Coppe, Adam and I went to see the play Wicked yesterday and let me just say, I was blown away. The music was excellent, the scenography was unbelievable and the acting and singing was top-notch. Now, I don't really go to musicals a lot so I'm not a good judge/critic but I was really impressed and just instantly loved it. I now want the soundtrack and I'm longing for there to be a movie made of it, which, by the way, I checked and there does seem to be a movie in development so... yay!
For the record, I've never seen Wizard of Oz but I know the general story so I hope I didn't miss much from the musical because of it but even if I did, I loved it. Even halfway through it as it went into the intermission, I felt as though the $40 tickets were already worth it. I could've left happy at that point and there was still over an hour of play left! Thinking about it, the only drawback about the movie is that it's going to have to be shorter and I'm already dreading what they'll cut out of it.
After the play, we left San Fran and were gonna go have dinner and get some chairs at IKEA so we decided to go to the one near San Fran. Well it turns out it was my first time at IKEA and I thought it was great. Everything is surprisingly cheap, and also, one thing that amused me was that all of the designs had names. Even a plates and cups each had their own design and name. That and just about everything was pretty cheap. So now I'm pretty psyched that there's an IKEA across the street from where I'll be living, if I do, in fact, end up living there.
And so, here's a video of a performance from the Tony awards of a song in Wicked.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
Transitioning
Job? Check.
Car? Check.
Apartment? Pending.
Two out of three's not so bad :D The apartment application is going through a bit of a bump but I'll just do what I can do and trust God with the rest! Tomorrow's officially my last day working for Sherwin-Williams. It sure feels weird thinking that chapter in my life is drawing to a close, and so unassumingly. It almost feels like after I left in November of last year the chapter indeed came to a close and up until now has just been some sort of epilogue. I'll be mailing the work computer back tomorrow and saying good bye to the people at Sherwin.
Speaking of connections in Cleveland, yesterday I got to see Dillon and Kathy who are on their uber awesome road trip honeymoon! We caught up over dinner and dessert and I'm super glad Rocklin was on their way down to San Franciso, where it just so happens I'll be going with Coppelia and Adam (sis and her hubs) to see Wicked on Saturday.
Speaking of San Fran, I'm so excited to be moving down to the Bay Area. I'll be moderately close enough to San Fran to visit it on a regular basis, which I plan to do to hit up Japan Town :D I seriously gotta check out Kinokuniya (japanese book store in Japan Town)! If I move in next Tuesday that week will be a sort of Vacation for me as I won't actually start working at Tiny Prints until the 8th. So I even get a long weekend out of it! :D I'm pretty excited about the apartment though, it's only about 10 mins from work and it's across the street from an Ikea and a Best Buy! Plus, it's got a trendy fireplace. TRENDY. FIREPLACE. Haha, granted that's not really that big a deal to me but it's funny. I do wish I had a dishwasher but I guess I shouldn't be such a lazy bum. Living with my sis sure spoiled me in that sense.
Speaking of dishwashers... just kidding. I've been listening to Ellipse by Imogen Heap (see previous post) a whole lot. Actually, I'm listening to it right now! I love it. It seems I'm having a bit of writers block today so I'll quit at this point and blab about something else at some other point. My mind feels extremely busy lately and right now it's not really helping to write so yeah, gonna step off for a while. Till next time readers :) jaa, ne!
Car? Check.
Apartment? Pending.
Two out of three's not so bad :D The apartment application is going through a bit of a bump but I'll just do what I can do and trust God with the rest! Tomorrow's officially my last day working for Sherwin-Williams. It sure feels weird thinking that chapter in my life is drawing to a close, and so unassumingly. It almost feels like after I left in November of last year the chapter indeed came to a close and up until now has just been some sort of epilogue. I'll be mailing the work computer back tomorrow and saying good bye to the people at Sherwin.
Speaking of connections in Cleveland, yesterday I got to see Dillon and Kathy who are on their uber awesome road trip honeymoon! We caught up over dinner and dessert and I'm super glad Rocklin was on their way down to San Franciso, where it just so happens I'll be going with Coppelia and Adam (sis and her hubs) to see Wicked on Saturday.
