The Book - The Secret

I finished reading this book and I really recommend this to everyone to read. As I was reading through 1/3rd into the book, I noticed everything I was reading was already what I have been doing. Being positive, think and imagine how I want my life to be, etc....I am where I am because of the positive thinking and wanting how my life should be. I've written about this "law of attraction" a few times already in my blog, and I am writing about this again to remind myself about it. I called my girl friend the other night to talk to her with everything going on at work, I just really wanted to talk to someone. I miss my family and friends lots, I'm not used to being alone without them. I'm not technically alone because I have my boyfriend, but having the comfort of friends and family is what I'm feeling "alone" from. When I called my girl friend she didn't have time to talk to me, but she just said "remember the secret...don't forget it!" hahaha...she's so silly. And she was right. I need to get back into my positive thinking about life and what I really want.

What I really want now...is I still would like to stay in the non-profit part of business. I really enjoyed my time at this job that I am at now. I really don't want to feel like I have to sell to make a difference at my work. I want to be happy at my next job, I want to be able to have a friendly boss, who will respond to me when i say "how are you?" Since I've been at this job, not counting my first day of work, this boss does not respond to "how are you?" I don't know how anyone can be like that at a job. After all, you are seeing the person almost 40 hours a week. She's like this grumpy old fart that just likes things her way. I guess that's why things have happened, the way it happened this past week. Anyway...I'll be on the job hunt again. Til then....have a good week!

Shocking week!

So many things happened since I last wrote in here. Last week, my department had a meeting and no one knew what was going on. What happened was the C.A.O of the company decided to tell all of us that they are going to change the description of each one of our job responsibilities and job titles and raise salaries. When we heard that, we didn't know what to say, but after she said all that, she also said, there needs to be a change in the department and they realize they need to hire more sales oriented professionals, that is why they came to this conclusion of....we are welcome to reapply for our own job if we want to keep it, or if we don't our last day of employment is in September. We were all shocked and so pissed. We're talking about a 9 person marketing department. This is the biggest marketing department I've ever worked in, enjoyed, made friends, and we are all working for the same purpose, which is to help the senior citizen's of San Francisco remain safe at home independently while getting the medical help they need. We all put our hearts into our jobs. Also, we are all certified from the Department of Health Services in Sacramento to be able to market this health plan. Upper management is willing to gamble the team they have now, to hire brand new people, train them, make sure they will pass the exam from D.H.S., and have them rebuild new relationships with the community partners. They have the time for that and "see" if this project of theirs will be successful?? I guess so. I've been hearing a lot of rumors, no matter what it is....true or not....I just want to be outside the loop of things.

The other thing is that my dumb boss "heard rumors" that I have a blog about her. Why the hell would I waste time in writing my blog about her? Plus if she didn't do anything to hurt people or offend people, why would anyone write about her?

Basically after that huge bomb of a meeting last week, she's getting a lot of rumors. I don't care what's going on, just I hate it. I'm really sad and upset. It took me about a week for everything to sink into my emotions and feelings. I started looking for jobs, but there isn't much out there but administrative jobs. I'm in the marketing, network, projects type work. So there isn't much marketing jobs at all. :( I just have to be persistent like every other time I've looked for a job. :) Wish me luck....

Probational Period Reviews

How effective is your job when your boss doesn't think you've done a good job, but you think you have tried all you can to do what you think is success?

When I first got hired, I was told what certain job responsibilities I have. After a few months into working at my job, things have changed. I had to get certified from the Department of Health Services to market our health program, and I passed the exam in February of this year. My exam was delayed...and long story with that, so I won't get into it. But before my exam, I was doing a lot of training. I did many home visits with my coworkers, went to many outreach events and I'm glad I had a lot of training. But after my exam, my boss didn't want me to do home visits and enrollment. That's not what she said when she first hired me. Just a tip for anyone out there looking for jobs...make sure your job description is what you want before you get hired, and after you get hired, make sure those will be the same job description after your probation period. :)

