Hi, This Is Mia, How May I Help You?

A quick mention that today is Kick Butts Day, “a national day of activism that empowers youth to stand out, speak up, and seize control against Big Tobacco”!

Aside from that, I’m back to work, and I’m continuing my search for website designers this week.

While in the midst of constant back-and-forth, question-answer conversations with designers on Fiverr, I decided to post a design request on Upwork to see if there were any candidates there. Like Fiverr, Upwork allows clients to message freelancers individually or make postings public to open up the job to anyone who applies. I thought the latter would be very beneficial for us to make the best hire, so I put my web design request on a public setting.

I didn’t realize the effect this would have until I began receiving multiple notifications from Upwork and separate individual emails from applicants asking me to consider them as possible contenders. And the calls started to come soon after.

Though I’ve previously blogged about acting the secretary, I’ve only accomplished the written part—pen-to-paper notes. I’ve rarely answered the phone during my time at Marvin Medisoft, and when I did I only took brief messages for Ms. Vaidya. Now I found myself in the interview process, inquiring about web design proposals, searching through my notes for answers to their own questions, flustering around for words.

I’m not very good at talking to people on the phone, and this interview process confirmed it—at least in the beginning.

During the first call, I forgot to introduce myself, and when we finished talking the designer had to ask who was speaking. To me, “Mia Carlson” seems like an ordinary name to spell, but I guess the translation got fuzzy on the other end, because when he emailed me afterwards, he wrote, “Hi Miaca Erlsom”, which I really had to laugh at. After that little mix-up, Ms. Vaidya advised me to answer all future calls with “Hi, this is Mia, how may I help you?”, which definitely lessens the awkward confusion if interviewees ask for my name.

The second call went a bit better (he definitely knew my first name was not Miaca), but when I was asked to spell my name, I think I blurted out, “‘M’ as in ‘Mia’”, which I’m guessing isn’t very helpful.

Third time’s the charm? Not for me, apparently. “I” sounds like “Y” (go figure!), so this particular designer wrote back, “Hello Mya”.

In the fourth call, I finally figured out how to spell my own name, ask the right questions, and jot down notes at the same time, but I was still nervous on the phone.

Throughout this process, I learned the ways around a phone interview, the value of customer service from a business perspective, and the tricks to sounding out my name and its letters very clearly.

I am currently in contact with six candidates, mostly by email (where I am much better with my words), and I hope to decide on one by the end of the week.

Crossing my fingers that I’ll find the best person to hire!

Mia Lu / Miaca Erlsom / Mya

Daily National Anthems // March Awareness

Happy Pi Day, everyone!

Good news is, it’s not just a day of infinite numbers and tasty dessert. As I’ve said, March is filled with a plentitude of national awareness days, and today just happens to be National Napping Day! Yep, an entire day dedicated to the importance of a healthy snooze after Daylight Savings begins. I—and all of you Arizona inhabitants—have never experienced time “springing forward” since we don’t change our clocks (and the sun always seems to shine), but I don’t think I would appreciate it if last night’s sleep were cut an hour short. So, in exchange for this significant lack of sleep time, we have National Napping Day right after the clocks change.

Naps are physically and mentally healthy and can really make a difference in one’s day. Check out this link: National Napping Day: 7 Surprising Benefits of Taking a Daily Nap

Fact of the day: There are 3 types of napping: planned napping, emergency napping, and habitual napping. They are all self-explanatory, but to give some perspective, when you know you’re going to be studying very late, you may want to take a planned nap when you get home. However, when you fall asleep while you’re looking at your notes, you fall prey to an emergency nap. And when you decide to doze at 7:30 pm every night, you’re choosing to take a habitual nap.

Aside from National Napping Day, there are dozens of March Awareness days, many of which people don’t even know exist. For example, I didn’t realize that Crown of Roast Pork Day, Awkward Moments Day, or Open an Umbrella Indoors Day were actually recognized as national celebrations in the month of March. Although these sound quite amusing, there are definitely other worthwhile awareness days that caught my eye, such as Registered Dietician Nutritionist (RDN) Day, Kick Butts Day, and Be Heard Day.

Hope you all find a day in March worth reveling in! (I don’t know about you, but I’m impatiently awaiting National Awkward Moments Day (3/18) and National Ravioli Day (3/20).)

Research project updates coming soon!

Mia Lu

Sleepless and Hungry? // March Awareness

Since it’s National Sleep Awareness Week, I wanted to share some interesting connections between sleep and nutrition.

