Hello friends, today’s episode is with Vikhyat Challa. Vik is currently living in London after multiple different places, like Kuwait, and the Philippines, where we attended the same elementary school. Going into this podcast, I hadn’t spoken to Vik in ages, years probably. However, I wanted to reach out and see where a combination of spontaneity and temporal distance could take a conversation to. Today’s episode with Vik was Chill, full of positivity, and I enjoyed every minute of it. We discuss topics like culture shock, societal differences in the U.K and the Philippines, substance use, finding the right people, and photography to name a few. I highly encourage all of you to reach out to a friend who you haven’t spoken to in years. Not only will you find gems in conversations, but you’ll also realize how different other people’s lives are from your own tight knit circle. Without further ado, please enjoy! Peace and love.

Salutations everyone, I hope you’re having a beautiful morning, night, whenever you’re listening to this short episode. Our guest today is my friend Gus Garcia. I thought it would be interesting interviewing him as an ode to adolescence. Gus and I were tight in middle school but drifted a bit during high school and I wanted to kill two birds with one stone, catching up while giving both of us a platform to talk. Ostensibly, he’s a well put together guy. I’ve always seen him as a sort of cool kid, while I found myself a bit nerdier and less charismatic, which I think gives some funny perspective to this conversation. Gus is an athlete, playing a lot of the same sports I’ve played in the past, and in this episode we make connections between our athletic and personal lives. In this episode we both found a lot of things in common, everything from how we plan to pursue the same course in Uni, to the value we place on understanding others, the different escape mechanisms we have, Gus’s understanding of trauma, introspection, fashion/self expression, how money can buy happiness, and much more!

As I endeavor to capture more conversations, please rate this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or whatever platform you’re listening to. It makes me happy and gives this podcast to a wider audience. Anyways, without further ado, please enjoy the show!

• 02:13 - Introduction and Current Life Situations
• 05:11 - Choosing a Career in Physiotherapy
• 09:13 - How our personalities find joy in helping others
• 15:20 - How we escape from life
• 20:25 - Reflecting on adolescence and making sense of “drifting apart”
• 27:36 - How early childhood experiences shape our values, a Golf Analogy, and trauma
• 32:40 - Relating this to our love life
• 37:18 - Seeing the “best” in people and why people aren’t evil
• 44:12 - Gus’s philosophy on fashion and self-expression
• 59:10 - How money can make you happy and being comfortable with spending it
• 1:04:27 - Keep it in the Fairway

Hello lady and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of ABAO podcast! Our guest today is my dear friend Minwoo. I became friends with Minwoo about 2 years ago at a friend’s debut. Making his acquaintance, I found he was honest, frank, and spoke his mind. He was a funny guy. Minwoo however was not who I initially had in mind for a podcast guest, even to me he was shy and mostly reserved. His jokes were unique but could come off as distasteful if you didn’t know him. Minwoo was known as the guy in school who would be caught sleeping on camera– indeed, I have several pictures of our group in Geography class posing next to a slumbering Minwoo. However, in this episode, I’m happy to see Minwoo come out of his shell a little. Minwoo is an aspiring owner of an ice cream creamery. We talk about food as a hobby, and he goes on this crazy theory about why vegetables in the wild aren’t meant to be eaten. We talk about a BIG elephant in the room, brain rot with the onset of tik tok, youtube shorts, the dangers coming from the accessibility of internet p*rnography. And lastly we talk about his reasoning for sleeping late nights, and the incredibly self destructive way he programmed his brain to take tests in school. He’s an incredibly intelligent guy, and it takes a certain aptitude to appreciate his humor and who he is. Suffice to say, this episode will not disappoint you, and once again, I think it’s incredible that Minwoo went out of his comfort zone and talked on this podcast!

Hello friends, welcome to the first episode of ABAO podcast. Our first guest today is Jennifer Lee. Jennifer is a friend, fellow nerd, and someone who I admire greatly. She was the Salutatorian of our graduating class of 2024, and my rival candidate for student council just this year. In school we rarely had time to talk, but when we did it was as though I had someone who understood the pressure and expectation I needlessly put upon myself. Dare I say, a fellow high achiever. Some examples of what we talk about in this episode are: The moral dilemmas medical school students are about to face, the ‘concrete utopia’ as Jennifer puts it, of Korea, the pitfalls of korean society, how anxiety and self care conflict, the appeal of paperback books, our favorite documentaries, and much more. Join us on the first episode, the first step of this podcast’s journey!

01:12 Introduction and Jennifer’s Summer Vacation in Korea

08:15 Pursuing Medicine and applying to Medical Schools

14:33 The Moral dilemma of medicine18:30 Sleep and time management

25:53 Reflections on Korean Society and Work Culture

33:20 The Cultural Pressure to Succeed

37:41 Our Parent’s generation versus us

41:43 How politics creates obsessive societies

45:18 Random school life

53:13 Prioritizing self care over anxiety

57:10 The joys of reading and the majesty of physical books

1:01:26 Dystopian novels and a greek mystery novel

1:11:13 The fascination of dating shows, documentaries, and medical horrors

1:25:06 What’s your favorite highschool memory?

Intro and outro song: UFO - Lipstick Traces - Fingerstyle Cover by Phil Jakes