Staying home watching TV? Netflix? Playing with your dog? Sleep all day? Eat pizza? That would be a great day for some people, and they could, in fact, argue that indeed that would make a great day, but not for me. That actually would be a terrible day! (not that playing with your dog is bad but do only that wouldn't exactly be great. Honestly, to me, a great day would look something like this. First! (If we are talking about a school day) Arrive early to school! (Around 7:45) Then, attend to all my classes. (Try not to skip because that would stay in my consciousness and then feel bad). Now, if I am physically in class, but in my mind, I'm fighting an alien invasion which threatens life on earth, or just taking weird Snapchat selfies, that doesn't count. I need to close Facebook, put my phone away, take out my notebook, and start learning! Now, I know who I am and I know my limits, being 100% concentrated and never get distracted would be literally impossible. So, if I can at least be 80% of class time concentrated, that would be great! (Just to put some math in there, something like 60 minutes of total concentration out of the 75-minute class, and 70% for the last class because let's be honest, I will be tired and would want to go home.) Secondly! During break, GO TALK TO FRIENDS!!!! (And maybe just to exceed my own expectations, make a new friend) As an introvert, talking isn't my thing. Even to my friends, I keep quiet because I find comfort in silence. However, this is somewhat of a limitation for me, so trying to talk to people would look great by the end of the day when I look back to it. Third! Use lunch to do work! Now, I am not saying socializing is wrong, like I said in my previous paragraph, I want to socialize! And there is nothing wrong with taking a chill time from class and trying to forget that boring lecture of biology that was all about active transport and osmosis. But to me, a great day (not joking) would be to go to Mr. Acuña’s room and do math problems. I enjoy doing math so this would be perfect for me, plus Acuña is a great friend of mine and we always have fun conversations and hear his complaints about politics. Forth! Go home and do exercise! I consider myself an active person, so whether it's to play tennis, a little basketball practice in my hoop, hit some golf balls with my driver, or do freeletics (an exercise app) I am happy! Now, this is something I would do every day, even if it means to just do 10 push ups, exercise is important! Plus, I need to get fit for summer so it's essential that I work my ass off exercising. Last, but definitely not least, TIME WITH FAMILY AND MAILO! (Mailo is my dog by the way). Family time is always great, whether it's just a family lunch and dinner, or watching a series, news or a movie, it is important. You spend most of the time away from them so some time with them won't kill you. Wake up early, pay attention in school, be with friends, do math problems with Mr. Acuña, do exercise, spend time with family and Mailo, (and personally not get drunk or ingest alcohol) would definitely look not only as a great day but the best of days. And some piano, of course, I need music in my life. A combination of everything! That, my dear people, would be a great day for me.
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Happiness...it's that combination of chemical reactions that occur in the brain. Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, all combining at the same time to create a smile. A smile that takes 10 of your face muscles to be born.
Only in the past two decades, we have been able to really study the cause and effects of happiness. This according to the article was written in Harvard Business Review titled "The science behind the smile" According to Daniel Gilbert, this is so because of the advances in science. Like he said "...decades ago, the problems of happiness were mainly in the hands of philosophers and poets" (Which isn't exactly bad, but now we can be more precise). What is it that I need? Some of the materials include money, family, supporting friends, a job. However, this only accounts for 10% of what my happiness could mean, sure there are other small categories and activities that make me happy like playing piano or tennis, but those are the main ones. Like Shawn Achor said in his Ted Talk, 10% of my happiness is predictable, which is basically the way you live in the world, and the other 90% of our happiness comes from how your brain interprets the world. So in reality, money, family, and friends don’t seem to be so important do they? For example, the man in the van. He was baseball pitcher that literally lived in a van. It was no fancy van, in fact, it was deplorable, and had many technical failures. Sure, he clearly had friends in his team, but other than that he seemed to be very independent, living his life alone. He would stop in the middle of the road to explore something he found interesting. 90 % of his happiness came from his values that were set as a child. Clearly money wasn’t what directed his happiness, it was how he saw the world, he could’ve bought a nice, expensive car, a luxurious house and have a life of parties, yet he lives happily in a van. The Same example comes from the movie “Happy”. Roy lived in a swamp-like a place. To many of us, it could seem depressing, disgusting, living there could not ever make you happy. Yet Roy said “its like paradise to me”. Again, Roy’s brain does not interpret the swamp as an unpleasant place, but rather somewhere he wants to be. Because something new happens every day. A really, REALLY good movie. I am no expert in movies but wow, this movie really got me thinking about myself. It made me reflect on my life and if there is anything holding me back currently. I really didn't find anything holding me back, but then again I doubt it takes a day or two to really find it. Anyway, after watching the movie I felt really inspired. All of a sudden I wanted to solve math problems like crazy, I am not as smart as Will, an actual genius, but I didn't lose anything by trying.
