Royal bloodlines

laelene Post in stories,Tags: , , ,
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Before I forget, I want to write this down…

When I was young, my mom mentioned to me in passing that I could have been a princess/lady (??). Somehow that became a little joke I would tell occasionally, saying that I’m 2% princess. I also knew that I had Manchurian heritage from my mother’s side.

This week when my professor said I looked Han Chinese, I wasn’t so sure so I called up my mom to check. She confirmed my memory that our family had a lot of Manchu from her side (my grandma being full Manchu and my grandpa being half). Since bloodlines go through the men, we were technically considered Han because my grandpa’s dad was the Han in the family.

I also clarified the whole royalty situation (as best I could) and learned that my maternal grandmother’s paternal grandfather was the last generation that was supported by the emperor. What does that mean? Basically, he was closely related enough to the emperor that he was taken care of by the ruler. This was for a Manchurian dynasty called Huang zhu, if I heard correctly. So if they had hung in there another 100 years, I could be living a cush life right now. Per my calculations, that makes me up to 6.25% royal. 😛

Now imagine my amusement when one of my friends recently likened me to Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time… I know nothing about the show or about her, but I’m happy to embrace the title! 😉

Website down

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Yesterday I went to check on my site here to find it was disabled. Cue minor freak out.

I logged in to JustHost, my provider, and found that the issue is I have too many files. Apparently there’s a 200,000 limit for my type of account. About 150,000 of them were sitting in my various email accounts. I figured it’d be simple enough to delete all those messages since I have them forwarded to another email client anyway.

Well, I should have known that things wouldn’t be so straightforward. It took me forever to get around to figuring out that I wasn’t logging in to the correct email account. Yet even when I managed to delete all those messages, my file count did not change. Seems like there’s quite a lag in when that number gets updated.

My site got restored just minutes ago, so if you tried to visit before and got an error, you know why. I need to keep track of this situation for the future so I don’t have downtime again! Because of this debacle, I haven’t been able to get in to edit posts, but hopefully I’ll have a spring break update soon. 🙂

Israel preview

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Spring break has been incredible. We’re exploring Israel and have done things ranging from the Dead Sea to Yad Vashem (the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem) to an Israeli Air Force base.

Today we hiked Masada, rode camels, visited SodaStream, and have settled into a quaint resort. Here’s a quick look at my fav photos that a friend took. More to come later!!

I look like I’m saying something important right? 😉
Photo cred: “My Front Half”

Oh you know, just floating in the Dead Sea and admiring my muddy hands.
Photo cred: “My Front Half”

Prospurly December 2016 review

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I can’t believe I’m a quarter behind already… next weekend kicks off our spring break! And here I am trying to close out the year’s reviews still. Let’s get to it!

Prospurly is just under $45 per box (with code for 10% off your subscription – use my referral links from this post) and comes with artisan foods, bath & body items, home products, and other sustainably crafted items. Boxes are sent monthly with no option to skip. They offer a referral program that earns you free boxes.

prospurly december 2016 box open with products showingprospurly december 2016 info card with product details

 

Nature’s Skin Nutrition ancient bath milk in Vanilla Noel – Ah, the sweet vanilla scent (with a hint of something medicinal perhaps?). This smells fabulous and I could absolutely bathe in it every day. I don’t like using the bath at my apartment, so this will have to wait until I move back to my own place.

Dr. Jacobs Naturals castile soap in peppermint and almond honey – Castile soap is so versatile! You can use these for cleaning your body, face, hair, or even clothes. I love how this soap is gentle enough for all uses and won’t strip skin of its natural oils.

The Brothers Apothecary Ancient Mulling Spices – Ooo this is the ideal winter drink. I need to get myself some cider and brew this next time I want something a bit more sweet or fragrant than tea.

Foxes & Ferns lavender room & body spray – Now I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a room AND body spray in one before. Since this works as a toner, that’s the use I’d prefer to keep it for. I have plenty of other sprays and oils for the room, but I’m a sucker for toner.

Menagerie Tea & Earth cleanser – Ok, I was about to say this reminds me of the face wash I’m using right now… so I went to compare them and it turns out it’s the same thing! The formulas may be slightly different but it’s essentially the very face wash I got back in March 2016. I enjoy the scent and the soothing feeling of this cleanser. I do wish it was a little less runny and lathered up more though. This little bottle will be great for me to use in my travel bag.

