Yearly Archives: 2013

Etsy Shop
1. My Etsy sales are directly correlated with the frequency of my blog posts and as a result of my lack of posting, sales have slowed down. I’ve been trying to find time to blog but haven’t been able to until now! I still need to re-name this blog to something other than the no-longer-accurate A Photo A Day, so whenever I get some free time, I’ll be on it!

Wedding
2. After 65 dresses, I said yes to the drop dead gorgeous dress.
3. I’m in the midst of locking down my hair and make-up artists.
4. I’ve finished designing our wedding invitations and will be sending them for printing soon.

Work
5. We’ve just launched this bad boy today.
6. The Canon VIP Video Maker contest with Buffer Festival has been a fabulous ride. Public voting for the grand prize VIP Video Maker winner starts on Monday.

School
7. I didn’t do well on my Finance midterm. But my team did very well on our Sustainability Project for the Skills for Leadership course.
8. Exams and final projects are coming due in the next 3 weeks, so it’s crunch time and I’ve just finished drafting a frightening study schedule.
9. I’m absolutely in awe of everything I am learning at school and I want to share a summary of one of my latest and fascinating readings for class. Food for thought!

A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

“The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind — computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind — creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people — artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, care-givers, consolers, big-picture thinkers — will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.

There is a seismic — though as yet undetected — shift now under way in much of the advanced world. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear computer-like capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age. This summary is for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emerging world — people uneasy in their careers or dissatisfied with their lives, entrepreneurs and business leaders eager to stay ahead of the next wave, parents who want to equip their children for the future, and the legions of emotionally astute and creatively adroit people whose distinctive abilities the Information Age has often overlooked and undervalued.

There are six essential aptitudes—“the six senses”— on which professional success and personal satisfaction increasingly will depend: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. These are fundamentally human abilities that everyone can master.

A change of such magnitude is complex. But the argument at the heart of this summary is simple. For nearly a century, Western society in general, and American society in particular, has been dominated by a form of thinking and an approach to life that is narrowly reductive and deeply analytical. Ours has been the age of the “knowledge worker,” the well-educated manipulator of information and deployer of expertise. But that is changing. Thanks to an array of forces — material abundance that is deepening our nonmaterial yearnings, globalization that is shipping white-collar work overseas, and powerful technologies that are eliminating certain kinds of work altogether — we are entering a new age. It is an age animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life — one that prizes “high concept” and “high touch” aptitudes. High concept involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new. High touch involves the ability to empathize with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

There’s something that encapsulates the change — and it’s right inside your head. Our brains are divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential, logical and analytical. The right hemisphere is nonlinear, intuitive and holistic.

We enlist both halves of our brains for even the simplest tasks. But the well-established differences between the two hemispheres of the brain yield a powerful metaphor for interpreting our present and guiding our future. Today, the defining skills of the previous era — the “left brain” capabilities that powered the Information Age — are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous — the “right brain” qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness and meaning — increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. For individuals, families and organizations, professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind.”

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And of course, a photo. :)

It’s a crazy busy time at work with multiple (awesome) projects on the go but I feel like I’m on vacation because there are no classes this week and I haven’t done any school work. It’s funny that I actually feel like I’m on vacation despite being nowhere near a real vacation. I’m still working my butt off at the office every day, I’m running my Etsy shop, and I’m planning a wedding. But yes, I feel like I’m on vacation because my workload tolerance has gotten so high. I kind of really like these reverse effects.

My parents threw Chris and I a small engagement party last night and it was so much fun. Both of our families met for the first time and it could not have gone better. We are both blessed with amazing families and are so, so, so grateful. Thank you mommy and daddy and family for the party!!!

Although these are arguably some of the most unflattering photos of myself, I had to post them for two reasons: 1) a blog-worthy memory despite looking like a monkey in the pictures and 2) I was dying of laughter when this was happening and found it exceptionally funny. You could quickly look at all four pictures and be quite convinced that I could not contain myself, hence the unflattering factor. We were getting our family photos taken and realized that we should bring Chris into the photo. So he made his way into the photo and we all bursted out laughing at the mental image of him standing behind the entire family, significantly taller, and could literally hold us all together with the span of his arms. We felt like little people in a big world for a moment. Mostly because we are actually so little.

Yesterday night was an amazing time. I’ll post more photos later. I still have a long to-do list to get through this evening.

Happy thanksgiving. I am the luckiest girl in the world. Thank you to my unfailing God, my family, my friends, and my one and only love, Chris. Having said that, I’m celebrating thanksgiving by myself with my Finance textbooks and Skills for Leadership project. Don’t you love my life? Sigh. It’ll all be worth it someday.

I love taking pictures of seniors. They have the most awesome expressions. I think the lines on their faces are beautiful. This gentleman is Chris’ stepdad’s father. We celebrated his 80th birthday last weekend. This post reminds me of my grandma – there was a time when I was obsessed with photographing her (flash back here). I miss her.

