IBE the Journey - Part 05

To read from the beginning, click HERE

(Continued from Part 04)

Things besides glasses

Selling was fun, but some other things were fun, also. Most of the other activities were about doing stuffs for BBBS (Big Brothers Big Sisters), the non-profit organization that we chose to donate all of our profit to. We also had to donate at least 30 hours of work to them, doing whatever. One big thing was raising the fund by selling doughnuts, pizzas, and baked goods. We were raising the fun too.

I didn’t participate in our first fund-raising, the Pizza Hut one, due to the fact that I had no car. Since I didn’t have a car, it really was not easy for me to join in with activities as I would. A member, Maria, gave me a ride for the following time, when we were selling doughnuts. Krispy Kreme doughnuts were really tasty, far better than the Wal-mart ones, and I wanted my girlfriend to try them someday. We were selling for two days in front of the supermarket under the BBS tent. Americans were always good at donating for others, and the kids loved doughnuts, so we sold surprisingly fast. Many of the passengers didn’t want any doughnut; still put money into our pot. The first day was a nice experience.

The second day was not that enjoyable. It was raining, and the rain was really heavy. Our customers dropped drastically. One member, Ryne, had a brilliant idea: using umbrella to escort the people who went to Wal-mart, and when walking them, telling them about our IBE program and the fund-raising. The two guys doing that were him and me. So I had fun running back and fort in the parking lot and helping old women. People were thanking me, and feeling sorry for our bad luck of raining. Also, we could sell some more than we would have had. Ryne became the only member in our company that I admired for the rest of the semester. Coming up with a good idea in a bad situation is always amazing. And so, the second day turned out to be a nice experience too, as well as the bake-sale in the end of the semester.

Besides raising fund, we also helped with maintaining the building for BBBS. I helped with painting the walls, which were pretty fun to do.

We came there at noon, and painted under the brightness of the sun and the last warmth of the autumn. I could hear the laughter of the little children playing close by, and the wind was hanging there, dancing with the leaves in some endless spirals. It was simply a bliss.

What we also did for the kids was the game night, an evening when we brought PS3s and Wiis, Guitar Hero III and many other games for the children to come and play. Many children did come, and the place was crowded with joys.

In the end I had donated 10.5 hours – 30 minutes more than the goal. Lol It was fun anyway.

(to be continued...)
Part 06

IBE the Journey - Part 04

To read from the beginning, click HERE

(Continued from Part 03)
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SALES

It’s all about selling something. It always was. In fact, nothing would have happened if no one had had not sold anything. It’s where all of the fun, the excitement, the competition, the challenge came from. Selling glasses was just like that.

Since we chose to sell glasses, the company’s name became FrostPint Glass Company. According to some calculation of Break Even Point analysis, each one of us FrostPint had to sell at least 12 glasses to be able to even the cost. Number twelve didn’t seem much, but it was not easy to go over. I calculated in my head, “Let see, twelve. If I buy two, my friends hopefully will buy five, and I will have only five left to sell. Easy!” Unfortunately, I was wrong again.

$8 for a glass was too much for any of the international students, especially Vietnamese. (Sometimes occasions like that made me hate how poor we Vietnamese were). My Korean roommate, having his leg injured, wasn’t willing to buy any. Other friends from other countries were just going shopping and bought a lot of clothes and perfumes, so they weren’t helping much neither. My selling career in the beginning was not so pretty at all. One day I came to class, and Levi my teammate told me that I just sold 10 glasses in the previous weekend, for his girlfriend’s grandmother! Another teammate, Jennifer, whose mother was a principle of a school, made most of the teachers there buying some glasses. I was so far behind. I friends were poor, and my families were so far away that they couldn’t help. I was alone, totally.

But I wasn’t giving up. Maybe if there was anything that I had to keep up with others, then it was the fact that I was always trying. I calmed myself down, and new thoughts came to me. “Wait, there is not many international students in the whole class, so I can actually take advantage of this!” I tried the International Office, and my current boss, Suzanne, simply told me, “Sure, I’ll buy one!” And so, I had my very first customer. I got more sales from the other faculties in the office, and in one day, I sold five. It was a great day, and I had new hope in me.

Whoever has hope has everything. It was so true to me. After I sold my first glasses, things only got easier. Cody, my closest friend in UCM, decided to buy one. Dan, another friend of mine, succeeded in selling some PS3 games, bought another one. My roommate DongKyeong was told by the doctor that his leg didn’t need treatment, was happy enough to buy two of my glasses. And that wasn’t the best of it. One day I was told that there were people selling glasses for me, and they wanted four! It was just, “Wow!” I had heard about people who could sell a lot of products, but no one had others helping him selling like I did. I was not only fortunate. I really was blessed.

