Recap of 2006 and 2007 resolution!

in less than 24 hours, 2006 will be over. Looking back a lot of things happened this year. I have mixed feelings about whether or not I liked 2006. I think the year was filled with lots of ups and downs.

Recap of 2006:

Jan - I was still recovering from my blood-vomitting, ulcer-ish incident from few months prior. Despite it all, I took a chance and vacationed with my classmate, Della to Rome and Paris. The trip was good except that she got pick pocketed. Spent way too much money in Paris and Rome. But it was definitely one memorable trip for sure.
March - spent the spring break in Taiwan, visiting dad, but mainly to get a full body physical exam. Frustrating because the doctor couldn't come to conclusion on what really caused the blood vomitting incident back in Nov. At this point, I think its probably a one-off type of incident. Oh and got to see Yuko, A-chan, and Hal, my god son!
May - graduated from business school. yay! but was sad to part with all my friends from b-school.
June - moved back to LA and just bummed around for a month.
July - flew back to NY and started my training with my new company. It was fun hanging out with my school friends again. Made me realize that I'd want to someday live and work in NYC. Not sure when but hopefully that'll happen down the road.
Aug - after training, flew to Hong Kong and worked there for 3 weeks.
Sept - flew to London from Hong Kong. Spent 3 weeks there for training and rotation.
Oct - flew to Singapore for more training and rotation. Got back to Hong Kong at the end of the month.
Nov - moved into my new apartment. Studied and passed the HK securities license exam.
Dec - studying again yet for another exam. Spent the xmas with new friends I made in HK. Parents are coming on the very last day of the year.

My 2007 resolution:
1. Workout more and eat more healthy.
2. Set aside at least 30 minutes every night to read
3. Study more about my job.
4. Don't stress over job, and don't let the job consume me.
5. Sleep early and get at least 6.5 hours of sleep during week nights.
6. Be happier.

random buy

i've been thinking about buying this thing the entire day at work...so after work, i went out to Sogo and bought it! its a foot/leg massage machine! haha.. yes yes, i'm getting old. i first used this at my coworker's house last week and thought it was so good...so i had to have it. since its kinda big in size, people usually get it delivered to their house...but I wanted to use it tonight so i end up lugging it back home in a cab all by myself.. of course i got a lot of stares on the street because i'm dressed in suits and lugging this humongous box that's labeled "isqueeze foot massager" down the street.

my new toy:



this past weekend was quite a productive weekend for me

1. my first cantonese lesson...yes i'm taking private cantonese lesson so i can communicate better with the locals... i have hard time communicating with the taxi drivers and i take it to/from work everyday so i think this will def. be helpful.

2. first time going to the gym in almost 2 months! what triggered me to go this weekend was because the tea-lady who works on our trading floor (she serves tea and manages the pantry) saw me and bluntly told me how i much weight i gained after coming back from London...haha.. she was so direct but its good though because i needed honest opinion!

3. first time going to church... i liked the atomosphere but this church was probably not right for me.. ppl were slightly older than me and was quite a local church. i think i need to find a church where there are people my age...and more diverse crowd.

4. got couple tailor made suits and shirts - one good thing about hk!

okay i'm sleepy and need to be in bed.. good nite all!

pleasant surprise

I passed my HK securities license exam!! Woohoo! It's been awhile since something good has happened to me I feel like. I was even able to check my actual score and surpisingly I did a lot better than I thought. Now I can cross this off my to-do list and focus on work.

feeling like my old self again

this weekend, i felt like my old self again. i end up doing a lot of stuff:
1. friday night, i was invited by my ex coworkers from GS to join them for christmas dinner. great food, great company, great ambience... what else can i ask for? then some of us continued the night and went to a bar in LKF which was owend by a HK celebrity. we drank WAAAY too much..and I was totally drunk. In a tiny guilty kinda way, it felt great to be intoxicated.. felt like all my worries disappeared. I wonder if that's a sign of alcoholism? ha!

2. saturday my tv finally arrived! i love it! see below:


3. sunday, went to shenzhen with a coworker of mine...we spent the day just shopping, eating, and getting massages... i know what a life eh? with stressful work weeks, this is the least i can do for myself...

alright its about 10pm.. It's time for me to go to bed. I'm waking up at 530am. I can't wait until the weekend rolls arouns again....Good nite folks!

today was somewhat of a mixture of good and so-so kind of day. the market today was pretty quiet, unlike yesterday's drastic sell off in most of the asian markets. we've all talked about a possible correction in the HSI and H-shares indices, but who knew that day would be here! fortunately, the market recovered back some of the losses it saw 24 hours before. but the nikkei had a great day today.

work was somewhat of an okay day today....maybe i'm starting to not care as much but i felt especially good after talking to one of my coworker about some of my frustration and he told me it was normal since that's what he had to go through last year when he joined. that gave me slight hope and confidence.

