remembering my professor

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I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. To think that I heard of the news from a friend’s Facebook status. It truly sucks to be so far away…

I know how people say 人老病死, death is a natural thing when you’re old, but I couldn’t believe that Prof. Goodman was gone. I never got to say goodbye before I left USA because he was in Tokyo. His last words to me was just an email to say he wouldn’t be able to meet me because he was in Tokyo. My only hope now is that he enjoyed the cookies I left as a thank you gift.

Prof. Goodman was a teacher I looked up to and someone I could never thank enough. He was a wise and patient man. I remembered the time when I went to tell him I was having problems understanding the material for EALC464. Although I never said it, I was toying with the idea of dropping the class in my mind. I am glad I didn’t drop the class in the end for I wouldn’t have learnt perseverance. He assured me that even though other students seemed to be speaking up in class a lot, like me, they were probably having trouble with the material too. He encouraged me to ask questions no matter how stupid I thought they were because someone else in the room was probably thinking the same and did not dare ask it. So, by speaking up, I was actually helping my classmates too.

His class was definitely not an easy class. He did not have slides to copy notes from and his handouts were minimal. You made your own notes as the class discussed the text. I bet most students (especially Singaporean students) would have complained, but hey, it is a senior level class and his class emphasized on actual learning and not spoon-feeding. It was definitely for own good.

I admit I’m not someone who is full of ideas or particularly good in any area. My good grades come from perseverance and a willingness to learn. I went to Prof. Goodman about my final paper topic. Together we explored possible topics and finally he mentioned about combining my major with the class for a topic to write on. I finally settled on writing a paper about poster advertisements for Japanese theater. My hard work eventually paid off and I earned an A for the class. To think that months ago I was on the brink of dropping the class. I couldn’t thank Prof. Goodman enough for his patience and encouragement.

The next time I needed his help was to write me a letter of recommendation for AAF’s Most Promising Minority award. Although I will never know the contents of the letter or whether it even helped me get the award, I am still grateful that he wrote that letter for me. No matter what, it probably said good things about me that I don’t think I even am.

Prof. Goodman, who would have known that you’ll be gone so soon? I was still thinking that some day we would meet again maybe in Japan or even USA so I can say the thank you and goodbye I never said in person when I graduated. However, I believe that you left with no regrets for you knew your students had learnt well and they would go out into the world to do great things.

Lastly, thank you and goodbye. I will miss you.

a week of self-discovery

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Last week, I travelled to New York for AAF Most Promising Minority 2011. It was a 3-day award ceremony + professional seminars + recruitment fair. While many would say that they received valuable lessons about the advertising industry. I would say that this trip was one of self-discovery.

On the last day of the program, a top executive from Leo Burnett asked us “what is one thing you learned during your time here?” Students who stood up to answer the question mainly referred it back to the industry or the friends they made. As usual, I didn’t have the guts to stand up and answer the question, but I gathered all the courage I had to approach him after the panel discussion.

In my mind, I was wondering whether it was the right thing to do — revealing my weakness to a potential employer, but somehow I knew I had to do it. Besides, he seemed like a really nice person…a genuine person. I told him that my answer to his question was simply how I discovered that I could overcome my fear and talk to people. Being an introvert, I fear presentations and feel rather uncomfortable in social situations with a lot of unfamiliar people.

In fact, I did A LOT of talking during the 3 days, especially during the recruitment fair. Usually I would navigate a career fair, picking up lots of flyers, but not talking much to anyone. However, on this occasion, I told myself I had to do it now or never. I couldn’t possibly keep going on like this forever. Some time in my professional life, I would need to talk to people, face clients, give presentations, etc.

During the award ceremony, each of us had to go up on stage to receive our award and then announce to a room full of people (which included top executives from the industry) our 15-word tagline. While many other students had profound, philosophical taglines, mine was well…the simple truth. I feared going up on stage to say my line. I was shaking inside, but I conquered my fear and delivered my tagline well. So well that many students later recalled that I was the girl who loved research.

How did I do it? How did I find the courage to overcome my fear? I simply put skills I learnt in the Emotional Intelligence class to good use. Instead of engaging in negative thoughts, I told myself that I could do it, that I had rehearsed and prepared myself.