In the months of October and November, people saw me going to class and cafeteria carrying a white box all the time. Some girls sitting close to me when I was having lunch one day were so curious about the box. “What does he have in there?”; “Is it candy?”… “It’s a UCM glass”, I told them, explaining about IBE and all. It was fun doing marketing sometimes. I kept selling and selling. One time it was twelve glasses at once for a business department! My sales were soon getting over the Break Even Point.

There was some miscalculation among our company, and we were short on inventory. The glasses were nearly out, and we didn’t have enough time to re-order anymore. Many members of the company didn’t sell many. Some of them didn’t even sell any, and they were in trouble. Therefore, any unsold glass needed to be returned to distribute to those who needed more sales and for the pre-sales (got the payment but the products have not been delivered). At that time, I was keeping four glasses, and had already promised to sell two of them. But “already promised” wasn’t “pre-sale”, so I decided to return all four of them to the company, and apologized to my two customers. My first selling career was closed with 34 glasses.

34 wasn’t any outstanding number, since some other members had sold nearly 100 glasses. But more than half of the company sold less than 30 products, and 34 was nearly three times as much as the original number 12. For an international student like me, the result wasn’t bad at all. It would be something worth-telling to my girlfriend, too.

(to be continued...)
Part 05

IBE the Journey - Part 03

To read from the beginning, click HERE (Continued from Part 02)

The war with the RATs

IBE wasn’t just about working in a company; it was still a course consisting of other three classes. It means that we also had to deal with tests and quizzes a lot. One new thing in this semester was the RATs – readiness assessment tests, for which we had to do a test about stuffs that we were going to learn (in other word, we hadn’t learned). They were hard, and they were abundant. 

It didn’t make sense anymore to ask myself if I was gonna have a test soon: I always had some test everyday! So I kept reading and reading, feeling just like the time in Petra (Montana). The Management book and the Marketing one were pretty well-written actually. I have learned a lot of new information reading them. The MIS (Management Information System) text-book, in the other hand, was downright clueless. The book had a horde of technical terms that in no way I could remember them all. Couldn’t do anything else, I kept reading more and more, hopefully that I would get some As which were so rare in the RATs. I didn’t get many As, however, since half of each RAT we did in team, and no one in my team was as prepared as I was. So we did decently, and sometimes the rest of the team disagreed with me in questions that I was so sure about. There were situations that I had to stand up against my team and tried to persuade them so hard. I succeeded, actually, and gradually I became the most significant member of team 11. Sometimes we got an A for the RAT, I was so happy and… break-danced right in the class. Many times my teammates would say, “We didn’t get an A, but I want to see Anh break-dances.”

The tests was another battle

The RATs were hard, by the tests weren’t jokes, neither. Real tests were bigger, fewer, and therefore more decisive (each worth 100 pt.) The Marketing tests were particular hard. The first test I got a B. I told that to my girlfriend, she said, “Next time you get an A and let me know, ok?” So for the next one I tried harder. And I got a C. It was just wrong, as if the more I tried the worse I did. So I talked with the professor, he said, “My tests are supposed to be uneasy. There ain’t many As in my class, historically.” I couldn’t give up anyway, I had to get an A to tell it to my girlfriend! For the third test, I spent even more time studying the book, and tried to study differently. I got a high B. It was great, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to find another way of study. I did. When I finished my last Marketing test, I handed the scantron to the professor to run through the grading machine. The machine graded my test and the professor looked at it. He was smiling mysteriously and… ran my scantron once more! Then he gave it back to me, and it was a solid A right there. Yes, I was happy. “Arwen, I got an A for my Marketing test!...”

The CIS tests were hard too, but it was just another effort of mine trying harder and with different ways. The results were good also. My instructor was smiling when she asked me, “Are you satisfied with your grade?” “Yes, I really do.” I smiled too, for a moment to forget all the struggles I had to deal with.

(to be continued...)

Part 04

Tôi 20

Thêm một chút nữa thôi là tôi được 20 tuổi. Bài hát “60 năm cuộc đời” của Y Vân có câu, “20 năm đầu, sung sướng không bao lâu.” Không biết với người khác thế nào, với tôi, quãng thời gian vừa qua không thể nào gọi là “sung sướng” được.