tonight, i had dinner with one of my friend... we went to this korean bbq restaurant that she suggested. the food was awesome! i totally forgot how much i missed eating korean food! then after dinner, we decided to walk back instead of my usual means of transportation (i.e. taxi).. it was a nice walk and gave us time to catch up even more.

since my company is not having xmas party this year due to cost cutting (so cheap!) i've been invited to my ex-cowo's xmas party at Goldman this friday =) I'm looking forward to it... Hopefully it'll put me in these festive holiday mood that i usually have every year. although christmas is my all time favorite holiday, somehow i'm just not feeling it this year... i blame it on my job

i plan to update my blog more regularly so come back often and check for updates! =)

my new life in HK

So I finally took my Hong Kong securities licence exam this past saturday after cramming for the past 48 hours. I'm not sure how well I did but hopefully I passed. I really hope I passed and don't have to retake it again. I guess I'll find out in the next few weeks. Wish me luck *gulp*

As for adjusting to my new life in HK, I feel like things are progressively getting better and worse simultaneously. Is that even possible you ask?!? I think a lot of it are as a result of my work. Like any jobs I'm sure, some days are good and some days are bad...but for my job, high is really high and low is significantly low. So it gets a bit depressing during the lows... but i'm trying to make the best out of it. These days, I'm really busy at work... when I'm busy is usually my high days. I've been booking a lot of trades, getting prices from the traders, handling all kinds of trade related issues with clients. During busy days, time flies by so quick.. before you know it, its time for lunc... then the next thing you know, its already 5pm. One thing I really dont like is having to wake up at 5:30AM every single morning to be at work by 6:15AM. I'm totally not a morning person.

Lately i've been feeling quite nostalgic about my old life back in Tokyo. At times I really miss being in Tokyo and being surrrounded by many of my good friends. But now I'm in Hong Kong, with hardly any friends, starting all over again from scratch. I admit, the thought of just leaving HK and moving either back to Tokyo or LA has crossed my mind several times. I use to like visiting Hong Kong for vacation but it's really different when you actually live here. Little things we take for granted like having a clean air, or having our own personal space is something I miss among other things.

In a more exciting news, I finally moved into my new apartment and have bought most of my furnitures I need. My living room sorta looks like an Ikea showroom...heehee. My apartment is slowly starting to look and feel like a home. I finally bought myself a Sony flatscreen TV that I've always wanted to get for myself. I felt the need to treat myself to something good after all the mental anguish I've been going through.

I just realized that I never posted any of my London pictures -- so here it goes....

Me and my new coworkers in London - they're all quite cool people:







Me and the international party-girl, Mary! I see her everywhere around the world but in the US! Hopefully we'll end up living in the same city one day...whether that be NYC or HK =D















My Nottinghill flat in London:

















What you see below is arguably the weirdest couch you will ever see. This entire couch is made out of teddy bears!! We found this couch in Harrod's department store in London. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw this.. it still makes me laugh when looking at the picture because its so ridiculous..haha

Yes, I'm still alive

it's about time i updated my blog. i just read my last entry and that was a long time ago. so many things have happened in the last few months that i'm not sure how to begin. first and for most, i'm sorry that i haven't been very good at keeping my blog up to date... for those who constantly came back to my blog to check if i ever made it out of SFO okay, and to those who kept sending me emails wondering if i'm still alive -- THANK YOU for checking up on me! the truth is, the last few months have just been an emotional roller coaster... mainly as a result of my work and few other personal things here and there. needless to say, the situation is improving.. or maybe i'm getting decensitized.

i've been all over the place the last few months... started my summer in NYC, then flew back to HK for 3 weeks, then to London for 3 weeks, Singapore for another 3 weeks, and then finally came back to HK. As glamours and jet-setting as it sounds, travelling around the world and living out of a suitcase for nearly 4 months really is not all that fun. sure, it was fun shopping in picadilly circus in london on the weekend, having dinner and drinks with mary and her "friend" in london, or feasting on chilly crabs in singapore...but after awhile, i just wanted to settle down and have some normal routine life.

i've been back in hong kong for nearly 5 weeks now... things started out quite rough at work but its gradually improving. without going into too much details (since this is probably the wrong venue for it), i never felt like this about any of my past jobs..and i've had plenty of jobs. i wouldn't say everything is 'great' right now but it could be a lot worse i suppose. hopefully things will get better and i'll start enjoying work more.

on a different note, i finally found an apartment and moved in! i found a brand new apartment in central/midlevel area. it was tough finding a brand new apt in hong kong. i have this strong requirement to to not live in an old apartment....but man some of the apartments that my agents showed me was just absolutely horrendous...with pink toilet seats and bars outside the window..and that's not even the worst part...some are just really really old and ghetto... if you were there with me, you would have agreed.... it was straight out of a 70's HK movie..scary.