So anyway...during probational reviews, what kinds of things should be said to your boss if you don't agree with it? I am not good with doing reviews. Like there's one thing my boss put on the review that I really did not agree with. She marked that I can't work with my coworkers effectively. I don't agree with that, nor does my coworkers. There's this thing I've examined about my boss that, I'm not sure if it's true or not, but she likes to keep everything strictly professional. She only says "HI" to you in the morning. Nothing like, "how are you?" or "how was your weekend?" or even "how's your day going?" She doesn't let people make friends in the office. I've been told by some people that she gets jealous when her team makes friends in the office. When I first heard about that, I seriously thought that was ridiculous and not true, but as I am working there longer, I can totally tell, she doesn't like it at all. Anyway...because my boss put "moderately effective" for my overall review, I didn't get a raise, obviously and I wasn't a part of the yearly bonus that the whole company gets. In all of my jobs, it's never happened to me where I never even gotten a bonus. Then of course, my review has never been that bad. I've been really disappointed. I even came to the meeting all prepared with 2 pages of "accomplishment" I typed out, and apparently she doesn't think any of my accomplishments on the 2 pages counted. Just a really disappointing day....

Friends and Family Matters

In June, I went back home to visit my family with my boyfriend. This is the first time since I moved out that I actually have a vacation that's more than just a weekend to be with my family. This time I was able to spend 5 days at home. Well, more like 4 full days. I used to live in beautiful, sunny, Huntington Beach, CA. Where the sun is always out no matter what season it was. I lived a little less than 2.5 miles from the beautiful beach. Seeing family was so wonderful. A lot has changed when I went home. I noticed my family being happier to see me when I am home, my parents are more relaxed and positive about life, it's just wonderful.

I've always been a family girl, and I don't think I'll ever let that part of me go. Many times I've been called "Mother or mom" from my friends because I care too much and sometimes I guess I do sound like a mother. I don't quite know if that's a good thing or not, but I only can lend a hand and heart out.

Also this trip made me realize how much I miss my friends. I wasn't able to see all of them because of different schedules and many things have changed and everyone's busy now. There was one really important friend I wasn't able to see and I was a little disappointed. I don't quite know how to express my feelings because I don't want to be all "sensitive" about things, but I do feel uncomfortable. This friend of mine, he's been the most wonderful, gentleman, biggest heart, person I've ever met. He's helped me with almost all obstacles in life after I met him. I truly treasure this friendship to my heart. I met 4 wonderful guy friends when I was in college, and he was one of them that became my best friend. Even though things are different now and because we are so busy with work, that still does not change in my heart. I also hope it doesn't change for him, but I can only speak for me and my feelings. He's opened up my mind with a lot of things, and he's very mature for his age with much knowledge. I see him as the older brother I've never had. Although I do have two older brothers, my best friend just have a different way of thinking and open mind thinking. My two older brothers are the best also, but they are a little traditional. Now that my brother's have their own kids, I think they just NOW started to think a little more with an open mind. :) Anyway...all in all, what I mean is this best friend of mine that I didn't get to see when I went home, I really miss talking to. I haven't told him, but if he reads this, he would know by now.

Now after my vacation back at home, I've been back for a month now. It made me miss my friends and family more. Just the other day, I felt lonely cause I don't have much friends here where I live. I'm constantly working and then doing errands on the weekends with my boyfriend, sometimes independent life isn't so good if your friends and family aren't around. When I lived at home, I felt lonely cause I didn't have someone to love me for me, and now that I have that, I don't have family and friends around. Silly me... :) Of course, we all can't have everything. I can't really complain about my life now because I am really happy, and after the this trip back home, I realized even more that there is a possibility my boyfriend wants to relocate to live in Orange County with me later. So probably another year or two (MAX.) we can move back home to southern California. My boyfriend is so much happier every time I have a trip back home. So I am extremely glad and happy about that.

