My Special Sauce

  I am writing this post to demonstrate what I can bring to the table as an Eco-Rep. Simply put, I am good with people. Some of my friends joke around me about how I am a Facebook addict and obsessively update my status.


  Yes and no. I am a Facebook addict in a different way. Being a social butterfly isn't really enough for me. I want to be more of a social bird, on and off the campus. I am actually a Facebook friend with literally every single student of Class of 2014, except for the ones who don't have a Facebook account. I started off as my abrupt friend request during the summer, but my effort sifted into finer grains of my human resources. The small size of Babson College contributes to the fact that I practically know a majority of our student body, but I really attribute this to my devotion into social networking.


  I utilized this same concept when getting to know about Babson. I was in the midst of choosing my colleges, I became fascinated with Babson. This led to my well-planned, massive Facebook terrorism; I wrote a cluster bombardment of questions with the length of a novella and sent it to every single Babson student I could find. How many would even bother clicking? I was astonished: dozens of replies followed, some of which would stand alone as full length novels. They showed me the utmost proof of students' enthusiasm for the school. The strong social network soon shaped, and myriads of hands gradually guided me to visit Babson and experience it firsthand.


  As this story tells, I would like to say with confidence that I can bring my social aspect and human resources to the table, for more efficient execution of any projects. Specifically, I would be happy to be in charge of Human Resources aspect of the project, working with people, which is one of my biggest strengths.


  One of the biggest things I learned through this chapter about having a successful Eco-Rep project is the importance of communication. Regardless of how good your business idea is, the business may leap into failure with devoid of efficacious communication. There are a variety of communication methods and I had learned lots in that field and am ready to apply it to my real life.

Behavior Challenge

 In this blog, I wanted to keep you updated about how I am in the process of getting rid of one of my bad habits and how I am going to able to achieve this.

  I have a terrible habit of having to let the water run from the faucet whenever I am almost done brushing my teeth. When I brush my teeth, I put some water on my toothbrush and start brushing, and then I have to turn on the faucet like 10 seconds before I'm ready to actually goggle with water. Although I recognized the fact that I'm wasting water by doing this, it has been very difficult to fix this habit. I realized this project will give me a perfect reason and time to rid this habit.

  One of my methods that I used to eliminate this habit is that I would leave bathroom as soon as I am ready to brush my teeth, and then brush in my room without going back to the bathroom until I was entirely finished with brushing my teeth. This would fit into the category of positive punishment, since I do not like the feeling of my mouth getting burned while moving to the bathroom.

  The hardest part about the challenge was probably just trying to brush my teeth regularly. (just kidding) Initially, this was very difficult in that I was trying to get rid of the habit I have had for such a long period of time. However, I started to develop another habit that almost replaced my bad habit. I found myself having a conversation with my roommates every time brush my teeth, since I'm not in the bathroom. I also explained my motivation and intention of doing so and both of my roommates ended up doing the same thing in the end. It turned out that brushing teeth has become a sort of social ritual for us, in that we just start having conversations whenever we brush our teeth.

  In this perspective, this challenge was much easier than I thought. Now I habitually leave bathroom after I put toothpaste on my toothbrush, and I am extremely content with how brushing teeth has become our own "teatime".

The Green Star with an eco-ego

  Welcome to Alex Lim's green blog! =) In this blog, I will be catching up with what I will be learning through my Environmental Action workshop and just generally illustrating my experiences as a proud Babson Eco-Rep, step by step, with my strong desire to be eco-friendly and active about promoting green, thus saving the world!

  So, this post is my brief description of my new "eco-self." I am calling this blog "The Green Star" because my Korean name (Jong Kyu Lim) means a star and I'd like to be a person just like a shining star in various ways. In addition, not only is green my favorite color, but also it represents my will to cultivate my eco-ego and therefore become greener.

  As a crucial part of Babson college encompasses a very practical and hands-on approach to business, I would like to apply this exact principle to the way I utilize my experience as an Eco-Rep. This led me into a deep thinking in terms of what I really can and should do in order to truly influence people around the campus. One of the first things that popped up in my mind was recycling. Babson offers students to do Single-Stream recycling, a very convenient way to recycle things properly. However, I recognized how a good portion of students lack sufficient knowledge as to how to recycle and why it is so important. 

  Consequently, I decided to take a very direct approach to improve the situation. Whenever I was around my friends, I tried to emphasize how to recycle properly and how this can leave such a huge impact. At the same time, I tried to careful not to sound either accusatory or authoritative in terms of correcting my peers. I attempted to show them by examples, re-recycling things by myself with less words.

  After about a couple weeks of my attempts to correct the recycling behavior, I discovered my friends became more careful when throwing stuff in trash cans, whenever I was around them. Since I put a bigger focus on my actions rather than words, it seemed like people well understood the significance of proper recycling.

  Initially, I've gotten very pessimistic responses from my peers. They thought I was just being silly and jocular when I demonstrated them how I actually care about recycling. They didn't seem to understand the fact that an individual's behavior can result in a dramatic difference in that it will easily affect other people's behaviors. To reiterate, since I showed them my "eco-ego" by action on a regular basis, my peers seemed to feel more obligated to follow the rules.

  I used to be very introvert when it comes to broaching such topics as environmental issues or religious issues, presuming that people will automatically label me as a tree hugger or Jesus freak. However, as my desire of becoming more eco-friendly grew significantly, I learned that I need to be responsible for such things as informing other people about the significance of promoting green and being environmentally friendly. As a result, I looked and sounded more genuine and passionate about environmental issues, so my peers became more understanding when I tried to preach them. 

  Different people certainly gave me different responses, from completely admiring my effort to help others being green to entirely rejecting the truth that it is indeed important that you as an individual are responsible for environmental issues.

  This is very natural that everyone has given me different responses, since not many people share same backgrounds, experiences, or perspectives. This taught me how I need to be flexible in terms of being very consistent and patient about teaching my peers the right thing: being responsible themselves.