Wednesday night, I had the opportunity to attend two dinners. The firs was dinner at The Nittany Lion Inn with Distinguished Speaker Alton Brown. The conversation started with Mr. Brown shaking all of our hands and asking about us--what we studied and why we were eating dinner. According to him, none of us had an interesting major--mostly finance and mechanical engineering. I was the only Liberal Arts major and was told that I should pick up by biochemistry degree again because it will sound more interesting.
The topics of conversation included which show he likes working on better (Iron Chef America only takes three weeks to film the whole season, whereas he works on Good Eats almost everyday of the year), his relationship with his wife (she's the president of their video production company and Mr. Brown loves that he gets an allowance each week), and the value of education (he didn't actually graduate from the University of Georgia until recently, but not having that degree did not stop him in his career path).
Some interesting take-aways were that he told us to figure out what we can do, not what we love but rather what we're good at and pursue that for a career; marry for smarts, not looks; and to always be true to yourself and your values, even if it means turning down over $15 million in endorsement deals.
The second dinner was Rosh HaShanna dinner with Penn State Hillel. This year, over 350 students gathered to celebrate the new year. Check out these articles for more information: Article 1, Article 2. I enjoyed the evening, but spent more time working to serve the other 350 students than celebrating and reflecting on this holiday myself. Hopefully, celebrating at home next weekend without the stress of a big dinner will allow me to take a better look at myself and what I want to accomplish and change in this coming year.
May you have a happy and sweet new year. Shana Tova!
The topics of conversation included which show he likes working on better (Iron Chef America only takes three weeks to film the whole season, whereas he works on Good Eats almost everyday of the year), his relationship with his wife (she's the president of their video production company and Mr. Brown loves that he gets an allowance each week), and the value of education (he didn't actually graduate from the University of Georgia until recently, but not having that degree did not stop him in his career path).
Some interesting take-aways were that he told us to figure out what we can do, not what we love but rather what we're good at and pursue that for a career; marry for smarts, not looks; and to always be true to yourself and your values, even if it means turning down over $15 million in endorsement deals.
The second dinner was Rosh HaShanna dinner with Penn State Hillel. This year, over 350 students gathered to celebrate the new year. Check out these articles for more information: Article 1, Article 2. I enjoyed the evening, but spent more time working to serve the other 350 students than celebrating and reflecting on this holiday myself. Hopefully, celebrating at home next weekend without the stress of a big dinner will allow me to take a better look at myself and what I want to accomplish and change in this coming year.
May you have a happy and sweet new year. Shana Tova!
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