is now more robust. Most of all, I think I’ve developed the conciseness of my writing, which I believe is one of my strengths as a writer. Looking at my writing from before I came to Carleton, sentences were jumbled messes, and a coherent idea was hard to find. Here, I present you with the ways in which I am no longer that writer, but someone better. 
I begin with Essay #4, since chronologically, it was the first essay that I wrote (among those I turned in). This essay was for my Economic Anthropology class, and we were tasked with writing about anything, so long as it cited the ideas presented in the books and articles we read so far in class. I decided to write about decision making—a major theme of the year that I had not had as much chance as I would have liked to be able to discuss. Throughout the term, we had frequently questioned why people in some cultures did things that most Americans would describe as irrational, and I wanted to delve into the topic and make a case for the self-interest model of decision making. Many of the references to different cultural groups throughout the essay had been week-long discussion topics that I did not feel the need to rehash, and as the term had focused largely on the writings of only a few authors, my citations were far more relaxed than they would have been for a more official piece. However, I think I present a persuasive argument for the self-interest model of decision making across cultures.
The next paper, Essay #2, came from early this school year in my statistics class. Called a “short report” by the teacher, we were tasked with turning a pile of numbers and data into a coherent report, explaining what the numbers meant in plainer English, and drawing conclusions about the data. This report is the second of two reports I did for that class, and exemplifies my analytical writing. This writing was stripped down of everything except for what was strictly necessary to convey the facts, and is far more formal than most of my other work. 
My third submission is a literature review, written with two other classmates for my Behavioral Economics class from this winter. I had never written a literature review before, and so while it is no longer my proudest example of a good literature review (last week I finished writing a second one), we were meticulous in our citations. Although I stated in my portfolio summary that it only addressed the documented sources criteria, I believe it checks many of the other boxes. I didn’t mark them because I felt less comfortable having work that was not entirely my own being judged on those aspects, but I think that all together, the essay was very well constructed. For reference, I worked primarily on the content under the section labeled “Historically Popular Models,” though I edited all of it, and had a significant role in outlining the topics and arguments that we were going to make. 
Lastly, I present Essay #1, my most recent writing. It is a full lab report from a psychology class I took this winter. For this project, we had to design and conduct a lab experiment on pigeons from start to finish, and this was the lab report that stemmed from it. The writing is clean and precise, and conveyed all of the information that was necessary for the assignment. I drew on my knowledge from the short report in my statistics class, and I believe it is best representative of my current, general ability as a writer. 

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COVID-19 is one of the largest threats the United States has ever faced. As of the time of writing this, over 1.5 million people have tested positive for the virus, and nearly 100,000 people have died. It is highly infectious, and although not highly deadly (estimated 1-3% death rate), due to it’s high rate of spread, could have significant impacts on our society. It is also one of the few threats in our history that impacts everyone in the country. The threat requires a concerted effort to overcome, and how each person responds to the situation affects how serious this problem becomes. It is imperative that there is a unified response, which relies on clear, cohesive, and unified messaging from the political elite. However, this has not been the case.
Recent research has shown that the public response to the COVID pandemic has been mixed—divided across party lines. Using data from internet searches, average daily travel distance, and visits to non-essential businesses, Barrios and Hochberg (2020) show a significant positive correlation between a county’s proportion of Trump voters and that county’s overall noncompliance with public health safety advisories. At a similar time, a 3,000 participant national survey by Gadarian, Goodman, and Pepinskey (2020) show that party affiliation was the single most significant indicator of safety behavior at the time of the study. In our study, we seek to understand if this political divide influences how people evaluate public health announcements related to the virus. We turn to source cues as a likely candidate for a component of the polarization we see surrounding this pandemic.
Using an experimental survey, we present participants with public health safety messaging accompanied by either different political party signals, identifying the message as from a Democrat or Republican governor, or with no identifier at all. We then ask participants to rate how favorable they feel towards these messages. We hypothesize that when the messaging is identified with a party, participant responses will become more polarized in their response towards these messages, since the political identification will act as a source cue—or a mental shortcut—causing them to favor or disfavor the message.
Our research rests on a significant existing body of research that considers how partisan cues in messages shape reasoning and behavior (Mondak 1993; Green 1999, 2004; Goren, Federico and Kittilson 2009). Source cues are signals attached to messages that tie them to a certain origin, and are frequently used as a heuristic to quickly assess an argument. If the source is one that has positive or negative attitudes attached, then one is more likely to attach those attitudes towards the contents of the message. By priming the subject to a salient social identity, they will act and make decisions with the best interests of their own social identity kept more in mind. Arguments for this phenomenon rely on the idea that humans generally desire to be part of the “in-group,” and will shun the “out-group,” exhibited as favoritism and discrimination, respectively.
In-group bias is well supported idea in psychology. First proposed under the name of social identity theory by Tajfel in 1978, the theory has been expanded upon and branched out to include many other subjects under the umbrella term (Greene 1999). Greene generally describes it as the tendency for one to exaggerate one’s perceptions of the positive aspects of one’s own group, and to exaggerate the negative aspects of the out-group.
The power of social identity is immense. In a 2005 study, Goren analyzes data from the 1992–94–96 National Election Study panel survey to show that in many ways, party identification informs views rather than the other way around. A multitude of political views, including beliefs about equal opportunity, limited government, and traditional family values, are all either constrained or influenced by the current stance of the political party. This was later supported by Greene (2004), who used a mail survey to look at how social identity related to politics, finding that social identity is one of the primary aspects of partisanship. In other words, people feel a strong, positive, in-group bias towards their own party, and a negative one towards the opposite party. 
Since then, multiple studies have shown evidence for the effects of social identity in politics. While previous studies had analyzed observational data, Goren, Federico and Kittilson (2009) were the first to perform several experiments that find that the presence of a source cue increases the strength of participants’ political views. Three years later, (Kahan 2012) finds further evidence of the effects of source cues, and argues that the in-group/out-group mindset stems from motivated reasoning, where people will view messages more positively when from groups they identify with, since they desire to conform.
The influence of source cues is not without limits, however. MacKenzie and Boudreau (2014) argue the effects of source cue are not as strong as they are claimed, and then when given more information on a topic, people are more likely to deviate from the views of their party. However, the current pandemic is full of unknowns—the United States has never experienced something of this magnitude before, and misinformation is abundant. In situations with very little information, as MacKenzie argues, people are more likely to rely on heuristics for evaluating information. We therefore think that the current state is likely to produce significant results due to the presence of the political source cues.  
We must also be cautious of the exact nature of the source cues—not all source cues are created the same. Using a national experimental survey, Goren, Federico and Kittilson (2009) find that party cues do not have as persuasive effects among those who belong to the same party as much as they do have alienating effects towards those of the out-group. This is supported by evidence from Nicholson (2011), who used an experimental survey during the 2008 election to compare participants’ reactions to presidential candidate cues. These results are highly relevant to our own study, as they predict that message favorableness will not increase between our control group and test group, but that unfavorableness will. Nicholson (2011) also finds that using a generic party label attached to a message is not as effective as using a politician as the label. Unfortunately, the additional variables associated with attaching an individual’s name to a message rather than just their party identity meant that we had to use generic labels in our experiment.
Evidence for the interaction between source cues and political identity have also been found specifically in responses to public messaging. In 2011, Baum uses observational data from public health messaging about the H1N1 virus to assert that health issues have become increasingly partisan as media becomes more and more specific to different parties. He argues that when the news portrays information in ways that align with their viewers’ previously held perspectives, this contributes to the polarization seen across parties. 
Extending Baum’s findings to the COVID-19 pandemic, Painter and Qiu (2020) used an observational study to find that Democrats are more likely to change behavior in response to health advisories from Democrat politicians rather than Republican politicians when controlling for other factors. Building on this, Cornelson and Mioucheva (2020) used a survey of roughly 1,000 people nation across several states to find that compliance with health messaging is weakest among participants receiving messages from governors of political parties opposite their own. This was a large inspiration for our own research, as by pinning down the cause for this divide, we hoped to offer insights into how to best distribute health advisories.
However, while these studies do demonstrate a strong partisan polarization around health behavior, they are observational, and do not provide a definitive explanation as to whether the political identity associated with these public health messages is causing the differences in health behavior. We believe that our research will cement this alluded to connection between political messaging and health behavior, demonstrating a clear causal relation between the identity associated with political messaging and the recipient’s behavior. We also believe that we will be contributing to the study of the application of source cues, which’s application in public messaging remains untested.
We hypothesize that when a participant sees a message that is accompanied by a source cue from a political party, it will cause the effects as predicted by social identity theory to present themselves—namely, they will more strongly favor that message if it is from the same political party that they belong to, and disfavor it if it is from a party they do not belong to. 
Methods and Procedure
In order to test our hypothesis, we conducted an online survey, presenting participants with messages that varied by source and frame. 615 people were recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk user population (excluding the 25 that were removed for either straight-lining responses, or spending less than 1/10th of median time viewing each question). Participants were each paid $0.75 to complete the survey, and were self selecting. Participation was limited to all but those who had US IP addresses, were over the age of 18, had a 95% approval rating or higher for previous hits, and had completed at least 50 HITs. These restrictions were used to ensure we were getting closer to a representative sample of U.S. voters, and to minimize the risk of participants unfamiliar with surveys or answering them insincerely. The resulting participant pool consisted of 53% (n=324) Democrats or left-leaning independents, 9% (n=54) pure independents, and 39% (n=262) Republicans or right-leaning independents. 60% (n=371) were male, 39%  (n=241) female, and 0.32%  (n=2) non-binary. The median participant was “slightly liberal,” a college graduate, and 35–44 years old. 77% (n=475) were employed full time, 21% (n=121) had themselves or someone close diagnosed with COVID-19, and 41% (n=251) consumed news on a daily basis.
The study was presented on Mturk as a “Public Announcement Study” which “hopes to advance our understanding of the quality and effectiveness of public messages and health announcements.” While this study title was vague, there was no deception in the study description intent, and we had to ensure that participants’ responses were not affected by their predictions of the purpose of the study.
Upon reading and agreeing to the consent form, participants were randomly assigned to one of six conditions, in accordance with our 2 x 3 factorial design. The presence of source cues and the framing of the message were each varied. In this paper, however, we focus on the effects of source cues, and therefore combine the results across framing conditions, leaving us with just two conditions: Condition 1: Control Source Cue, and Condition 2: Party Source Cues.
Participants then read a short passage (around 500 characters) describing the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in either economic, health, or neutral frames. As mentioned before, we combine the results from these different conditions, and only examine the effects of the party source cue. After reading the message, participants were asked to report their emotions (angry, afraid, uneasy, hopeful). The emotion questions order was randomized.	Next, the participants engaged in an evaluation task. Using a sliding temperature scale from 0 to 100, participants evaluated (cool/unfavorable to warm/favorable) eight actual COVID-19 related statements published on governors" websites and twitter feeds. For condition one, the message’s source was stated as, “SOURCE: State Governor” while in Conditions 2, participants were informed of the partisan affiliation of the message's source as “SOURCE: Republican governor” or “SOURCE: Democrat governor”. If the public announcement mentioned a particular state name, the word was replaced with a general pronoun or non-identifying word (e.g. “Alabamians” replaced with “people”). The order of the statements was randomized. 	Participants then answered a set of questions that measured their attitudes about the coronavirus pandemic, policy responses, and political figures and groups (manipulation checks, general evaluations of Republican/Democrat governors, and figures did not differ across the party cue conditions), attention check questions, actual experience with COVID-19, and a set of demographic questions.	After the final question, participants were thanked and given a unique survey completion code that participant will paste into the MTURK browser window to receive credit for taking the survey. Because Mturk subjects often contact each other regarding studies they have taken, participants were not given any debriefing form at the close of the study to prevent contamination of the study results. However, because the public announcements were all real messages and the health/economic cost passages were developed from information commonly seen in news media, there was no overt deception. 
We examined several variables when assessing our results. The first was overall polarization, measured as the absolute distance between the average of all Democratic governor message evaluations and the average of all Republican message evaluations. This was our most important measure, since significant, high levels of polarization would indicate a strong influence of source cues. However, we also examined the overall evaluation of Democratic and Republican Governor messages, as well as the average evaluation for each participant towards its own party, as well as their evaluation to the opposing party. For this last measure, independents were excluded from the measurement.