Wish me luck with my job now, since things seem to be going a little bit better for me now... and I look forward to meeting new people as I am living independently now. :)

First time car buyers

So the past two weeks it's been crazy. I thought I would have a good relaxing weekend, but with work being so stressful, it was even worse. Two weeks ago, I went to purchase a car with some "new comers." To be honest, it was my first time also. I've always "heard" from my wonderful older siblings on how to negotiate and how buying a car from the dealer has it's pros and cons. Whether you're buying it used from someone or buying it new from the dealer, there's always going to be pros and cons. So anyway...lets give you the short version of the long story.

After testing out the car (not me), they decided to get the car. So we go into the office to negotiate the price. Without question, the Sales Manager punches out some numbers and gives us the cost and the monthly payment. The sales manager gives us the sticker price on the SUV. I started to giggle and said to the guy, "What if I don't want to pay the sticker price? I want to pay the invoice price and we are going to put $10K today what can you do?" What do you know...I guess it's so hard to sell cars now, the guy even took out the invoice for me to look at. Over all, I basically got what I asked for, for the car buyers I was with. I'm kinda proud of myself for the first time doing that. I'm sure I could have done better, but I was punching numbers and trying to calculate everything, and what do you know???? School does help...LOL...my calculations were practically correct, of course, not including the taxes. :) So we took the car home that day after spending about 5 hours at the dealer.

(drama starts.....)

Two days after we took the car home, I hear, "I think the car is too big for me." Oh my gosh, I was really upset. She was the one who choose the color of the car, she was the one who test drove it, and she was the one that said she wanted the car. Anyway...I explained to her, "Once a car is driven off the lot, you lose at lease $5K, AUTOMATICALLY." She said she still wanted to take it back to see what they will say. And what do you know? I was correct, and the worse part, is that you have to pay extra too, because we have to include the tax. So she's losing $7-$8K. That's all of her down payment. So, in the end, she decided to keep the car. Thank goodness. After a few weeks she'll get used to the car. :)

Economy is Tough

After working at my non-profit firm for about 8 months now, realizing it's a really stressful job and it's a "hard" job, unfortunately, I'm having to think about finding another job or not. :( I love what I do even though I don't have a lot of experience yet, I have the determination and persistence to perfect it as much as I can each and every day. But sometimes with a boss like mine, it's hard to have the determination and persistence for my job. My boss has a goal for each one of her employee's in our marketing department. It's her goal for us that she sets. And recently we've had to read a book called...SPIN Selling (you can take a look at the inside of this book online if you go to... http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0070511136/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-link ). I'm not quite sure if the book is for our industry, but after reading half way through it, it's really difficult to put a "selling" perspective into a non-profit organization. I had wish we didn't spend our time to read this book. Or if we spent time on reading a book, at lease spend time reading a marketing/sales job for non-profit organizations. Anyway, I don't know what to do with gas prices going up the past month, and the economy not doing so well, our company is having low numbers also. I think I'm looking into jobs just to save myself from anything bad happening.

Two weeks ago I took a 5 day vacation back home to see my family and it felt so great seeing them. I tried seeing my friends as well. I was unable to see all of them, but I did get a chance to see most of them and I am thankful for that. I also was able to put together a family BBQ and everyone actually showed up. That was wonderful too. Seeing how happy my parents are when I go home makes me feel wonderful. But this time going home, I felt a little bit of pressure because my mom kept bringing up the subject of "marriage." Then I got asked to "remember to save up for a wedding." I don't quite know if I'm ready for marriage just yet, but I know that once that happens, I want to be living back home near my parents house. It makes my boyfriend very happy every time we make trips back home and I like that. A lot of the times I feel like Southern California makes him a lot happier than Northern California. I haven't had a chance to quite confirm if that's true or not with him, but I feel very strongly that it's true. I hope it's true. :) Also, the reason why I'm saying that I'm not quite sure if I'm ready for marriage is because I'm not sure if my boyfriend wants to or not. I think it's in his mind, but just not now. My wish and my "want" is for him to propose at the end of this year (2008) and then we would get married by the end of 2009. :) At lease thats the plan that I would like. We'll see what happens. :)

"Your Job is You"

"Inside relationships it's important to first understand who's coming into the relationship, and not just your partner. You need to understand yourself first."