Speaking of San Fran, I'm so excited to be moving down to the Bay Area. I'll be moderately close enough to San Fran to visit it on a regular basis, which I plan to do to hit up Japan Town :D I seriously gotta check out Kinokuniya (japanese book store in Japan Town)! If I move in next Tuesday that week will be a sort of Vacation for me as I won't actually start working at Tiny Prints until the 8th. So I even get a long weekend out of it! :D I'm pretty excited about the apartment though, it's only about 10 mins from work and it's across the street from an Ikea and a Best Buy! Plus, it's got a trendy fireplace. TRENDY. FIREPLACE. Haha, granted that's not really that big a deal to me but it's funny. I do wish I had a dishwasher but I guess I shouldn't be such a lazy bum. Living with my sis sure spoiled me in that sense.
Speaking of dishwashers... just kidding. I've been listening to Ellipse by Imogen Heap (see previous post) a whole lot. Actually, I'm listening to it right now! I love it. It seems I'm having a bit of writers block today so I'll quit at this point and blab about something else at some other point. My mind feels extremely busy lately and right now it's not really helping to write so yeah, gonna step off for a while. Till next time readers :) jaa, ne!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 17, 2009
Work Ethic
This one might be a bit of a long one since I'm going to philosophize some. Tonight on the way back from getting some Baskin Robbins Adam, Coppelia and I had a conversation that was very controversial amongst ourselves. It started with me harping on about how I delight in being given sign duty when setting up for Origin. You see, sign duty includes putting up the signs on both sides of the street right next to the church, obviously pointing to the coffee shop (where Origin takes place). Now, when most other people do sign duty, they put the first one on the closer side of the street and then jay-walk to the other side. My method includes putting the sign on the closer side of the street and then going all the way around through the traffic lights like a good pedestrian. I could excuse myself saying the reason I do this is to follow the law and to not get hit by a car, if at all possible. However, I practically boast when I say that the real reason I go around is so that I take longer doing the task, which pulls me away from doing other tasks during set-up. I refuse to do work begrudgingly so instead I find sneaky ways such as this one to, in a sense, minimize my work. In most areas of my work ethic, as I am partially of phlegmatic temperament, I tend to seek appearing busy with menial or unnecessary tasks (or just standing around) until being given an actual task; usually this task is given me by somebody with a choleric temperament.
What's this I speak of temperaments? I'll digress here for the sake of fleshing this out and I believe it'll help the point. According to (correct me if I'm wrong) the classic greek scholars, there are four temperaments: choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine and melancholic. In a short, catchy nutshell, the four temperaments follow these stereotypes:
choleric: if you wanna do it right you've gotta do it yourself
phlegmatic: I'll just wait here till somebody tells me what to do
sanguine: classic type a personality (talkative, social people)
melancholic: classic type b personality (introverted geniuses)
As I mentioned earlier, I tend to let the phlegmatic side of me control my work ethic. So I generally don't take initiative on things waiting for the choleric people to give me tasks and instructions because, frankly, I am certain that upon taking initiative to do a task, the choleric would scold me for doing it a way different from how they would've done it, despite it having been done correctly.
The reason I'm even blogging about this is because it makes me feel guilty to look at things this way. Going into a full-time job soon, I definitely want to do my best, excel and be a good employer. Now, my personal experience has been that, in spite of my general attitude towards things, when it comes down to it, I focus and get things done as quickly as I can and to the best of my abilities. In retrospect, it feels like even though I say all these things about being a lazy bum and having no initiative, I'm a good employee who is really good at following directions and generally getting things done. Of course, there are certain aspects of my work habits that I've worked on, such as making more calls on my own when I'm not sure how to do something, rather than just ask a superior at every step of the way. Perhaps this is because I have spent more than a year working at Sherwin (can hardly believe it's been that much already). Maybe it's something I've been able to improve in general.
Another thing that bothers me is when people tell you 'oh, you have to give 110%'. Other than the fact that that's impossible because 100% is the same as all you have and you certainly can't give what you don't have, it bothers me that in this capitalist world where you build empires with your own two hands, every employer expects you to give 110%, 100% of the time. This is asking you to give more than you have and thus more than you can give - at all times. If this is not the ultimate recipe for burnout, I don't know what is. I even question the notion of giving all you have at all times. Prioritizing is key in the work world. Even on a race, isn't pacing yourself one of the most important things? Why should it be different in your work life? You run harder and faster in the moments when you know you have to. You push yourself up to 100% when you need to. However, why shouldn't you pace yourself when doing tasks at lower priority? Don't get me wrong here though, I'm not saying half-a** it! I think mediocrity is unacceptable if have the ability to perform.