A character in the movie who was actually really smart was Sean, a psychology teacher that agrees to give therapy sessions to Will. Sean was a very intelligent man, and very cultured. However, as bright as he was, he did have that "Southie" side similar to Will (somewhat colloquial) which was maybe a strategy to connect with Will. Something that I really liked was the contrast these two characters had. On one hand, Will was a genius, he was so knowledgeable about so many things like paintings and math, as well as pretty much any topic. And on the other hand, you had Sean, who even though wasn't as smart as will, he was sort of the "experience" aspect of life. I ask you, is knowledge more important than experience, or the other way around? This is shown where they are sitting in the park, and Sean calls Will out that even though Will could learn anything, he (at that point) could tell was true love was, or how it felt. Another thing they had in common was an event that left a deep scar. For Sean, it was the death of his wife. For Will, it was his traumatic past while living in a foster home that left him somewhat vulnerable to other people. In the end of the movie, we see that they both leave Boston. Will goes "to see about a girl", and Sean was going to "buy another hand of cards". This was a moment they both left their comfort zones. Will would always push people away from him before they could so that he would get hurt. Sean had a mentality that his wife's death meant he couldn't move on. They both got over themselves. Geeting over yourself connects with living a great life because it means you grew as a person. You achieved leaving your old, flawless self, and moved towards a new "you" not a perfect one, but much better than the previous one. "This is your goodbye gift!"
I laughed as my boss handed me over an ice cream of Chicha Morada. As silly as it may sound I was actually grateful, it was a really hot day so it was the perfect gift. I desperately opened and started eating the ice cream with a relief like no other. I couldn't help but feel somewhat melancholic since yesterday was my last day in JJC. I had spent 8 days with a group of people I didn't imagine could fit in such an important job. There was this mentality in my head that when you had to go to work, your face had to be as serious as possible and that the only thing you had to do was have your eyes fixed on the screen, signing papers, attending meetings, regulating steps, how could I have been so wrong? In those eight days, I have laughed harder than in any other time in my life. My mentality was that engineers and architects had nothing in their minds that weren't numbered. However, these people that I met were cracking jokes, making fools of themselves, telling old stories, they even embarrassed the Chief engineer! Looking back at the fun times I had in my internship, waking up at 5:30 am didn't sound so bad. When I arrived, they were finishing the 3rd floor underground, on my last day, they were finishing the first underground floor. I still looked at it with awe, like on my the first day. The amount od calculations and hours that they had spent, I could only imagine. And especially the money! (800milllion dollars!) and that was only the expected value... Anyway, I learned AutoCad, tried planning a floor, a cup (quite challenging actually) my phone, and a car, I even want to try and plan my current house. I learned about the different areas of a construction, planning, architecture, supervision, quality control, security, etc. Also vocabulary, that maybe is actually slang because I can't find a translation for it. Nevertheless, although I learned several thing about civil engineering and architecture (only the tip of the iceberg really). I honestly believe that my most important takeaway was that you don't have to really act like an adult when you go to work. Work becomes so much better when you have fun with it, and 10 times more if you love what you do. 45 degrees Celsius, 8th floor underground, more than 500 tons of concrete and steel over my head. The only thing keeping me alive, a respirator and a sheet of paper to fan my face. In my mind? "I feel like I'm about to die!!!!"
