Hi there! I recently moved over to WordPress from the Blogger world! The change was prompted by my business page, Prism Social, where I felt Blogger had reached its limitation—WP has a whole lot more functionality as a website platform in addition to just the blog. I was also really frustrated when Google did away with their Blogger app for iOS. I’ve long been interested in WP, so here we go!

I figured that today, I’d take the format of Tim Ferriss’s 5-Bullet Friday. You’ll hear me talk a lot about him. He’s a favorite podcaster and author I follow. Every Friday, he put’s out a newsletter consisting of five bullets just tossing out some fun things he’s been pursuing or thinking on. It ain’t Friday, but I’m gonna go for it (minus the bullets)!

Side note: Let me preface this by saying that I don’t receive any affiliation money. All the links are for your convenience, not for my own profit.

What I’m Reading
For my BA German for Business degree (one of many pursuits), I have to take a comparative literatures class. I petitioned to allow for Cultures of East Asia. My class is online and is concentrated on the Japanese culture. Fun fact: I love Japan and even took Japanese 101 my first semester at BSU. My intent was to minor in Japanese but decided it would be too much for me to pursue such a difficult language and engineering at the same time.

The scope of this class consists entirely of reading The Japanese Mind and answering true-or-false 10-question quizzes each week. It’s fascinating and would make for an interesting read regardless of your familiarity with the culture. Each chapter is an essay on a specific aspect of the culture. Chapter 1 was aimai, or “ambiguity” and dives into the indirectness associated with the Japanese.

What I’m Listening To
My wife got me into podcasts while we were dating long distance (a four-hour drive one-way). She just started a new one called The Charged Life with Brendon Burchard. It’s not really my thing—10-minute weekly pep talk—but one line jumped out at me. In the “4 Ways to Become More Disciplined” episode, the host highlighted the necessity for social celebration of accomplishments. He stated that if you do something hard, but don’t celebrate it with your friends, then you don’t get excited about the next difficult thing you accomplish.

A Product I Can’t Live Without
It wasn’t until I got back from Germany that I did anything with my hair. And I mean anything. It was thick, bushy, and unruly. August 2011, I took my best friend and his then-girlfriend to my haircut. I had looked up a couple pictures I wanted to emulate, and I let the hairdresser (Jennifer) go to work. She finished with a gel on the top and a matte paste for my cowlick right up front. I’ve since switched to the paste for everything up top. I would not be the man I am today without Garnier Fructis Style Surfer Hair Power Putty.

What I’m Playing
During the regular semester, I have no time for video games. Whenever a break hits, though, I get back into it pretty hard. Winter Break was all about Blizzard’s Heroes of the Storm. Out of all the characters, I’m only familiar with the StarCraft crew. I’ve never made time for StarCraft II, though, so it can still be hit or miss. My favorite’s Zagara. Gotta love the Zerg! Add me with my BattleNet tag: starkexpo#1538.

Something I’m Excited About
I’ve always known that I wanted to get an MBA, but with what emphasis? For a while, I thought entrepreneurship. Then economics. Then I changed my minor to econ, so that ruled out the MBA option. I’ve been working on a market research project for one of my social media clients, and I stumbled across my answer. The Technische Universität Berlin (Technical Univerity of Berlin) has an MBA in Energy Management, and it’s all in English! First off, Berlin is my favorite city in the world. Second, I’ve thought about running for public office at some point—only for a term or two as a public service—and energy would be a great platform! It’s also very relevant to my professional interests in engineering and project management.

Fin
Fun format? What’d you think? I had fun talking about all the random things that have my attention lately. Hopefully you did too!