Mountain Trip to DC
Well, I figure I better update everyone, and when I say everyone I mean my Dad, since this is now his preferred mode of communication with me :)
So, I got back from DC on Sunday. It was quite a trip! I had meetings on Thursday and Friday and got briefed on my project for GMAC (www.gmac.com) - The Minority Report. Yes, that's the real name of the project. People kept saying it and I'd look at them to laugh, but they wouldn't even flinch, so I had a good chuckle in my head and told all my friends later on. They had a limo service pick me up at the airport and I stayed at the Ritz. It felt very weird. I was like "Uh, I'm just the Research Assistant. I'm already amazed that you're paying me." So, on the Minority Report (heh heh), I'm going though all the data from these surveys from mba.com and creating a report and executive summaries on the motivations and deterrents of minorities going to graduate business school. Of course, in my head, I'm thinking "Why would anyone want to go to graduate business school in the first place? - except for Jeff :)" But, the report is supposed to be 100 pages and the first draft is due in 2 weeks! What the heck did I get myself into? So much for writing my thesis (just kidding Dad).
Anyway, for the rest of the weekend, my friend Kevin flew out to visit some friends he had in DC and to show me around. We went to the Smithsonian - American History, saw the monument, the white house (just from a ways), Vietnam memorial, Korean memorial, the big Lincoln, etc. I of course did a critical analysis of everything we saw, which I'm sure Kevin enjoyed. But, basically, I just found it sad that all of the major attractions in DC that are supposed to represent America are tributes to white men. We went though the First Ladies section of the Smithsonian, and it was all dishes and clothes with one little plaque that mentioned that Hillary Clinton is a Senator. I was like "Senator Schmenator! Just show me her dishes!" And I also found it sad that in all the war memorials, no victims from Vietnam or Korea, etc. are represented, many of which were innocent people who never got to choose whether or not they were in the war. And I thought about how difficult it might be for US Americans whose relatives were from Vietnam or wherever - they and their family are simply not represented. I just feel that these monuments and memorials misrepresent war. They allow people to believe that war happens between men on a battlefield, when really, it happens in people's homes and women and children make up the majority of the victims. Anyway, that's just a snippet of the lecture that Kevin got, I'm sure you all wish you could have been there to hear it.
In all fairness, the Smithsonian does have a Native American section, but a DC native told us it wasn't very good, so we didn't go see it since we were short on time.
Okay, if you're still reading, I'll wrap it up, cause I should be doing more productive things. Catchya on the flip side! - Naomi
posted by Naomi @ 7:29 AM
2 Comments:
Way cool, a trip to our capital, and a chance to highly irritate a friend, and getting paid on top of that with bling bling expenses.
And you didn't even have to go to business school!
Actually I was pretty confused until I went to the www.gmac.com web site and found out it wasn't About General Motors helping people get a car loan.
That ends up being www.gmacfs.com, I guess you have to stake out your web site name pretty fast these days, maybe I should grab kalmanek.com before it's too late!
Bummer about being represented by dishes, I mean what about other household items like brooms, and dust rags?
On a completely random note, one night I chased down the quote "Behind every successful man there is a surprised woman" thinking that it was some comedian, but it ended up being the wife of the Canadian Prime Minister from sround the 50's and 60's.
Also nearly random my fondest memory from MBA school was when the professor would assign us a paper to write, and invariably one representative from the anal non-creative group would ask "how many pages do we have to come up with?", and also invariably the professor would respond, "as much as required to prove your point", which would only get the quizzical response, "yeah but how many is that?"
I'm always amazed at how little learning is ever accomplished in school.
jef
Hello Naomi,
Since now I live in a Vietnamese neighborhood (yes, such thing exists, only in California), I figured I could have a say about Vietnamese people living in the U.S. Apparently my neighborhood, Westminster, is the largest Vietnamese community outside of Vietnam and thus has become a very popular destination for Vietnamese in the U.S. They'd travel across the country to see the Vietnamese shopping malls here (and maybe other things in this town).
Also thanks to the Agency that I work for, which specializes in Asian American marketing, I learned that April is "the black month" for Vietnamese because April 30th is the date when Saigon fell in the 70s. I drove around my neighborhood that day, and saw a lot of Vietnam/ US flags, public speeches, people gathering. Very emotional.
I just had to share that. Reporting from Westminster, CA, IIC representative, ting2
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