IBE the Journey - Part 07

To read from the beginning, click HERE
(Continued from Part 06)

One great lesson
One thing I appreciated about IBE, was the fact that we were taught by the new way. We were made in teams, and pretty much we did everything with our teammates. It wasn’t just about teamwork; it was about developing leadership, discipline, responsibility, and personality. That’s why I was so pleased when my teammates valued me highly, and that’s why I could really say that I had become a better person.
One of the three IBE professors was Dr. Michaelsen, my very first Management Instructor. It was significant because his class would be very decisive for my attitude about my Management major. Fortunately he did a great job. Throughout the course, he’d taught us many good lessons, several of them were quite crucial. I am gonna talk about one of them, which was called “The unsung hero”.
“Unsung” means unrecognized. An unsung hero would be someone that deserves to be praised more than what people think about him/her. And Dr. Michaelsen told us to write down the company member that we believed to be “the unsung hero”, write his/her name down, and also explain why. His request made me think for awhile. I could easily tell who the outstanding members were. That could be Mike, the extremely devoted guy I mentioned in The Recognition part; or Nicole, the girl who had the highest sale, which was nearly 100; or the president Jacqueline, she turned out to do a much better job than I expected in the beginning; or some others. But then, the word “unsung” struck me. Someone that was secretly doing a good job wasn’t easy to tell, and I wanted to tell exactly who that was. In the end I chose Levi, one of my teammate, for his contribution in the service part was abundant, far surpassed even our Service Manager’s, yet he was blamed a lot by other members for any imperfection. I wrote that down on my piece of paper.
Another thought came to me when I heard about the activity was, “Man, I wish I was doing a much better job, so I would be the unsung hero now!” Many might have the same thought.
After we were all done, Dr. Michael told us to give those pieces of paper to the ones we were talking about. In our company, many gave it to Mike or Nicole, and when I gave mine to Levi he was surprised. I bet he was glad. About myself, I was also really surprised when Jacqueline the president gave her piece of paper to me. Wow, someone did choose me to be the unsung hero, saying that I was “upbeat”. “What in the world is ‘upbeat’?”, I asked myself. Whatever, it’s still kool to get one like that. Gotta tell Arwen.
What Dr. Michaelsen also did, was showing us how most of the reasons for people to choose the unsung hero/heroine were: Being devoted, always doing his/her best, having a good attitude, and being ethical. He said that in any workplace, those kinds of people would be great assets to the companies, and they would be treasured. He was telling us to become like that. What a great lesson.
The grades and the rest of IBE
As I said in SALES part, our inventory of glasses went out rather early, so I wasn’t concerned much about it in the last days of IBE. It was the grades that took my focus. The grades were always important, even for IBE. If my GPA dropped, I wouldn’t be able to explain to my interviewer that “But I was a good seller!” Being a great member in IBE would only give you one A in the Practicum part, but there were still three other classes to be taken care of. The Marketing class and the CIS class were hard to get good grades, mainly because of the tests I mentioned in part The tests was another battle. They were tough, but since I kept trying, and kept finding a more efficient way to study, my final results were satisfying. My favorite class, the Management one, ironically was not that simple. Most of the grade I got for that class was the RATs, and RATs were nearly impossible to get higher than Bs. So I came to talk to Dr. Michaelsen, telling how I was worried about my grade. He said to me that his way of determine grade was different from the normal percentage method, and since I had the sixth highest score in his class, I would get a solid A. “Wow, I was the sixth best guy in a class of 85? That’s awesome!” I thought.
But I wasn’t the sixth at all. The next day when I came to see the ranking sheet hanging on the wall, I was at the third place. And by the end of the semester, I went to be the second guy. Yes, I, Anh Tran, was the second place in a class of 85. It would always be one of the proudest things in my life, something that I could tell even my child many years later.
Everything else left of IBE was just a dream. I got my first portfolio website which I designed and wrote the entire thing. The girl with the highest sale Nicole came telling me that she voted for me in the very beginning, when I was nominating myself to be the Marketing Manager (in part “The first great failure”). Kool! Then people were saying good bye. Then I knew that I got straight As for one of the most challenging semesters. Then I happily jump to the long Christmas break, bragging about how well I did in IBE to my girlfriend until she got sick of it. :D
That’s right. Happy ending. Thank you for reading one of my most memorable experiences.

Origami Extreme - Part 06!!!

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I am not really interested in dogs. In fact, I have had some pretty bad experiences with several of them in real life, and I try to avoid them as much as possible. But my girlfriend loves them a lot, so somehow I have a little special feeling toward them at a corner in my heart. So here it is, my newest Origami collection, Dogs.

I really enjoyed folding them. And again, none of these models are my creations; I only fold them according to diagrams. Each of them was made with one uncut square.

PART 06: DOGS

TOSA INU by Nishikawa Seiji – He looks like the one Arwen has. Scary… : D

AMERICAN COCKER SPANIEL by Kamiya Satoshi

COLLIE DOG by Fumiaki Kawahata

DACHSHUND by Aoki Ryo

DOG by Noboru Miyajima

FOX TERRIER by Roman Diaz

PUPPY by Katsuta Kyohei

GOLDEN RETRIEVER by Kamiya Satoshi

SPECIAL FEATURE!!!

