Cast No Shadow

Argh, I just finished the week from hell or Texas (take your pick). Had a whole slew of work to do and some bad project team members who I would have bitched out on this blog but I won't for reasons I will reveal later. First off, Halloween was a blast for me. Went to SISA Pumpkin Carving and then to the Baugh's party as the Scream ghost face dude with a fedora hat on. Yeah, the hat makes all the difference. Note to all those would-be Scream imitators, the Scream mask severely limits your periphal vision and the black robe thing severely limits your mobility. I don't how anybody can kill anyone in that get up without tripping over themselves. The next night I went out to Bab's sans the scream mask but still with my fedora. Seeing that fedoras are not in fashion, Halloween is like the one or two times I can actually wear it without feeling self-concious. Seeing how great my Halloween was, it served as a non-respective prelude to my week of crap.

What made last week really crappy was all the work I had to do. My two classes at the business school started last week. They are allright and all but the extra work is not welcomed. My first class is an IT strategy class and like every and all business school classes, there are a whole bunch of cases. Unfortunately, that means writing up group cases this past weekend. One of our group members bailed on us by dropping the class and I thought another one would to because we didn't hear from it. But surprise of surprises he actually came through and did his part extremely well. So I guess I shouldn't expect the worst of people. In my other group project which took up most of last week and created way too much undue stress because one of my project mates had rather poor project management skills. We were doing usability testing, which requires a great deal of coordination, organization, and direction. Unfortunately, the person who was serving as project manager did not display any of those skills and appeared not to know anything about actual usability testing. We ended up wasting a lot of time going around in circles and not getting anything accomplished. So I got fed up and basically took over and basically laid out what shit we were going to do. Apparently, my efforts to rectify things made things even worse because said inadequent project manager took offense to me taking over. Yeah, I hate it when somebody tries to come in and fix things when they are broken. I much prefer to leave things fucked up. Long story short, there was a lot of bad blood. But again surprises of surprises, said project manager spoke with me today and apologized for not ummm..well...not doing their job. Like I said people can surprise at times.

I would be remiss if I did not mention even more interview related issues. I interviewed with three companies since my last entry. I did first round interviews with CapGemini and the Optimization Group, which is a local consulting group. What added some stress last week ontop of the school work and group issues, was my first and second interviews with Deloitte Consulting. I gave my resume to Deloitte Consulting a few weeks ago at the career fair and didn't hear anything. I assumed they didn't want to interview me. Low and behold, they emailed me on Monday to set up an interview on Wednesday. Short notice. First round went allright. I think I impressed the interviewer by saying that Steve Nash went to my undergrad university (Santa Clara). I also mentioned that the university in Bend it like Beckham also features Santa Clara, which is basically how everybody at SI knows about Santa Clara. The interviewer was Canadian so he knew all about Steve Nash. Second round I sorta tanked. There was a case interview and a regular interview. The problem with the case is that it was so general that it didn't provide any direction to go to. Normally for all the case interviews I have done, they give you a sheet of paper which explains the company, scenario, details, and problem. They sometime includes graphs, charts, or some other stuff. For this case, the guy draws three circles on a piece of paper and bascially says, they want to intergrate these three companies, what should you do? Yeah, my problem was that I was too specific while they were looking for more generic answers. The regular interview mostly consisted of me and the interviewer talking about the botanical gardens because he goes there and I am doing my research assistant job out there. I am supposed to hear back by this Wednesday but I am expecting a big fat no. I should mention that I have sent resumes to 11 companies as of today. How many interviews have I gotten? 6 so far. Something tells me I am not going to hold that ratio of resumes to interviews going forward.

I am going to reserve the remaining of my non-micro content entry to my inner dark demons from the past. Actually no, it is more of my ranting about my childhood. Anyway, the following book has been making the rounds in the news, "Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers — and How You Can Too." It was written by two Korean sisters. Seeing that I am Asian and also Korean, and was raised to be a high achiever (which of course, by anybody who reads this blog, I did not end up as), I feel I am somewhat qualified to provide my view on the subject. When I first read the title of the book, I let out a mental groan. I was expecting pretty much the same old stereotypical Asian work-hard-sacrifice crap that I have heard a million times. You know, make sure that your kid plays a musical instrument. Wait not any musical instrument, it has to be piano or violin. Don't let them watch TV, make them read the dictionary, enroll your kids in SAT classes when they are 12, expect only A's and nothing else, don't let your kids waste time with art, shop, or any subject that isn't academically rigorous, blah blah blah. But I did read an excerpt, I was somewhat surprised. They didn't really focus on any of the stuff I just mentioned. They really emphasized that parents need to instill a love of learning and education, expose your children to people who have diverse backgrounds and who are enthusatic about their careers, and don't just say that education is important, actually practice it yourself. I was thinking, "Gee, this is actually good advice that I would follow. These tips are really good and don't just apply to Asian parents or kids." However, my good cheer was quickly dashed when the Korean sister authors (last name Kim - can't get any more Korean than that) trotted out the most Korean parenting trick in the book. To illustrate their points, they recount the story of several kids, who despite their tough upbringings, were able to become superachievers. I call this trick, "The Korean Guilt Example."

Pretty much consistently throughout my childhood, my mom would trot out Korean guilt examples to try and motivate me to do better. Usually it would be "You know So and So's daughter, she is a straight A student, volunteers at the hosipital, varisty letters in six sports, and researches curse to lung cancer in her spare time..." The inference being why can't I be like So and So's daughter. Normally, my mom would find these guilt examples from the local Korean newspaper when they profiled the next Korean violin or chess prodigy or from other Korean friends she knew. For a time, Jinah, my older sister, was my Korean Guilt Example because Jinah was valedvictorian, an award winning flute player, in the marching band, multiple AP and honor class achiever, community service and extra-curricular guru whereas I was mostly known for being her little brother and being a huge X-Files fan. Eventually that time passed when Jinah went off to Berkeley, so the Korean Guilt Example shifted to someone I will call "CP", who became the bane of my high school existence even though, to this day, I have never met him. CP was in many ways like me. He was the same age as me, Korean, and also a swimmer. He would have been exactly like me except he was more popular, an All-American swimmer, a straight-A student who went to Harvard whereas I was not as popular, not as good of as swimmer, and not a straight-A student who didn't go to Harvard. That didn't stop my Mom from constantly pointing out how, in many numerous ways, I was not like CP. So I read the excerpt from the book, memories of CP came rushing back to me. Now a fair amount of time has passed and I have to say that I turned out decently and no longer feel compelled to compare myself to CP, who probably went on to some prosperous career in medicine, law, or business and is probably delighting his Korean parents by marrying a nice Korean girl. Or I can hope he burned out and is currently an embittered all-black wearing, chic-thick-rimmed glasses wearing assistant manager at a Barnes and Nobles or, as Erika suggests, a clerk at an indie music store who hocks CDs of a ska - reggee - techno - trance - new-age - jazz - with a hint of Miles Davis band that will no doubt revolutionize music in his opinion. I am learning to be happy with who I am. And I can take heart in the fact that I have matured, growned wiser, and gained perspective in this constantly evolving life that I have chosen to live. And anytime I feel down on myself, I can also remember that there is a lamer version of me at SI

Until next time, Peace