Busy..busy..

Yesterday I had an interview with HON company. It is the largest operating company under HNI Corporation. Basically what they do is they provide office workplace solution to small and medium size businesses. I was sooo lazy that I did not really spend too much time in preparing for the interview. I was just reading what they do, what's their mission, etc, that's it! I guess, this is the first interview that I did not feel any pressures..ahahaha... maybe because deep down, I know that I dont want the job.. The job is located in Iowa..specifically in Muskatine, IA..it is about 3 hours away from where I live right now..It's a small town, and I think it is smaller than Ames.. Geez.. I really cant picture myself working in that super tiny town...
I am sorry, but I dont want it.. :P

Anyhow, the interview went super short.. The interviewer was the HR Director of HON.. he basically asked me simple stuffs about my Resume. After looking at my resume, he said that I have a lot of MIS experiences that might be better if I go into MIS position rather than the original job that I was interviewing for. So, he said, he would give my resume to MIS department..so I would have more options. Well.. I said "ok"..but honestly, I really want to try different things.. I dont want to do MIS stuff for the rest of my life.. I want to work as an HR!! I want to work for Google!!!! ahhahaah There!! I said it!!! I have fallen in love to Google, so until I hear back from them, I dont think I can get a really good nite sleep. I am always haunted by dreams about the job! hahahaa..
Oh well...I have to wait for another week, and the truth should be revealed... ..SCARY!! :(

Brianna Grace Gunawan

Joy to the worlddddd...Brianna has come!! tee hee hee..

Look!! How cute is she!! Goshh!!!

I can't believe she is finally here!! She was supposed to come to the world in April 1st, but because of some things (I dont know what they are yet), Brianna needs to get out from her home (Enen's tummy) in March 21st. Isn't it the first day of Spring? Aha!!! So I bet, Brianna will be the sunshineee in the family hihii...Congrats for my lovely Enen and hubby.. I think she really looks like Enen..Her eyes and nose..they are all Enen's! But, wait, the hair is Iin's!! ahahahaha..

Congrats..congrats!! GBUs!!

So many things to do, so little time.

Well, as I am approaching the end of semester (mid-April), I am bombarded with lots of projects and papers to write. This week, I am going to have one on-campus interview, and lots of meetings that I don't even know how to start. I still have 2 more papers to write for this week and another midterm...and I have to study for my interview...and I have to prepare a survey for the project. Man oh man...but when you have million things going on, you don't even realize that time really goes by super fast. Yesterday, after church we went to have lunch at KFC. I love hanging out after church with friends because it's the day that we can all meet up and chat about anything that we have missed in a week. tee hee hee.. So, one of my friends was a bit surprised to hear that I am graduating this May.. he said, "graduating again?" hohohoho...to think about it, it does feel rather fast. In less than 3 months, I will be finishing my Master's degree. Whoaa...
I still remember those days where I was struggling to learn GMAT (which I really hate to do..blahhh), to write 3 essays as part of the application documents, yada yada yada... I was even more struggling during my first year as MBA student since the class activities and the level of professionalism were very different than undergrad's classes. So, it took lots of adjustments to finally enable me to be smooth sailing... hihihihi.. but thanks to God above, I really am blessed to have such opportunity to experience all this.

Anyway, this past weekend can be considered as one of the most fun weekend ever.. hahaha...We went out to watch movie '300' on Friday night which very rare for me to do since I have Saturday morning class. But, since I did not have any presentation to do for the class, I decided to go out on Friday night. On Saturday, I with the gals went out to DSM. What a fun weekend! hehehehe...hanging out with pregnant ladies really give me quite a knowledge about pregnancy and maybe about married life! hahahahaha...

Last night I was trying to do my tax...oh goshh, how I hate this.. but I guess doing it myself is much better than have to pay $100 for someone to do my tax. I cant believe how expensive those H&R Block charge us to file our tax. Dang!!! Screw that.. I will do it myself...I dont think it will be that difficult since I only have 2 W2 forms and 2 other forms (tuition, scholarship and bank). Hopefully I can get the most return possible.. :P
Well enough already... happy Monday! (yuxxx)

Back To Reality

I am sorry to say that Spring Break is officially over..hix..bye bye my free time..
I gotta start writing papers that will be due this week.. :(
At this moment, I am feeling a bit sad for my good friend who is also my classmate, 'D'. She has a diabetes and I did not know how much she has struggled with this problem until recently. Both of us are pretty stressed out with job hunting process. But, her stress level is escalated with diabetic sickness. She has been feeling sick for quite a while now and I feel rather sad seeing her. I have a minimum knowledge on diabetes but I know that my grandpa has one, so my parents always remind me to not consumer too much sugars. I wish that I can help her out, I know that she is fighting her battle with such a strong and brave heart. She is a strong woman, she never wants to burden anyone that she keeps her problem for herself, and honestly, I hate when she is doing that. I just want to say that you always have my support and we will get through this stressful situation together, as always! hehehee...

