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Another Year in Tokyo

And sometimes elsewhere.

gapyear

Away time: 2nd month in IMD, Lausanne

February 23, 2019

Time is definitely not linear; it can go slow and fast at the same time.

Two months in and I started to grab a feeling of the so-called “IMD life”. People are talking about a term referred as your “IMD moment”, meaning, when you suddenly realize it is too much, too overwhelming and nothing is under control, and you start to panic – that is the classic “IMD moment”.

Luckily (or possibly the contrary), I haven’t been through mine yet. I guess for my culture, pressure from pure school work is something I have been trained to get used to since childhood, and as a result I have a higher threshold. I imagine, if I panicked, most of my classmates from other cultures must have gone crazy already.

However, something quite new has started to bother me, and has a potential to let me get my “IMD moment” eventually.

I guess this is a part of the MBA journey – to learn about new challenges and turn them into something of myself, either an opportunity or a learning. I remember a quote saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. Such a cliche; I know! I am just being hopeful. 🙂

Crossing my figures and concentrating my energy; I will not be killed!

(sorry about a short post. Let’s talk again. )

Junyi

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Filed Under: "Junyi says..." Tagged With: awayfromtokyo, daydreamer, gapyear, imd, lifeinabubble

One year apart from Tokyo

February 3, 2019

Bangkok, Thailand. End of December, 2018
Outside of the chic restaurant The Never Ending Summer – Bangkok, Dec 2018

Time goes by fast and life always moves on. After 4 years in Tokyo, life brought me – or more precisely, I asked life to bring me – to a new destination. Not Bangkok, but the beautiful lake side city, Lausanne.

Life has its own way of staging. In the process of it, I guess it is hard to see through, but you would have a sense of the flow, and you would feel it when it is time.

In my case, after 2 years of struggling-slash-meditation, and another 2 years of different attempting-slash-experimenting, I decided to leave Tokyo temporarily and took a leap of faith in pursuing an MBA with IMD. It is not an easy decision; it never is. But after a while, you know you will only have two options: to give up, or to take a jump. I jumped, and so far, so good.

The first month in Lausanne flew by quickly. After a brief vacation in Thailand, I landed at Zurich in a pale morning on the new year’s day. 2 hours sleepy train ride later, I found myself in this lonely city with two huge luggages and unresolved tiredness from serious jet-lag and vacation excitement. To make things worse, almost no shops were open in the holiday season, and I was just lucky enough to have grabbed some survival stuff at the only opening stores near the train station, and hoped I can get by the first week with minimal supplies. Lessons learned #1: never expect Japan supermarket hours in Europe!!

Anyhow, I figured I could use this food shortage situation to lose some newly gained weight from the Thailand trip, which actually worked. lol. So picture this: I was basically alone in the first couple of days in the new year, survived on croissant and cheap hams, while figuring out the extremely old apartment building that I had to live in. It was purely adventurous.

Well, nothing is more adventurous than the ride with IMD I just started to take. It just started; but I have already confirmed I do not regret my decision at all. It felt so good to know at every moment that, the things I am doing now, is 100% for myself and will pay off both physically and spiritually, not to mention the surprises I just discovered about myself that came along with those. It has been a blast already.

Nonetheless, it is very hard to study so much new things within a year. I felt different level/kind of challenge all day everyday. For example, finance is very challenging to almost everyone, including myself, however I enjoyed the challenge so much that I felt so fulfilled when I crack the problems and understood some phenomena better in the financial perspective. While some subjects such as marketing and operations, are so very distant from my past experiences or my background, they are so challenging that I had to focus all my energy to imagine myself in the situations and try to think of something meaningful or insightful. In general, it is fun.

Last Thursday, we met our Start-up partners for the first time. Although I cannot tell the contents of the project, what I can tell is that I am so looking forward to the future 10 weeks working with them and I have already gone through many ideas in my head.

February just started. I know life is going to be hard for a while, but hard and enjoyable at the same time. I no longer feel the stress and concern I constantly had when I was in Tokyo. I am very calm right now, and I know I am discovering myself for sure.

Talk to you again soon.

Junyi

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Filed Under: "Junyi says..." Tagged With: europe, gapyear, imd, lausanne, lifeinabubble, mba, notjapan

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Pistachio and strawberry and white chocolate and a Pistachio and strawberry and white chocolate and a ton of sweetness with girlfriend 😇 lovely meal at @restaurant_ryuzu
I’ve seen Mt Fuji three times this year. #japan I’ve seen Mt Fuji three times this year. #japan #mtfuji #yamanakako #iphonex can still take some good #landscape pictures 🙌🏻
#2021 starting strong with a very good day. 🙂. #2021 starting strong with a very good day. 🙂. #ootd #japan last week of vacation.
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