Erin's Year in Review 2014

Erin started off 2014 by pledging Alpha Kappa Psi's (AKPsi) Pepperdine Chapter, a business fraternity, turning 18 y.o., and finishing her freshman year at the beautiful Malibu campus.  During the summer, she worked at Sunny Blue, a Japanese eatery on that specializes in hand-made Omusubi, on super-trendy Main Street in Santa Monica.  Lastly, she started the Fall semester studying overseas in Pepperdine's Shanghai campus and took a Chinese Art History class in Pudong (Fudan) University.

Erin's professional goal is to become an occupational therapist (OT.) She joined AKPsi, a co-ed business fraternity, because of the benefits networking, new friendships and business training of its pledges.  During her grueling interviews while pledging, she defended that the reason why she wanted to join a business fraternity even though she's not a business major was because "she views her future OT profession like a business" - a business that can benefit from networking and strong business acumen.

During the summer, Erin applied for her first "paying" job (babysitting not counting), interviewed and got a job at Sunny Blue (www.sunnyblueinc.com.)  Over 700 Yelp! reviewers gave the establishment 4.5 Stars! Well, the food is really good, but not cheap. In her first week of work, she came back with "red, swollen" hands from handling hot rice and constant hand washing.  Sunny Blue specializes in hand-made Omusubi (rice balls, filled with yummy centers, and wrapped with nori.) Eventually, her strength was to work the cash register, smiling and taking with customer orders and, more importantly, memorizing repeat customers' names and orders.  She noticed that those Sunny Blue customers tip really well! They tip so well that she lived off the tips and saved her entire paycheck for her upcoming vacation trips from Shanghai to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Then on Sept 2, 2014, she and her classmates flew to Shanghai.  Please read all about her experiences, see her pictures and videos of her trip.

http://justahintofmint.tumblr.com/

Erin FaceTimes with her parents on a weekly basis.  They love the technology that brings them together though they are worlds apart. Erin returns to the USA on or around January 3rd.  Henry, Alice, and her family are looking forward to having her home again.  They are praying for her safe travels as she will be visiting Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan immediately after her Fall finals (early Dec.2014.)