On another note, I just got a news that my ex from high school just got fired recently. Well, I feel sorry for him but I also want to say that you should have known better. Life is about making choices and there will be always an easy way out which probably is not the wisest way to choose from. But at least we all can learn from our experience about something....

"We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery."~ Samuel Smiles

"I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: which is: Try to please everybody."~ Herbert B. Swope

Picture Time! (click on the picture to open the album)

March 2007

Dreams..

I keep having nightmares about Google job...I guess it might be because I keep thinking about this subconsciously and it's killing me!! Could this mean that I really want this job so bad?? Ugh..
Part of me really wants the job, but the other part feels more nervous and rather hesitate to move to such a big city..but..it will be worthed (I'm sure..).. But people said, nightmares can be a good thing since usually it would be the opposite of the reality..hahaha, AMEN AMEN...

I want to say thank you for all of your supports for me to get through this.. If you were one of my good buddies, you knew that I had been nervous for the past 2 weeks because of the trip..hahaha. so your positive encouragements really helped me out..seriously! Even some people said that they have a good feeling that I would get the job..hohoho.. AMEN.. One of my best friends back home in Jakarta, Indo. Lets call her with initial 'D', she has this gift...she claims that she can see phenomenal things, like ghosts, premonition? ahhaha.. I m not sure..but she is one of a kind... and she told me one time when she called me on the phone (yes, she calls me occasionally just to say hi and see how things are going.....soo sweettt :D ), she got a "voice" from God that previous night that I would get the job for sure.. HAHAHHA... She is soo funny.. Until today, I dont know if she was joking or she was telling the truth, but either way, I took that as a word of faith! AMEN.
Even some of my friends called me and sent me text messages before I went to the interview to just wish me luck..huhuhu How sweetttt...
Soo, my beloved friends and family.. thank you thank youuuuuu....and yes, I still remember my promise to have a celebration if we have a good news!! I just want to say that I did my best there, so let God do the rest, ok... Hip hip horray!
This is the moment of truth because Google hires 100 people each WEEK..they are growing so big that they are building new buildings in Mountain View,CA and they even said that Mountain View might not be big enough to hold all Googlers! So imagine.. if they are hiring 100 people a week, how many candidates they must be having each week?? That's why they had quite number of people for interview on the same day...This is just to show you how fast Google is growing and how money is not an issue for them... If they feel that you have the potentials, they will fly you out there..I asked one of the HR there "how many people are you hiring for now"...and they simply answered " We don't have any exact numbers of people but we really want to hire talented, smart people, soo we are not limited by any numbers.." WHOA..
Tough competition, yes it is.. so if I got this job, it would be really a miracle considering these numbers.. Do you know that Google receive approximately 1000 resumes each DAY? hahaha...
goshh...I can say no more about how Google is taking over the world, so I would encourage all of you to at least try to apply to Google and experience what I had for yourself!

That's it for today, I will post the pics later on today..
Ciaooooooooo

Interesting Experience at Google

DAY 1
I arrived at San Jose International airport on Sunday night around 6.30pm. I got into the shuttle that took us to Sheraton Palo Alto Hotel. I met with 2 of the candidates who are having Google interview as well. I was actually able to make a friend with one of the gals, her name is Kelly. She is such a sweet gal. She is interviewing for another position for Google.
After 20 minutes drive, we finally got to the hotel. Such a nice hotel!! I took pictures of my room which I will post later on. I had a super huge bed!! O goshh, I cant tell you how nice the bed was..soo fluffy and soo big!!! The comforter was soo warm and fluffy..tsk tsk tsk...
Anyway, all of us got our own welcome package consisting of snacks from Google, the interview schedule for Monday and some gifts.
After dropping off my stuffs, I went down to grab a dinner that was provided by Google. The food was awesome..who else would give us a tiramisu for a dessert, shrimp cocktail, pasta with garlic sauce or tomato sauce, and lots of other yummy stuffs!
Google actually rent one huge ballroom for all of the candidates to have dinner there...soo, it was quite impressive. I met around 25 candidates who were all coming for the interview! Isn't it crazy?? All for one day... what a tough competition! Not only that.. they all come from high caliber universities!! UCLA, Stanford, Penn State, Brown Uni, etc etc.. O gosh.. here I was, the only Midwestern girl from a small town, LOL... but I was proud to be there! Proud to be the only Iowan and Midwesterner!
After chit chat with few people, we finally headed back to our own room to have a good nite sleep. But, who can sleep that night? I know I did not!
I was probably too nervous for the interview that I felt sick.. I ended up threw up half of my dinner..and I had to take a medicine to calm my headache.. goshhh!!
Anyway.. after reviewing the materials briefly, I decided to turn off the light and tried to sleep... I must have lied on the bed for 2 hours.. I could not sleep at all, until probably 2 am.
poor me..