Be ME Solutions Guardian Immunity oil – Behind that brown wrapper is the true label for this bottle. The outside wrap contains instructions on how to use this oil to prevent illness or help with healing. The consistency is a bit gooier than I expected and there’s a nice minty scent. It’s not too cooling, which I like since I’m very sensitive to that. I’m surprised it said to rub some on your feet too – is that a way to help with illness? And could it really be so powerful as to prevent me from getting sick? It’s the perfect time for me to try since I’ve been feeling juuust short of under the weather recently.

Dr. Jacobs Naturals Citrus Crush Cocktail loofah exfoliating castile soap – I love the delightful scent of this soap! It’s the perfect one to use in the shower to make me feel revitalized and fresh. I don’t really see where the loofah is though – I’m guessing they mean the small bits in the soap that help exfoliate? I was hoping to find a loofah in the middle of the soap, like some I made recently for my roommates!

I am going to enjoy every single item in this box. It’s full of all the kinds of things I enjoy trying! What do you think of this month’s box?

[This post contains affiliate links. Signing up through them helps support my subscription and I’d be ever so grateful. 🙂 All opinions are my own and I received no compensation for this review. I just purchased this box and wanted to share what I got!]

Julep Coveted

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The #Coveted collection is a delightful box of a dozen of 2015’s favorite polish colors.

Julep ranges from just under $25 to $40 per box based on tier (or as discounted as just under $20 to $35 per box when prepaid three at a time) and comes with combinations of nail polish colors, skincare products, and beauty products (depending on your style profile choice). They offer plenty of upgrade and add-on options too. Boxes are sent monthly unless you choose to skip. You also have the option of gifting your box to a friend. They offer a referral program that earns you $15 store credit per referral.

julep coveted collection mini nail polishes box julep coveted collection mini nail polishes julep coveted collection mini nail polishes box left half of box julep coveted collection mini nail polishes box right half of box

[This post contains affiliate links. Signing up through them helps support my subscription and I’d be ever so grateful. ? All opinions are my own and I received no compensation for this review.]

 

The nights are the hardest

laelene Post in mba, relationships,Tags: , , , , ,
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It is a hormonal thing that at night I feel more emotional?

This has been going on for about two weeks now. Late at night, as I’m winding down for bed, I find myself feeling melancholic. It’s something that suddenly hits me and makes me cry (or just want to). It’s not that I’m going through a particularly tough time or feeling depressed these days. In fact, I’m very satisfied with where I’m at in life.

But right before I get to bed and before I can fall asleep, sadness hits. Out of nowhere, I miss Panda. It got so bad a few days ago that I basically had to coerce him into flying out to visit me this weekend (yay!). I don’t know why this happens because I’m perfectly fine and happy in the day. I really don’t think about it at all. What is it about the late night that is bringing this out? Am I suppressing something without realizing it?

We are about 8 months in to the third time that we’ve done a long distance relationship. It’s the first time since we got engaged and married. I live with two delightful ladies in my MBA class who I love to pieces. I’ve been doing pretty well in classes, though it feels like a struggle much of the time. Still, I’m very fortunate that I was able to get my recruiting done early so I haven’t had to balance interviewing with coursework. Instead, I’ve been able to focus energy into planning Admit Weekend, which is fast approaching (in early April)!

All in all, things are going well.

So I wonder, maybe it’s because I’ve been very introspective lately? Right now, we are in the midst of electing our student leadership for the next year. I have been struggling with how I want to be involved and how much energy I will be able to dedicate over the next year to new roles. Tooooons of thinking, questioning, and re-thinking there. Also, I am in the Marshall LEAD Fellows Program and we had our first session early this month. Another chance for introspection and reflection. Plus, they gave us Passion Planners and essentialism (a book), both of which I’ve started to use and have challenged me to think hard on my life goals.

I must say, I found it easier to outline what I want long-term. I’m having trouble pondering the next couple of months. Could all this intense thinking and soul-searching be triggering my midnight moods? Whatever the case, I’m glad that I get my husband back ever so briefly this weekend. Maybe that will be the cure (or maybe it’ll be finally settling the roles I may take on).

Oh yeah, and I completely forgot — Happy Valentine’s Day! <3

Offers season

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We’ve been back for a little under a month now and the school is abuzz with activity! I feel like every day there are multitudes of interviews being held in the career center and every week people are flying all across the country for interviews on site. It’s great to see the hard work of my classmates paying off – I’ve heard from people who have gotten offers from Deloitte, EY, BCG, Johnson & Johnson, Amazon, and more.

