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How COVID -19 Changed My Life

As we all know that COVID-19 hit the world hard earlier this year, it has affected many countries and has significantly changed the way we live. In this blog, I am going to address how COVID-19 changed my life, and more specifically, how it changed a lot of my plans for after graduating college and the way I spend my money. Due to the global lockdown, the economy has been declining day by day. People losing their jobs, students are forced to switch to online courses.

The very first thing that affected me was that the graduation got postponed. As an international student, not having a proper graduation ceremony made me feel like all the years and efforts that I put in are for nothing. Even when Cal State San Marcos announced it will happen sometime later this year, yet it all feels different. Due to the fact that many of us will be working, and a lot of my friends will be out of the Country and not everyone is coming back for the ceremony.

The second point where COVID-19 affected me a lot is that I planned to finish submitting all graduate school applications and to take my GMAT before I graduate this summer. However, because the schools in San Diego County got locked down, and there’s no one at the office, I am not able to apply to masters or to take my GMAT test. Reason why it troubles me is because my original plan was to have all the test scores and applications ready, fly back to Taiwan to complete my four-month military service, and come back to start my master’s program in 2021.

Like I mentioned earlier, COVID-19 changed the whole economy, and as a college graduate, this doesn’t look good for us when it comes to job searches. From what I’ve known, many companies are not planning on hiring new people till the end of 2020, plus plenty of people got unemployed throughout the incident. Therefore, I see it as a sign as I should change my spending habits. I set a goal that I need to save $2,000 per month starting from the day when the government announced the lock down till the end of year 2020. In order to achieve that goal, I will have to reduce the amount of eating out from three times a week to one time a week. Also, I will ask myself whether I need the item, or do I want the product before shopping online. I believe this new mentality of asking myself before buying will help me save some money to go through this low point of the economy.

This whole COVID-19 has made me see things differently and I think it made me mature. It helped me realize the importance of money, and maybe this a time where I can step back a little and reorganize some of my plans. I always believe that everything happens for a reason. For instance, due to the quarantine around the world, a lot of countries reported that their air pollution has gone down and the ocean has become cleaner. Therefore, as a result I believe that COVID-19 did affect us. However, not all affections are bad.

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How Social Media Marketing Can Help Small Businesses.

Types of Blog: Problem-Solution/Report

Due to COVID-19 most of us are stuck at home, a lot of us are bored and want to find something to do. As we all know, over the past month of quarantine many companies ran out of business and it will be tough for them to get back into the market again basically the whole economy is going down. Therefore, this blog, a problem-solution article on how small businesses can use social media marketing to gain more attention and still maintain its popularity in the industry. I will use the company that I work for as an example, and I will determine some content that suits for each social media platform along with how companies can use them to identify their target markets.

I work at a non-profit organization called SOLE Effect, what SOLE Effect do is to teach high school students how to become a good leader in life. Therefore, every Friday we would go to high schools here in San Diego County and spend time with those high school students. However, like I mentioned early due to the quarantine lock down, all the schools here in San Diego County are closed. As a result, SOLE Effect’s business would have to pause for a while since the company is fully dependent on face to face teaching and interacting.

Social media marketing is a very good way to advertise things for small businesses due to the low cost (or no cost at all) and convivence it brings to our everyday lives. There are plenty of social media platforms from Facebook all the way to YouTube, each platform has its own target markets, from age to gender, students to professionals. For instance, if a company wants to focus on finding business professionals, the ideal social media to post is on LinkedIn. Another example would be when a beauty product company wants to sell their most updated items, a good social media site would be Pinterest.

As a intern at SOLE Effects, one of my task is to help plan out the business model for the company to gain more donors. I’ve used most of my social media skills that I learned from social media class. Some of the ideas I presented are to post at appropriate times, customize the contents for specific target groups, and to upload frequently. One successful technics that SOLE Effect used to gain more high school followers are to post weekly themes such as mentor Monday where they will invite all college mentors(interns) to share their own personal stories about how they become a leader and responsible when it comes to decision making, another technic SOLE Effect used are giveaways on Instagram. Now that looking back, SOLE Effect’s Instagram followers has grown significantly due to those changes such as knowing what type of contents the specific target markets want for each social media platform, posting raguly with valuable themes(contents).

The paragraph above are some advices for small businesses to maintain their public awareness on social media during this quarantine. With a good social media fundamental, it would not only help small companies to grow, but will also save them plenty of money on advisements.

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Tudor Black Bay Watch Review Blog

Basic information of the watch:

Tudor black bay reference 79220R is a present I received for my 20th birthday from my father. It is my first dive watch. Black bay is the most iconic model in the Tudor family, it looks identical to its big brother the Rolex submariner. Tudor and Rolex are sister brands. Therefore, they both shared a lot of the same designs. However, being a budget friendly brand, Tudor has thought outside the box and starting to showcase some colorful bezels, and the iconic Tudor rose on its crown. Tudor black bay has 41mm in diameter, and the thickness of 14.75mm, like I mentioned earlier it is a dive watch. As a result, it means the watch can still be functioning under water and it has a water resentence of 200m or 660ft.

How does it feel on hand & my user experience:

To me Tudor black bay weights on the heavier side, it just seems a little too bulky for my taste. I have a smaller wrist size and 41mm diameter just seems too big for me. The stainless-steel bracelet is very well made it feels sturdy and robust, it is a very good day watch overall. However, compare to my Rolex datejust 36mm. I personally feel that Tudor black bay is a very good watch for the sporty vibe and datejust would be a good watch with more formal occasion. Tudor black bay is priced around $3,000 - $3,500, I would say that it is possibly the best watch to purchase from that price category. If someone ask me for my opinion for the perfect one watch collection, I can proudly say that Tudor black bay might fit the spot due to its price, functionality, and build quality.

Some people would disagree with me that Tudor black bay is the perfect watch for a one watch collection. The three main reason being that it doesn’t showcase a day or date on the watch, it is too sporty and would not be able to use it as a dress watch, last but not least, it is big and bulky. I would say, the day-date function is a plus to have, yet, for those who can only afford or wants to own one watch that day-date function is not a necessary function because we all have smartphones today. Looking in the watch market that is priced in the $3000 - $4000 range there are not many options for us to choose from, yes, Tudor black bay is a sport watch. However, it sits on a sweet spot where it can be dressed up or dress casually. Just like in the movies, James Bond wears a dive watch with his suits. Lastly, I want to say that dive watches are somewhat bulky across all brands, most dive watches are around 40mm – 45mm so I don’t think it’s a critical problem for most people.

My conclusion:

Tudor black bay is a watch that’s worth trying and collecting, it would not let you down and it is one of the watches that does not depreciate by a lot. It served all of my needs perfectly in my four years of college. I would recommend this watch to those who want a reliable watch but does not want to break the bank. Tudor black bay will last for many decades with proper care and maintenance.