Results
On average, there was a 9.69 (SD = 9.67) point absolute difference in evaluations for Democrat versus Republican messages in the control group. This difference increased to 11.36 (SD = 11.18) points in our treatment group. There was a significant effect of party source cues on the message evaluation, t(594) = 1.98, p = 0.05. Although this supports our claims, this effect was weak, as the difference was only 1.67 points, and evaluations were conducted on a 0–100 point scale. More substantively significant was the fact that the control group, on average, rated Democrat and Republican messages nearly 10 points differently, even when the messages were not identified.

Table 1. Message evaluation statistics
Evaluations were made on a 0–100 point scale.

Party source cues also had an effect on in-group evaluations, t(557) = 2.20, p = 0.03. Messages from in-group governors received an average evaluation of 72.06 (SD = 15.55) in the control condition, but received an average evaluation of 74.88 (SD = 14.76) when evaluated with a source cue present. As before, while these results are significant, they are only weakly so, as a 2.82 point increase is relatively small.
Out-group evaluations similarly changed. On average, messages from out-group governors were rated as 75.37 (SD = 15.92) in the control condition, but fell to 71.41 (SD = 19.46) when a source cues were present. This difference was significant  t(557) = 2.20, p = 0.03. This also aligns with our predictions, though the difference (3.94) is still small relative to the range of possible evaluations.
Our results indicate that we can reject the null hypothesis, and they provide evidence supporting our original hypotheses. However, although all of our measured results were statistically significant, the effects of our treatment are not as strong as we hoped. 

Discussion and Conclusion
Statistical analysis clearly showed significant effects of source cues on participant evaluations of messages. However, the strength of these effects suggest that the source cues may not be the critical contributing factors we had previously predicted them to be. Since every evaluation was done out of 100 points, only a few points in either direction does not make a very noticeable difference. However, it’s possible that these points are more significant than they appear. Despite being relatively small, we have no indication as to how much change is enough to make the difference between following health guidelines and disobeying. It’s possible that the 4 points of aversion to the out-group is enough to change someone’s behavior. Similarly, the additional 3 points of warmth felt towards messages from the in-group may be enough to sway someone from apathy to action. 
The difference in in-group and out-group evaluations is also notable. The points lost through identification of belonging to the out-group were on average, greater than the points gained from identification of belonging to the ing-group. This supports claims that social identity’s effects are stronger in people’s aversion to the out-group rather than loyalty to the in-group. When these differences are compared side by side, a nearly 7 point advantage can be seen between evaluations of the in-group and the out-group. 
Our results suggest that governors seeking to send messages that will be widely supported should leave that messaging to neutral parties. Despite being seen 3 points warmer, the cost of out-group messaging is even stronger, and it may not be worth it to send out a party-identified message. That being said, messages sent out on Twitter are generally constrained to those who follow you, which will generally be those who already support you, and are therefore the ones most likely to view the messages the most positively.  
Strangely, our results all indicate a significant difference in control group evaluations of the in and out-groups. On average, 9.69 points separated people’s evaluations of messages from different parties, even when there was nothing to explicitly identify the source of the message. A deeper analysis revealed that this divide stems from a difference in quality and overall likability of some of the messages we chose. Although we would expect this to be close to zero, our sample of messages is so small that only a few disliked messages have the ability to sway polarization in one direction or the other. However, this should not effect the significance of our results, as only the change in polarization matters.
Our research still leaves several questions to be answered. It is still unclear how much of an effect the little change we saw would have on people’s behavior. Without additional surveying, or ideally, being able to observe subjects’ behavior, we can’t know how much of a difference the few points in evaluations make. If the presence of source cue can change just 1% of the behavior of the people who see it, then it ultimately has the power to sway thousands of people when broadcasted at a state level. For this reason, an assessment of the power of those few points of evaluation would be valuable.
Our study also leaves the question of why our control group exhibited such strong polarization towards the different messages. Using a larger sample of messages would rule out outlier messages skewing the data, and questions checking if participants could identify the source of different messages could help eliminate or confirm the effect of source cues.

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My name is Silas Rhyneer, and I am writing in support of my friend Petr Sopidi and his wife Kate Dollar's application for adjustment of status. I have known Petr for over eight years, since we met as students at Hawaii Preparatory Academy in 2017, and I can personally attest to both his character and the genuine nature of his marriage to Kate.

Petr and I became close friends at Hawaii Prep—he, myself, and another friend were practically inseparable throughout those two years. We played in a band together (Petr was our rhythm guitarist and a total metalhead), spent countless hours talking and laughing, and shared the kind of camaraderie that's rare to find in high school. In many ways, Petr was the steady, grounding presence in our friend group—the person everyone turned to for level-headed advice.

What always stood out about Petr was his emotional maturity and thoughtfulness. He has a natural tendency to think deeply about how his actions affect others. I remember many times when he'd fall quiet and, when you'd ask why, it would turn out he'd been reflecting on an interaction or decision, making sure he was doing right by someone. That kind of self-awareness and care is a core part of who he is.

Even back then, Petr had a reputation among our classmates for being both serious and hilarious—a guy with a big heart behind a bit of a tough exterior. I still occasionally run into people from our school, and when I mention Petr, everyone lights up and says how much they miss him. He left a real mark on our community.

After high school, we went to different universities, but we stayed close through the years. We've kept in touch regularly, mostly through our shared love of video games and Dungeons & Dragons. Some of the hardest I've laughed in years has been playing games with Petr late at night online. We talk every month or two, and when our schedules allow, we catch up in longer calls. Of all my friends from high school, I stay in touch with only two, and Petr is one of them.
I first became aware of Petr's relationship with Kate through our regular conversations and gaming sessions. Over time, Kate would occasionally join our calls or pop in to say hello during our D&D sessions, and it was clear even then that they had something special. Petr spoke about her with genuine affection and respect—the way someone talks about a true partner, not just a romantic interest.

Last summer, I had the opportunity to see them together in person when I was traveling through Italy. Petr and Kate insisted that I stay with them, and despite being their guest, Petr refused to let me pay for anything. Spending those days with them gave me a clear window into their relationship. They were completely in sync—constantly joking, sharing stories, finishing each other's thoughts. They moved through daily life together with the kind of ease and comfort that only comes from a deep, genuine partnership. Their connection wasn't performative or exaggerated; it was natural, warm, and clearly built on mutual love and respect. I saw how they supported each other, made decisions together, and brought out the best in one another.
From everything I've witnessed over the past several years—through our regular conversations, observing their interactions during gaming sessions, and spending time with them in person—I can say without reservation that Petr and Kate's marriage is absolutely genuine. They share similar values and outlooks on life, they communicate openly with each other, and they've built a real life together as partners.

Petr has always struck me as someone grounded, kind, and loyal. He is the kind of person who takes life seriously but still finds joy and humor in it. He's deeply thoughtful, a steady friend, and someone who enriches the lives of the people around him. To put it simply: Petr is someone I would trust with my life, and someone I'd want by my side in any difficult situation. I have no doubt that he will continue to be a positive and contributing member of any community he calls home.