Khi tôi được sinh ra đến khi tôi bắt đầu đi học hầu như không được ghi lại trong ký ức tôi, cho nên cùng lắm đó chỉ là khoảng thời gian “sung sướng trong vô thức”. 11 năm học ở Việt Nam, niềm vui nhiều, nhưng những thứ không vui cũng không ít. Từ lớp Một tới Mười Một, không năm nào tôi không phải cố gắng học mòn mỏi – theo khả năng và quan điểm của tôi theo từng thời kỳ - để làm kiểm tra, trả bài, thi cử này nọ. Quãng thời gian ngồi chán nản ngáp ruồi tán dóc trong lớp dài lê thê ấy, dù có thỉnh thoảng xen kẽ một “chút kỉ niệm học trò” thì dù tôi có lãng mạn đến mấy cũng không thể lưu luyến được. Nói về những lúc không ở trong trường, phần lớn quãng thời gian tôi bị quản lý trong nhà, hiếm khi được đi chơi đâu. Khi bé còn không biết gì, nhưng khi lớn lên hơn, nhiều lần phải ngồi nhà nhìn bè bạn đi chơi mà không được phép đi, tôi cũng thèm thuồng và rồi trở nên buồn và chán nản. Giờ nghĩ lại, có khi khoảng thời gian dài ấy đã làm tôi trở thành một con người thích ngồi nhà quanh quẩn làm-cái-gì-chẳng-biết như bây giờ.

Cho nên khi tôi “được” đi du học xa, tôi cũng vui. Cái sự vui ấy nó chìm sâu tuốt bên dưới cõi lòng, bị bao nhiêu nỗi lo toan đè lên trên nên cũng khó nhận ra. Và tiếc thay, chỉ một mình cái sự “xa ba tôi” không làm cho ba năm còn lại của tôi “sung sướng” hơn chút nào. Ba năm ấy, tôi đã phải cố gắng rất nhiều, nhiều khi đơn thuần để “tồn tại”, đến nỗi mà nếu có định nghĩa nào về sự sung sướng của những năm trước đó thì giờ cũng chẳng còn. Ba năm ấy, tôi cảm nhận được nhiều sự mất mát, nhiều điều quan trọng mà tôi cứ liên tục để vuột khỏi tầm tay. Gọi là ba năm bất hạnh cũng được, gọi là ba năm trưởng thành cũng không sai. Trong khó khăn tôi tìm được niềm tin, tìm được hướng đi cho tương lai, và tìm được tình yêu. Cho nên dù ba năm qua có tồi tệ thế nào, thì tôi cũng vẫn còn ngồi đây tồn tại, và tôi biết ơn điều đó vô cùng.

Nhìn về bản thân hiện giờ một cách sơ bộ, tôi đã có một sức khỏe tương đối, một hướng đi khá rõ ràng, và một tình yêu cần phấn đấu thêm. Như thế cũng tạm gọi là được rồi, bởi vì nhìn đơn giản thế thôi, đó là thành quả của 20 năm sống và chiến đấu.

Và bây giờ tôi bước vào một giai đoạn mới của 10 năm tiếp theo. 10 tuổi so với 20 tuổi thì khác nhiều, nhưng với tôi, 20 so với 30 thì khác một cách quan trọng. 10 năm làm thay đổi con người ta nhiều lắm, liệu rồi những gì của ngày hôm nay sẽ còn lại với tôi 10 năm nữa? Liệu con đường tôi đang đi có hợp lý không, hay rốt cục tôi lại có một sự nghiệp gì đó mà hoàn toàn không ăn nhập? Liệu tôi có còn biết giữ gìn sức khỏe, hay lại vùi đầu vào công việc đêm ngày, hoặc lại thêm những cuộc vui chơi chè chén? Và liệu sau này tôi có còn giữ nổi một tình yêu mà giờ đây đã phải gặp bao điều gian khó?

10 năm tới của tôi sẽ là 10 năm của sự tiếp tục phấn đấu, để giữ gìn, xây dựng những gì tôi đang có, và để hướng tới những thành quả cao hơn trong tương lai. Uhm, tôi sẽ có một việc làm, và tôi sẽ lấy vợ. Công việc của tôi là kết quả của những năm Đại học, và vợ tôi sẽ là người con gái mà tôi giờ đang yêu say đắm. Nhìn xem, 10 năm tới sẽ là 10 năm mà cuộc sống sẽ mở ra trước mắt tôi, sẽ là khi tôi tự làm chủ cuộc sống của chính mình. 10 năm tới sẽ là 10 năm để tôi nhìn thấy rõ ràng hơn hai chữ “sung sướng” mà người ta cứ gán lầm vào chỗ khác.

