Redefining Wealth

Pema Chholing Monastery, 500 years old

Today marks two months since I laced up my boots and walked out of the monastery for the last time.  As the older monks tied kata prayer scarves around my neck and backpack, the tears were already threatening to slide down my cheeks. Even now, my heart overflows with emotion at the mere mention of Nepal.

Never has it been so difficult for me to leave a home, landscape and community. And, since my first trip overseas to Belgium, I've never been so drastically changed by an experience. It was only last night that I realized this, while standing over the stove, cooking what has become my standard dinner and also a comfort food: boiled white rice with steamed vegetables.  With my busy and unpredictable student lifestyle I find it handy to keep various frozen veggies on hand for those nights when I get home after the grocery stores have closed. Last night was one of those nights.

After putting on the rice, I grabbed the veggies I'd left out to thaw and poured them into the wok pan. I realized I didn't have quite enough to feed my roommate and the guest I'd spontaneously invited as well, so I went back to the freezer to grab another bag of mixed vegetables. I started to pour those into the wok when suddenly I was overcome with emotion -- thankfulness, reminiscence, nostalgia, but mostly thankfulness washed over me.  The sight of all those brightly colored vegetables filling my pot to the brim evoked an inner cry of, "Look how rich I am!  I can afford to eat as many vegetables as I want!!  I can pull them out of my freezer any time I want!"  It wasn't my roommates' protein shake, nor the croissants or chocolates. It was vegetables. 

Have you ever longed for vegetables? Coveted a few leaves of boiled spinach? Hoped for a few slices of carrot? Wished that a tomato might magically materialize in the kitchen, or that there was enough cabbage for everyone to have a salad instead of a hint of cabbage flavor in its boiled broth? My three months at Pema Chholing changed something fundamental in the way I see the world. My idea of wealth and luxury will never be the same. My sense of enough and needs will forever be on a slightly different scale.  Vegetables will always remind me how blessed I am.

Ani, a nun who lives up the hill, proudly shows off her kitchen. One of the oldest and toughest women I've ever met.

During a festival week someone brought us a basket of giant vegetables.
We were all excited, especially little Pemba.

Homemade yak butter - a real luxury!

My little boys: Pasang, Tashi, Nima

Nepal Trip Reflection

Here's a PDF of the document I submitted as my final reflection on the time I spent volunteering at Pema Chholing Monastery in Nepal's Solukhumbu region in the Himalayas this summer.

This week I met four Nepali students in a Product Development Project course I'm taking at the Aalto Design Factory in our school of technology.  After talking with them I was thinking in Nepali the rest of the day and all the memories of my home there were again so fresh in my mind. It's hard to believe that it's been just over a month already since I left Nepal.  How my life has changed!

FOY.shirah Lumos Trip Final Report - Nepal 2012

Motivate Yourself 10 Times a Day

I was in a super-happy mood when my mom & dad presented me with a new laptop (I mean, really, who wouldn't be?). So the first time I turned it on and created my user account, I chose a new password that I knew I would easily remember:

goShirahgo!

What I didn't realize was
(a) how many times a day I'd have to retype my password to access my laptop,
(b) how exclamation marks inherently create urgency and excitement,
(c) how much I internalize the words that I think or type,
(d) how much this internalization can affect my mood and subconscious, and
(e) how motivating it would be to internally repeat an encouraging, motivating phrase throughout my day.

Try it!! Change your password(s) to some phrase that compliments or inspires you. Make sure to include your own name so that you & your subconscious remember that those words are for you! I'll give some examples for my brothers and sister:

ShootThatGoalTori!

You'reAllOverThatBiologyTestCole!
Raam-YouRock!
Jared,YouAreACyclingMaster!

GoForItChaseFoy!!

You'll find that it's not only good for your mood & motivation, but it'll be easier to remember your passwords, and by using more symbols and such you're actually making your password more secure. Give it a try!

*P.S. I'm obviously changing my password, now that I've spilled it to the world. So don't even try to hack me.
Man, the things I sacrifice for this blog. ;)

U.S. Constitution Day

Today, Sept. 17, 2012, marks the 225th anniversary of the signing of our Constitution at the Philadelphia (Constitution) Convention in 1787. The best way to honor the day might be to read it.

Helsinki Design District

I'm loving that I live right in the heart of the Helsinki Design District!
Check out this short video highlighting some of the cool people and stuff around here :)


Open Helsinki: Embedding Design in Life. from WDC Helsinki 2012 on Vimeo.
We are open. For us, openness equals transparency, curiosity, global responsibility and innovation. We believe that design can create happiness.

Design Thinking

Ever since I took a serious interest in the origin, principles, and process of design thinking, I've started to look at products in new ways. What used to be simple short-lived frustrations -- with the way an object doesn't work ideally in a way I'd like to use it, for example -- have blossomed into full-blown grievances, often accompanied by a conviction that, with just a little time and effort, I could come up with a much more appealing product.

(Okay, maybe the umbrella isn't
entirely at fault in this case.)

Take, for example, umbrellas. Is the inside of an umbrella not the most uncomfortable place to be? Especially for women, whose hair inevitably becomes tangled in the spokes every time. How many times have you been poked in the eye (or ear or face) by an umbrella user walking with or by you? How many times have you pinched, sliced, bent, or scratched your fingers while opening an umbrella? For me, every time. What a horrible experience!  What drives us to use a product that we know will invoke cursing or weeping with every use?

Which is why, when I look outside and see rain, I automatically run an internal risk analysis: Injury by umbrella vs. flat, wet, mop-like hairstyle for the rest of the day. Usually I opt for freedom from dangerous, encumbering umbrellas and design my outfit around a hat, scarf or hood.

Now, if I were an umbrella manufacturer, hearing a customer (or rather, potential customer) testimonial like this would be a sign of complete and utter failure on my part. Clearly, a pretty new pattern or more ergonomic handle isn't going to win this customer over; the umbrella would have to be completely overhauled before such a person even considers a new purchase.

Welcome to Aalto University

While this isn't quite how I thought the first week at Finland's elite business school would go, I'm shirking off my preconceived notions and going with the flow.  I ended up making some great friends this week with both Finnish and other foreign master's students, and quite a lot of friends in bachelor programs as well, since the two are usually combined into one 5-year program in which some master's courses can be taken before the bachelor is even completed. Also, since the Strategy program is a joint program between the School of Business and the School of Engineering, we have the unique opportunity to take any course offered at either campus (regardless of whether it counts toward our degree), which allows us to network, study alongside, and get to know students in both schools.

I've come to learn that the student union and student guilds are to be taken seriously.

daily walk by the sea

sunset over the harbor