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Carefully extracting fish from the tentacles of this particular jelly was no easy task, and although Bug had done this for several years now—enough for the motions to become completely baked into his vey muscles—the smell that burned his nose and eyes kept forcing him to pause to take a breath from under his smock. Here, at least, the smell of his own sweat masked out the stench of the duskweed flowers cooking in the sun. It was hot days like these when the plants were the worst. Bug paused, fish still partially encapsulated in the hair-like tentacles, looking out at the shore. There the massive plants shimmered under the yellowy fog of spores produced by the plants. He still couldn’t believe that plants so beautiful had such a potent ability to kill. Well, at least not these fish. Bug turned back to the spiny thing that the jelly had caught. It was one of the bottom feeders, the ones that ate the sunken stalks and leaves of the plants. Somehow, it could survive the toxins in the plant, and was able to live in these treacherous waters. He lifted another layer of tentacles off with his gloved hand, wishing the day would end and he could take his boat back to his shack. At least there he was out of the hot sun, and was not at risk of getting jelly burns all the way up his arms. 
“Hey, if you’re not gonna pull yours, will you help me with mine? This jelly’s not cooperating, and keeps pulling this bluefin away from me.” 
Bug turned to Syth. “I can see my money getting closer and closer! Perhaps you should have tried pulling fish yourself before making a bet.”
“Think of it as my way of repaying you that money you spent to get me my new boat.”
“I keep telling you, I traded for it with some guy who didn’t want it anymore, only wanted to know about the jellies. I didn’t pay him a copper.”
“Yeah, and I keep telling you, nobody trades away a boat as nice as that,” he said, gesturing at his boat, “for some random facts about the jellies. What’d he even ask you anyways?”
Bug got up and walked over to help Syth, talking as he began to work. “He was curious about how they resisted the poison in the fish, which is stupid because we eat the fish and if they were poisonous like the duskweed we’d all be dead. Then he was like, ‘wait, but don’t the fish eat the duskweed?’ and I had to explain how the fish neutralize the toxins by eating the mud at the bottom of the lake, which lets the fish keep on living and breeding. He was completely clueless, had no idea about any of it.
“Honestly, you probably know about it more than most.” Syth sat back, watching Bug carefully pull off pink tendrils from the fish. 
“Yeah, but as you said, who trades a boat for that kind of knowledge?” Bug held up the limp bluefin in his hand for inspection.
“Well, a boat’s a boat, regardless of how you got it, and that’s enough.”
Bug grinned back at him, tossing the fish into the basket beside them. “Not just any old boat though. Cmon, let’s take it for a ride.”

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Fred watched the second-hand tip-toe towards the twelve. Almost… there… almost? It was lallygagging, as though it was intentionally dragging out this minute. This was an unfortunate minute to drag out, as it happened to also be the minute that the radiator turned back on, and drove the already shirt-soaking temperature up yet another notch. Ah, finally. Twelve. Now it was the minute-hand’s turn to take one step forward—did it move? Fred squinted his eyes—it almost looked like it hadn’t even moved this time. Sometimes cheap clocks didn’t move as much on some minutes. Fred’s eyes trailed back to the second-hand. It was approaching the three with that same timid persistence that made him want to punch something. It was taunting him, the entire clock for that matter. Leering over the room, watching its helpless subjects. That’s right, bow before me! You are nothing but slaves to my will. Fred scanned over the other time-slaves in the room. There was Allison, picking her nose. Then Dorsey, who was chewing on some pencil he must have found—you weren’t allowed to bring anything into the room, so it probably came from the floor? And there was Alex, staring right at him, still.

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“No—fuck you!” 
“It’s my ring, Angela! My ring. It cost me twelve hundred dollars, and you don’t get a say in what I do with it.” Tai made another snatch at her clenched fist, held high in the air.
“You promised though, you—you asshole!” Angela could hear her voice crack.
“What promise? We were just friends, Angela! That’s it. Just. friends.”
“But…” Angela could see the city night reflecting off his dark eyes, glowing in stark contrast to the North Pacific behind him. They glowed with that dogged, thoughtful, irrational fire that made him Tai. It was those same glowing eyes she had seen when the two of them had climbed the Dory Moors ferris wheel out on the pier late one summer night and had talked about that feeling that sometimes lurked in the back alleys of their minds—as though something was missing—and it ached. She had doubted him, but he was certain he would find it, and said he would let her know what it was when he figured it out. 
“But what? I left for three years, Angela. We agreed things were over. We said—no—you said, ‘I think it’s best things stop.’ You said, ‘three years is a long time, and I don’t know if I even like you like that, yet.’ Well I knew. I fucking knew. I knew since the day I met you, when you stood there with your shoes off and your stupid, beautiful, stupid grin! I knew where I stood, I knew how I felt, and I knew that I could wait three years, or five years, or ten years, or however long it took. But you didn’t know, and I left, and now I’m back. Now I’m back, and I’ve moved on. I’m getting married, Angela. I love her. And I know, and she knows, and she loves me. And—…”
Angela’s arm fell limp at her side. The ring had left her fingers before she knew what had happened. There hadn’t even been much of a splash as the ring hit the water and sank beneath the waves.
Tai was still—his body fixed. There was no glow in his eyes this time. “That was my ring.”
“I know,” Angela said, turning away. “Now, I know.”

---

Morris surveyed the mantle as he gulped down another mouthful of cold, roast chicken. There was a pretty glass sculpture of deer—Thomas would have snatched that if he was here—and a few picture frames—it looked as if they maybe had a daughter? No wait, not they, maybe just mom? It was hard to see without any of the lights on. Yeah, definitely only mom. Where was dad? Morris felt a ping of guilt—no—no guilt; not for a family that had granite counter tops and a gas fireplace. He scanned the room for more signs of luxury. Stained wood table? Leather couch? Hard wood floors? He didn’t know how much any of it cost, but it looked nice. That made him feel better. 
He reached for another piece of chicken. His mom made chicken like this sometimes, though whoever this woman was did it better—probably because it actually had spices. Morris couldn’t hold back a grimace—he wished he didn’t have thoughts like that. Mom had always tried to give Morris the upbringing that his friends had had. She’d make excuses to her boss and leave work early to spend an hour scouring the racks of Goodwill, looking for something that looked anything like what Morris’ friends were wearing. She never bought anything you could microwave for dinner—“it’s too processed, not good for a growing strong boy like you”—and would instead spend the precious free time she did have before her next shift to make Morris a “proper” dinner. “Proper” dinner was usually a single dish, and sometimes it was roast chicken. Morris sighed. At least his belly was full now. Now—just to grab maybe one more dish for the road, and he’d be out of this family’s home.
“Who are you?”
Morris nearly dropped the empty tupperware, spinning around to see where the sound had come from. Standing atop the stairs behind him, a girl, no more than five, stared back at him. 
“Who are you?” Morris shot back. He didn’t know why he said that—he knew who this girl was—she was from the picture on the mantle.
“I’m Molly.” She paused for a moment. “What are you doing?
“I’m…” Morris trailed off.
Morris was not prepared for this. He thought the house was empty when he had shimmied the window open—there was no car in the driveway, and there wasn’t any garage. What was she doing at home, alone? It was late, her mom should be home now. The girl was still waiting for an answer.
“Where’s your mother?” The words had come out of his mouth before he could stop them. He needed to get out of here.
“She’s at work. And what are you doing?” 
The girl was still just standing at the top of the staircase, looking at him. And why was her mother at work—it was nearly nine pm! 
“I’m eating, I guess.” Morris glanced back at the leftover chicken. “Did your mother make this?”
“Yeah.” The girl still did not stop staring at him.
“It’s… uh… very good.” Morris swallowed. He didn’t know why he was still asking this girl questions. 
“It’s my favorite.”

---

Anna stood stiffly, looking at the wrench in Garett’s outstretched hand. Grease splotched the handle, and Anna could make out the dark fingerprints Garett had left behind. She nodded, and took the wrench.
“Just turn it till it’s pretty tight, but don’t crank it or anything,” Garett said. 
Anna did not feel she was at risk of “cranking it or anything”. She bent over, trying to catch a glimpse of the bolt that Garret was pointed at. The jungle of colorful, hanging wire vines made it difficult to see anything, and the frame of the motorcycle got in the way of her hand.
“Sit down—it’ll be easier to see what you’re doing.” 
Anna looked over the brim of her skirt at the concrete beneath her sandals. Small little shavings of metal dusted the floor, and whatever was on the handle of the wrench seemed to have gotten onto the floor in much larger quantities. 
“Oh, lemme grab a piece of cardboard—sorry ‘bout that.”
Garett jumped to his feet and walked towards the back of the shop, where a few sheets of cardboard left over from cardboard boxes leaned against the wall. Anna watched as Garett pulled a knife from his pocket and sawed it down through the board, freeing a sizable piece from the pile. 
“This should work just fine,” he said, dropping it down at Anna’s feet, then pushing it closer with his boot. 
Anna looked down at the cardboard, and then carefully lowered to a crouch. Teetering slightly, and thinking better of it, she dropped down to her knees—her skirt gently coming to a rest just barely over the edge of the cardboard. She tried to bring her focus back to finding the bolt.

---

“Hey! Are you Gerrard Belothequius?!”
Go away. Cheerful voice: on. “That’s me!” Gerrard eyed the man striding across the airport terminal towards him. He looked like a prick.
“The Gerrard Belothequius?!”
Who the fuck else is named ‘Belothequius’? Sympathy and understanding levels: rapidly declining. “Yeah, that’s me. You want an autograph.” It wasn’t a question. Why wasn’t the man slowing down?
“This is for my sister, asshole. She was only seventeen.” The man lunged.
Gerrard saw the fist as though in slow motion. Tightly clenched, knuckles splotchy white. Kind of like a poppy flower. Fists Like Poppies. That’d be a good title—probably about some poor Persian fellow fighting his way out of the opium trade. A real action-tragedy—he could see himself playing the role nicely. And who the fuck was this guy’s sister? Gerrard saw black.