my new apt is nothing like that... its quite modern, 2 bedroom apartment, with a gym and a pool downstairs. the only thing is that the rooms are quite small (really small)... but i dont really mind it. one thing i noticed about hk is that ppl here is that number of rooms are more important than the size of each room. some apartmens i saw were only 500 sq feet..yet they somehow managed to have 2 bedrooms?!?!

i'm still slowly trying to organize my apt.. i just bought new cabinets, dining set, and few other furnitures here and there.. one last thing i'm shopping for right now is a plasma tv... i've always wanted to buy one and now that i feel like i'm working so damn hard at work, i feel like i deserve one even more ;)

sometimes its weird to think that i'm living in hong kong... just yesterday, i was out shopping for my apartment stuff, and out of the blue, it hit me that i'm now permanently living and working in hong kong (i know, duh me!).... but it just feels odd living here esp since i'm not even from here and have no family connection here.. the city is great but i think its exhausting to live here sometimes.. there's not that much stuff to do on the weekend except shopping and eating i feel like.... hmm... so i'm gonna try to find new things to do on the weekend.

anyways, i better hop into bed... i have to wake up at 530am to go to work.

hopefully i'll make a habit of updating my blog more regularly than before. good nite ya'll!

stranded in SF

this is probably the worst flying experience ever. i flew out from jfk this morning to catch my connecting flight from SF to hong kong. well my flight was delayed (no surprise there) so i missed my hk flight. so they try to rebook me onto a flight from sf to shanghai then shanghai to hk but not guaranteed that i will make the connection in shanghai...which means that there is a high probability i will get stranded in shanghai....and all the business class seats were sold out so they will have to downgrade me to coach. after arguing/haggling with the people, they swapped my business ticket with a singapore airline direct business flightto hong kong. the only ting is that it is a red eye flight leaving sf at 1:30am. so basically i'm stranded in SF airport for 12+ hours....ahhhhhh. total nightmare. i touch down in hk monday 6:30am and my first day at work is 8am.

luckily i called up my aunt and uncle and they're coming to pick me up for dinner. i think doris will also drop by later tonight so we can have our one last reunion.

my last few moments in NYC

it's about 4am and i just finished packing. i will be leaving in few hours for hong kong. yes i'm travelling again. hard to believe that i have only few more hours in new york city. the last 7 weeks have flown by so quickly. i really enjoyed my time here. surprisingly, the city has grown on me....more so than what i had originally expected. i think i may want to try moving here after my stint in hk. we'll see.

lastly, i wanted to thank all of my friends who have been calling me the last few weeks (you know who you are) to wish me luck on my new job and my move to hong kong. also thank you for the farewell dinner last weekend and this weekend. you guys ROCK and i will trully miss you all :( i don't know what i would have done without you guys in nyc. hopefully you'll come out to hong kong sometime soon!

some pics i took from the summer:

koji's trip to NYC!

steak at peter luger in brooklyn. the steak was fantastic. suppose to be the best steak in NYC.


weekend at the MOMA - van gogh's infamous "starry night"



me and my cousin anne!


rita's birthday dinner



Farewell dinner at Hudson Cafeteria in the Hudson hotel


farewell present from my friends

Mariah in Concert

Yes, as the title suggest -- I went to see Mariah Carey tonight at Madison Square Garden in NYC!! I went with my co-worker Scott. The concert was AWESOME and I had so much fun. We were 10th row from the center stage. Scott even got to touch Mariah when she was walked through the crowd singing "always be my baby"!! Totally happy for him since he's a huge fan of Mariah!

There's something about Mariah's songs that brings back memory no matter how old or new the song is. I think one of my favorite song tonight was "I'll be there" but I also really enjoyed her new songs from her Mimi album.

All of Mariah's old songs definitely "ages well". By that I mean none of her songs really sound corny or lame even after all these years. For example, unlike say, Amy Grant's songs... in which you listen to it now and the lyrics and rhythm just instantly makes you gag sometimes....some of her songs just sounds a bit outdated. not with mariah's songs. you know what i mean?

We also saw P.Diddy, Jay-Z, Sean Paul, and few other artists perform tonight at Mariah's concert.

Overall, it was a fantastic nite.

