お誕生日おめでとう！ / Will there be cake?

It feels good to have a birthday where someone gets you actual balloons. Especially if they're accompanied by 1) good company, 2) gluten-free cake, and 3) pretty serious Italian spread including fiori di zucchini ripieni...

wisdom always.

It was love at first sight. I wasn't even looking to fall in love that day, really—it was just another thing to do, intellectual fodder for thought. Never did I expect to encounter someone who would change my life forever.

I'm talking about Kurt Vonnegut, of course—or more like his book, Slaughterhouse-Five. (I should really describe it as "love at first reading".) It was sophomore year in high school, and Mr. Hunter had assigned it for our class to read. And I read it, and I was hooked. Kurt Vonnegut, where had you been all my life?

But what I remember most from that first reading was the quote etched into the necklace of one of the characters. I was drawn to it because it contained the word "wisdom", which is what my name means. I didn't know it was the Serenity Prayer until a bit later. But when I read it, I felt like everything made sense.

Today I am repeating the full version in my heart, though with a few changes (forgive me Father, for I am not religious). The words are beautiful; I believe them.

Money Grows on Trees!

If you're looking for a way to earn money just by sitting there, look no further. Cash Grower can help you plan your finances, make investments, and grow your cash. You don't have to be a millionaire, and it's never too early or too late to start. You've got financial goals—let's talk about how you can achieve them.

Here's a brief background: Cash Grower is an online financial consultancy that offers advising on personal finance, investment, and retirement planning. Like Capital One 360 (an online baking service), we do away with the brick-and-mortar storefront to focus on providing you with prompt, online consulting.

Unlike our competitors, (like LearnVest, Plan & Act, and NestWise (which closed in September 2013)), we empower you to choose what kind of advising you need, and when. You don't have to tie yourself to a yearlong consulting package, and you can adjust the frequency of the advising to match your financial ups and downs. We have a clean, easy-to-use Website that offers tips and videos to help you learn more about growing your assets.

Our target customer segment includes people of all ages, with any level of net worth. We can assist you when you are starting out your new job, are managing a family, and are nearing retirement.

As an online financial consultancy, social media is key. We use LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Google+ to connect with you. Don't worry, we won't bombard you with information. Our LinkedIn account connects you with other professionals interested in financial planning. Our Facebook page has you chatting with other "Cash Growers" so you can encourage each other to reach your goals. Our YouTube channel offers videos with experts on how to get into investing and more. Our Twitter feed alerts you when we post something new (or just read a cool news story). And our Google+ account lets you search for anything you thought you saw, but can't quite find because it's been a few weeks.

We've honed our SEO so that if you search for "online financial consulting" (or "personal finance" or "investment 101") we're sure to be among your top hits. Even though we don't have a storefront, we offer online troubleshooting in multiple languages—get this: English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Portuguese! Being online means we're here to work with you on your goals anywhere, any time. (Well, within reason—we go on vacation once in a while; we've got to do something with all that cash we've grown.)

If Not Here, Where? How InsideTrack Innovates

The "MOOC Revolution" has been a long and quiet one. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman deemed it a good idea in a discussion of Andrew Ng's Coursera (#40 on Fast Company's list of 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2013) in his article "Come the Revolution" from May 2012. Of course, "online education" is nothing new—even when I was in college in the early 2000s, lectures were streamed and assignments submitted online, much to the delight of pajama-clad undergrads. So it's no surprise that companies like Coursera, Udacity, and EdX occupy the Top 3 positions for the 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2013 in the Education Industry. But what makes InsideTrack (#8 in Education Top 10) "innovative" is the company's aim itself: "motivating 350,000 students...to complete their education".

InsideTrack isn't a sexy company. You'll know that if you look at their homepage. Its use of social media tools isn't extensive, either—they have a blog (hosted on their own domain), a Twitter account, and a LinkedIn company page. (Their Twitter account follows 1,610 accounts, while only 735 accounts follow it in return.) So how does this 12-year-old company based in San Francisco manage to make it into the Top 10 in its industry in terms of innovation?

The answer is simple: The social media that it does use, it uses well—and appropriately for the goals of the company.

Their Twitter feed is comprised of links to articles related to education and professionalization. Its LinkedIn feed is pretty much the same. But InsideTrack isn't here to make friends with you or share cat photos online. Its goal is to get more people through college, so that they can have a college education under their belt. If the InsideTrack brand had a voice, it would be that of your supportive but stern guidance counselor. This, in fact, would be a case in point of a "boring" company benefiting from the use of social media by using it "well".