---

Larson flicked a booger towards the back of Allison’s head. He didn’t think he’d missed, but she didn’t turn around. It must’ve landed in her hair. He suppressed a snicker. God she was stupid—spending all day toiling away at this dumb fucking job. He had given up exactly two and a half days after starting his first day and realizing that literally, nobody cared. At first, he had just stopped referring to the extensive, hundred page manual on refund policy—trusting his gut instead. But after another three days, he had accidentally sent nine hundred dollars to a woman who’s ninety dollar (what the fuck?) cat-toy was broken when she opened the packaging. Larson had tried to get the money back, but after failing to figure out the exact procedure for refunding-refunds for two consecutive days without suffering any consequences, he knew that he was truly on his own. Except for Allison. Allison, who probably knew the entire refund policy manual by heart. Just send them the money and move on! That’s what he’d always told her. It was faster that way—no more emails from indignant pet owners, no thinking on your part, and you could get through about fifty refunds in a morning before lunch, and take the rest of the day off. But she was adamant—she was going places—as she said. That meant no cutting corners. She had to bear an “upright moral character” and “a strong work ethic”. That was fucking stupid. Do the absolute minimum to get by, and spend the rest of the time enjoying life—that was Larson’s motto. He flicked another booger towards Allison’s head.

---

“It looks like… this one’s for you?” Ms. Bluecher’s arm extended out, a small, box wrapped in faded red paper gripped in her hand.
Sarah’s eyes widened. She had never gotten anything on Christmas except for the dry oatmeal cookies that all the girls got from Mrs. Telroy. This couldn’t actually be for her. She tried to make out who it was addressed to, but it was impossible to see from this angle. 
“Take it. It’s yours.” Ms. Bluecher’s clipped impatience cut through her speech, even on days like these.
Sarah reached out, gently pulling it from Ms. Bluecher’s hand. The paper crinkled quietly under her fingertips, sending shivers down her back. Yes, that was definitely her name on the box—written in flowing, beautiful cursive. Sarah slowly walked back towards her bed—savoring the  anticipation from the box wrapped inside her hands. Who could it be? One of her teachers? No—they generally didn’t notice Sarah. Mrs. Bluecher? That was ridiculous. That only left the couples who sometimes came by, contemplating adoption. But Sarah was never really noticed by them either—their gaze would slide over her as though she was another rickety bunk or an old wooden chair, or anything else so entrenched in a state of orphan-ness that it seemed too risky to stare at for fear it wearing off on you. 
In any case, Sarah wanted to see what was inside. She carefully pulled the paper from the box, gently ripping the paper away. Inside was a small white case—nothing more than a narrow box with a lid. Sarah lifted off the lid.
Sarah’s heart fluttered. Inside, a small necklace rested on a bed of cloth. A narrow chain coiled among the wrinkles of the cloth, and met at an azure stone. It was simple, and it was beautiful. And there was a note! 
You stood out to us the moment we walked in the room. We’re still arranging the papers, but thought we’d give this to you now, since we couldn’t get you home before Christmas. Tara thought it would look pretty with your eyes. 
Did this mean she was getting adopted? Sarah had no idea who Tara was, but there had been a lot of couples who passed through in the last few weeks. Had one of them noticed her? Was she going to be free?
“What’s that?”
Sarah spun around, turning to face the voice. It was her friend, Jaime. “It’s a present. For me.”
Jaime stared back, in disbelief. She leaned over and peered at the necklace in the box. “It’s really pretty.” 
Sarah could hear the envy tightly wound around each word. “Thanks, Jaime.”
“Wait, Tara? She gave this to you?” 
“Yeah.” Sarah felt herself turning red. “I think they want to adopt me.”
“No but that’s impossible!” Jaime’s face was plastered with a look of horror and jealousy. “That’s for me! I talked to that couple when they visited. I met Tara!”
“What do you mean, it’s for you?” Sarah glared back. “It said ‘Sarah’ on the front”
“That must’ve been a mixup! I met them, Sarah. We talked for fifteen minutes.” Jaime’s voice caught. “And look! ‘thought it would look pretty with your eyes’! I have blue eyes, Sarah! You’ve got dark, brown ones! See?”
Sarah could feel her chest tightening. This was her present. She was going home. She needed to escape. She needed to go. 
“Sarah, that’s mine!”
But it was too late—Sarah was already jamming the lid on the box. With one last glance back at Jaime’s face, Sarah fled for the door. Jaime wasn’t taking this necklace from her. 

---

Nobody grows up thinking they go into this line of work. Hell—you didn’t even learn about this until Joey came back last July on the hottest day of summer with nine-hundred dollars in cash. “Easy money, D-man,” he had said, falling back onto the couch, before spinning to bring his head up on the arm rest, sneakers on the cushions. “Easy fucking money. You should try—you’d be good at it. You just learn the script, you pick up the phone, and walk ‘em through the whole thing.” 
At first you didn’t want anything to do with it. Ripping money from old grannies didn’t quite feel right. And yeah, maybe you would be good at it—and you were—but that didn’t mean shit. Besides, back then things were fine. Mom had a job. Tess’s arm wasn’t broken. Rory wasn’t here. But then Tess had fucked up her elbow when she rolled the quad, and when the medical bill came back, mom had cried. Mom didn’t usually cry, and that scared you. And that was around when she’d started seeing Rory, and Rory stayed over on the weekends. And at first you hadn’t minded Rory being there—he had helped Mom cover some of the bills, and had kept her even when things got particularly bad late at night when everyone’s just stuck with their own thoughts. But then Rory started digging in his fucking claws.
It was fine at first—Rory telling you to do this or that, or not do this or the other thing, because you could ignore him. But then he kept persisting, and he would yell, he’d get angry, and it was kinda cute the first time, but could he not please just fuck off? You would look over at mom, and she’d just stare back at you, mute. No one seemed to want to interfere with Rory’s fucking wrath. And things had just been bad for a while, but bearable, but then he fucking blew it. He’d walked up to you and said “You’re an embarrassment, Dirk. You’re embarrassing me, you’re embarrassing your mother, and to be frank, you’d probably be embarrassing your dad if he was here. You’re going absolutely nowhere, and if your mother didn’t have such a soft spot for you, I’d have kicked you out of the house the day I moved in.” And that? Well, that made you angry. And you had sat on the couch for the rest of the day, thinking, and then that was when you had decided to call up Joey.

---

Back then, I was convinced things would work out in the end. It was such a logical conclusion from my experiences thus far that I didn’t even question it; it wasn’t an assumption, or belief—just a fact of my existence. Questions like “What are you going to be when you grow up?” and “Where do you want to go to college?” were never an issue. I was willing to believe that they must be important questions—after all, most people asked me at some point—but it always seemed so trivial: I was just going to be happy, do my thing, and live my life. 
However, the way they asked about my future, there was some unspoken assumption of a plan—the plan. At that time, this went right over my head—there weren’t even the seeds of a plan in my thoughts; nothing in my life had led me to believe that I had to think about my future in the slightest. After all, I was totally satisfied with my life thus far, had never made a decision I regretted, and had no idea what life was like outside the bubble of my own meager experiences. So why were these old people asking about my future? Of course things were going to turn out okay! Planning was for unimaginative, unadventurous people who wanted consistency. 
It wasn’t until high school that I encountered the first bit of resistance to my mindset: I didn’t like school. This was a bit of a shock to my system. How could I, master of contentedness and satisfaction, always happy with the situation I was given, totally certain in my own destiny for a life of happiness, be unsatisfied in this new environment? Sometimes, I question the honesty of my positive responses to my mother’s daily question: “How was school?” Part of me thinks that I was lying to myself—I was repulsed by nearly everything about the school I went to other than my interactions with my teachers and a select few of my peers. However, the other part of me wonders if my little internal engine of happiness was still strong, and managed to spend an entire year cranking out positivity at a rate that gave me no choice but to follow along. 

---

JACK, 42 HOURS AGO
The sky seemed to have turned off. It was like when Jack would accidentally change the channel instead of the volume as a kid. Whatever movie he and his brother Emmet were watching would flip to static, and it felt impossible to make work again. The sky was like that—just empty static—no patterns, no horizon, nothing—just a gray plane of oblivion. Even the ground seemed to pull it down—it was as though the desert of snow-dusted tundra around him was beckoning towards the sky above, bringing the bleak, emptiness down, down closer and tighter around Jack’s Subaru. There was nothing but the purr of the engine and the fans on medium, pumping hot air onto the windshield and over the dash. 
The Alaska Denali Highway was exactly 134.8 miles, according to the brochure with included map that Jack had picked up. The brochure also had a picture of a grizzly bear and a towering mountain that was surely Denali. It had not come with instructions for how you were supposed to feel while driving over the potholed, gravel road at no more than 30 miles per hour, but Jack hadn’t expected much from a paper brochure picked up from a dingy tourist stop in the process of collapsing into the ground back near Cantwell. It scared Jack to imagine living into his fifties standing behind a faux-wood counter in a shop that sold stuffed animals and postcards, and he had left the shop quickly. 
Jack examined the patch of gray that he imagined the famously beautiful mountains would have laid behind. They probably would have been pretty. The tundra probably would have been prettier too, under a blue sky.