Anyway, back to the executive from Leo Burnett. If I had the choice of employer, he would be someone I would really want to work for. He was really nice, patiently listening to what I had to say then encouraging and sharing with me that his son is also an introvert who overcame his fears too. Later, I learnt from Steve (our advisor) that during their dinner together, he mentioned that he was impressed by my honesty. No, I wasn’t out to be a boot-licker. All I wanted was to let him know how I felt. Really, that was all. Nevertheless, I was glad to know that he thought well of me.

There are many people you meet in your life who make an impact and whom you will never forget. He is one person. There are more from this one week in New York. I cannot thank them enough for giving me a few minutes of their time…giving me the opportunity to show who I really am and for believing that I am good enough and I can make it.

And if you’re curious what my tagline is: “(I’m a) future advertising researcher who loves crunching numbers to build the best campaigns out there.”

my life is officially screwed

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All the coffee I downed just to stay awake has gone to waste. My life is officially screwed by the stats exam. Almost panicked and blanked out. Told myself to calm down and think, but ran out of time to think logically. To think that I was half confident that it would go ok since I did one practice exam paper and it was easy. How many times must I screw myself over before I realise that preparation for an exam must be done way in advance? The little voice in my head is nagging at me. It says “You suck at time management.”

FML.

a lesson on customer service

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I hate businesses who use generic email addresses.

No scratch that. I hate incompetent people who can’t do their job well. Whoever is hired to reply to emails isn’t doing their job well. What is the point of having an email address and asking customers to email to it when you’re not going to check it anyway? Don’t tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I work in a job that requires me to check emails. Even if the reply is short and generic, I make sure I reply to everyone so that they know their email has been read and considered. This is good customer service. It’s letting customers know that someone is listening and a way for them to know who to contact should they run into a problem in the future.

Second point, new/junior staff, nobody is saying you cannot don’t know stuff. However, you should know that you cannot say you don’t know to a customer. Also, don’t try and hide the fact that you don’t know what to do by insisting a customer follows the guidelines. What you’re doing is just pushing the customer away and hoping he/she never calls again. That my friend is not good customer service. Guidelines are meant to help you, but it is not the law. Most people fit into the general where the guidelines would help them. However, you will meet people who don’t fit. So, don’t keep repeating the same thing over and over when I’ve tried explaining that my situation does not apply to whatever you’re telling me to do. Either you’re not listening carefully to my case or you don’t know what to do and you’re hoping that I’ll just hang up. I will, but I’ll make sure your company gets to know about it too. And if they don’t care, I’m going to boycott your company and well, you’re just going to lose a customer. I’m not saying that customer is king, I’m trying to say that you got to value your customers.

What you should be doing is to offer to either transfer the call to your superior or ask your superior about it and then get back to the customer. And make sure you really do get back to the customer. This is good customer service and taking the initiative to go beyond what is required of you.

I think the problem with some people is that they think a job is just something to earn income or get on their resume. I’m sorry, I look at a job as something which helps people reach their goals in the process of reaching my goals. When they are happy, I will be happy to know that I’ve done my job well too. I think that is the greatest satisfaction one can get out of a job.

ooh look, pretty wallpaper

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I mentioned to deary quite recently on how people seem to behave around me. Despite my contributions, I somehow end up being part of the wallpaper or I somehow just blend into the background. I’m the person who when somebody mentions me, the other person goes “who’s Elisia?” Don’t ask me why it happens. It just does.

Who’s Elisia? I’m the person who almost practically sold my soul in trying to make things better for the damn organization. I’m the person who BOTHERED to stay in the same position for more than a year coz I believed I could do something and I wanted to do something, not coz I needed the position to pad my resume. I’m the person who cares about doing good work and in the event people can’t be bothered and do half-hearted work, I will try my best to pick up the shit left behind. I’m the person who hangs out behind the scene and tries to keep believing that one day someone will appreciate the work I’ve done, but so far it always only happens to those who speak up a lot (and sometimes it’s just a lot of big talk and nothing done).

Before you tell me that that’s coz I’m quiet and I should speak up more, yes, I’m not the most articulate person, but I think I deserve some recognition. I know it is difficult to remember names especially in a large social setting, but it doesn’t take a lot to remember faces. I’m terrible at remembering names, but in place of that I take the time to remember people based on face recognition. I can remember classmates even from my kindergarten school days, I kid you not. I don’t mean that people have to adore me and worship the ground I tread upon, but a friendly hi when we see each other along the hallways would be nice. Sure, if we were in the same class and we didn’t even talk to each other, it’s fine if you don’t want to say hi. It is worse when I know we’ve talked and now you pretend that we don’t even know each other.

