Writing challenges

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
12 January 2012
0

Yesterday was the deadline to apply to Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in the second round (there are three rounds each year and you can apply in any single one you choose).  This entire week, I had been working to perfect everything for my application, particularly my essays.  I had found the Harvard Business School essays to be easier to tackle, with only a few rewrites.  When it came to Stanford’s though, I was a mess.  Let’s take a look at both schools’ prompts:

HBS

  1. Tell us about three of your accomplishments.
  2. Tell us three setbacks you have faced.
  3. Why do you want an MBA?
  4. Answer a question you wish we had asked.

Stanford GSB

  1. What matters most to you, and why?
  2. What do you want to do – REALLY – and why Stanford?
  3. Tell us about a time when you made a lasting impact on your organization.
  4. Tell us about a time when you generated support from others for an idea or initiative.

I felt like Harvard’s were more practical and Stanford’s were more emotional, if that makes sense.  What made Stanford’s challenging for me was how personal those first two are.  It was really getting to the core of what is meaningful to me and it’s hard to express something you believe in so deeply.  I had to work backwards, first sharing stories of my workplace successes, then tackling what I want to do and what matters to me.

The first versions of my responses to questions 1 and 2 came out extremely idealistic.  I realized that I sounded like my mind was in the clouds and my feet weren’t on the ground.  I knew I had to present things in a more concrete manner so the selection committee could see the logic behind how what mattered to me drove what I wanted to do and why that all tied into going to business school.  Unfortunately, I cared so much about properly expressing something so close to my heart that nothing sounded right.  I would write a paragraph and start the next only to decide that I wanted to add a paragraph to the beginning instead.  I labored over those two for so long!

Finally, I was satisfied with how the second essay came out, but I was still pretty stumped by the first.  How do you share your greatest dreams without sounding unrealistic?  Again and again, I would rewrite my response to that question until I started to create a structure that made sense.  I then made the very smart move of sending my writing to Maven for a proofread.  One of my greatest challenges in writing essays is making everything flow.  I tend to let my ideas out stream-of-consciousness style, which usually results in random connections and scattered ideas.  He was able to help me reorder some of my sentences to make my structure infinitely better!  At that point, I was finally ready to turn everything in.  I had put forth a great effort and now it was time to officially apply to one of the most prestigious programs in the world.

I feel so relieved now that it’s in and strangely, I’m not really nervous about decision day.  That’s probably just because it’s still over two months away!  As the time nears, I’m sure I will nervously anticipate the news and hope for the best.  I can really see myself going to a top business school and excelling.

Crunch time

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
09 January 2012
0

It’s down to the wire for my HBS application and I don’t think I’m going to make it.  I have been unable to get in touch with two of my recommenders and the third says he did it, but the system didn’t register anything.  By the time we start work tomorrow, second round applications will be due (and all too soon overdue).  It was disturbing to come to this reality, since I really want to get into b-school this fall, but at least there is still one more round.  While that round is extremely tough since most of the class will already have been formed, I hold out hope that I will be able to stand out.

I’ve still got another day and a half to get my Stanford GSB application submitted in time for round two, so I’m going to put all my effort towards that and this time I will not fail. I will spend all day tomorrow making sure my recommenders get those recommendations in before we leave work.  I won’t accept another missed deadline!

On the go

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
27 December 2011
0

Happy holidays!  I’m busy traveling around so I won’t be posting much.  Took a 25-hour trip from LA to Portland to Tokyo to Beijing and then the next day, a 5-hour train ride brought me to Shenyang.  My poor feet have been sitting around too much and I’ve napped so much I don’t know when to be tired.  It’s all good though, I get to see quite a bit of family in the next couple of days and hopefully get some relaxation too.  🙂

The Maven

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
20 December 2011
1

Oh what a marvelous thing has happened!  It has been years since I started developing and talking about my business philosophy, one of the key components of which is a business partner.  Finally, I have stumbled across the first viable lead and I am thrilled!  I’ll call him Maven, since that’s what he is as per Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point.  Maven and I both have a strong interest in business and our conversation recently led us to budding partnership.  He has a fantastic idea for a business and I have all the eagerness and complementary skills that he could ask for.

I feel like it’s been a long time coming, so it’s really rewarding to find someone who has a vast number of skills that I don’t, and who needs the very skills that I do have.  At the same time, we share many values and both believe in the synergy that can be created to make a partnership more than just 1 +1.  It’s just enough overlap to agree on the important things, and plenty of complementary abilities to pack a powerful punch.  I couldn’t have imagined a more perfect scenario!  If nothing else, 2011 will go down in history as the year I met Maven.  A very fortunate experience indeed!