If you want a company that is innovative, have a goal and a vision and stick to them. InsideTrack offers one-on-one college counseling through its online platform to motivate students to finish their degrees and find employment. Not innovative enough for you? Try naming three people in your life who are actively engaged in doing that for you. Even with policies like the California DREAM Act, a college education is an unattainable goal for many, with a hefty price tag to boot—and the increase in the number of for-profit universities isn't making the situation any better, especially for student debt. MOOCs are great for making courses from elite universities accessible to more people around the world—and with projects like One Laptop Per Child, there is more value in that each day. Even without the $1,000 MBA, MOOCs and online courses offer flexibility to people with busy schedules or restrictions that make traditional universities inconvenient. But if your goal is to make a difference from the ground up, you might achieve more by getting coaches and counselors to listen to and talk with students, to help students achieve their goals—even if you don't set a up a Facebook page for your company.

言葉が出てこない時がある。

今みたいな時。あまりにも沢山の事を思いつめて、頭が割れそうになる。クラクラしてきて、息ができなくなって、仕舞には、言うべきだった言葉が涙になって出てくる。出てこない、出てこない。一体いつまで待てばいいんだろう・・・

人生って変だ。誰をどう信じていいのか分からない。何故信じられないのかも分からない。きっと何かがあるんだ。私の見えない、何かが。今はただ、じっとしてるべきなのかもしれない。でも怖い。

言葉が出てこない。ここから出たいのに。前に進みたいのに・・・

Still love. In its many forms.

In Fall of 2009 I learned that my friend had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. There wasn't much I could do for her—I could visit her in San Francisco, sit with her, talk with her, listen to her. But I wasn't a doctor, and I wasn't going to be able to cure her illness. I was powerless. And I hated the feeling.

But I'd gotten into the habit of donating my hair every time it got long enough, since I figured that, given my family history, it was probably not a bad idea to have some karma saved up. So when I learned about my friend (and when I figured out that I could do so little for her) I thought—well, even if I can't help her directly, maybe I can help someone else instead.

The only problem was, my hair was only just barely long enough to cut off the length I needed to donate it. But I figured, hey, hair grows back—and mine particularly fast. So I went to the nearest Fantastic Sams and got my hair buzzed off.

On Monday when I showed up to campus with my new 'do, people reacted. "Oh my goodness, what happened?!" "You look so different!" "It's so short!" What do you mean, what happened? I cut my hair. And yes, it's short—get over it. Do I really have to tell everyone I meet that I cut off my hair because I felt like there was nothing else I could do to help my friend?

A week or two later, I went to visit Rosemary, to talk about something silly or mundane, like qualifying. I walked into her office and she offered me a seat. We started talking, about...I don't even remember what now. But about a minute into our conversation, she stopped.

"There's something different about you."

"Oh? Um...maybe because I got my hair cut?"

"Oh, yes! That's what it is. You got your hair cut."

Yes. I got my haircut. That's all it was. It wasn't anything dramatic, I didn't grow a third ear, my brain still functioned. And I admit, there had been a point a few days after the haircut, when I looked into the mirror and thought, "Wow, I look ugly." I hated comparing myself to the norm that (healthy, feminine) women were supposed to have long, beautifully flowing locks. And I hated being so shallow about something that would grow back soon enough, when my friend and her partner were going through the toughest time of their lives.

So when Rosemary said that to me—when she unwittingly reassured me that all I had done was cut my hair, when so many others were talking about how drastic the change was—I felt reassured. I got a haircut. It was short, but my hair would grow back. And while I might feel powerless in the face of cancer, I had thought of my friend and acted, albeit in a very small way. I loved my friend, and that was all that mattered.

Thank you for putting that into perspective for me, Rosemary. Hearing everyone's remembrances of you yesterday reminded me of that incident. And it reminded me of all the forms love can take, however large or small. And it reminded me of what I have been so sure of for nearly a year, that there is someone I love who loves me, and that I couldn't fly to him fast enough, to be with him. Thank you for that, Rosemary.

Online Language (English/Japanese) Lessons

So, I'm taking an class on online marketing (in all the spare time that I have...please don't judge me), and I had to submit a proposal regarding a business for a paper we're supposed to write later in the quarter. Here's what I submitted:

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As an idea in development, my proposal outlines an online language learning service. Inspired by the demand for English classes in Japan, the service offers English and Japanese conversation lessons via Google Hangout or Skype. (The languages offered can vary depending on the conversation partners available—it’s just that I only speak English and Japanese…) The learner can choose the length and frequency of the lessons (typically between 30 and 60 minutes) and work with the same conversation partner across weeks to improve basic conversation skills in a casual and comfortable environment—at home, from a café, you name it. The service is accompanied by a site that offers language learning tips and materials that are text-, audio-, and video-based. It also provides a system for tracking progress, connecting with other students, and participating in events and activities in the local area. The service can be useful for anyone, from college students to professionals hoping to pick up conversation skills in a new language.
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I suppose that accompanying site is this blog...

Any thoughts? Feedback? Ideas or preferences for what you'd like to see in a service like this? I'm all ears!