That basically sums up the middle stage of my internship at JJC. This is a Peruvian construction company, and they were recently in charge of building a new office center. I was lucky enough to be sent to the engineering office that was just one block away from the construction area. (I'm interested in a civil/ environmental engineering or architecture career so this was perfect opportunity for me) I remember the first day I gave a second thought to the idea, why? Well, I had to wake up at 5:30 am, arrive at the office at 7 am and be there until 5 pm. Since this was happening in Miraflores, leaving the place at 5:15 would mean that I would arrive at my house at around 7 pm. I would work for 10 hours, and be awake for 12 hours. Monday to Wednesday. In addition to that, the only thing keeping a 3x4 room with 6 people in it from becoming an oven, was a miserable fan. Fortunately, that was the only negative side of my internship so far. Now, I have no previous knowledge of civil engineering or architecture so I couldn't exactly calculate the amount of concrete that a column needed, that was up to the experts. In my case, I have really small and simple jobs. For Example, look for a certain person, ask them for some kind of papers to sign, fill in an excel sheet, etc. Most of the time I spend asking questions. I've asked so many questions that I'm pretty sure I got on the nerves of my boss. (I know this because she sometimes exhaled in frustration) Now, although I didn't do that much, and honestly found myself bored between time to time, I can't say that I'm not loving the whole experience so far. To begin with, I love the fact that I can actually move around, go to the construction several times means that I'm in constant movement and not sitting in a chair for more that 2 hours. (Time spent filling the spreadsheets). Don't think that's because I don't get the hard job others have, they are in constant movement as well! Probably on of the most exciting things so far was learning about AutoCad. I am in love with this designing program. It's so hard to manage that it makes me want to stay in my seat until I can make those two lines connect. I remember using Sketchup like a pro, creating a design that to me was amazing. What I thought was amazing, was actual "baby's play". (yeah not even child's play). But don't get me wrong, you can accomplish great work with Sketchup, however, AutoCad was like doing magic. For the past 2 weeks, when bored, I would look at Persi's computer screen, the person in charge of making sure all the plans were correct. So now I'm thinking, I seem to enjoy what's happening, but could I do this for the rest of my life? There is still a lot I don't know about, so should this be the definite judgment of my future? Click here to edit“We did it! We were mediocre, but we did it!” That’s what my business partner, Oscar, and I said at the end of a classroom meeting. Against all the fire and sticks and stones they threw at my business, we are actually the one out of two groups who will continue next year. I can still remember the first day and with no hope I presented my idea for Dipitz.
We had two weeks to show that our business could be a success. We had more trouble than any other business. All those jokes about our business that will not make it, that WE were the joke. Finally we have proven, Dipitz, is one of the best companies. We started with 5 total companies, and it is now down to Dipitz and Crepez to continue next year. However, there is something that through all this success, that I find dreadful. I am not proud of myself. I am not proud of what I did. I feel guilty. I feel dirty. I feel as if I have betrayed my team. I was in charge of finance in my group. That and only that. No more no less. “no more” is the problem. I didn’t do more. After each sale all I did was count the money. I found the revenue, used the cost, and found the profit of each sale. Done. The only thing I could count as real work would be finding the profit margin for each dip, but that’s it. Belen was killing herself with marketing. And Oscar was doing constant work with CEO and Human recourses. I only counted the money. Could I have made a better decision? Maybe. You see, what happened last week certainly was an awful event. The previous day to the Dipitz sale, a member of my group had a terrible accident while volunteering for another business. The member of my group was in charge of making one of the dips for tomorrow’s sale. In addition to that, the other member of my business was in Chile playing a soccer tournament. It was me and me alone.
After talking with my Dipitz group, a topic came up that created some tension in the group. “I’m leaving Dipitz…” When the CEO of the company says that, no matter how many times anyone hears it, he or she will feel cold, especially when he was doing a great job at it. Chavez left us. I wasn’t too worried or shocked. He didn’t feel like the Z-corp was working for him and decided to go with his first idea, an adventure business. I wasn’t against it; I was all for it and happy that he was going to continue something that he wants.
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After several hours of organising the the budget, the big day came and we launched the first school pop-up restaurant on Friday. We actually, without noticing, used the Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop. We had out idea, we build the restaurant, we created the products, we measured the number of dips and costumers through a survey, and after some feedback through the costumers something came to me. |