i used to believe..

Nasta

Essay #1 Worksheet:

1) I used to believe…. (describe your old belief here)

2) I believed this because…. (the source of the old belief. Be specific—family, media, religion, education—but give specific examples of how this belief was transmitted to you.)

3) Then THIS happened…. (the experience – narrative, anecdote, story—which caused your belief to change)

4) Now I believe…. (describe the new belief)

5) Describe one character besides yourself who will appear in your essay.

6) Describe a setting where some action or event takes place.

7) Describe one moving, crucial or memorable image important to your story.

Yasuko Miki

6/8/2015

EN121-35A

Marie Nasta

Essay#1 / Draft#1

Valuable Work

In the beginning, I was not sure why I was so crazy about this movie. I went to the movie theater to watch the movie three times. I was a junior high school student. The movie was Spirited Away directed by Hayao Miyazaki, who is a one of the most famous and genius Japanese film directors at Studio Ghibli. Even the third time, I could not stop being excited and I bought the sound track CD.

The movie was about an 11-year-old girl’s growing up story. She entered a mysterious world where she had to work at a hot spring hotel for a living. Miyazaki cared about details such as colors usage, music, the character’s lines, and character’s movements. I found this movies was awesome because we never got bored when we watched it again and again. The film basically encouraged girls to be bold and have adventures, but it also implied the meaning of life and made people think about borders between others. It touched people deeply. Actually the film got the Academy Award in 2003. At this time, I think I definitely wanted to work like Miyazaki because I wanted to have a good influence on the world and people. I wanted to become a person who made people happy through my work. I believed that creative professions are the most meaningful in terms of making a social contribution and making people happy.

Unfortunately I realized that I don’t have any special skills and talents for creating. I tried playing instruments, drawing pictures, and even tried the performing arts. Every time I tried something creative, I found out someone was better than me. For example I went to a piano school for five years when I was a kid. It was almost torture because my skill had been improving very slowly while other kids became able to play difficult scores. I was persistent, so I belonged to an orchestra club in high school, but I just realized I did not have a good ear for music.

In an art class in high school, it was obvious I was not a good painter because I myself did not like my bad drawings. In my college days I enjoyed acting very much but at the same time, I gave up perusing a creative career because I met a lot of gifted play writes and actors.

Although my attempts at being creative failed, I did discover that I was cut out to be a leader who would communicate with others because I was chosen as a president of clubs in high school and college. I just emphasized this characteristic for my job hunting.

Then I began to work in a sales promotion company and became an account executive. For the first time, I felt sad because I would never do meaningful work like Hayao Miyazaki. The only thing I could do was just work hard and when I was in my second year, I had a chance to get a very big campaign project from one of my clients. The project was giving away 3,000,000 pocket tissues to consumers at events in order to advertise the new web service, and sales would be 16,000,000 yen (128,000 dollars), which was a relatively big scale campaign for our company. Getting the project was very tough because there were a lot of competitors. Also the man at the client company, Mr. Tsukamoto was very strict person. He was a manager at the company and had a right to decide matters. He said “You do not have to see me if you don’t have anything helpful for me.” He often asked me for my professional knowledge, so I struggled to satisfy his needs. Finally I got the project thanks to a lot of people’s help.

Carrying the project into execution was harder because I had to manage every aspect of the campaign such as scheduling, designing and determining the quality of the tissue. I had a lot of meetings with designers in my office, my boss and subcontractors. I went to the pocket tissue factory and printing factory, which was three hours away from my office by train, to see they worked correctly.

One week after I went to the factory, I got samples of the pocket tissue from the factory. I was nervous when I opened it because Mr. Tsukamoto was very strict about the pink logo being printed correctly. The 100 samples were closely packed in a carton. The tissue had a big face made of characters, which looked like a black shaggy dog, and their logo. Every tissue had the same exact design and color. I went to Mr. Tsukamoto’s office. His office was on the 38th floor of the midtown tower in Tokyo. His office was very new because they were a very new company. In the reception hall, the walls were white and there were pink sofas, which was the same color as the company’s logo. We always had a meeting in a small white room where we could see the reception hall because the room had transparent glass walls. As usual I met him in this room, and he asked me, “Please show me samples.” He did not make small talk. I pulled out a couple of them from my bag and gave them to him with both hands. He examined them carefully and said, “These are perfect.”

The campaign itself succeeded. The pocket tissue had a pink paper inside it, so a lot of recipients took pictures and uploaded them on social media, saying “Amazing tissue!’ “I got such a cute tissue.” “The web service must be fun because this idea of the tissue is interesting.”

One week passed after the camping began, and my boss and I went to Mr. Tsukamoto’s office to get feedback. We saw he was having another meeting in the small room through the glass. We were waiting for him in the reception hall for a few minutes. He and other people got out of the room saying “Thank you so much” or something. I was curious about what they were talking about, but I wanted to hear his impression about the campaign much more. Mr. Tsukamoto glanced at me with a smile while he passed through in from of me to send off his previous guests. As soon as they were out of our sight, he said to me, “Thank you very much for your effort. Because of you, the campaign succeeded!” My heart became full, and I just said, “Thank you very much.” He also said, “Although you are very young, very good job. I think a lot of customers got interested in our service. Now we can launch our service with big confidence.”

At this moment, I felt that I was involved in society and had made people happy through my work. I could help the client’s business, which meant helping to increase their sales and making employees happy. And also the project earned a lot of money, so I contributed to my company’s sales and the subcontractor’s sales as well. In addition I could make people who got my tissue have fun and have a chance to communicate with their friends or family.

Creative professionals can have an influence on people’s mentality. Simultaneously any kind of work can be meaningful because it can contribute to enhancing people’s lives by providing money. I am not saying the money is the most important thing in our lives, but it could be one of the elements of leading happiness. Now I believe any work can be meaningful if it influences others positively. We can be proud of any work that affects other’s lives even if it is a very small effect like my pocket tissues.