I went to work on a Thursday and it was business as usual until I signed onto my emails and received an e-greeting card from Chris. Now, we do send each other greeting cards quite often so I thought it was simply one of our regular cards. Boy was I wrong. The card was drop dead cute with a note attached that upon reading, would change my life forever. He said that he was taking me away for a four-day long weekend getaway and that I shouldn’t worry about having to drop all my work with such short notice because he had already cleared my required time off with my manager. I peeked over at my manager and of course, he was smiling mischievously. Between walking on sunshine, wrapping up everything at work as quickly as possible, and excusing myself from a team meeting I had for school that Saturday, it was a very hectic Thursday. But alas, I got myself ready for a weekend away in Old Montreal.

We took our time heading to Montreal that Friday morning. I definitely knew that the proposal was lurking but I had no idea when or how it was going to happen so the anticipation that it could literally happen at any moment just killed me slowly. When we arrived in Montreal, Chris brought me to a nail salon to get my nails done. God knows that the nails had to be polished to complement the sparkle I’m about to wear on my finger! I got my nails done and we went back to the hotel to get ready for a nice dinner. We headed down to the lobby at 6:45pm and as we walked towards the front door, there it was, a horse carriage parked right outside, ready to take us on a tour around the old city and to our restaurant.

The city lights were dimmed, the weather was absolutely perfect, and romance was in the air. The whole time we were on the carriage, I tried to feel his pockets for a box but had no luck, so I was starting to think that the proposal was not going to happen that evening. But then a part of me still felt that it was going to. We went around the old city with a ton of storytelling from Jacques, our horse carriage driver. I’m usually very fascinated by history and love learning about different cities but I could not pay attention because, as you’d expect, I was completely preoccupied by the anticipated proposal. It’s a good thing that I had been to Montreal before.

45 minutes came and went and the carriage finally pulled over to the sidewalk in front of a dashing restaurant. I was ready to exit the carriage when my knight in shining armour says “hold on, let me help you down.” As he got off the carriage, he pulls out a Canon PowerShot camera, hands it over to Jacques, and gets down on one knee. At that point, my brain froze, my heart exploded, my stomach swarmed with butterflies, and I began to weep tears of joy. There were many spectators on the streets and all I could see were phone cameras pointing at us, while I listened hard to the speech Chris had prepared. I don’t remember much of what he said because the moment was just that overwhelming. I said ‘absolutely yes’ and the crowd cheered.

But that’s not all. The owner of the restaurant came out with two glasses of champagne and made a toast to us. He said he has been happily married for 26 years and wanted to pass that good luck to us. Then Jacques jumps in and says he, too, has been happily married for 45 years and wanted to pass that good luck to us as well. Of course, I cried some more. Chris and I went inside the restaurant to another cheering crowd, who toasted to the engagement and thanked us for a great show. What a night to remember.

And just like that, we’ve started a new chapter. We are sooo damn excited.

Let’s see here: full time job, part time MBA, Etsy Shop, and now wedding planning. As if my life isn’t chaotic enough. I am so busy. I really think my hair is starting to fall at an alarming rate because of stress. Here’s to hoping that if you workhorse through your 20s, that you can cruise control your 30s (and not be bald). Wedding planning is really exciting though. I am working on our website at the moment, it’s coming together quite nicely. :)

I still intend on sharing my romantic proposal story in detail but as expected, I don’t have time right now. In five minutes, I have to hop on a team meeting for school via Skype. I will get to the story though! Or maybe it’s something I save for the wedding blog…! Happy October!

Back for a post. And this time to document something exciting. Chris proposed to me off of a horse carriage in the cobblestone streets of Old Montreal this weekend. The man continues to sweep me off my feet and I love him and everything about him to absolute pieces. I also love this blog because it really has become a journal of my life since 2009, capturing everything from the minute details to the extremely special moments like these, all in words and photographs. Life just got that much more awesome (and busy). Wedding plans shall be in full swing (along with the million other things I’m trying to take on). I’m so, so, so excited for the future. I am so happy.

I am also absolutely fascinated by everything that I am learning at school and wish that I can tell you all about it. I’m pressed for time pretty much all the time and have to rush through these posts more often than not, but I hope to get around to it somehow. I’ll also come back to tell the romantic proposal story in more detail when I’ve got more time. In the mean time, I wanted to quickly get this up ASAP while it’s fresh and in the moment. :) I’ve got permanent butterflies in my stomach!

I finished my homework sooner than expected, so here’s another post! :) (For Circle of Life series.)

Missing in action, I know. Once again, I’m trying to do a million things at once. I’m so sad that I haven’t been able to post consistently. Classes have started back up and my life is yet again chaotic, so new posts will be slow to come around. What counts is that I’m posting today. :) On a brighter note, my Etsy Shop is 3 sales away from breaking 500! I’m super excited! Sales could be a lot better but I suppose I have no right to complain seeing as I don’t even blog consistently anymore. There is a shortage in time and effort there! Anyways, happy mid-September! I’ll post again next week.

I hope your long weekend was as lovely as mine. Adding this to my Circle of Life series.Chris and I watched 7 horror movies this weekend. We are so desensitized. Nothing is scary anymore.