Author Archives: Charlene Precious

I take a liking towards movies that make me feel – whether the emotion is ecstatic and uplifted or distraught and uncomfortable, they’re emotions that make a satisfying movie treat. World’s Greatest Dad was deep, dark, and depressing, but comedic in a really twisted way. I’ve grown fascinated with dark comedies over the years because they’ve mastered how to put you in a state of agony while they rip your heart out and make you laugh at the same time. Click here for the premise of the movie. The acting was convincing and well done, especially from the boy who played Robin Williams’ son, who managed to get under my skin so much so that I hated his guts and wanted to throw a rock at him through the television screen. There are mixed reviews about the movie but I’m siding with the positive ones. The ending was weak and left me wanting more, but I enjoyed it all around.

Where has 2012 gone? It’ll be Christmas the next time you open your eyes.

Carnivals make me happy. My brain is fried right now and all I want to do is watch Walking Dead and eat cookies. But sadly, I’m a slave to the GMAT for the next hour or so. Yipee!

If y is the smallest positive integer such that 3,150 multiplied by y is the square of an integer, then y must be:
a) 2 b) 5 c) 6 d) 7 e)14

356 sales on Etsy – Vegas prints are on fire. Sales have picked back up this week but I had certainly hit a slump last week, I’m guessing because of back-to-school madness but it’s a bit of a bummer when sales are slow. Actually, it’s a lot of a bummer. What’s interesting is that my boyfriend is a Sales Manager and through him, I have a new found appreciation for hardworking sales professionals because, well, let’s put things into perspective here: I get sad and mopey when Etsy sales are slow, but meanwhile, am I out cold calling, knocking on doors, pounding the pavement prospecting for business, delivering proposals, getting doors slammed in my face, and facing rejection all over the place? No. My state of sadness from an Etsy ‘sales slump’ is hardly justifiable when I spend 25% of my days tending to the shop and don’t do any groundwork to gain my sales. But the truth is, I still get bummed. And my point is, imagine doing all of that work every day and then at the end of it all, still having to sometimes face the fact that sales are slow. Excuse me? Come again? That hurts my ear (and head). So: to the hardworking, and as a result, successful sales professionals out there, I have admiration for your bulletproof attitude and persistence through those doom and gloom days, where many of us may just quickly resort to moping and crying ourselves to sleep with Coldplay songs. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Coldplay, but do admit that their music may help to worsen rather than lift one’s sorrows.)

This photo is awesome, if I may say so myself. :) I’m off to take a power nap before I hit the books.

I haven’t uploaded a self portrait in a while. This is my love and I sitting on lava rocks from eruptions of the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica. We were troopers hiking up a trail and climbing rocks in flip flops and sandals. Arenal is like a city inside a cloud. It’s very, very foggy so the tip of the volcano plays peek-a-boo and stays hidden for days at a time. The clouds never actually lifted enough for us to see the entire volcano but what was left to be seen was still beautiful nonetheless.

Happy birthday to one of my dearest friends, Andrea Beiko. I love and miss you, darling! May all your wishes come true.

I can’t fit everything that I need to do in a day. Ahhh.

I still have 1,000 photos from Costa Rica and 500 odds and ends photos from the entire summer that I need to filter through, edit, and post on Etsy for sale. I’m starting to submit bits and pieces of my MBA applications – transcripts, essays, letters of recommendations, etc. I’m still studying every single day – I set a timer for every question now, training myself to complete them under time pressure. I have Etsy orders to package and ship out. I have to make time for people I love. I have a physical photography portfolio to build because I want to go cold calling downtown to get wholesale orders. Ideas are in motion but execution is moving at a snail’s pace because time is scarce. I need a clone!

I received an order for one of my helicopter prints today and the customer left a note saying:

“My son was a helicopter pilot and did a lot of flying in the R-44. He died in an aviation accident on 6/12/12. This means a lot to us.“

Neat, right? Gives me the warm and fuzz. :)

Queen’s University has heard my cry and their marketing department was quick to reach out and resolve the situation. There really isn’t much that can be done to alter a first impression but I can appreciate the efforts of marketing to tirelessly protect and keep a brand untarnished. I’m a marketer, too. It’s unfortunate that there is so much that is out of our control. Brand perception is formed with every single touch point that it embarks with the customer. And we sometimes overlook the people part. Take a restaurant for instance: the manager, the chef, the server, down to the hostess shapes the brand, although we have little or no influence over those interactions. I’m going off on a marketing tangent so let me stop. The bottom line is that I appreciate the marketing effort and in fairness, wanted to recognize that effort on here, following my post of anguish yesterday.

I’ve booked off a week and a day in October to go on a GMAT lockdown. That is to study around the clock for eight consecutive days in the place of a trip to San Francisco – a big sacrifice this year that breaks my heart a little bit.

Here’s a pair of iguanas challenging each other to a duel.

I attended the QS World MBA Tour event yesterday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and had a chance to meet one on one with admissions teams from Rotman School of Business (University of Toronto), Schulich School of Business (York University), Richard Ivey School of Business (University of Western Ontario), and Queen’s School of Business (Queen’s University). I quickly fell in love with Rotman, Ivey, and Schulich, and will likely apply to all three schools.

Queen’s on the other hand, quickly left a sour taste in my mouth. So sour that I am now writing a few lines here to broadcast my distaste for them so that it is documented somewhere on the internet. After all, the internet makes an excellent vehicle for the spread of (negative) opinions. The gentleman I spoke with, who was sadly the Director of the MBA program himself was disrespectful and condescending and operated like an arrogant fool. I was turned off by the school within 15 minutes of speaking with this so-called ‘Director’ and am now struggling to understand how the school has entrusted him with their MBA program. And worst yet, placed him in a customer-facing environment (customers in this case, are potential applicants and candidates who are deciding on the best institution to invest $70,000 with. In business, we call them prospects.) Is this not a business and is that truly how you represent your brand? It was like a tutorial on how to destroy your brand in 15 minutes. Or, maybe to give the benefit of the doubt, perhaps the man was bitter about working on a Saturday. In any case, Mr. Director, it’s time to get off your high horse and ease up on that false illusion of prestige in your head. It doesn’t matter how great the school may truly be (and I’ll never have the slightest desire to find out). If they’ve chosen to have individuals like this man represent the face of the school, then negative, unwanted perception will inevitably develop and spread and we all know that perception is very much reality. I hate to break it to you but Ivey, Schulich, and Rotman have you beat, starting with just the very basics of operating with humility and treating potential candidates and applicants with the utmost respect. In fact, Schulich took it one step further by positioning themselves to be privileged to have our interest in their program. For what it’s worth, thank you to the representatives from Rotman, Ivey, and Schulich for an informative and pleasant experience.

Back to photography. Another one of those crazy large spiders in Costa Rica with heavy duty webs that practically require scissors to destroy! Happy Sunday!