DAY 2

I got up around 6.30 to get ready for the interview. Google actually provided us a breakfast at the hotel from 7-8am, but I decided to skip the breakfast to have more time to get ready.
I finally was ready to go down at 8am. I went to the receptionist desk to confirm that I have the room for one more night. Then, I went to the restroom to calm my nerves..luckily, I met Kelly again in the restroom. We then walked to the bus together and waited for everyone else there. Kelly was sooo funny.. she was so nervous as I was so, we tried to calm each other by saying "whatever happens, happens.... It will be finee..." After 15 mins waiting in the bus, the whole crew finally camee!! And off we went to Google!! Woohoooooooooooooooooooooo

When I saw Google sign in front of buildings, then it started to really hit me! I am interviewing with Google?? Whoooo can imagineee? goshh.. It felt really surreal!
We had a presentation from Googlers about the position for about 40 minutes. What does it like to work for Google, bla bla bla..Everyone there was super nice..
Then, we were escorted to go into each of our room. We were scheduled to have 2-3 interviews. My schedule said that I would have 3 interviews.

First interview..the lady was nice..she was probably in the late 40s. She asked mostly about my MIS background, about my experience working with Citigroup,Inc. I think I answered her questions very well.

Second interview..the lady was really straightforward. I would say that she is the most challenging interviewer among the others. She asked me lots of questions that I have not anticipated. I would say the questions were similar with case questions, only simpler. But, I tried my best...oh well.. I cannot remember what I said to her but finally it was over.. geezzz...

Third interview.. the gal was really friendly.. sometimes I wonder if she was really that friendly or was she having a hungover from last night?LOL..she laughed a lot...bottomline..this is the most enjoyable interview.. I felt like I chatted with my friend :P

After the third interview, I was ready to head out from the room because I was initially cheduled for 3 interviews after all. But, surpriseee!! I had the fourth interview!
I was confused at that time, why would I have the fourth interview while everyone else probably had 2 or 3 interviews. Then, one of the HR people told me, it was because I was interviewing for a higher position than the rest of the candidates. Woww...that s good then, right?

Fourth interview...the guy brought his laptop for the interview. He was actually one of the analysts there. So, I would say that he was more technical than the rest of the interviewers. His questions were pretty challenging as well..but he was really nice. I was nervous at first, but as the day went on, I think I got a hang of it. LOL

12 pm... DONE DONE... woo hoooo... after that grilling sessions.. we finally got lunch! The food was good..they had sushi, salmon, lasagna, etc.. goshh...
Then, we had a tour of the Googleplex.. Food is everywhere!! and its FREEEEE....I managed to try IT'S IT ice cream...they said it was one of the famous ice creams in SF...
What more do you want...Google provides every food and drink you can possibly imagine...
Not only that..Google has excellent benefits for their employees!!
1. 11 holidays (including University holidays, so eventhough we graduated from college, we would still have those holidays)!
2. 3 google holidays+ 3 weeks vacation+ any sick days (taken as you need)
3. maternity and paternity leave (YES! Guys can take paternity leave!!)
4. $500 coverage for food for the first month you have baby..it will be delivered to your doorstep!
5. Up to $5000 coverage when you buy a fuel efficiency car
6. Up to $8000/year for tuition reimbursement
7. FREE FOOD, SPA, MASSAGE
8. You can bring your dogs to work!! (Yesss, I saw dogs everywhere!!)
9. You can borrow a scooter or a mini mobile ( I am not fully clear on this but I saw people riding their scooter around the buildings)
10. FREE shuttle service from/to work! Google has its own shuttles!!

That's all I can remember from hearing their presentation.... Amazingg..

Anyway, Google gave us parting gifts before we headed home.. ohhh Googlee.. I hope I will see you again!! :D

2pm- We arrived at the hotel...then I and Kelly changed our clothes and get ready to go to Stanford University!! tee hee hee...
We bought few of Stanford goodies at the bookstore.. :P
5pm- I said good bye to Kelly as she had a night flight to head back home.

