Personal vision statement

Good morning everyone :) Hope you all are having a great holiday. Today I will write an experience that stretched me to the limits and what kind of quality have helpd me to overcome the hardship.

 I was stretched to the limits when I was applying to ICU. I had long been longing to be an ICU student from when I was in Junior H.S . However , when I became a senior students in H.S in April, and actually had to decide which university to go, I got scared if I deserve to take AO test and there seemed to be no chance of me passing the test. So I change my choice of uni to another one which seemed to be easier to get into. Time passed and on the first day of school after the summer vacation (I still remember the date, it was August 26th 2012), I was so depressed. I was because I knew at the bottom of my heart that I am not doing what I really wanted to do, and running away from the dream that I had beeb having from long time ago. Through out the vacation I could not concentrate on studying because of this and seeing friends saying they studied satisfactorily during summer vacation and and they are confident was also devastating to me.

I could not take it anymore so I talked to my class teacher about how I am feeling. She said, "Well, you have to do what you really want to do because we only live once". This a piece of simple advice opened up my eyes, and I decide to apply to ICU. Now for those of you who also took AO, you might remember the large amount of essay and document that you need, and I had to prepare all of them in less than 2 weeks because the deadline was September 6th. It was very though not only for me but also for my teacher who had to prepare for a lot of document that cannot be prepared without the approval of school authority. I felt very bad for putting her in a rush because of me, but she did not blame me for changing my choice in the last minute and was willing to sacrifice her time to help me. I was and am so greatful to her, and passing the test and beoming an ICU student was the biggest thank you that I can give to her.

Looking back on the toughest two weeks in my life now, I think the following quality have really helped me to go through it.

I, Chidinma Desiree Orum,  living at my highest and best, am responsible, engaging and trustworthy. This is so that in my various roles—as a daughter,  sister, friend, part-time worker and student.

If I were not responsible, trustworthy, and engaging, I'm sure my teacher and also my family would not let me change my uni so easily(it wasn't that easy but...). I think they let me do that because they knew that I would not give up halfway irresponsibly, and would work really hard in the limited amount of time. So those are the best quality that I have and I'm sure I can use them under variety of circumstances :)

To be a even better person, there are other personal characteristics that I wish to or try to have... At the end of the day, I wish to feel that I have been kind to others, positive, and influential.
When I die, I wish to be remembered as a daughter, sister, wife, mother and friend who have all the quality that I have mentioned above :)

So that's all that I want to write for today. Hope you have a wonderful holiday.

My personal leadership experience①

So it's been a long while since I've posted the last blog and said that I would write about my personal leadership experience. I'm so sorry for those who have waited so long ;( Here I am, today I will finally write my personal leadership experience①

I forgot if I have explained about what I am going to write in this topic but in case I haven't, I am going to write about the experience that I have had working at two different workplaces, at a clothing store and at a fast-food restaurant, as a part-time worker and what I have realized as a good/bad leadership quality that the store managers or person who are in higher position have shown to me. I marked today's post as ① just in case I added update post of this topic to the blog in the future as I continue my work.

So now let's get into the main story. Today I have one story which is about good leadership exercise.
I realized the good leadership exercise at the fast-food shop that I work when we were at the peak time, which means the the number of customers are at the highest which is usually around 12:30. Since it was the busiest time in the day, we were so tired and not enjoying working at all like we usually do, and we just served food to the customers as fast as possible without any thankful emotion to them. But even in that terrible mood, the store manager was incredible. I mean he is always great and we love him because he is always in a good mood, work harder than anyone else and try talking to the part-timers as if we were in the same position and there is no hierarchy at all, but the fact he keeps that great quality even in  the "chaotic" situation was amazing.

The quality that the manager showed was exactly the same as the ones we have learned in the text and readings, but having people close to me who actually have those quality is a wonderful experience. I am so glad that I have a role model that I can learn from at the same time with enjoying working and earning money.

So this is the end of today's post. I hope it worthed waiting and reading for you guys. In the next post I am going to write about my "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" story so check it out too. Bye :)

This week's class review!

I know we still have Friday but I'm going to do wrap up of what I've learned from this week's class and my experience that I got working part-time job that I think has connection to the theme of leadership.

First we talked about handshaking. In Japan, we bow to show respect to others. On contrast in western countries, they shook hands not so much to show respect but rather to show confidence and to show that he/she is well capable of doing something. The key three elements in handshaking were Brief, Warm, Firm. Brief is to avoid awkwardness from doing handshaking too long or too short. For warm, someone who has warm hands is believed to have warm mind so this will give good impression. Firmness is very important to show your capability and confidence.
We also learned how to make eye contacts and how to exchange business-cards. The fact that there is so many rules that we should follow when exchanging business-cards was very interesting. Also, we did a eye-contact game in which we knock down paper that our classmates were holding with our eye-contacts. This made me realized that the eye-contacts that I used to do to each person when speaking in front of people was certainly too short and also i realized that I have to have wider vision so that I can make eye-contacts with the entire audience.

 In the first part of this week, we did a reading of "Strike a Powerful Pose" from Wall Street Journal. The main idea of this reading, I believe, is that our posture, our way of standing or  moving parts of our body, heavily influence our mind. If we do stronger postures, such as taking good stance and leaning a little bit forwrd when standing and making gestures strongrly and effectively while talking will not only change visible habit but also change invisible mind habit in a better way. This is totally new idea to me. I think I need to try harder to get good posture and stop using smartphone before speaking in front of people ;)

We also read "Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership" from HBR. Characteristics that they argue are important for leadership such as empathy and attunement were very agreeable when I think of the experience that I had in my work place....I was planing to write it today but it's getting too long and I'm getting so sleepy so I will stop here lol I am so sorry if there is anyone who are reading this post so far to read my experience part. I promise I WILL WRITE IT as soon as possible so please be patient (if there is anyone...) Thanks for reading and good night ★

First Blog Post ! and Review of This Week's Readings

Hi everyone ! This is Desiree and this is the first post of my blog for leadership course!!! I have made my own blogs several times in the pat, but I have never written one that has particular themes, so I am very curious what this one will be like.

Though we've done our self introduction in the first class, let me introduce myself again brifely just in case you guys didn't catch it well.
First of all, I said my name is Desiree, but actually that's my middle name and my first name is Chidinma. I use Desiree often because it's easy to pronounce and also easy to remember(desire with double E at the end, easy right? :)) I am Nigerian but I was born and raised in Japan. I'm pretty sure I'm much more Japanese inside than all of you guys and I assure you that you will know what I mean soon :)
I come to school from my house in Kanagawa everyday by train which take me about 2 hours x( Yes It very long train journey, I don't know why I'm not in dorm...but yeah, I'm trying...

So yeah, I think that's enough for my self-intro. It's gonna be too long so I am going to stop here. I will make another post in which I will do my review of this week's class and readings so check it out too :) Thanks for reading ❤