Headed back to GSG

So last week it became official. I am headed back to GSG for the last 2 months of my current contract. I told a number of my team last week (including a bunch of them during my impromptu birthday celebration on Friday). It is tough to leave the team, as much of a hassle as it has been. I feel in some ways that I am just getting started, and learning more about how to do really drive things to the next level. But the personal side of life is important as well, and even my VP understands that ideally you want to live in the same continent as your partner!

Facebook means birthdays cannot be hidden

So the trickles started early with 1-2 people wishing me a happy birthday. It is nice to get the attention of course, although I can definitely blame the Facebook wall for that ;) Funny though that no one on the teams knew about it. So at 4:30 pm I casually mentioned it to a co-worker, saying "I wonder if I should cause trouble for my team by telling them it is my birthday ;) He went into overdrive (which was amusing, since he had forgotten his jeans at home and was wearing gym pants (and therefore couldn't leave his desk. After an hour long conference call, I had an ice cream cake and a whole group of people to celebrate with. It was really great, although it was tough since when I gave my "speech" I had to tell the team that I am returning to my old group =( I like this team, and I have enjoyed the year + that I have been here!

I went out that night with some friends, we ended up taking over a local bar in the Karosookil area. Even out was my friend Han (who has a 9 month old baby, he was crazier than I was though, staying up until the sunrise...It ended up biting him however, since he arrived home to his wife handing him the baby. You want to try and take care of a baby after pulling an all-nighter? ;) He somehow managed a game of basketball with us in the afternoon, but Sunday was not so good a day for him...I had an awkward moment on Friday night when I saw someone I knew, and put my hand on their shoulder, only to realize it was NOT someone I knew. (This is the 2nd time this has happened, and it is amazingly awkward when they turn around).

On Saturday I had a few friends over (all in time to discover that the air conditioner in my living room no longer works! Update: apparently I did not open the window in my laundy room where the venting unit is, another of my "not so smart" moves this weekend) In came the second birthday cake (although it was amusing when I was giving directions, and the person on the other end thought they were talking with someone else "okay, i understand where the apartment is, can you come out since i have a cake for him?" "umm, do you realize who you are talking to?" an audible "shit" from the other end of the phone. ;)

The weekend was great, but I will say, 3 am both weekend nights = exhausted. My body doesn't recover well from that!

Amusing new phrase

The other day a colleague told me about a phrase that goes something like: "pissing on your feet when you are in the snow and ice" The general meaning is that it may be a short-term solution to making your feet warmer, but in the long-run, it makes it worse (much less the fact you just peed on yourself). The ramifications of this phrase are broad, and how many business decisions are made thinking only about the short-term profit? (This is not one company specifically, or at least I choose not to comment on my current company, but it is worldwide). I guess humans and their companies like to piss on their feet too often ;)

Busy weekend, bad weather

The weekend started a bit early, Thursday night to be exact. There was a Haas alumni dinner, with 41 people showing up, including one undergrad and classes ranging from 1987 to the new admits for this year. My class was out in full-force, with 8 of 11 joining. It was great to see this group, it had been since the poker night that we had all seen each other! I saw a few folks from previous years, colleagues from Samsung (including people I had never met but work right next to!)

Friday was quiet (necessarily so), and Saturday I was dismayed as the rain came down. But there was a silver lining to that cloud, I was able to see a bboy competition (one on one break dancing competition). I definitely felt about 10 years too old, and my ears were assaulted a few times by dog-whistle level screams for one of the Korean dancers. It was highly entertaining, one of Sunghee's friends actually breakdances, and was telling us more about how it is judged, what different hand movements mean, etc.

I also walked to a hotel called the "Imperial Palace" which was really interesting. My camera battery decided to go right in the middle of my tour around the hotel (which was a cool French Renaissance decor), so I ended up with fewer bboy pictures later unfortunately. That specifically meant no pictures of a female dancer with quite possibly the worst color dress (and combination of army boots) I had ever seen. But I have no doubt that floral patterned mumu will not leave my mind for a number of years.

That night was out to a friend's place and then a club. I broke out my "Foreigner" t-shirt, which always gets a bunch of laughs. One of my co-workers girlfriends practically yanked the jacket off my back to ensure that people could see my t-shirt.

Finally done!

The TV commercial that took months (if not years) out of my life is finally almost done. Well it is finished, but now the goal is promoting it. And that takes more time and energy than I originally realized!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCqxSbGdzLY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRvXtqUpwtU

What is amazing though is that I started to reach out to people for the TV commercial, as a true grassroots marketing, and it is impressive the responses I get. (Not necessarily the PR stories that I want, but still, that people respond at alL!) And this includes some of these are famous people (Seth Godin), who I would not have thought would respond. Yes, you could say it helps that I work for Samsung, but it does remind you about the importance of a personal touch...

A light at the end of the tunnel

It has almost been 2 years in Korea (hard to believe), and I finally am near the end of the promotion for the music phone. The downside is that we created something interesting, but it is never enough (at least not for what we wanted to do out of it!) It is hard to believe that my 2 years is almost done though, I am excited about what's next, but also scared since so much is up in the air! It has in some ways made it easier to be more relaxed and try to take things with a grain of salt. I am still not sure how people spent 10 years here though. Perhaps it would help if I was married to a Korean. But I think Michelle would have something to say about that!

Two weddings

Two weddings on consecutive weekends, plus a whole set of work in the week in between. It was great to see friends and former colleagues, but it was a lot to fit in! Michelle and I realized that we can never look at a wedding in the same way again, as we were analyzing details, trying to figure out what we could easily do or not do...I did love being back in the US in some senses, like things like call waiting, voicemail (you know, for a country that is supposedly way ahead of the curve, Korea is in the stone ages for this one!) Was of course welcomed by the other parts of the US (unfriendly old ladies who wouldn't give me directions, thank you chatham NJ, HUGE portion sizes, etc). But i know how to deal with all of that, and it is in a language I can speak ;)