Chúc mừng sinh nhật 20 tuổi, tôi ơi!

Origami Extreme - Part 05!!!

Hello, it’s DK. It’s another origami collection again this time. Origami is really time-consuming, and I’ve spent most of my time during this Thanksgiving break to complete it. This time it’s about humans, one of the trickiest models to fold ever. It takes skill not only in folding, but also shaping the model afterward. Otherwise they wouldn’t look like humans for the slightest. But I enjoyed making them anyway. Looking at them, I understand how much more difficult for God to create us comparing to the animals, and in no way we can be ape-related.

NONE of these models is my creation; I only fold them based on diagrams. They all come from ONE uncut piece of paper, which makes them so fantastic.

One more thing, this time I’ll try something new: instead of talking about them like I normally do, I’ll make up a story (or whatever you call it) throughout the collection. Ok, enough of my rambling, here we go

PART 05: PEOPLE OF HUMANITY

We all start our life inside our mothers, making them huge. But they never hate us because of that. Bearing us makes them happy.

PREGNANT WOMAN by Alec Fehl

After we get out, we are raised with love and gentleness.

MOTHER LOVE by Neal Elias - dedicated to my mom.

As we are growing up, we start to observe and learn new things around. We learn to live, and to enjoy life also.

BOY ON ROCKING HORSE by Neal Elias

Then we become adults. What can we do to our future? Will we become strong people?

SOLDIER by Tominaga Kazuhiro

…Will we be talented?

MAN IN HOOD SHOOTING KAMEHAMEHA* by Tomohiro Tachi

…Will we contribute, or will we just sit around thinking a lot but do nothing?

RODIN’S THINKER by Neal Elias

One day we will get old and be weary. What will we think of our life, of what we have done in our youth?

THE HUNCHBACK** by Mario A. Netto

Hopefully that we have done our best, and we have made the world a better place. Yes, hopefully we all have become some kind of heroes that we can be proud of.

A KNIGHT ON PEGASUS by Miyajima Noboru

Every one of us will have to choose our own paths. Be and do whatever your hearts desire, for this life is full of greatness. But, don’t ever forget to love, for this is what the world was made of.

RAINCOAT by Unknown

Thank you.

Special thanks to Dong Kyeong for material; VNS Forum for diagrams; and Arwen for inspiration. :)

*Kamehameha is commonly known as Kamêjôkô in Vietnam :D

**The hunchback is not old. He is the main character in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. I only use him to portray an old person due to his shape.

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Related Topics:

Origami Extreme!!! – Dinosaurs

Origami Extreme – Part 02!!! – Convention

Origami Extreme – Part 03!!! - Dragons

Origami Extreme - Part 04 !!! - The Winged World

Origami Extreme - Part 06 !!! - Dogs

Origami Extreme - Part 07!!! - Cats

Origami Extreme - Part 08 !!! - The Little Birds

Tuổi thơ của em

Thế là ông anh họ yêu quý của em lập gia đình rồi nhỉ! Nhìn anh sánh bước cùng chị thật hạnh phúc biết bao. Bỗng em nhớ đến những lúc cả ba anh cùng ôn thi đại học. Quãng thời gian ấy lúc nào cũng vui như hội bởi những trò đủa nghịch. Biết các anh ôn luyện gian khổ cực kỳ với… những trò game này nọ, và những cuốn truyện tranh lẫn đâu đấy giữa các chồng sách cao ngất. Em thường “mượn” đôi dép của mẹ, cố đi thật kêu và bất ngờ mở cửa phòng nơi các anh đang “học”. Em cười ngất với vẻ mặt nghiêm túc đầy tập trung của cả ba với cuốn sách cầm ngược bao bọc cuốn truyện đoremon. Mới hôm nào bị các anh cho ra rìa vì trò đùa ấy. Thế mà giờ một trong các anh đã lập gia đình rồi, đón chào một trang mới của cuộc sống. Em nhoẻn miệng cười thầm chúc phúc cho anh, thấy thế hệ của anh và em đã trưởng thành cả rồi và đang đón chào nhiều thật nhiều điều mới mẻ phía trước.