For the most part it seems that consulting, finance, and marketing internships are all interviewing and extending offers right now. Some folks have interviewed at Nestle, Amgen, and will go off to Adobe… I know there will be many more waves of offers as tech, entertainment, and others follow suit in the coming weeks and months. I’m so proud of the class I’m part of and all the amazing things they’re doing. It’s fascinating to me to see where everyone’s landing and I’m keeping track as I hear so I have a sense of our employment across the board.

I’m so glad that I did all my recruiting super early and was done interviewing in October. I can’t imagine how life has been for all my other classmates, who have had to work in high gear all this time. Meanwhile, I’ve kicked back and had time to focus on running the MBA Ambassadors program with my co-director. That’s something I really care about and enjoy doing, since it is affecting the future class(es) that we’ll enroll at Marshall.

I wonder if this flurry of activity will dwindle or if it will stay like this through February and March. Pretty soon I will no longer be the minority and those with offers will outpace those without! This creates great stories that we can tell the prospective students who reach out to us, so this is a stage of our development that I am really enjoying. Before we know it, we’ll have our own incoming class of first years to mentor and guide through the process. 🙂

Prospurly November 2016 review

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Where does the time go?? I feel like there is so much to do and not enough time to do it all. We’re already about to start our fourth week of classes, which feels so far into the program (yet also so far from the end of the semester). If I want to get caught up with these reviews, I’m going to have to post more frequently!

Prospurly is just under $45 per box (with code for 10% off your subscription – use my referral links from this post) and comes with artisan foods, bath & body items, home products, and other sustainably crafted items. Boxes are sent monthly with no option to skip. They offer a referral program that earns you free boxes.

prospurly november 2016 box open with products showing prospurly november 2016 info card with product details

Prospurly greeting cards – These are nice little thank you cards that can be used when gifting something to someone. Since they didn’t come in envelopes, I’d tape/tie them to a present and use them that way, rather than on their per se (unless it’s a small thank you meant for a professor or something like that). I appreciate that they are printed on recycled card stock.

St. Fiacre’s Farm Coastal Cranberry Spice tea – Now this smells like a great tea, but I need to be careful with the cranberry because it is quite strong. I have liked pairing this with a plain green/black/oolong tea so there’s a stronger base, otherwise it can be quite tart. I wish the spice part came out heavier in the flavor – it smells great but doesn’t contribute to taste as much.

Oak Street Soap White Tea & Ginger bubble bar – Oh my, .how I love the smell of this! It’s so very refreshing and clean-smelling. I kind of like it as an air freshener. My apartment bathtub just isn’t that conducive to bubble baths, so I haven’t used it yet and will probably wait until I have my nice big tub back home.

Foxes & Ferns Rosey facial cleanser – I definitely expected this to be a toner and was surprised that you wipe it on your face with a cotton pad like one, but then you’re supposed to rinse your face. It was very cooling and felt good on my skin. It’s a great way to cleanse the skin right before bed, as I’ve just done.

Nature’s Skin Nutrition Winter Chest Rub – As expected, this chest rub has a menthol scent that helps clear the airways. I haven’t gotten sick since my Utah trip, so I haven’t needed it yet, but I’ll keep it handy whenever I need to open my stuffy nose. Although, am I supposed to use to prevent a cold too?

Neelu Kaur Amrit Nectar of the Divine oil – This is such a unique scent that I can’t place. It’s more on the earthy side but I don’t know how to describe it. I like rolling on oils like this to help me relax before sleep. It has a nice metal roller ball that is cold upon application and adds a little zing to the experience.

This was a nice box that I’ve made good use of! I really enjoyed the variety of scents. What do you think of this month’s box?

[This post contains affiliate links. Signing up through them helps support my subscription and I’d be ever so grateful. 🙂 All opinions are my own and I received no compensation for this review. I just purchased this box and wanted to share what I got!]

Second semester

laelene Post in mba,Tags: , , ,
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I had hoped that with the new semester, I might be able to post more frequently, but it looks like I may have underestimated the demands on my time and energy. Things certainly are more manageable, but we need to start planning Admit Weekend and I have a class that doesn’t start until the second half of the semester, so I have a feeling March is going to be a crazy month.

So far the first two weeks have been really nice. At the tail end of winter break, I attended Tech Trek up in the Bay Area, where we visited a bunch of companies (more on that in another post). Then we kicked off classes last week (has it only been that recent?!! I feel like it’s been a month) and I started taking a bunch of fitness classes at the gym since they’re free for the first two weeks, giving us an opportunity to preview them before committing.