"How can you ever expect anyone else to enjoy your company if you don't enjoy your own company? And so again, the law of attration or THe Secret is about bringing that into your life. You've got to get really, really clear. Here's the question I would ask you to consider: Do you treat yourself the way you want other people to treat you?"

"When you do not treat yourself the way you want others to treat you, you can never change the way things are. Your actions are your powerful thoughts, so if you do not treat yourself with love and respect, you are emitting a signal that is saying you are not important enough, worthy enough, or deserving. That signal will continue to be broadcast, and you will experience more situations of people not treating you well. The people are just the effect. Your thoughts are the cause. You must begin to treat yourself with love and respect, and emit that signal and get on that frequency. Then the law of attraction will move the entire Universe, and your life will be full of people who love and respect you."

When I first read these words, I realized to myself that I've never loved myself as I was growing up. I didn't know how to love myself and cherish myself. Up until I was in a car accident in 2002 where I was taken to the hospital, I realized that no matter how I look, I need to love myself and treat myself the way I want other's to treat me. I need to cherish myself, before someone can cherish me or love me. I think it was a long journey to where I am now, and I thank every bit to my family and friends who all supported me. Mostly I am thankful of my boyfriend. He's pretty supportive and always keeping me smile. I can't stop smiling when I see him now that he's lighted up my life very much since I've been with him.

Think about what you're doing in your life, and if you love it or not. If you don't, learn to change it to make you where you want to be. Picture how you want your life to be and little by little, things in your life will change. :)

The book 'The Secret' - Law of Attraction

Before I moved here to SF, CA, I had a tough time living at home. I was very negative about myself and about life, I just didn't know why. I have so many positive friends, but I felt like I only had a few close friends. Why?? I did not know. But about 3-4 months before I decided to move, I spoke to a few friends who told me to try my best to keep myself positive. Therefore, I crossed out the negatives in my life, little by little and I felt so much better. At the same time I realized why some people I knew that I thought "were" friends of mine weren't in my life anymore, which was because I was so negative as a person. No one wants to be around someone who is so negative about life. Then, I was told to start a list on a paper of the things I want and the things I want to happen in my life, so I did. Next thing I knew, things in my life started going the way I wanted. I wanted to find a job in the Bay Area, I went on 3 interviews, and I got an offer. I wanted to be with my current boyfriend, which I was able to do. I couldn't be happier when everything turned out the way I wanted to. Most importantly, I wanted to be HAPPY and less stressful. Also, I realized that I'm such a family girl that I couldn't leave my family, but I also realized that I wanted to be a happier person. My family was mainly why I had my negativity in my life, and after moving, I am so much happier as a person and overall person. I found out that it's not only SPEAKING what you want positively, but as you keep on repeating what you want in life, the more you'll FEEL positively in life. We all attract negative energy around us, but we have to be strong to fight that and turn it into a positive energy. So as I started reading back at what I wanted in my life of what I wrote down, a few months after I had moved to San Francisco, CA, I picked up the book called 'The Secret' which I started reading. As I started reading the book, I was so shocked at what the book was about because it was everything I did and more. Some of what the book said was that speak of what you want and focus on it and in turn the Universe will hear what you have to say and things will start to change. I was in awe as I started reading more and more. It's a great book to help someone to start to change their thinking and their life. I have read the book and now I'm reading it for the 2nd time now because I realized that we all have to be in reality and not get over our heads of wanting, wanting, wanting...but be at the core of what you really want and need in life because that's where you'll be at peace. :) I had great friends who supported me and I want to thank my best friend who always supported my decisions (who went to college with me and shared hot dog and water before classes...hahaha), and you know who you are!