JACK, 2 YEARS AGO
“You know, Mark Zuckerberg had already started Facebook by this age.” Jack eyed Daisy over the brim of his margarita. 
Daisy popped another garlic-fry into her mouth. She was watching the very attractive bar tender shake some unknown drink. “Yeah, but he’s a lizard. You aren’t a lizard.” She chewed the fry, and her gaze did not stray from the attractive bar tender. Jack set down the glass.
“I could be, you don’t know.” Jack grabbed a fry for himself. “But really—isn’t that perplexing? What am I going to do?”
“What do you mean, ‘what are you going to do?’” Daisy finally dragged her attention away from the attractive bar tender, turning to look at Jack.
“What I mean, is, what am I going to do? I’ve got sixty more years left, and I’ve already used up twenty-five of them.”
“Don’t men only live to, like, 78, on average?” 
“On average. I’m going to live longer.”
“Yeah okay.” Daisy rolled her eyes, and grabbed another fry. 
Jack was still waiting for an answer. 
Daisy sighed. “I don’t know what you’re going to do, Jack. It’s not like you have to do anything. Most people don’t.”
“Yeah, and isn’t that… I don’t know, stupid?” Jack finished lamely. 
“I don’t know, is it?” Daisy shot back. “That seems to suit most people just fine.”
“But then what’s the point!” Jack looked around the room. What were all these people doing here? What was Jack doing here? 
“I don’t know, the point is to have enjoy yourself, do some good, pop out some kids, and die. Is that the answer you’re looking for?”
Jack didn’t say anything.
“‘Cuz it’s pretty stupid,” Daisy went on. “This isn’t some existential, deep question. I think it’s pretty clear what the goal is, and yeah, you haven’t achieved it by creating Facebook, but there are a lot of other ways to enjoy yourself and live a good life.”
Jack closed his eyes, tilting his head back, savoring the colorful lights from the bar ceiling that shined through his eyelids. “So—I’m supposed to do what everyone else is doing? Just like every single person has ever done before me?”
“You can do whatever the hell you want, Jack. And even if it’s the same as what everyone else is doing—which it’s not—there’s literally nothing wrong with that.”
When Jack finally opened his eyes again, Daisy’s attention had returned to the bartender. 

JACK, 40 HOURS AGO
The first flake of snow danced over the windshield, tumbling over the roof of the car and disappearing. That was the first snowflake Jack had seen since going skiing in Keystone two years ago, and it was the only flake of snow Jack saw again for another few seconds, before there was another, with three more chasing on its tail, leaping and swooping, graceful complementing the first. They could have performed for The Nutcracker. 
Jack rolled down the window, and put his arm out into the bitter air rushing by, feeling the icy wind curl between his fingers, relishing the chills that went up his neck. Snowflakes flew into the car, and Jack watched as one landed delicately on his other arm, before quickly melting in the heat of the car. For a brief moment, Jack felt he could see himself, as though hundreds of feet over head, watching his little turquoise sedan wind through the mottled brown and white, a single skinny arm stretching out into the air beyond the confines of the car.
It took two minutes for the intermittent flakes to become a proper flurry. Jack rolled up the window, his hand tingling as it warmed back up, clenched tightly between Jack’s thighs. By the time Jack’s hand had warmed, the flurry was approaching full-frenzy—with thousands of flakes tumbling down, battering about, before rushing over the windshield as Jack drove on. Jack turned on the high-beams, and squinted out the window, and the snow kept coming. The already dark sky was even darker as the snow flew down. Jack eased his foot slightly further down on the accelerator as the car bounced over a quick series of potholes. 
Five minutes later, full-frenzy ticked up one more notch, and Jack found that he was in the heart of a blizzard. 

JACK, 19 DAYS AGO
Conrad’s eyebrows were one of Jack’s favorite things about his brother’s friend. He’d mentioned it before, and they had shot up, just like now. They were a pleasure to watch.
“You’re driving to Alaska? Really dude?” he now asked. 
“Yup. Pass the pepper, wouldya?”
“Wait, you’re actually driving to Alaska?” Emmet, Jack’s brother, now spoke up. “I thought you were joking or something when you texted me this morning.” He grabbed the pepper, passing it across the table to Jack.
“Nope. I wanted to do something new.” Jack shook the pepper over his plate of mushroom pasta. He liked eating dinner with his brother and friend, but sometimes it felt like they weren’t enough.
“Jack.” Emmet spoke up. “There are a lot of new things to do that don’t involve driving three-thousand miles north.” Jack could feel Emmet’s stare drilling a hole into his forehead. He did not look up from shaking the pepper.
“Yeah, but those things might not work.”
“What do you mean, not work?”
“I mean, whatever new thing it is, it has to make me feel alive.” Jack jammed his fork into the pile of pasta on his plate. “My decision, new setting, struggle, variety… significance… you know?” Jack contemplated the strands of spaghetti hanging from his fork. He hadn’t gotten any mushrooms. He could see his brother and Conrad exchange a knowing glance. He ate the spaghetti. 
“Wait, so what are you going to even do there, if you go? Just what, look around? Are you planning to move there?”
Jack waited to finish chewing his pasta. “No.” Jack took a swig of water from his glass.
Emmet and Conrad were both staring back at him. 
“I don’t know what I want to do. I think I’ll figure it out as I get there—it’s a bit of a drive—I’ve got time.”
Conrad was grinning, eyes gleaming. “You’re fucking nuts dude. That’s—that’s fucking nuts.” Jack gave a half smile back.
“You’re an idiot, Jack.” Emmet was not grinning. “This is stupid. You’re going to get bored after the first two days of driving and turn back. And what about your job? You can’t drive and work on your computer at the same time. Is there even internet in Alaska? Or on those roads through Canada?”
“Yes, there’s internet in Alaska—but I’m not brining my work stuff anyways. I’ve saved up my vacation and sick days. I already called in.”
Emmet opened his mouth—then closed it. Then he opened it again. “When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow.” 

JACK, 2 DAYS AGO
It was funny—spring, summer, fall—they all seemed to have some emotion attached to their weather, but with snow, there was this indifference to it. It didn’t matter what was below the snow, all of it was covered in the same, homogenizing blanket of white. Jack surveyed the flickering white beyond the windows of the idling car. He shivered.
He had stopped driving four hours ago, after realizing that he no longer knew where the road was. Progress had slowed quickly when visibility disappeared, and when Jack had nearly gotten stuck in a ditch, he decided it was safer to wait. He knew he must be close to Paxson—probably not more than thirty miles, but it may as well have been a thousand. He wasn’t going to be to make any progress until the snow stopped, and until then, he just had to wait. With no cell-service, Jack didn’t have a lot of options.
At first, he had turned the car off, trying not to think about his dilemma, instead sitting in the silence of the drifting snow, but within an hour he was shivering, and despite putting on several more layers of clothes, he couldn’t feel his toes after another hour in the car. So he had restarted the engine, and turned up the heat. Jack had always thought that if the engine was going, there was basically a limitless amount of heat you could crank out, but even with the fan on maximum, the air felt cooler than before. He also didn’t have limitless fuel—he’d filled the tank when he left Cantwell, and idling didn’t burn that much, but who knew how long he was going to be stuck here. This was not how this adventure was supposed to go.
Jack contemplated what had happened. This was his fault. He should have listened to Emmet. What was he thinking, coming up here. He didn’t want to die in the cold. But—no—Jack had made the judgement two weeks ago that this was the right decision. Had he already changed his mind? Was 2-weeks-ago-Jack stupid? Wrong? 

JACK, 15 DAYS AGO
As Jack drove into the Conoco gas station, Jack again considered turning back. That was what Emmet thought he would do. Not that that should factor into Jack’s decision. He loved Emmet, and Emmet was frequently right about things, and Jack cared about what the best decision was, not the one that proved his stubbornness, andeven though he was already in Montana, turning back in Montana was much better than turning back in Canada. But at the same time, he couldn’t shake the feeling as though something was waiting in Alaska. Some secret, hidden in the open, barren landscape, waiting to be found, only by those willing to search for it. People across cultures around the world sometimes isolated themselves in meditation, only returning after days or weeks, with new revelations and insights on the world. This was his retreat—his retreat for clarity, his retreat for understanding.
Pulling to a stop, Jack hopped out of the car, and walked over to the pump, inserting his card and selecting his gas. He eyed the homeless man wandering between the gas pumps. A brown bag was clenched in his hand, which he then tilted up to his mouth. Jack watched the man’s throat bob twice before the man lowered the bag and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. The man looked up and smiled at Jack, baring several teeth to the world in fierce defiance. Why was this man smiling? Jack turned around, looking for some other source of the man’s smile. It was just him. Jack squeezed the handle, pouring gas into the tank. Maybe the man just liked the liquor in his bag. 

JACK, 1 DAY AGO
HIGHWAY UNOFFICIALLY CLOSED: OCTOBER 1ST–MAY 31ST. Jack saw the bold black text at the bottom of second back-page of the brochure and map. He probably wouldn’t have ever even seen it, but he’d tired of looking out the window, scrolling through old pictures on his phone, and writing and sketching in his journal, and had pulled out the brochure again to distract him from the slowly falling indicator on the gas tank. Idling overnight hadn’t burnt as much fuel as he thought it would, but with nearly half the tank gone, it definitely didn’t look good. He wasn’t surprised to learn the road was supposed to be closed soon—this was probably why. It wasn’t yet October, but this was Alaska. Maybe if it wasn’t closed yet, other people would come by, though. He hadn’t seen anyone on the road while driving out, but that didn’t mean someone wouldn’t show up. He turned over the brochure again and pulled a pen from the dash, and began drawing a mustache on the bear. Maybe this was the world giving him his time for reflection? His time for revelation? 

JACK, 4 HOURS AGO
Jack awoke to dazzling sunlight coming in through the passenger window. Glaring white snow stretched out, as far as Jack could see, disappearing and rising up into a towering range of blue-gray mountains. All was still—Jack could hear absolutely nothing—no birds, no road noise, no wind, no humming refrigerator—it was completely silent. And it was cold. Jack looked over at the gas meter. It rested firmly well below the E. He turned the key. 
With a wheeze, the engine turned over. Jack released the key.
The engine stopped.
Again?
Once more, the engine wheezed, rolling over and over as Jack held the key turned forward. Jack let the key turn back, and the wheezing stopped. The car was well and truly out of gas. 

JACK, 3 HOURS AGO
Jack lay on his side, facing the mountains, arms wrapped around his legs. He could see his breath condense in the air, before drifting away, forming a thin layer of ice on the inside of the windshield. It was incredible how quickly the car had cooled down with the engine dead.
It hurt to move his fingers—they felt creaky, and stiff, as though they might splinter and break if he moved them to quickly. 