You know what? The next person who pretends to not even know me, I will make it so. I will not bother to ever talk to you again. I will pretend you are invisible just like you did to me. To me, you are not even WORTH my time.

Ok, I’m done ranting. *breathes*

how far would we go to obey?

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A few weeks back, we were talking about social influence in Social Psychology class. We touched on the topic of obedience where my TA talked about an experiment devised a long time ago by Milgram. It was an experiment where a volunteer was assigned the teacher role and the other person was assigned the learner role. The teacher and learner sat in separate rooms. The teacher was supposed to “teach” the learner a set of words. The learner was supposed to remember those words and responded to the teacher’s questions. If the learner answered incorrectly, the teacher administered an electric shock and increased the voltage each time. The voltage ranged from 0-450mv. Of course, 450mv was fatal. What the teacher didn’t know was that he/she wasn’t really administering any electric shocks. He/she would hear recorded groans and screams. Whenever the teacher felt uncomfortable and wanted to stop the experiment, the experimenter would not say “no,” but would say that the experiment required the volunteer to continue. What the experimenters wanted to know was the level of obedience to authority of the volunteer in the face of evil. The volunteer “knew” that the electric shocks were fatal. The experimenter did not disallow the volunteer to stop the experiment, he merely said that the experiment required the volunteer to continue. Shockingly, 65% of the volunteers continued all the way to the fatal 450mv. This experiment was later disallowed and labeled as unethical. However, it was done again in 2009. This is only the first part of the full clip. To watch the full clip, go to YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PassGyF8X8

The end of the clip has the most impact as the experimenter talks about the experiment. I swear that if you ever did something like this (whether you’re the experimenter or volunteer), you’ll just become disillusioned with life and people. I also think the level of obedience depends on the age of the volunteer and how much it differs with the experimenter. The younger the volunteer and the larger the age gap, the more obedient the volunteer is. That scares me a lot as this would be true for all kids in school. Although they have the knowledge of right and wrong, they also fear and respect their elders which would often trump their knowledge in these situations.

bad choice to open that email now

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I don’t know when I’ve become so caught up in grades and awards. Maybe it’s coz since Secondary school, I’ve never been the one who got the good grades or any award.  Yea, I know I can only blame myself then for not putting in more effort. Now that I’m in college, I’m putting in all this effort, but I’m not getting anything at all.

The worst part is someone whom I feel is undeserving is getting it instead. Where have I gone wrong? What have I done wrong? 我真的不懂我为了什么在加油。为了什么在拼命的好好读书。At the end of the day, I’m still stuck at the starting point. 真的好累。我真的好累。

Argh. Wrong time to open the email. Why did I have to look at the list of awardees when I have to write an 8 page essay? Now my mood is like shit. Trying to listen to music to calm myself and complaining to a good friend who is trying her best to cheer me up.

I have 2 choices: 1) motivate myself to do even better 2) give up. As much as I hate it, I know which I’ll choose in the end.

surveying people is hard work

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I like doing surveys. And since last semester, I’ve become the one creating the survey and going out to ask people to fill it in. It is a tough job, but it’s ok…I don’t hate it.

Getting people to do surveys is hard work:

  • You need to be thick-skinned.
  • You need to be able to handle rejection and not let it bother you.
  • You need to be smart so as to minimize rejection.
  • You need perseverance. Collecting data IS long and hard.
  • You need to try every single resource you have. That does not mean you do things blindly.
  • You need to be able to resist temptation. How you achieve this will determine whether your work is biased or not.

since when are flash mobs violent?

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Because there are stupid people in this world. Stupid people who go spoil all the fun in something simple. Then the fun gets taken away from everyone. How do you blame the Government for banning fun when there are stupid people who do stupid things?

I’m referring to this article. Sui lorz, now it’s banned in Philadelphia. If we’re not careful, it’s going to be banned in even more states and perhaps countries too.

Flash mobs are supposed to be peaceful, random, and fun. Depending on who’s organizing it, it can be using to advertise and market products and services or just done out of sheer fun to put a smile on others’ faces.

你说气不气?