Even though, I am where I want to be, there's so much more I need to improve on right now. One is mainly my job...(more to come with that)...I need to be more positive with myself on my job, and also...making more money...I need to focus on that. So if any of you have any suggestions on either one, please send it my way. :) Til next time.... Have a great Friday tomorrow!!!

Every detail of your work and/or life

Yesterday, I was working in the "western addition" area of San Francisco. The city of San Francisco is made up of different parts because the city is so big. And each part got their own name by the diversity of the people and what the area looks like. Western Addition area is mainly all african-americans. Some parts of the area not so safe, and some parts of the area is ok. To make a long story short, I was in and out of meetings all day yesterday outside of the office. I only had about 45 mins to eat lunch, so I decided to get a quick bite to eat. Some weird "big" african american lady walks in and starts disturbing the people that were eating alone. Then she came up in my face (about 2 inches away) and asked me if she can ask me something, but then she's like "never mind." 5-10 seconds later I notice that my cell phone was gone. That lady TOOK my cell phone. I went out to get it back, I was so scared, I didn't know what to do. All I can think about is that I don't have any of my friends and family's numbers and I need it. So i stood up to her and asked for it back, then she decided that she wanted me to give her money for me to get MY CELL PHONE back. So I just said to her that she can talk to the cops, and I walked away. Then she called me back, and THREW my cell phone at me and it fell on the ground. THANK GOD it was ok and I'm ok, but I was still scared off my butt!

Sometimes things that you would never think about that would happen to you, it SOMETIMES WILL!!! Thank god I noticed my phone was gone.

As I went to one of my meetings, I met the lady there and she wasn't very "friendly" per se. She TRIED to be friendly when you can tell that she didn't want to be. My job was to simply ask her if it was ok for me to present myself to the seniors that come into her center, and do "events" with them. I'm taking my time out to try to do a "good deed" for her senior center, and she's not very welcoming. This job of mine seems like it's more challenging each time I set up a meeting. :( But I'm still going to try my best. I'm not going to give up. I hope to give you guys more information about this non-profit job as I gain more experience myself. :)

Nonprofit Marketing

So, as you all know, I work at a nonprofit organization. Since I just started about 7 months ago, I've been told, for every person that is hired into this department at this company, it takes a good year to know how to do our job. My job is to make sure I do well in my outreach to the community to be able to bring in good referrals for our department.

What is a good way to market and sell our services to the Senior community? There are many obstacles to overcome in order to have a successful outcome. This area of work is called "long-term sales." We can not accept seniors that are too healthy into our program, and yet we can not accept anyone that needs 24 hr care (which is called a Skilled Nursing Level of care). So what do I do to reach those seniors? How can I reach those seniors? How can I convince them that our program is the best out there? How can I convince them that our primary care physicians can be trusted? (that's one criteria to be in our program is that they have to be "ok" to change their PCP's.) How can someone say "ok, I no longer want my in-home support service? (With our program, we do have Home Care available, but that department isn't very big.)

I've had a rough month and a half, so I haven't been here to write. I'm hoping to get your opinion and your help to answer my questions. I don't really have too much time to go read books about how to market to seniors because my boss and the C.A.O of our company expects results pretty quickly.

I'm gonna try to write out all my situations about marketing and my job here, so I can get all of you to give me some feed back.

Another Monday, another tough week ahead....wish me luck. :)

Big Give

So, I've been watching Oprah's BIG GIVE reality TV show. That show is pretty amazing. Oprah's a powerful woman, in my opinion. Sometimes I think she over looks some of us asians, but she is a great role model and a great person to learn from. She knows how to make her money, and she knows how to spend it.

Tonight's show, she gave each individual $100K to spend and give out with only a certain number of hours to spend all the money. If you were given $100K to spend, how would you spend it? There's this one lady on there, and I think this is the 3rd episode, and 2 out of the 3 episodes she was LOST driving around. How can anyone get lost for hours and not stop to ask for directions? If one person doesn't know, go ask another person. LOL... Sorry...I had to get that out of my system. I think this show is giving many viewers eye opening thoughts that a lot of people out there need our help. Not just homeless people, or not just people in 3rd world countries, but so many people need our help, no matter how young or old a person is, we all need help.