DAY 3

Woke up at 6.30am to get ready to go to the airport.
8am- Picked up by the shuttle
9.30am- Got into the airport
10.43am - Flew to Denver, CO
6.30pm- Arrived at DSM, IA!

-The End-

PS: you may realize, I got tired typing this long post, but I will post more stories later on.. :P

TRalala Trililili

Eng ing engggggg....it's almost Sunday.. it's almost the DAY...huhuhh, soo excited but soo nervouss... I hate the anticipation.. I have been living for the last 2 weeks feeling soo nervouss, ahahhaa.. does this mean, I want the job so badddlyyyy?? Maybeeeeeeeeee..
But anyway.. please pleaseeee keep me in your prayer..ahhaha..
Anyhow.. the update about my friend...finally the dad called again and said that he has transferred money to my friend's account so she can finally "live" again.. LOL LOL
I dont have anything against her, but I just hope that she can wake up and see that she needs to do something for her life. Most of everyone here see her as someone who likes to party, have fun and doesnt care about school. Well, that's not my business really... soo I wish her a good life! At least, I have done my part to help her out, the rest is really up to her ;) I have learned to not butt into people's business eventhough I mean well, unless they are calling for my help! LOL
Anyways, have a great Spring break everyoneeeeeeeee... ciaooooooooooo

Why oh Why

Ok..I have a situation again! I got a call from my friend's dad, claiming that he lost contact with her daughter. Uh oh.. he asked help from me to find out what the daughther has been up to.. You know.. it will be easier if I meet her regularly...the problem is, I have not seen her for while, probably in 1 year.. So I was trying to call her cell but apparently it did not go through. Tried email, and even Facebook! Well,, after waiting for the whole day, I decided to come to her house.. but I asked one of my friends to go with me since I was kinna scared to go alone. At that point, my mind was going through millions of scenarios.. "What if.. what iff "...
Anyway, we visited her house right after I was done working... then we knocked the door and here she was.. looked fine! Gosh..I worried over nothing, apparently.

Anyway, I should not say her problems here since I'd like to respect her privacy. The thing is, now the parents call me most of the time. I really dont mind to help her, but I hate getting involved in someone else's family business. You know..her mom says this thing to me and she asked to keep this just between me and her, dont tell her dad... What am I supposed to do? I hate to be put in this position.. I really dont like to lie for anyone..But anyway, I am starting to get worked up over this subconsciously..I hope I dont have to deal this when I will be flying to California for my interview. I really dont want to be bothered with anything else on that day.
Now, I am continually waiting for her reply to my message so that I can update her mom... hopefully she gets back to me before her mom calls me again.

Well.. as for me, I am getting nervous as I am approaching the day of the interview.. huhuhuh... I am crossing my finger and heart.. Please keep me in your prayer, hihihi thanks! :P
That's it for today... Ciaooooooooo

ISU cancel classes..the second time since year of 2000!

Iowa State University classes canceled beginning at 1 p.m. today

AMES, Iowa -- Iowa State University has canceled all classes beginning after 1 p.m. today, March 1, due to severe winter weather. Classes will continue as scheduled until that time. (Classes that begin at 12:40 p.m. also are canceled.)

University offices will remain open. Supervisors are urged to accommodate employees who need to leave early for safe travel home.

Icy roads, high winds and a blizzard warning from the National Weather Service prompted the cancellations. The Iowa Department of Transportation announced it would be closing Interstate 35, north of Highway 30 in Ames.

A decision regarding the status of Friday's classes will be made later and posted on the university's web site at www.iastate.edu, as well as communicated to area media.

Horoscope..

I read my horoscope yesterday in class from the Daily. FYI, I usually never read horoscope, but yesterday was an exception because my friend was actually reading it and she asked me what's my zodiac. So, she looked it up for me, and it said :
"A difficult task is nearing its completion. A celebration is on the way!" Woo hoooooo..
I have been always taught to never believe whatever horoscope tells you because it is not the truth! Well, how about if I make yesterday's horoscope into my words of faith? Yeah!!!
I am going to celebrate very soon for my successful journey at Google, ahhahahaha.. AMEN!!

Anyhow, like I said before, words do spread very fast, by now, most of my MBA friends know about my interview and they always ask about this when they meet me. Goshh...enough already!
Hush..hush..let's not get too excited ok? Just keep me in your prayer and I promise, after I complete my journey completely, we will have a party!!! hahihaihihaiha...