A piece of news jogged Celine's memory about two business owners she had met. The news was about a president criticizing a mayoral candidate from his party because the master’s degree of the candidate was revoked due to her plagiarism. The president was also accused of plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation.

As for the two business owners, one named Mark who sold his goods to a company where the purchasing agent kept accepting bribes from him. When Celine asked if Mark allowed his staff to take bribes, Mark said it was definitely a no-no. The other one named Joseph, in the interview, asked straightforwardly if Celine was willing to write the assignments for his master’s degree to get an additional payment. Celine did not take the offer because that was against her value.

Celine wondered how those leaders expected their subordinates to be honest if they were dishonest. Just like some parents scold their children for swearing by using swear words. Without doubt their children’s bad behaviors are exactly like the parents’. A proverb popped into Celine’s mind: Example is better than precept. It seemed to somewhat describe how she felt about the news.