Today I posted an article on Facebook about the relationship between sleep deprivation and unhealthy diets, specifically the craving of guilty pleasure foods. The University of Chicago performed a research study in which participants first got 7.5 hours (on average) of sleep, and then 4.2 hours of sleep in Part Two of the study. The researchers found that the loss of sleep intensified the effects of endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol (or 2-AG). (Yes, cannabinoid, as in marijuana.) The elevation of 2-AG levels resulted in a stronger desire for the munchies—the “marijuana munchies”—and fat-filled treats.

I found this study very intriguing and hope you can spare the time to read about it. The Washington Post article was well put, and the NBC segment is also interesting to watch (if you don’t feel like reading).

And another thing…

Fact of the day: Alcohol is NOT a sleep aid. Though it may act as a sedative and make you fall asleep faster, alcohol will actually cause you to wake up more times during the night, disrupting your sleep cycle (National Sleep Foundation).

That’s all for now, happy sleeping!

Mia Lu

Are You Aware? // March Awareness

This is the first full week of March, so I decided to begin my March updates mentioned in my previous post.

* To my fellow group members: This is my Spring Break Week, so you do not have to comment, but I will still be posting.

This week is National Sleep Awareness Week (3/6 - 3/13)! I am sure everyone who reads this blog has experienced sleep deprivation, especially throughout high school and/or college. I'm pleased that the National Sleep Foundation has a week dedicated to sleep awareness, as most people (especially my generation) get fewer and fewer hours of recommended sleep, which greatly—as we all know too well—affects everything we do. And I think it is quite suitable during BASIS Scottsdale's Spring Break. You can follow the campaign using #7Days4BetterSleep.

Each week I will include links to other nationally recognized days in the top right sidebar, so check them out if you have a chance. If you would like to learn more about these March Awareness updates, feel free to comment on my posts and ask for additional links. I will also try to include articles and facts that I find particularly interesting and/or informative…such as “A proper diet and routine screenings can prevent colon cancer” (March is also Colon Cancer Awareness Month).

And…

Fact of the day: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is a sleep disorder said to occur due to the inability for an infant’s brain to control regulatory functions like breathing. - Read more about SIDS here.

I hope these updates will give you a better idea of some of the research I do to gather information for my social media posts. More importantly, I aim to increase awareness of and spread the word about the topics I share.

More updates to come!

Mia Lu

My Search for the Ideal Designer

Happy first day of March, everyone!

To start things off, today is the first day of National Nutrition Month (with this year's theme being "Savor the Flavor of Eating Right"), so in the weeks of March I will share some—yes, you got it—nutritious facts and figures to be aware of. This week (2/29 - 3/6) just happens to be World Salt Awareness Week, with a theme of “Hidden Salt”.

Also, March of Dimes will kick off March for Babies on Tuesday, March 8th, which will begin its fundraising effort to support premature babies and fund research to help prevent premature birth. I will also provide updates and information throughout this month.

Feel free to visit Marvin Medisoft's Facebook page to see our posts as well.

Now, back to my website research…

I am currently in the process of choosing a web designer for Marvin Medisoft’s website update and redesign. Awhile back, Ms. Vaidya gave me a list of sites filled with freelancers and potential designers. I eventually narrowed down the sites to Fiverr and Upwork. (The Vaidyas are familiar with both already, which is a plus.)

If you are not familiar with Fiverr or Upwork, the former includes sellers that create “gigs”, or packages, for their particular services, ranging from graphic design and marketing strategy to sound effects and jingles. Upwork is a site in which freelancers-for-hire describe their specialties and qualifications and offer their services (there are no packages).

Both sites have many filtering options but are overwhelming all the same. Aside from searching for relevant types of web design, I have looked extensively at reviews, ratings, job history, past projects, cost rates, and even response time and native language. There are still so many candidates willing to do the work but only one spot for the job! Is it wrong for me to compare myself to a college admissions officer right now?

Additionally, I had to compile my notes and comments in an organized way throughout the process. Since I prefer handwritten notes, my poor little spiral-bound was soon filled with comparison charts, stars, arrows, highlighter marks, and chicken scratch.

After quite a few elimination rounds, I ended up with three designers from Fiverr and five from Upwork. While there are still many to choose from, I wrote a proposal to introduce our website redesign project in order to contact the freelancers and see if they are interested and available.

I contacted the Fiverr designers first. They all replied less than a day later! They posed questions about content, page count, HTML vs. PSD, RSS feeds, etc. Sometimes, it was a bit frustrating when we couldn’t fully understand each other, or when they wouldn’t answer my questions well. But so far, they have all been very polite and patient.

That is where I currently stand in deciding who to hire for Marvin Medisoft’s website redesign. I will definitely elaborate on the process as it progresses further.

These past four weeks have flown by—I can’t believe we’re almost halfway through our research!

If you are taking Spring Break next week, hope you have a relaxing one!

Mia Lu