Restarting the workshop one more time + New Years!

January 06, 2020 by Grace Li in Ballet absolute beginner2

Happy New Decade! Today I restarted the Absolute Beginner class again… and progressed to the side barre! I am so excited that I am finally among the more advanced people!

The side barre is def more practicing on our own… the teacher taught us a few moves and left us practicing while teaching other people at the centre barre. It is actually pretty good, as we now all know what the moves are supposed to be and thus are allowed time to come to it on our own terms. We’re also supposed to remember quickly the steps that the teacher taught. Def more advanced!

Sixth workshop and a "fashionable" weekend

November 19, 2019 by Grace Li in Ballet absolute beginners

This weekend I took a class at the Fashion Institute of Technology called “How to think like your CFO“. It was taught by the former SVP of Finance/CFO at Calvin Klein, and we got to analyze financial statements of fashion companies and tell the story behind the numbers. It was very interesting - we analyzed a company that was changing its business model from just being a cashmere wholesaler to opening retail stores and establishing a private label business. We even saw a spreadsheet of a merchandise planner, and learned how finance people use sales data to make decisions on which segment of business to invest in and expand. In the past few weeks I have been listening to the earnings call of Tapestry and ASOS and was reading their equity research reports in my free time, but I was frustrated in picking up what’s important among a sea of numbers. After the class, I feel like I now finally understand how to analyze the KPIs in fashion.

It’s a very refreshing experience, as it recently occurred to me that I want to do corporate finance at a fashion company. I’ve been reading Business of Fashion and visiting the clothing stores I read about in my free time since this summer, but this weekend signifies the first step I took to do something about it and actually evaluate this interest as a potential career path. I am so glad I did it, despite having second thoughts and fierce debate in my mind about whether I should go the week prior. I’ve always loved fashion - it’s been a source for me to express myself emotionally, and sometimes a great piece of clothing/accessory would really make my day and make me feel different. I really hope to contribute my efforts to running a successful fashion brand that speaks to the customers and give them the joy of expression that they need in their day-to-day life. Anyhow, though, I still haven’t applied for a job in the retail industry yet, part of it is because I think it’s too soon to leave my current job, and also part of it is because I now do more and more data analytics in my current job that I think would be pretty transferable to my future job in retail/finance. So no rush, but hopefully I can keep this going and if I haven’t changed my mind, make the switch - perhaps after 2 years?

Ok, now back to ballet! Today we did tendu/plie in the first position, second position and third position, and we also did a lot of plie - releve.

Fourth workshop and a celebration

November 11, 2019 by Grace Li in Ballet absolute beginners

I was again late for 10 minutes for my third workshop, because I was busy chatting with my co-worker about the business problems our firm is facing. We as an analyst class at our company (investor relations advisory business within a data analytics firm) are having lunch with the management team of our department tomorrow, and we charted many bullet points on things to improve within the organization from an analyst’s perspective. I prepared a big speech tomorrow with 6 gigantic bullet points, but I was kind of uneasy how it is gonna be received by the management team, because they are all constructive criticisms. Our group is experiencing some pretty high turnovers and is facing some growing pains, which made our working experience somewhat unpleasant, but I do hope to be a part of the effort to solve these problems and make our workplace better. Anyhow, so therefore I was late for my ballet class, and the pianist - a slim retired man dressed in business casual - gave me his usual stare while I sneaked into the classroom… making me feel a little guilty and hope I wont be late next time.

Today, we reviewed many of the moves from last class, but mostly talked more about posture, weight placement, plié, tendu a la second, releve in second and port de bras.