JACK, 2 HOURS AGO
This was a strange way to go. There probably weren’t many people who had frozen to death in their own car, let alone after driving thousands of miles on a whim.
Was that how he was going to be remembered?

JACK, 1 HOUR AGO
Why did it matter?

JACK, NOW

---

Rome’s rise to power was marked by its heroic leaders, incredible wars, and disciplined soldiers. But while those attributes may have all directly contributed to Rome’s success, they were not the only factors. Behind the mighty armies of Rome there was a society and government that backed it up, providing people, labor, and social infrastructure. However, we can go even further. While Rome did have all these things, so did every other society around them—the Mediterranean was filled with flourishing peoples. So we take a step further, and we look at what was behind that—religion. Clearly, other states within the Mediterranean had religions, but Rome’s was unique, and it had an incredible effect on the growth of the state. Religion was an omnipresent tool and force within Rome, and played a critical role in Rome’s expansion.
Before diving in, I am going to highlight how fundamental religion was to the Romans. Many of the arguments in this essay rely on the assumption that religion completely saturated society, and the Romans were truly devout. Fortunately, there is ample evidence to support this belief. For example, in Livy 1.45, Livy shares a story of a heifer that was being put to sacrifice. It was one of the largest and most beautiful heifers that people had ever seen, and seers foretold that whichever state sacrificed it would achieve supremacy. When the Sabines, with whom the Romans were at odds with at the time, brought the heifer to the altar at Diana’s temple, the Roman priest recommended that the Sabine to go wash himself before making the sacrifice. Then, when the Sabine left to go wash, the priest took the heifer and performed the sacrifice himself, delighting the Romans (Livy 1.45). 
The priests taking the seers seriously enough to go steal a sacrificial animal from the enemy and then deceive them into letting the Romans sacrifice the animal themselves points to a high level of commitment and faith in the Roman augury. Real consequences, such as retaliation of the Sabines, was at stake, and the Romans risked that to fulfill a prophecy spoken by fellow Romans. We see this sort of behavior again and again throughout Roman history, such as when Gaius Fabius Dorsuo left the safety of the citadel under siege by the Gauls in order to perform his religious duties (Livy 5.46), or when Horatius Cocles threw himself in a river after defending Rome, asking to be saved by the gods (Livy 2.10). Altogether, this indicates a real commitment to their religious doctrine, a commitment that makes all the other things the Romans did for religion and because of religion more plausible. 
Of the many functions of religion in Roman society, its effects on their ability to wage war were some of the most profound. Specifically, religion gave them conviction in declaration and conduction of war, confidence and certainty on the battlefield, and a willingness of soldiers and leaders alike to give their lives up for Rome, compelling them to fight harder and more devotedly.
The first of these positive effects is of psychological nature, whereby both the soldiers, senate, and the common citizens were all fully committed to the wars, and believed they were fighting righteously and towards a future destined to be theirs. One of the best examples of this lies with the duties of the fetial priests. When the Romans felt they had been wronged, first the fetial priests had to perform a ritual: the priests would go to the borders of whichever state they sought restitution with and state their purpose and demands, and then declare Jupiter as their witness, asking the god to prevent the priest from ever returning home if his demands were unjust (Livy 1.32). They then repeated this process upon crossing the border, the first time they met a citizen of the state, and one last time when they entered the markets. When they inevitably made it home, never withheld by Jupiter, the Romans were left assured of the righteousness of their claims, for the gods had not intervened. Then, after thirty-three days and a series of additional rituals and ceremonies granting approval from the gods and the senate for the war, a fetial priest would throw a spear into the enemy’s territory, sanctifying and marking the start of the war (Livy 1.32). In this way, the Romans entered every war with absolute certainty that their motivations and cause were just.
This certainty extended to their beliefs about their future as well. Romans believed that it was their divine calling to conquer their neighbors. Evidence of their certainty can be seen in Livy’s account of the construction for a new temple to Jupiter. On the first day of laying foundation, the augural birds portended that “all things in Rome’s future would be stable and secure” (Livy, 1.55). Then, while later excavating the ground, a human head was discovered, nearly entirely intact. Viewed as a prodigy, the augurs read it as an undeniable sign that “this spot would be the seat of empire and the head of the world.” This belief closely mirrors that of the American “manifest destiny”, which had similar results in inspiring populations to expand in conquer. When a state believes that it is destined to take over the world, it is no surprise when it proceeds to try to do just that. Rome was no different. 
    This attitude of inevitability and godlike power associated with Rome affected non-Romans as well. After Romulus founded the city, there were several years during which Titus Tatius, a Sabine, shared rulership with Romulus. Although the Romans and Sabines had recently been at war, the cooperation of their rulers held them together. However, when Tatius was murdered, the sabines did not revolt and Rome did not fracture. According to Plutarch, the Sabines’ inaction was because they, among other reasons, “regarded him [Romulus] as a benevolent god” and so “all continued to hold him in reverence to the end” (Plut. Rom. 23). While this may not be completely true, it is not entirely unreasonable to believe that a leader who has won every battle they have fought and claims to be associated with the divine would give hesitancy to those who wished him harm. 
Religion also acted as a powerful motivating factor for soldiers at war, encouraging them to put their life in danger for their country. For example, when an army was losing, the consul could perform devotio—a ceremony of self sacrifice by the enemy’s spears. In return, the hope was that the gods wold aid the Romans in winning the battle (Livy 8.9–11). This sort of commitment to win demonstrates the attitude Romans had towards life and their country—it was better to die for your country than to lose. 
We can see other examples of this mindset in some of the speeches the generals gave their soldiers. In 480 BC, in battle against the Etruscans, the former consul Quintus Fabius led a charge against the enemy troops. Soon after engaging, he fell to the enemy’s blades, and the Roman line faltered, beginning to retreat. Seeing this, the current consul, Marcus Fabius, cried out to his men, “Is this what you swore, men—to return to camp in flight? Are you more fearful of this craven enemy than of Jupiter and Mars by who you swore? I did not take the oath, but I shall either return in victory or shall fall fighting here beside you, Quintus Fabius.” Upon hearing this, the Romans halted their retreat, and proceeded to route the Etruscan army. The oath they referred to was an oath that every soldier had taken before battle, promising to return victorious or else incur the wrath of Jupiter, Mars, and the other gods. This fear of the gods and the respect for their oaths ultimately acted as the motivation they needed to return to battle; it was their religious devotion that gave hem the upper hand.
This sort of tactic was used throughout their battles to similar effect. For example, in Livy’s account of the second Punic war, he quotes a line Scipio delivered to his men: 

“On my sacred oath I swear that I myself shall not abandon the republic of the Roman people, nor will I allow any other citizen to do so. If I knowingly break my oath, then, Jupiter Optimus Maximus, visit the most terrible destruction on my home, my family, and my possessions. Lucius Caecilius, I demand that you, and the rest of you here present, take an oath using these words of mine. Anyone not swearing—let him know that this sword is drawn against him!” (Livy, 22.53)

Soldiers under Scipio's command made the promise, and by doing so, are no longer just fighting for themselves, but also for their homes, family, and possessions. By invoking this oath, Scipio used religion to tie the loyalty and commitment of his soldiers to things more important than money—their livelihoods. It was religion that bound these motivating factors together. 
Religion’s effects on Rome’s expanse did not end when the wars were over—they also improved Rome’s ability to maintain peace at home. Through strict doctrines, celebrations, and the appointment of priests for more citizen oriented duties, religion was used to temper and tame the people of Rome. And no one did this more than Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. Numa created numerous traditions that Rome carried with it for the next hundreds of years, many of which contributed to the stability of Rome when not at war. This allowed Rome to continue to expand without falling into civil war.
First, Numa brought legitimacy to government action by instating religious ceremonies, traditions, and priesthoods that marked government actions as divinely approved. For example, upon appointment as king, he made it sanctified by the gods through augury, demanding that his position be “ratified by heaven” (Plut. Num. 7). This cemented his position, giving him—and therefore his decisions—the approval of the gods, and thereby more credibility with Roman citizens. In addition to this, Numa created official sites of augury and priesthood positions throughout the government, which not only tied Roman government to something greater than its mortal components, but also created a host of tools for the control of public opinion. For example, he appointed from the senators a pontiff, who was tasked with looking over all public and private religious matters. All religious advice sought by the plebs was directed to the pontiff, who was also in charge of “[preventing] transgressions of divining ordinances, …rituals concerning the gods, …funerary rites, …placation of the spirits of the dead, …[and determining] what prodigies …should be recognized as significant and attended to” (Livy 1.20). This not only gave the pontiff enormous power, but also allowed for manipulation of the plebs through the biases of those reading the auguries and choosing which prodigies were relevant. With this power, they could start, pause, or end wars with a more cohesive public opinion behind them, as whatever they read through augury was widely accepted. 
Numa also brought about a higher call to law and order by promoting good behavior in the eyes of the gods. What laws were already in place now had an additional weight to them—the weight of divinity. As Livy puts it, Numa instilled a “fear of the gods, an invaluable constraint in the case of an untutored multitude” (Livy 1.19). Bad behavior would not just frowned upon by the state and your peers, but also the gods above. This view is shared by Plutarch, who states,

[Numa created] religious dances…which mingled with their solemnity a diversion full of charm and a beneficent pleasure, that he won the people’s favor and tamed their fierce and warlike tempers. At times, also, by heralding to them vague terrors from the god, strange apparitions of divine beings and threatening voices, he would subdue and humble their minds by means of superstitious fears. (Plutarch, Num. 1.8)

Religion acted as both a mellowing effect, tempering a population that spent nearly every year of its existence up until that point at war, and as a form of societal control, getting people to behave without resorting to law or other external motivators.
One example of this can be found in Camillus’ speech to the tribunes, plebs, and senate following the recapturing of Rome after it was sacked by the Gauls. In it, he says, 

