Congrats to My Sister Hostel's project - The Old Charm

I have a sister, Minnie (yeah, how's cute, isn't it? my name is Mickey and my sister is Minnie). We started talking about doing a hostel project together in July, 2009. We gave this project a name, The Old Charm. In the beginning, Minnie worked on the project part-time, juggling between her full-time job responsibility at PIA, a leading interior design company located in the Asoke area.

It was just recently (about a month ago) that she made a drastic decision that my parents and I didn't quite agree with. She decided to quit her full-time job after just 4 MONTHS of working there. For me, I believe with her potential, if she can manage her time more effectively, she would be able to take on these two jobs gracefully. But well, she argued that at PIA, the things she was 'busy' doing, were not the things that help her grow up, both personalitywise and businesswise. She just really wanted to take on the hostel project full-time and that how she made up her mind.

A month has passed since Minnie quited her job. Being a distant observer and supporter, I can gradually see how this project has helped her grow. She did a lot of things that she has never done before - negotiating/bargaining/ and purchasing with various kinds of suppliers (beds, closets, insect-nets, curtains, and etc), dealing with different types of people (ranging from business partners to unskilled labors from Burma), and many more. She encountered various things that she never imagine would happen to her life (got bitten by a dog or was called by a traffic police two days in a row)..but it happened.

It seems to be a lot of work, setting up a tourist hostel in Bangkok, well, it really is. We fought with each other, had less time to hang out with friends, and had no weekends since August 2009.  But guess what, with all of those things happened to Minnie, I can still clearly see that she is very happy and having a lot of fun doing it. By looking at this equation:
working long hours + no leisure time + having many unpleasant (shitty) things happen to her = happy + having fun, it is funny how can this equation be true, isn't it?

Today, I received an exciting call from Minnie that she just received a cash payment from her first customer, the first customer of The Old Charm. It wasn't that much in term of the money value, but I am sure it means a lot to her.

Congrats to Minnie for her first customer and cheer for the many more to come :)

Mickey
p.s. for those who would like to know the difference between a hotel and a hostel, you can check it out here.