While walking around Stanford University, I started to miss University of Michigan

This is the third week I have lived around the Silicon Valley area. I had a chance to visit Stanford University, just walking around campus and enjoying California sunshine. The sunshine in California is the one that makes you feel comfortable with a little breeze. It makes me feel really calm and clear in my mind.

Stanford University is big but easy to find whatever building I wanna go with maps all over the campus (or just because I start to have a better sense of direction😏👍). To me, the campus is well organized with full of trees, plants, and flowers. It's hard for me to get lost. Law school is here, right across Law School is the library. I felt a little hungry when I arrived at the library so I purchased a bowl of yogurt. When I was eating, I heard 2 students chatting with each other and I totally couldn't understand the language they were speaking. Although I am not able to speak 7 Languages, I could figure out Chinese Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Vietnam once they open their mouth starting to talk. But I totally couldn't recognize these 2 students' language. So what?? Sunshine is comfi~~~

A squirrel kept staring at my yogurt and I felt like he could grab it any time, and then one of the students threw his crackers to that squirrel to make sure it wouldn't ruin my snack. Ummm, thank you, the guy speaking the language I couldn't recognize.

While keeping walking around, visiting different academic departments and centers, on the one hand, I feel like it's supposed to be a happy life to be a student here, but maybe they have a lot of pressure with their study and high student loans, on the other hand, I started to miss the University of Michigan (UofM), the one I had been around for 7 years. For the last 2 years, I even lived around downtown Ann Arbor where UofM locates. So right now, when I close my eyes, the campus, the school bus, the University of Michigan Hospital, the restaurants, and the movie theater came into my mind automatically.

But I am wide awake, Stanford is close to me, UofM is far away, just like California is here, Michigan is over there.

When I walked to Memorial Church Stanford University, this caught my attention:

~ For the troubled may you find peace ~ For the despairing may you find hope ~ For the lonely may you find love ~ For the skeptical may you find faith ~ 1941 Frances C. Arrillaga 1995.

The quote here is for all the readers to visit my blog 💗

First Ladies and American Women

Today I went to Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library to listen to the lecture that Jill Abraham Hummer discussed her new book - First Ladies and American Women.

During her lecture, Dr. Hummer explored how background, personality, ambitions, and her respective relationship to the president shaped each first lady's response to women in society and to the broader political context in which each administration functioned - and how, in turn, these singular responses reflect the changing role of women in American society over a century.

What I like most is one of the quotes by Betty Ford

"The greatest desire of my life was to be half as perfect as my mother was".

                                                                                                     —— to all the Mothers

If possible, I choose to be a lifelong time student always being passionate learning something new

Today I attended my Master of Science - Information Systems Commencement
The speech given by Donna Inch: she cited a quote by Henry Ford:

"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young."

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/henry_ford_103927

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/henry_ford_10392"

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/henry_ford_103927

So what's next?

Leadership of the New Digital Workforce by Edward Monster - President of Emerson

I went to College of Business Distinguished Lecture Series to listen to this lecture today.
Here's a brief introduction of the speaker
http://www.emerson.com/en-us/about-us/leadership/edward-monser

Took 5 bullet points of his lecture:

• Leadership and the New Digital Workforce

          US needs skillful technology workforce

• Digital Transformation is powering a shift in workforce productivity

          (1) Automated workforce
          (2) Decision support
          (3) Workforce upskill
          (4) Mobility
          (5) Change management

• The skills gap in manufacturing industry is growing - leading to unfulfilled jobs

• What does "leadership" really mean? After analyzing five different approach

1. Characteristics of admired leaders approach
2. Needs of people in an organization approach
3. Determination of crucial values approach
4. Qualities of successful leaders approach
5. Global surveys approach

• Five Multidimensional definition of leadership 

(This is a bonus I learned from his lecture. He mentioned if you answered like this style when the   interviewer asked you "How do you show leadership", you will get that job!!!)

1. Honesty: trustworthy, authentic relationship
2. Forward-looking: sense of purpose
3. Inspiring: confidence that things will work out
4. Competent: bias toward action, risk, curiosity and courage

       

I finally watched "Darkest Hour"

This movie has been in my head even before it was released. Finally, picked up a time to watch it.
There have already been thousands of reviews of this movie so I searched Wikipedia to get the whole life of Winston Churchill.

The first thing I need to change my stereotype about Winston Churchill is his appearance. He looked like this when he was young.

(Of course, everyone looks different when they're getting older, right?)

Just like this is the young version of Einstein

I like watching war movies and there are 2 reasons:

(1) To value my current life more, nothing is more desperate than living in the war.
(2) If I were in the battle, all I could depend on was myself. No excuses.

I trained myself not to cry while watching war movies because I consider the really powerful human being is supposed to be tough without too many emotions. Today, when I watched the scene that Winston Churchill cried when he heard the bad news from the war. At that moment, I finally released myself.

BTW, dealing with a husband like Winston Churchill, you have to have more mental power treating him like a baby.