“Did it [the sacking of Rome] not occur only after we had disregarded the voice from heaven warning of the Gauls’ coming? After our envoys violated the law of nations, after we failed to punish them because of this same disregard of religion? The conclusion is inescapable. The penalty we paid to gods and men in suffering defeat, capture, and ransom is so great that we stand today as an object lesson to the entire world.” (Livy, 5.51)

Here, he clearly links disregard for religion with the misfortune of the Romans. Notably, this disregard of religion lines up with other poor behavior—a diplomatic envoy attacking those it sought to peacefully communicate with. In this case, as in many more, Roman religious morality lined up with acting in desirable ways, and due to how strictly religious the Romans were, resulted in Romans more frequently displaying positive behavior.
Religious institutions also brought another, likely unintended, benefit—the diffusion of power and responsibility from leaders to the gods. When life was not well for the average Roman citizen, whether it be a losing war, strife between the classes, or any other large scale hardship, the Roman senate and consuls did not have to shoulder the entire burden.
By blaming the gods, some of the misfortune or injustice of a bad situation could be placed on the gods, decreasing enmity felt by the citizens towards their leaders, and therefore increasing the unity of the Roman people and state. For example, in 249 BC, the consul Publius Claudius Pulcher led a fleet of Roman ships to Drepana and sailed into the mouth of the harbor there. Then, due to some tactical miscalculations, the Carthaginian general Adherbal managed to come behind them, cutting them off and forcing them agains the shoreline. The Carthaginians ended up routing the Romans, with less than forty of the original ninety-three Roman ships escaping (Polyb. 1.51). However, there are two different explanations given for this piece of history. According to Polybius, the Romans lost because of the blunders of Claudius (Polyb. 1.50–51). In other words, it was the leader’s ineptitude that led to their defeat. In contrast, Cicero—a notably religious Roman—recounts a tale of Claudius throwing Rome’s sacred chickens into the ocean because they would not eat, which directly resulted in Rome losing the battle (Cicero 2.7). According to Cicero, Claudius’ disregard for important rituals led to their loss. Cicero's account indicates that the Romans viewed this loss as inevitable, and not due to tactical mishandling by Roman generals. While at first glance, being irresponsible for the results of one’s actions sounds bad, it may have still had a net positive effect, as the loss would not result in as much disapproval of the leaders. To the Romans, it was a sign that the gods did not approve, not that their own personal failings. 
Lastly, religion eased the assimilation of those the Romans had conquered into their culture. As Rome conquered cities and brought their citizens under the umbrella of Roman control, a combination of a strong foundation to their own religion plus an accepting attitude towards other religions allowed them to incorporate other cultures into their own with less risk of social turmoil.
This incorporation of new gods and culture is seen consistently throughout Roman history, though the best example is one of the first, when Marcus Furius Camillus was about to take Veii in 396 BC. Before entering the city, he made the following prayer:

“Under your guidance, Pythian Apollo, and quickened by your divine power, I go now to destroy the city of Veii, and I vow a tenth of the booty to you. And at the same time I beseech you, Queen Juno, who are for the present patron divinity of Veii, to follow us in victory to Rome, now our home and soon to be yours, where a temple worthy of your majesty will await to receive you.” (Livy, 5.21)

Camillus then proceeded to sack the city and carry the statue of Juno back to Rome, where it was placed in a temple. This was the first obvious instance where Romans had adopted another culture’s religious icons as their own, but it was not the last, such as when the Romans added Aius Locutious—the ‘speaking god’—after a pleb reported that a voice had warned him of the Gallic War (Livy, 5.32; 50), or when consultations of the Sibylline Books ordered the additions of Aesculapius and several other gods and goddesses from the eastern Mediterranean (Livy, 10.47). Altogether, these reveal a multiculturalism and willingness for religious growth that likely served Rome well as it grew, creating a more familiar religious environment for those who were conquered by the romans.
Rome’s foreign religious policy is also seen in Cicero’s On the Laws. He says, “Let no one have gods of their own, neither new ones nor from abroad, unless introduced to Rome publicly; let their private worship be for those gods whose worship they have duly received from their fathers” (Cicero, On the Laws 2.19). From this, it is clear that Rome is both open to accepting new religions, but also requires homogeneity and conformity—only the gods approved of by the state may be worshipped. This unification of religious views likely brought people closer together, reducing fragmentation within society, a critical factor in a state that grew so much so quickly.
Roman Religion’s ability to motivate, persuade, control, change the attitudes of, and unite the people of Rome was fundamental to Rome’s growth. It was one of the many keys to Rome’s success as a nation. However, more remains to be investigated, and new questions arise. For example, why did Roman religion evolve into what it was, and why didn’t the religions of Rome’s neighbors evolve similarly? It may also have been fruitful to look closer at other sources to get a better idea of what life as a citizen within Rome was like, and how religion affect one’s day-to-day behavior. In any case, it is clear that while religion may have had a profound effect on Rome, there is still much more to explore.

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If there’s ever been a time to be thinking about your past, it is now. You are probably reminiscing over the last 4 years—1,383 days if I’m to be trusted with a calculator—and are likely feeling a little sad. No one goes to college twice, and many of the experiences from the last 4 years will be unique in your life. Yes, you may still one day meet new people you can call friends, and yes, you may still one day work until 3 AM sustained on nothing but coffee and chicken tenders, but the special combination of people and goals and circumstances that make Carleton Carleton—that is now forever behind you. 
But you are also thinking of the future. And what a future at that. Now, this could be the point in my speech where I expound your great achievements, laud your heroic struggles, and point to a bright future ahead. I could tell you that you would all become decorated doctors, famous philosophers, and and stupendous scientists. I might have said that the future holds great, great successes for all of you. But I didn’t say that, and I won’t, and I’ll tell you why. Because those words, they would be hollow words, coming from someone who hasn’t been to the future yet, and can’t report back. So I’m not going to make claims I can’t back up. In fact, there are good reasons that the future might not hold such greatness. The odds are against you—2020 may turn out to be even harder than comps. So what does that leave me to say? Well, more than you may think.
Because Carleton, Carleton has given you far more than you may realize. While the focus now may seem to be on what skills you can claim on your resume, or how many internships you completed last summer, these are not the best things that Carleton has given you. Alongside a deep and broad academic education that will serve you well into the future, Carleton has nurtured an expansive curiosity in the world, and a profound passion for learning. You have learned to become happier, more resilient, better people. While others may claim to have the best skills prepared for the job, I daresay that you all are some of the best prepared to acquire the skills for the job—and any job at that. This is what I believe differentiates you. This is what makes you ready to achieve your goals, ready to take on the world, ready to move on to the mystically foretold “future”.
But as everyone you know seems to question what the years ahead hold, and you wonder to yourself, will I achieve success, I urge you to pause, and consider your dreams, to contemplate this idea of “success”. Success is not a place you reach, or a mental state you achieve. It is not some fantastical point between the ages of 25 and 40 where you’ve finally done it, you’ve finally achieved that goal. No—it is a staircase that you will keep climbing forever—you cannot focus only on reaching a certain stair, but instead on the happiness you get from climbing at all. Your success will be something that you will define for yourself—your success is what you make of it, not what it is made of. The future, success—these are things you can never reach. So while you feel nostalgic for the past, and eagerly await the future, I hope you won’t forget about now.

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Modeling Assignment 1
Silas Rhyneer
When purchasing food with friends, the problem arises of who pays for the meal. While there are many potential games that can arise in this situation, I’m going to focus on the case where the food has already been purchased and paid for, and no previous discussion has taken place about whether those eating the food will pay back the costs of whatever they eat. For example, if my friend orders pizza and has it delivered, if I’m around, chances are that I will want some. This becomes an economic game, where I try to get pizza from my friend.
Here I will define the different components of this game with economic terms. In the simplest form of this game, the players are me and my friend. There could potentially be multiple people who ordered pizza, and multiple people who didn’t order but wanted some, but I’m going to ignore that case for now. The set of actions available to those who ordered pizza is {offering free pizza, offering pizza with a price, offering pizza without specifying a price, not offering pizza}, and if they ever give someone pizza and have not yet been paid, they may choose the additional actions {ask for reimbursement, not ask for reimbursement}. The set of actions available to those who want pizza but don’t have any is {ask for pizza, ask for pizza and offer money, don’t ask for pizza}, and upon receiving pizza, they may choose the additional actions {offer reimbursement, say nothing}. Either player may also choose to accept or reject the offers from each other.
The possible outcomes between me and my friend with pizza are easy to determine: {He eats all the pizza and I pay nothing, I eat some of the pizza and I pay some amount of money, I eat some of the pizza and I pay no money}. Each of these outcomes can also vary on whether I offered to pay, whether my friend asked for me to pay, and how much I pay. 
Payoffs are a little trickier to determine, because the they rely on whether this game is one and done, or will be played repeatedly. If the players are going to interact with each other again, or have some investment in their relationship, their payoffs will likely be different than those from two people who don’t know each other at all. I’m going to pretend the situation takes place between me and my friend, since that is the most prevalent one from my own past. There are enough different outcomes that listing each payoff individually would be too difficult, so I will instead list the things that provide positive utility to me, and then the things that provide positive utility for my friend. For me: {Offering to pay and them rejecting my offer, paying lower prices rather than higher prices, getting pizza, not insulting my friend}. For my friend (and depending on the friend): {getting paid more rather than less, not sharing pizza, not insulting my me}.
This game is sequential, and since it can be played with the same person many times with the results of one game affecting the following games, what I have outlined as one game could probably be expanded to include a life time of encounters between me and my friend with pizza. Also, since both people see the decisions the other is making, both players have perfect information. Both players generally know the goals of each player, and generally know the rules, so I would also classify this game as one where players have complete information as well.
From my experience, this game generally results pizza offered and no money exchanged. However, I believe this is generally due to the high utility granted from not insulting your friend by charging your them money for pizza, and I believe the results would change considerably when played between strangers, or with a different type of food.