Nhờ đám cưới của anh mà em được gặp lại dì, chị gái của mẹ em-người em xem như bà ngoại thứ hai vì dì lớn tuổi hơn mẹ nhiều và rất gần gũi với em. Mỗi lần về quê là em đều tự nhảy tót xuống xe, chạy thẳng một mạch đến nhà chào dì. Hình ảnh của quê ngoại trong em luôn gắn liền với hình ảnh của dì, với những lần nằm giữa sân nhà, trên cái giường tre cùa dì, ngắm một bầu trời đầy sao, với những lần đòi dì đi bắt đom đóm giữa đêm, rồi bỏ vào cái lọ thủy tinh và bảo: “cháu mang về thành phố nuôi dì à”. Giờ lớn rồi lại em lại mong được cùng dì đi mò cua, bắt ốc, đi hái rau muống, đi chăn trâu, trèo cây hái ổi... Giờ em lại thấy vui khi nhớ lại mỗi lần bị dì la vì dám bứng sạch một vườn rau khoai của dì để cho heo ăn, rồi cả lần rón rén trộm những củ khoai cho con trâu to thật to sau vườn . Khi ấy em theo dì đi chơi khắp xóm, thấy thích vô cùng, thích những tiếng côn trùng kêu réc réc ở hai bên đường làng, thích được đi trên đường đầy sình lầy lội, bắn tùm lum lên đôi ủng cao su, đi đến nhà nào dì cũng bảo nó thích trâu lắm, khi nào nó về thành phố sẽ cho 1 con thật to để nuôi…nghe thế em cười toe chịu liền. Ôi mới hôm nào em nhỏ tí đi cạnh dì, thấy cái dì cũng lạ, cũng hay, cũng đòi cho bằng được, vậy mà giờ đã nghe dì bảo”khi nào em cưới chồng là dì vào dự liền”-Nghe thật vui và buồn cười -thấy mình cũng đã lớn, hết bày trò này nọ nũng nụi, chọc dì rồi, hết hỏi dì “ban đêm ở quê có ma không dì" rồi. Ngoảnh lại thật tuổi thơ của em cũng thật đẹp và thấy em đã chẳng còn bé bỏng như hôm nào.

Why in the world do we need to study?

Last week I had a test, and I had to read 116 pages to study for it. It wasn’t a nice experience at all. 116 pages, it’s so thick when I tried to measure it. How in the world would I remember all of these details and be able to apply them efficiently when I start my career two years later? Why exactly that we all have to study?

The question is never new, but until now I sometimes still find it worth-questioning. 116 pages, four big chapters, it’s a lot of information – and it went into my head like a flood trying to pass a tiny cave. It took great concentration not to get those info going off track – like the water. I got most of them in, somehow, and I did the test finely. But even though I just did it this morning, now I am not sure how much do I still keep in my head. A professor has told me that after six months, what I have learned will be 2% remaining. I think 2% is still nice enough if it’s useful. Don’t we, however, tend to remember random things easier? Then why do I have to study and study for hours and keep only 2% of those may-be-useful with me later? Only to past the test? Then the test is irrelevant in itself! I feel like I was wasting my time so much.

Another sad thing is that the GPA is negatively important. A low GPA will get a lot of attention from our future employers, but if we study the heck out of us to get 4.0, they are not gonna care! And why would they? It’s irrelevant to the job, except showing that you have no life.

When I was in secondary school I thought of a pretty good answer for the meaning of studying. I thought that to study was to train to endure hardship and to strengthen our minds. But it isn’t true at all. We can get those benefits by doing so many other things besides studying. And really, not every person would need those.

Ok, how about we go to school so that we have all the beautiful friendships and crushes? Screw that. Unless you talk in class all the time like me, you are not gonna interact much to your classmate. Let’s see, we may go to school for about eight hours (7:00am-11:00am and 2:00pm-6:00pm) and during this time, hanging out with classmates will be two hours at most (that is, if we use all of the three breaks we can have). So we only use 25% of the time for socializing. 25% is too low to be significant at all. And that’s in Vietnam. Here in America we have a 10-minute break for a four-hour class. We can do something else to have more time interacting with people than that.

This is what I think we should do: we only learn the essential and the relevant, which are short and straightforward. We read them over and over every week so we will remember them 100% at anytime. We also spend some time for training our bodies and our minds and our souls. We will also have a lot of time socializing and making friends. And since we don’t have to go through more than 10 years doing few things, we can actually get to our desired careers more prepared and mush faster! And guess what? We may use our hundreds of thousands of dollars to do something besides paying for the tuitions!

So what are we doing here? Why do we go to college? And why do we even go to graduate schools after that? Isn’t everything we need to know in the books and we can just read them whenever we want to?

Well, I guess going to school is really necessary because of some reasons I just cannot think of yet. Anyway, don’t you think my idea of how we should study make some sense?