PUPPY by Akira Yoshizawa

We can be happy by ourselves…

But love will make us happier…

…and happier, don’t you think?

Thank you.

……………………………………….

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 05 !!! - People of Humanity

Origami Extreme - Part 07!!! - Cats

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

IBE the Journey - Part 06

To read from the beginning, click HERE
(Continued from Part 05)

The Recognitions

In any business, feedbacks are critically important (even in love). I was born to be a person who wants to hear feedbacks from others even more than normal. In IBE, we learned about giving useful feedbacks, and we had several chances during the semester to get feedbacks from others.

As I was facing disapprovals and unfairly treatments from other members, I expected nothing from their recognition toward me, even though I was still contributing my best. There were many outstanding people in the company, and I knew comparing to them I was pretty far behind.

Our first feedback activity was in the mid of the semester. The company officers were separated from the company members, and each group would give comments about the other, in a friendly but serious way, so that any issue occurred might be fixed immediately. We both were provided some large sheets of paper to write down what-ever comments about the other group, then we would come together and explain, discuss, or complain about anything for the other group to hear. When our group of members was finished, we met with the officers’ group. They hung their paper on the board just like we did, so the whole room could see what was written. In their papers, they wrote down the names of significant members in their opinions, and there were about five names were mentioned. As I could see with my surprised eyes, under Mike, the most devoted guy in our company, was my name. It was like this:

"Anh – High Spirit!!!"

Then they went on and explained how positive and friendly I was, how I cheered up when everyone was down, and how other members were feeling good when they were with me. I was speechless. So they actually noticed me, huh, I thought.

It’s always important to do a good job all the time, I know that. But when others tell me that I am doing a good job, it’s a whole different story. When I get recognized, I’ll be encouraged and motivated so much that my always “good” job will became a “great” job in no time.

As I mentioned in part 1, we weren’t only working in a company, we were having teams also. And I also had a chance to get feedbacks from my own team, team 11 of six people. These feedbacks were somewhat more meaningful than the company’s one, because we did so many things with our teammates: sitting in class next to each other, together doing our RATs, assignments, and projects. I could barely know the names of all 29 company members, but among six of us, we knew each other much more deeply and more personally. We rated and gave each other feedbacks via a website, and later on we could read our feedbacks on the site. The ratings and comments were anonymous, but it was only six of us so we really could guess who was who. This was my result:

Anh Tran

Person	Attendance Rating	Attendance Comments
mem 1	9	he has never missed a meeting
mem 2	9	always there
mem 3	9	He's always enthusiastic about projects
mem 4	9	he attends every day from what i can tell
mem 5	9	Anh is always in class and never really late
self	9	I've been attending every single class and meeting.
	Preparation Rating	Preparation Comments
mem 1	8	he always is ready for the tests
mem 2	9	always prepared
mem 3	9	He's always prepared and gets the highest scores
mem 4	9	he is ALWAYS prepared
mem 5	9	Anh is always prepared for the RATs and knows the informations very well
self	9	I've studied a whole lot for any RAT, as if it was a real test. And I always have the highest score among my team.
	Input Rating	Input Comments
mem 1	7	he always has something to say but its not always meaningfull
mem 2	9	always has smart reasoning
mem 3	9	If he's very confident about an answer he will try to persuade the team in a fun way
mem 4	9	he is very smart and prepared, very helpful during team assignments
mem 5	9	Anh always gives us input and is very convincing with his answers. During other team assignments can become easily off track and spacey.
self	7	I am called "overly passionate".
	Listened Rating	Listened Comments
mem 1	7	he is a very respectful person
mem 2	9	listens and responds
mem 3	9	He always listens and provides input
mem 4	9	He is respectful and understanding
mem 5	8	Anh listens carefully but it is hard for him to change his mind and listen to us.
self	7	I think I was a pretty good listener.
	Attitude Rating	Attitude Comments
mem 1	9	he is always in a good mood always laughing haveing a good time.
mem 2	9	very positive and energetic
mem 3	9	I think he makes the team overall happier with his antics
mem 4	9	he always has a good attitude and is positive in meetings
mem 5	8	anh is always in a positive attitude for doing work. however sometimes can not stay focused on what we are doing and starts walking around
self	7	I am a positive member.
	Contributions Rating	Contributions Comments
mem 1	8	the group would be very different without him thats for sure
mem 2	9	awesome
mem 3	9	He makes teamwork fun
mem 4	9	he is a great asset to our team, very helpful and prepared
mem 5	9	always willing to help and put in input. always can put us in a good mood if we are having a bad day.
self	7	Overall, I have done a pretty good job.
	Rating Summary
mem 1	48
mem 2	54
mem 3	54
mem 4	54
mem 5	52
self	46

I was really pleased with the feedbacks. My teammates said a lot of good things about me, and their ratings were much higher than I rated myself. In fact, they gave me “9” – the maximum score – in almost every aspect. This was great. I needed to show it to my girlfriend! :D

(to be continued...)
Part 07

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!