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Among the varieties of robbery, the classic, armed, bank robbery involving the robber walking into a bank with a gun, and either explicitly or implicitly threatening to shoot the bank teller if they do not hand over money is an example of a game where a non-credible threat will frequently induce the “threatened” player to chicken out. In this case, it is the bank teller, who hands over the cash despite the fact that the robber probably really does not want to shoot anyone. This game can be modeled as such.
Let P1 be the teller, and P2 be the robber. In this sequential game, P1 must choose between action G, giving the money, or action R, refusing to hand over the money. P2 only has a decision if P1 chooses R; P2 can either shoot P1 (action S), or not (N). Although not exact, payoffs can be estimated by assuming the following criteria: a) both players would rather live than die, b) P1 does not want to give any money, and c) P2 really wants money, and d) P2 would rather not have money and not shoot someone than not have money and have also shot someone. The following is one possible set of payoffs given our criteria: g = (-3,10), rs = (-10, -5), rn = (0, 0). Here, it is clear that outcome rn is preferable to rs by both parties, and so it would seem that P1 would have strategy r, with the intention to get to rn. However, P2 has made the non-credible threat that they are playing strategy s. Although rs is not in the best interest of P2, the threat of it is enough to convince P1 to choose g. Thus, we still see armed robberies end with tellers giving over the money at gunpoint.

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In Plato’s Apology of Socrates, Socrates must defend himself from accusations of corrupting the youth, not believing in the gods of Athens, and of making the weaker speech the stronger. As he defends himself, and then again in Plato’s Crito, Socrates champions the importance of truth and justice. However, his defense speech is littered with contradictions, and his words and actions are at odds with the very things he says he values. This entangles our understanding of Socrates, leading to multiple unsatisfactory explanations of his attitude towards truth and justice. 
This theater of contradictions begins in Socrates’ opening lines of Plato’s Apology of Socrates. In 17b, Socrates says, “They are not ashamed that they will immediately be refuted by me, in deed, as soon as it becomes apparent that I am not a clever speaker at all…” Although Socrates has not contradicted himself yet, this is perhaps the most blatantly false line of his entire speech. In the rest of his defense, as I will get into later, he talks circles around he accusers, baits them into modifying their accusations to make them easier to refute, and avoids answering to his true accusations. In other words, he is about to speak very, very cleverly. Even more ironically, he follows this up with a plea that the audience interprets his words as just and as the truth, above all else. In 17c, directly after comparing his opponents’ speeches as beautiful masterpieces, he explains that his words “will be spoken at random in the words that I happen upon—for I trust that things I say are just—and let none of you expect otherwise.” He then finishes his introductory lines, saying that his job, as the orator, “is to speak the truth” (18a). For someone who values truth, simple speech, and justice, his words and actions in the rest of his defense make little sense at all.
The meat of Socrates’ speech consists of him denying his accusations. These accusations are of, as Meletus put it, “investigating the things under the earth and the heavenly things, and by making the weaker speech the stronger, and by teaching others these same things” (17b). In response to this, Socrates proceeds to dance around the accusation, counter attack Meletus with logically fallacious arguments, and perform in very clever, dishonest, and unjust ways. 
First, he undermines the accusation, saying that it was brought up because his accusers are only angry at him for pointing out their lack of wisdom. In Socrates’ words, “so in order to not to seem to be at a loss, they say the things that are ready at hand against all who philosophize: ‘the things aloft and under the earth’ and ‘not believing in gods’ and ‘making the weaker speech the stronger’” (23d). While this does reflect poorly on his accusers, even if Socrates is right, he goes too far when he concludes that “I incur hatred by theses very things; which is also a proof that I speak the truth” (24a). Being hated for what he says in no way supports the argument that what he says is true; Socrates is saying something inflammatory, which is the primary reason he incurs hatred. This sort of leap in logic becomes a trend for the rest of Socrates’ defense.
Second, rather than defend against the accusation that he corrupts the youth, Socrates counter attacks and falsely conjectures that Meletus does not care for children. In 24d, Socrates says, “Come now, tell these men, who makes them better? For it is clear that you know, since you care, at least… But the one who makes them better—come, tell them and reveal to them who it is.” Accusing someone of corrupting something does not inherently mean the accuser claims  knowledge about what makes that same thing better, and it is unfair of Socrates to pretend that it does. For example, I know that burning my coat definitely makes my coat worse, but I know nothing about the fabrication of coats. If someone was burning coats, and I accused them of such, and said it was bad for the coats, whether I know how to make a coat or not is irrelevant to my claim that they are burning the coats and worsening them. However, this is what Socrates does. Ironically, he is trying to make the weaker speech stronger, the very thing he was accused of.
Socrates then makes a shaky comparison between humans and horses, arguing that just as all but the horse trainer corrupt horses, the same holds for people—all but a few make the youth worse. This refutes the claim Socrates baited Meletus into stating earlier, that “[Socrates] alone corrupts them” (25a), since, should the analogy hold true, Socrates could not be the only one who corrupts them. However, it does nothing to refute the more generalized claim that Socrates corrupts the youth. Socrates has made no point at all about whether he corrupts youth or not, only that it does not make sense that he alone could be corrupting the youth. Regardless if alone or among others, at no point does Socrates demonstrably show that he isn’t corrupting the youth. Socrates is making Meletus look like a fool without ever proving him wrong.
Socrates then takes his fallacious reasoning a step further, and claims that Meletus “never yet gave any thought to the young. And you are making your own lack of care plainly apparent, since you have cared nothing about the things for which you bring me in here.” (25c). None of previous discussion between Meletus and Socrates indicated that Meletus did not care for the youth—instead, Socrates equated a rhetorical victory over Meletus to proof that his opponent did not care about the subject matter of their argument. 
As the final point Socrates makes in denying his hand in corrupting the youth, Socrates once again makes a logical fallacy. He states, 
“Are you so much wiser at your age than I at mine, that you have become cognizant that the bad always do something bad to those who are closest to them, and the good do something good; whereas I have come into so much ignorance that I am not even cognizant that if I ever do something wretched to any of my associates, I will risk getting back something bad from him? …But either I do not corrupt, or if I do corrupt, I do it involuntarily, so in both cases what you say is false.” (Apology, 25d)
First, the bad do not always “do something bad to those who are closest to them” and nor do the good necessarily “do something good”. Second, doing “something wretched to any of [one’s] associates” does not preclude “getting back something bad”; if one’s associates do not realize that they have been treated badly—as is generally the case with corruption—they will have no reason to do something bad back. Therefore, we cannot conclude that Socrates does not corrupt, involuntarily or otherwise. 
In addressing the accusation in not believing in the gods of Athens, Socrates follows a similar pattern to the first—beginning with baiting Meletus into overreaching his claim by getting Meletus to say that “[Socrates] does not believe in gods at all” (Apology, 26c), and then making a series of logically questionable arguments eventually “proving” that Socrates really does believe in the divine—which ultimately does not disprove the original accusation, that “Socrates does injustice…by not believing in the gods of the city, but in other daimonia that are novel” (24b). Rather than examine the individual arguments Socrates makes there, however, I would like to look at the larger question that arises: why does Socrates do this? Specifically, why does Socrates stress how important truth and justice are to him, and then proceed to ignore those values time and time again while defending himself from the accusations leveled against him?
In order to understand this contradiction, a few possibilities must be considered. The first possibility is that Socrates’ means what he says about valuing truth. Although he doesn’t act on his principles, it is possible that the greater justice in Socrates’ eyes was getting freed, and performing injustices to reach that end were justified in his eyes; he was trying to trick his judges in order to get what he believed was ultimately a just outcome—a dropped case and free meals. However, this view does not stand up to much scrutiny. For example, later in Plato’s Apology, Socrates insults the judges, speaks condescendingly to them, refuses to beg, and ultimately doesn’t seem surprised when he receives his guilty sentence, saying, “it was not unexpected by me” (36a). Altogether, Socrates does not seem bent on trying to escape the city’s punishment, indicating that he is not actually trying to pursue this greater justice. Furthermore, when given the chance to escape in Crito, Socrates turns the offer down, citing that living corruptly is worse than not living at all (Crito, 27e). If he truly believed that the injustice he suffered was the most important thing to be justified, then he would have escaped and committed just one more lesser injustice. Therefore, this argument can be thrown out.
The second possibility is that Socrates’ actions mean more than his words, and he does not actually value being just and virtuous above all else. This solves a lot of the inconsistencies in Socrates’ actions, but it jars with our fundamental understanding of Plato’s Socrates, who so frequently prescribes living virtuously in his dialogues. Likewise, it is at odds with his behavior in Crito, where Socrates refuses to escape because he believed it would be “unjust”, suggesting that Socrates really does have some value for justice. It also raises the question, “what was the point to all the deception?” This explanation makes little sense as well.
Lastly, there is the possibility that Socrates does not believe that the speech he gave was unjust, and at least in his own head, there are no inconsistencies between his words and actions. While this is the conclusion that is the least opposed by the texts, it is the one that I find the most repulsive. Intentionally conflating facts, sidestepping accusations, and intentionally making logically erroneous arguments strikes me as the very behavior that would make me want to agree with Socrates’ accusers. It isn’t “just”—making what’s false sound true—and it’s exactly what his accusers detest when they accuse him of making “the weaker speech stronger”. I find that Socrates lacking an awareness of his own acts of injustice is scarcely believable, but if he didn’t believe that his actions were unjust, then everything he says and does throughout the two texts is at least somewhat cohesive. However, should this not be the case, it deeply complicates our understanding of Socrates, and should be noted when further discussing his stance on truth justice.