Whether or not we are able to get this idea off the ground (and I am confident that we can and will), I have a great feeling about just knowing Maven.  There’s a lot to learn from him and he is a fantastic conversationalist!  I’d been craving the kinds of discussions we’ve been having – about business, personal philosophies, psychology, and so many other topics.  We’re both very curious, inquisitive folks who think a lot, ask a lot, wonder a lot.  I’ve never had someone ask me so many “whys” about my beliefs and it really helps me understand myself better.

In addition, I got a kick out of the fascination we both seem to have with personality tests and what can be gleaned from them.  I love reading personality profiles!  I feel like I learned a lot about him when I read the description of his “type,” whether or not all of it was accurate.  At least it gave me a good basis for understanding the type of person he is.  The more I get to know, the better it all seems.  With our work ethics, determination, and combined efforts, I wouldn’t put anything past us.  You just wait!

Friends for life

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
17 December 2011
5

So many of my friends have a group from college, or even high school, that they still keep in touch with and hang out with.  A good portion of them also have some friends stemming from childhood as well.  I wonder what that’s like and if I’ll ever have lifelong friends.  The landscape of my life is so variable that dozens of friends have come and gone.  The people I spend much of my time with are only friends I’ve met in the past three years or so.  I’m so used to moving around and making new friends that it’s hard to imagine knowing someone for that long.

I’ve always hoped that each friendship would be one that would last forever, but as our lives changed, we would grow apart.  It also didn’t help that I moved a lot, so many friendships dwindled after not being able to hang out for a long period.  The internet has definitely helped to slow down the process of losing touch, but it still happens.  At this point, the only person in my life right now who I know will be around for decades is Panda.  He’s the best friend I’ve got and anyone else could very well be out of the picture in a few years.

I haven’t given up hope that I can maintain some long-lasting friendships though!  I think that business school will offer me a great chance to meet people who I can consider friends forever.  In addition, any and all future business partners will probably be great friends and a common interest in our business should keep us in contact for a long time to come.  I wish I had a group of close friends who all hung out with each other, but that’s just not the way my life developed.  Instead, I will continue to be a connector, bringing together my different sets of friends for gatherings and potentially facilitating some wonderful new bonds.

Afternoon fevers

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
12 December 2011
1

I used to experience a phenomenon I called “afternoon fevers” in high school.  Every afternoon around 4 o’clock, I’d get a bit flushed, my temperature would rise, and I’d have the chills.  It felt like the onset of a fever that would result in me shivering until I could climb into bed to sweat it out.  Yet, if I kept about my day, I found that it would burn off before it ever became anything.  It was a strange thing, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it was partly mental too.

I had kind of learned to dread swim practice, which started right around that time.  I was a sprinter, so all the distance swimming we had to do in practice wore me down.  So, as school was ending and it was time to head over to the pool for practice, my body would react.  Most of the time I’d suck it up and go through practice, which was probably what both made me sick and cured from it.  After all, being wet on a brisk afternoon made it easy to feel sick, but then the intensity of a practice session would heat me right up and burn off any illness.

It was an interesting period that was all but forgotten until I started to feel it again.  Perhaps my immune system is weakest in the mid to late afternoon, so I start to feel the effects of stress more vividly.  Last week, I began to feel sick a couple of afternoons in a row and I learned to suppress it just like I had back in high school.  It’s been awhile since I felt that way, so I bundled up and have been staying warm to stave off any virus that might be trying to bring me down.  I can’t be too weak to prepare my applications!

A lesson in apostrophes

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
08 December 2011
0

I was writing an email recently and wanted to indicate the possessive of Charles.  I vaguely remember being taught that it should be Charles’ with no extra “s” but since then I had read styling guides that said technically it should be Charles’s, though really either is acceptable.  To some people, Charles’s may seem wrong, but it is not.  For the sake of not confusing people, I tend to use Charles’ since I know that was commonly taught in schools across the nation.  However, I much prefer using Charles’s; if it weren’t for the fact that some people were never taught that was correct, I’d use it more often.  After all, who wants to go into a grammar/punctuation lesson in the middle of an email exchange?

I actually did do that in this case, but only because the thread included very bright people who probably knew exactly what I was talking about and maybe even experienced the same hesitation using Charles’s vs. Charles’.  I was happy to have that feeling validated when one of the girls replied confirming my statement and offering a source that explains the use of apostrophes: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe (This site is also a great source for other interesting, entertaining, and information infographic cartoons.