This past weekend we had a trip out to Mammoth, which was timed perfectly with the crazy snow they’ve been getting. They’ve received massive amounts of snowfall and have the most snow anywhere in the country at the moment (somewhere around 15-20 feet). It didn’t snow while we were there, offering my classmates excellent skiing and snowboarding options. Meanwhile, I stayed at the cabin and enjoyed my book the first day and did some homework and had a group meeting the second day. I will try to get a post up about that as well, so you can see the massive mounds of snow and the giant icicle formations.

Tonight I wrapped up my last class of the week and many of my classmates are off to Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. I’ll be attempting to get ahead of the mounds of reading that my classes seem to require. In true Core fashion (aka insanely fast and front-loaded), we have a midterm on Monday. Already. It’s for global economics and I’m amazed at how I can read something and then basically forget the entire contents by the time I get to class.

I’m also taking two human capital courses – Designing High Performance Organizations & Human Capital Performance and Motivation. They’re both night classes, but I find them so engaging and interesting that they haven’t felt long. I think I also do better on energy later in the day. My fourth class is Getting the Organization Ready for Big Data, which seemed interesting and useful, but I’m not feeling great about it and I’m considering switching to something else. The professor is brand new (just got his PhD in 2015), the class has never been taught, and he speaks in a rather quiet monotone voice with low energy. He’s nice enough but the class isn’t very exciting.

The class that kicks in in two months is my LEAD class – Leadership Education and Development. We have a cohort of LEAD Fellows from my class who will be taking this and also another class in the fall. LEAD is designed to give us hands-on opportunities to develop our leadership styles, with a community project, off-sites, the class, and a speaker series. I can’t wait to see how the program goes! We’re the first class to have this full-fledged program and I feel very lucky to be part of it.

So that’s a synopsis of how this spring semester is going so far. Sometime next month, global econ gives away to global strategy. Then we start to focus on the countries that we will be traveling to and do projects specific to companies we’ll be visiting. I’m on the Shanghai Taipei trip and I’m so excited!! Also, I’ve scheduled an awesome trip to Israel for spring break, which my classmates planned for us. This is going to be an exciting four months.

Prospurly October 2016 review

laelene Post in reviews, subscriptions,Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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My goal is to get caught up with these reviews by spring… I’m thinking this semester will offer me more time! So far it’s been nice, but I’ve only done one day of classes, so we’ll see how it pans out.

Prospurly is just under $45 per box (with code for 10% off your subscription – use my referral links from this post) and comes with artisan foods, bath & body items, home products, and other sustainably crafted items. Boxes are sent monthly with no option to skip. They offer a referral program that earns you free boxes.

prospurly october 2016 box open with products showing prospurly october 2016 info card with product details

Momoko Therapeutics Orange Spice aromatherapy mist – Ahh, the sweet spicy scent of orange and cloves comes through strong with this one. It’s a great room spray when I want to feel like the holidays are here. It makes me think of those basket arrangements with the dried plants, which often have a similar smell. What a great way to freshen a room in a natural way!

Loverin Crafts Pumpkin Souffle natural soy candle – Whoa, this candle packs a punch! It has a very rich pumpkin scent that would certainly warm a room. I like that it’s a soy candle for a clean burn and that they will take the tins back for a discount on your next candle! After all, I can only reuse so many of these tins…

Chakra Love Sacral Chakra Aventurine necklace – This is a very earthy type of jewelry that generally isn’t my style, so I’ll either hang it up as decoration or find someone who will appreciate it more. I guess it’s supposed to bring self-gratification and enhance emotions, sensuality, and movement.

smashed! Boozy Jams Pear Whiskey + Garam Masala spread – I know the whiskey part of this will not appeal to me, so I hope one of my roommates will like using this jam. It’s such a different style that I’m curious what it will smell and taste like.

Ruby Rain Organics Nourishing Lotion Bar – Since this is sealed, I don’t want to open it until I’m ready to use it. It has a scent using lavender, frankincense, and myrrh, which should be quite interesting. I think this will be great to keep in the car when I need a little lotion and don’t want a mess.

This definitely felt like a fall box, though I wish they’d included more items. Why does jewelry always seem to be worth so much? I’m glad they don’t come often, because I much prefer skincare, home goods, and the like. What do you think of this month’s box?

[This post contains affiliate links. Signing up through them helps support my subscription and I’d be ever so grateful. 🙂 All opinions are my own and I received no compensation for this review. I just purchased this box and wanted to share what I got!]

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