Going back to the deal with the Origin sign, sure, I could very cautiously jay-walk to save time with the second sign so I can sooner get back to helping, thus increasing my effectivity. However, on any given night, Origin set-up doesn't lack enough hands that we fall back on schedule far enough to merit cutting those minutes out of 'my' helpful activity. To illustrate the point from the last paragraph in this example, if jay-walking to get the signs up as fast as possible is giving 100% and walking around to get them up is 70%, while the case for giving 100% exists (desperately needing the time I would save), the merit for breaking the jay-walking law is rarely in effect.
Ultimately, this is my inspected method of thought and task handling and, to be sure, it is not some new work psychology and is not how all work should be observed. [Is this a disclaimer? haha] Making efforts to answer my own question, that of whether I am wrong in thinking this way and that regardless of how my personality is I should strive whole-heartedly to burn myself out by attempting to give more than I can for everything (skewed point of view), I lean towards saying that if it's not broken, I shouldn't try to fix it. Of course, this does not mean I will not attempt to be excellent in my work or that I will refuse constructive criticism and that I'll purposefully sabotage my motivation to improve. I strongly believe this can all be achieved within the boundaries of my method. For example, there have been many times where I am given busy work at Sherwin. Normally, my approach towards it is to assess several aspects of the task, such as difficulty and time required for completion, and, according to my other priorities, tune my effort to complete the task in a timely, effective manner. So on a particularly slow day where I expect no other work, I would take all the time necessary to do the task in a calm, effective manner (go around the street through the traffic lights). If something unexpected happened such as getting an important or urgent task all of a sudden, again depending on the priorities, I would drop the current task and work on the pressing one or work harder to complete the current one in a timelier manner to get started on the new one. This would then be akin to us being short-handed at Origin and needing me to get back quickly from setting up the signs. Perhaps these situations wouldn't turn out or work exactly this same way in real cases but I do believe my method has some merit.
If you will, it would be good to know what you have to say. It would be fun to start a conversation in the comments. I absolutely do not expect everybody to agree with me and I fully expect people to find loopholes, incongruences and the like in my method and question me to no end, but, like I said, this is how I currently see my work ethic. This new job is sure to stretch me and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will prepare me for the work I will do in Japan when the time comes.
What's this I speak of temperaments? I'll digress here for the sake of fleshing this out and I believe it'll help the point. According to (correct me if I'm wrong) the classic greek scholars, there are four temperaments: choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine and melancholic. In a short, catchy nutshell, the four temperaments follow these stereotypes:
choleric: if you wanna do it right you've gotta do it yourself
phlegmatic: I'll just wait here till somebody tells me what to do
sanguine: classic type a personality (talkative, social people)
melancholic: classic type b personality (introverted geniuses)
As I mentioned earlier, I tend to let the phlegmatic side of me control my work ethic. So I generally don't take initiative on things waiting for the choleric people to give me tasks and instructions because, frankly, I am certain that upon taking initiative to do a task, the choleric would scold me for doing it a way different from how they would've done it, despite it having been done correctly.
The reason I'm even blogging about this is because it makes me feel guilty to look at things this way. Going into a full-time job soon, I definitely want to do my best, excel and be a good employer. Now, my personal experience has been that, in spite of my general attitude towards things, when it comes down to it, I focus and get things done as quickly as I can and to the best of my abilities. In retrospect, it feels like even though I say all these things about being a lazy bum and having no initiative, I'm a good employee who is really good at following directions and generally getting things done. Of course, there are certain aspects of my work habits that I've worked on, such as making more calls on my own when I'm not sure how to do something, rather than just ask a superior at every step of the way. Perhaps this is because I have spent more than a year working at Sherwin (can hardly believe it's been that much already). Maybe it's something I've been able to improve in general.
Another thing that bothers me is when people tell you 'oh, you have to give 110%'. Other than the fact that that's impossible because 100% is the same as all you have and you certainly can't give what you don't have, it bothers me that in this capitalist world where you build empires with your own two hands, every employer expects you to give 110%, 100% of the time. This is asking you to give more than you have and thus more than you can give - at all times. If this is not the ultimate recipe for burnout, I don't know what is. I even question the notion of giving all you have at all times. Prioritizing is key in the work world. Even on a race, isn't pacing yourself one of the most important things? Why should it be different in your work life? You run harder and faster in the moments when you know you have to. You push yourself up to 100% when you need to. However, why shouldn't you pace yourself when doing tasks at lower priority? Don't get me wrong here though, I'm not saying half-a** it! I think mediocrity is unacceptable if have the ability to perform.
