Santa Claus is coming to the haunted house

Friends in the tropics, if you ever wonder how a Chrismasy Halloween experience looks like, then you’ve come to right blogpost!

Yesterday morning came our first snow of the year. It was only October – no wonder the squirrels around campus had been extremely busy preparing for Winter last week. SOMers, on the other hand, were caught off-guard by the snow storm because we were having our long anticipated Halloween party last night!

Our student government had it well said:

We won’t let 6 inches of snow stop the party!  Halloween festivities are still on for today, starting at 4 PM at 218 Mansfield.  Full schedule is below.  Winter coats over your costume, just like your mom made you do for trick-or-treating.

In response to the summon, we had a great turn out. Starting from 4pm, hordes of weird creatures started to invade 4 haunted houses in the Mansfield area (thanks to the cohort members who “donated” and decorated their apartments). It was freezing outside, but it was sizzling hot inside! Coming into the houses as a zombie, I saw not just Asian meat or American meat, but also spider meat, cat meat, frog meat, etc.

DEEP THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Even a brainless zombie got to appreciate creativity and diversity (in his choice of meat)!

How I found my elementary school alumnus (蘇浙小學) at Yale

Growing up in a traditional Chinese family, I learned not to bother other people for help unless it’s absolutely necessary. I walked with this philosophy until several years ago. When I started volunteering, however, I gradually developed the habit of asking for help and offering help. Such habit has allowed me to build lasting friendships with some pretty cool people.

It was raining outside when I finished classes today. My classmate, Susana Lee, very kindly offered to walk me back because I didn’t have an umbrella. Although extremely appreciative, I didn’t want to trouble her, but hey, I could offer her a ride home afterwards, so why not?!

We didn’t get to know each other too well over the course of school, however, during this 10-minute walk we discussed about topics ranging from her interest in CSR in Hong Kong, to my inexperience in giving presentations in Mandarin. The latter topic actually led us to the discovery that we went to the same elementary school (蘇浙小學 is one of the few Mandarin taught elementary schools) in Hong Kong!

The conversation that led to discovering such a beautiful coincidence in my life wouldn’t have happened had I declined a kind help offered by a fellow MBA classmate. I’m so glad that I took her kind offer.

Deep thought of the day: When it’s raining and you have an umbrella, offer your umbrella; When your friend lives afar and you have a car, offer her a ride. Beautiful moments in life and lasting friendships are nurtured by us helping each other over the course of our lives.

Rewards Inc

There are reward-point systems all over the place in our lives. We receive grades, shopping points, mileages, and most obviously, money for our effort and time.

Recently I encountered an interesting experiment during Professor Novemsky’s “Problem Framing” class.

In this experiment, you were given two choices (Control group):

– if you perform a short task (6 minutes), you will be given a Vanilla ice cream

– if you perform a long task (7 minutes), you will be given a Pistachio ice cream    

In another experiment (Medium group), all conditions remain the same, except that a Reward Point system is attached to the two choices:

– if you perform a short task (6 minutes), you will be given 60 points to exchange for a Vanilla ice cream

– if you perform a long task (7 minutes), you will be given 100 points to exchange for a Pistachio ice cream

Here is the result:

It shows that in the control group, pretty much everyone who prefers Pistachio ice cream will choose the longer task and get rewarded accordingly – people behave normally. However, once a reward point system is introduced, despite only 30% prefers Pistachio, more than 50% CHOSE IT because of the points – hmmm.

Deep thought of the day: My dear friends, what is your favorite “ice cream”? To what extend these “points” matter to you?

Please leave comments to discuss further!

My #1 fan

My friend Indie Chung is a fantastic educator in Hong Kong. His coolness in front of a big crowd, his passion in helping his students succeed, and recently, his mustache, have earned him many fans. I’m one of them 🙂

Last night, sitting on the back row in the YALE School of Management Home-Grown Stand-up Comedy show, given by Smita, Bryan, Chris, and Andy, I couldn’t help but took out my camera and took a shot of Smita Venkat as she kept cracking funny jokes one after another (not the LOL type of funny, but the LMFAO type of funny). I also became a fan.

Hey I have a fan too! She is my #1 fan and will always be. The best part? She’s making my #2 fan now. I’m the luckiest dude in the world! Sep 26th is our 3rd anniversary, and I just wanna say “Happy anniversary” to my #1 fan here. Winnie – I love you!!

DEEP THOUGHT OF THE DAY: You don’t have to be a superhero educator or a LMFAO funny comedian to have a fan, there is ALWAYS a #1 fan near you. Feel it with your heart and learn to appreciate your #1 fan!