I've been looking at different opportunities to make money besides working my 8-5 job. I don't have money to invest, so I am kinda out of ideas on how to make some extra spending money to help myself. I've recently been reading my friends blog "secrets to success" and he has some great ideas, but seems like I need some money to invest. Hopefully I learn this blogging thing to see if I can make money from doing this. :) have a great night everyone...

Helping Seniors in the Community

Before moving to the bay area, I didn't realize how many senior buildings there were in the city. Also, there are many seniors that are in need of services. Currently there is a shortage of beds in nursing homes for seniors and many people do not know where to send the seniors who needs services. This is where I could possibly suggest a place for a senior....

I work for a place that has ALL-INCLUSIVE care for seniors. What that means is, medical, dental, transportation, medication, physical therapy, occupational therapy, recreation therapy, meals, adult day health, etc...all in ONE PACKAGE. This is a wonderful place that's been around for 35 yrs. We are the first places (www.onlok.org) to start this program in the nation. The simple qualifications are, they would need to be medi-medi, which means, if they have medi-cal and medicare, they do not have to pay for our program. Also, they have to have at lease 1 or 2 activities of daily living (ADLs) that they need help with. What are activities of daily living? Activities of daily living is walking, bathing, grooming, toileting, eating, etc...Also, they would have to be 55+ yrs older, living in the city of San Franciso, Fremont, Newark, or Union City. We will be opening an office this summer in San Jose, so when that opens, we are welcoming citizens from the city of San Jose as well.

The reason why I am writing about this is because I've been struggling to find the right job for me since I graduated from college, and I have finally found the job. I am very happy with what I do and to know that doing my job is helping seniors be happy and healthy, it's the happiest job of all. (don't get me wrong...every company has their own politics...FYI) =) I've always had a heart to help people, and now I get paid to help out and reach out to the community to let them know what kinds of services there is available.

I am hoping, as I work longer at this place, that I can make a difference in my job, and a difference in seniors lives too. I do a lot of outreach, and events with seniors, so if any of you suggestions on activities for seniors, please send them my way.

Here are a couple of pictures of a Valentine's Day Scarf Project I did. We had volunteers from the community knit scarves for the homeless children's network and then we had the seniors decorate bags and stuff them with scarves and valentine's day goodies. They had so much fun doing that.

First Day

Today is my first day of blogging. I decided to do this to learn more about blogging, and to see if I could change the way I do things in life to possibly make things better. I recently heard about making money blogging by reading my friend's blog. I didn't even know he's been blogging for a while, so I found out that my friend got my BEST friend to start blogging too. These two creative people writing blogs, I have never pictured it, but I am so glad to be able to read what they have in their minds.

So what do you think I can put on my blog? After thinking about it for days, I have finally decided what I can do with my blog. I'm going to put my daily/weekly doses of life, career, relationship, and experiences on here because I think personal experiences are the best experiences to learn from in life.

Therefore, I am starting my own. :) Just to give you a short story of my life changing story in the last year...here it goes. I am currently living in Northern California, in the Bay Area. One of the most beautiful places anyone can be at, with the best scenery of the Pacific Ocean anyone can get. I moved here last May 2007. I made the decision to move when I finally got fed up with jobs that are just administrative work. Then when I finally found a job here, I turned in my 2 week notice and told my family about my decision, and started cleaning my room and packing. Within 2 weeks my life had changed. I was scared, sad, excited, happy, etc...I felt all sorts of things, but the best thing was, I was moving in with the many I've loved for years and from just having a relationship over the cell phone, AIM, and emails; I was living with him, seeing him, going out with him, and just having every minute I have with him IN PERSON. It totally felt like a dream come true.

First lesson in life already...I'm learning to live independently..........NOT EASY!!! :)


more to come...i need to get some zzzzz's.