Going back to the deal with the Origin sign, sure, I could very cautiously jay-walk to save time with the second sign so I can sooner get back to helping, thus increasing my effectivity. However, on any given night, Origin set-up doesn't lack enough hands that we fall back on schedule far enough to merit cutting those minutes out of 'my' helpful activity. To illustrate the point from the last paragraph in this example, if jay-walking to get the signs up as fast as possible is giving 100% and walking around to get them up is 70%, while the case for giving 100% exists (desperately needing the time I would save), the merit for breaking the jay-walking law is rarely in effect.
Ultimately, this is my inspected method of thought and task handling and, to be sure, it is not some new work psychology and is not how all work should be observed. [Is this a disclaimer? haha] Making efforts to answer my own question, that of whether I am wrong in thinking this way and that regardless of how my personality is I should strive whole-heartedly to burn myself out by attempting to give more than I can for everything (skewed point of view), I lean towards saying that if it's not broken, I shouldn't try to fix it. Of course, this does not mean I will not attempt to be excellent in my work or that I will refuse constructive criticism and that I'll purposefully sabotage my motivation to improve. I strongly believe this can all be achieved within the boundaries of my method. For example, there have been many times where I am given busy work at Sherwin. Normally, my approach towards it is to assess several aspects of the task, such as difficulty and time required for completion, and, according to my other priorities, tune my effort to complete the task in a timely, effective manner. So on a particularly slow day where I expect no other work, I would take all the time necessary to do the task in a calm, effective manner (go around the street through the traffic lights). If something unexpected happened such as getting an important or urgent task all of a sudden, again depending on the priorities, I would drop the current task and work on the pressing one or work harder to complete the current one in a timelier manner to get started on the new one. This would then be akin to us being short-handed at Origin and needing me to get back quickly from setting up the signs. Perhaps these situations wouldn't turn out or work exactly this same way in real cases but I do believe my method has some merit.
If you will, it would be good to know what you have to say. It would be fun to start a conversation in the comments. I absolutely do not expect everybody to agree with me and I fully expect people to find loopholes, incongruences and the like in my method and question me to no end, but, like I said, this is how I currently see my work ethic. This new job is sure to stretch me and I'm looking forward to seeing how it will prepare me for the work I will do in Japan when the time comes.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Offer
Sitting on the futon couch I call my bed while I watch Advent Children in Japanese (with Japanese subtitles, fortunately) I multi-task enough to IM with some friends and write a blog. I feel pretty much obligated to write this blog because of what happened today. If you're one of the people who read this blog you might already know the news. To keep it short, today I got an e-mail with a job offer from Tiny Prints! Looks like what I came to California to do has finally happened; or at least an important part of the chain. In the coming weeks I'll be working hard to figure all the logistics out. Finding housing, getting a car, figuring out what to do about the payments and occupation of my previous apartment in Rochester... all that good stuff. It'll be an interesting few weeks leading up and a whole lot of transitioning. I like changes like these, exasperating and daunting as they may be but I know God's got my back. I don't know if this job is a step in the direction of my mission to Japan but I'm not even a quarter of a hundred years old. I still have a lot of time to do what I can do. I just gotta keep moving forward and let the Lord lead my steps.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Decision
Yesterday I was talking to Coppelia before setting up for Origin (night church). I was telling her that I'm just not feeling it about the interview this week. I remember saying 'I don't know what I want' and feeling tired. Later that day, after a very powerful and challenging message from pastor Mark we went home. In bed I began to have a 1 on 1 with God. I don't exactly remember if it was at this point or a little earlier at night that I realized I knew what I wanted all along. I want to do God's will. It's that simple. My decision is that I'm going to do God's will. The more I thought about it the less I could sleep and it was about an hour later that I was still stoked, thanking God and having an unbridled joy within me as I felt my life have a strong purpose for the first time in - possibly - all my life.
In the words of Phil Whickam, 'I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.'
In the words of Phil Whickam, 'I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.'
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