This incident gave me confidence to go forth using Charles’s from now on.  Who cares if other people think I’m wrong and don’t know the rules of English?  Those who really know what they’re talking about will know the truth.  ;-P

Birthdays and bygones

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
29 November 2011
0

Today’s my mom’s birthday!  I can’t believe a year has come and gone.  I remember this time last year she wasn’t here, so we didn’t really celebrate.  This year I’ll be going back to see her later in the week and hopefully we can get a nice dinner in before resting up for an early flight that she’ll need to catch.  Soon, I’ll have my birthday too.  My how it all flashes by!

I feel like there hasn’t been that much to pace my life by, since a work day is pretty predictable.  I’m nearing two years of employment at my company and so much has changed, yet the pattern of each day makes things blend a lot more than during my school years.  Within the next year or two I’ll be changing all of that though – it’s about time for a shift in my life.  Going back to school will offer me a change in scenery and pace of life.  I always enjoy shaking things up a bit!

For now I’ll just prepare for that next stage and marvel that in 2012, my parents will be twice my age!  Has it really taken that long to get to this point?  Sometimes I feel older than I am, but of course there is still so much more to grow.

Over-entertained

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
25 November 2011
0

I spent the entire day watching episodes of Charmed and boy have I learned my lesson!  It’s no good to sit/lay in front of a screen for that long, especially not when you’re watching the screen at all different angles.  I’m sure it would have been better if I was sitting properly, but I would lay on my side, my belly, even my back to watch.  Now I’ve got this terrible headache so it’s time to stop viewing any screen and rest my eyes.

This harkens back to the days when I would binge on episodes of Princess Pearl, a popular Chinese drama from over a decade ago.  At least I watched those on a TV screen, so wasn’t so close and didn’t lay on the floor.  Still, I would wrap myself up in a blanket and surround myself with food much as I did yesterday.  It’s not the best way to pass a day and I’m looking forward to spending some time outside tomorrow, breathing fresh air and enjoying natural light.

A lesson on green chemistry

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
16 November 2011
0

I attended the Oppenheim lecture tonight, about green chemistry.  It’s a growing sector that is coming up with innovations that are not only environmentally safe and sustainable for the long term, they work better and make more sense for the bottom line as well.  While there are definitely plenty of “green” products that cost a premium, it doesn’t have to be that way.  As our economy and society demand better, companies will respond with great new solutions to consumer needs.

Many of the solutions that Dr. Paul Anastas, the main speaker, pointed out were rooted in bio-mimicry.  It’s a topic I’m fascinated with, since most (if not all) of the solutions we search for are already present in nature.  For example, he told us of the pain of trying to redo a bathroom because of all the hardened glue you have to scrape away.  It’s tedious and can be quite toxic too.  Instead, we can learn from mussels, which very strongly adhere themselves to rocks and other things just as well, but need no dangerous chemicals to do so.  By learning from the multitude of creatures in the world around us, we can find brilliant, simple, yet effective ways of solving many of our issues.

In addition, Dr. Anastas pointed out that we really have to allow disruptive inventions to come along.  It’s not good enough to just improve some of the products we have now; we have to be willing to adopt a method that could completely upheave the way we’re used to doing things.  Once upon a time any city would have telephone wires running overhead all over the place.  Nowadays that becomes more and more unnecessary as we shift towards wireless signal towers.  In the case of detergents, it is becoming a very real possibility that we could have self-cleaning clothes, which would wipe out the need for detergents!  Or, when creating clothes, rather than using dyes that could be harmful, they are now experimenting with growing cotton that in itself already has color.  It’s a willingness to completely rethink our approach to common issues that can lead to wonderfully disruptive changes to our lives and our way of life.

He also made sure to emphasize the fact that a company’s bottom line does not have to suffer for the sake of these new methods.  In fact, these can be built into very lucrative businesses.  What he said rang so true to what I’ve been learning from Opportunity Green as well: sustainability and environmental responsibility and very much in line with profitability, and not just because you’d have a green image.  In fact, if you don’t even consider the environmental impact, so many of these solutions are just plain superior as is.  Why wouldn’t you go with them?  I think a lot of sustainability and the green movement has been misunderstood.  People still think that to be eco-friendly is to be pricier.  We need more companies out there to show people that this isn’t the case so that the general population can start adopting products that are better for us all – people, the environment, the world.

I’m hoping that part of my impact in the future will be along these lines.  To break people away from the prejudices and misguided opinions of what it takes to be good to our environment.  To show them that they can save money, save the environment, and make our world a better place all at the same time.  It’s about time more light be shed on the beauty of green choices!

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