Here are the songs that she sang tonight:

01. It's Like That
02. Heartbreaker
03. Dreamlover
04. My All
05. Shake It Off
06. Vision of Love
07. Fly Like a Bird
08. I'll Be There
---"B" Stage:
09. Fantasy
10. Don't Forget About Us
11. Always Be My Baby
---End "B" Stage
12. Honey
13. I Wish You Knew (Snippet)
14. Can't Let Go (Snippet)
15. Thank God I Found You/Make It Last (Snippet)
16. One Sweet Day (Snippet)
17. Hero
18. Make It Happen
---Encore:
19. We Belong Together
20. Butterfly Reprise

mentally exhausted

i've been so bad at updating this blog....and i can't believe it's been a month since i've been in NYC. I still have 3 more weeks here before going to HK via London and Singapore.

so as you can tell from the subject line....i'm mentally exhausted.... my training here has been pretty intense covering all kinds of complicated finance topics...we just finished interest rate derivatives, swaps, and now going over other types of equity derivatives and options...and later on we're going to cover exotic options. oh joy! it started out all fun and slow and all of a sudden, the speed of the training went from 0-60 in 2 seconds... and as a result, my brain is fried. even though i'm mentally exhausted, i'm totally enjoying the stuff that i'm learning. but i'm looking forward to finishing the training and just start working.

in other news, july has come and gone but i think i manged to do a lot of things since getting here. i've been hanging out with my cornell friends on the weekend and with my new coworkers from various global offices. they're all pretty cool people to hang out with. i think we're all excited about our move to hk and starting a brand new life there.

okay peeps...off to dinner with my coworkers... i'll try to post some pics from the last few weeks when i get a chance. ciao!

Goodbye LA

I just came back from hanging out with my friends tonight. This will probably be the last time I'll see them for a very long time because I'm leaving tomorrow morning for NY and evetually HK. We had dinner tonight at Grand Lux Cafe and the food was awesome as usual. Then, saw The Devil Wears Prada for the second time...this time at Arclight Theatre in Hollywood. The movie was good second time around.

So I finally found out my work schedule for the next 4 months and it looks like I'll be travelling all over the world. Here's my schedule:

7/8 LA --> New York
8/26 New York --> Hong Kong
9/16 Hong Kong --> London
10/7 London --> Singapore
10/21 Singapore --> Hong Kong

I'm pretty much all packed and looks like I'll be living out of my suitcase until end of October. There are a lot of stuff I want to take with me but I will have to ship it with the rest of my stuff which will arrive in HK in Oct.

I better go finish up and go to bed....it'll be a long day tomorrow. I need to wake up early to have breakfast with mom before she takes me to the airport. Hope to talk to many of my CA friends before I leave US in August...and for my east coast friends, I look forward in seeing you in NY very soon!

Bon Voyage and chat with ya'll soon. Cheers!

Happy 4th of July!

I can't believe it's been awhile again since my last entry. I've been so lazy in keeping this thing up to date... I hope I don't make this a habit. So what have I been up to since the last entry? Here are some of the stuff:

4th of JULY
Happy 4th of July ya'll! This morning, I woke up and finally went out and bought a new mattress to take with me to HK. I had no idea mattresses were so expensive. Well, I knew they were expensive, but I didn't know it was *that* expensive. I end up buying Simmons Beautyrest line of mattress. I remember their commercials few years ago. Basically the bed is made in a way that if one person rolls around on their side of the bed, the other side is not effected in terms of movement. Considering that we spend 1/3 of our life sleeping in bed, I think it is a good buy. Now, I just need to go to Ikea and buy a nice bed frame to take with me.

then around noon.....



MALIBU - B, R and I drove to Malibu to have seafood lunch at Neptune's Net Seafood. It was my first time there and the food was so good. We had tons of fried calamari, shrimp, clams, crab cake, and oysters. I'm sure its not exactly the healthiest thing to eat but it was definitely worth the ginormous cholestrol and caloric intake. Afterwards, we briefly walked around the beach and was quite a beautiful day. Malibu was fun and afterwards we drove to Santa Monica and did some shopping on 3rd Street Promenade.

Then came home and had dinner with my brother Tom who came home just to have dinner with me since I'm leaving for NY/LNDN/HK this weekend. I found out that he's decided to move back home in September since our house is much closer to his new work. So it'll be cool to have him back at home. With me gone, at least he will be home to take care of my parents and brother if they need any help with anything.

GOT MY BRACES OFF
Yup, you heard it. I finally got my braces off last week!!!! woohoo! After 4+ long years, my bling-bling is finally off and I can now smile with teeth in every picture I take! If I must say, my ortho did an excellent job and I'm quite satisfied with how my teeth turned out. The downside is that I have to wear my retainer 24x7 for the entire first year, and after that, I only have to wear it at night. I guess that's good because it'll make sure all my teeth will be where it's suppose to be. Another good thing about not having braces is that now it only takes me few minutes to floss rather than my usual full 15 minutes to floss through every single teeth and brackets. Overall, I recommend getting braces if you're even remotely thinking about getting it done. Just do it because it'll be done before you know it.

WEEKEND
This weekend was pretty busy. Friday, all of us went to watch Superman. The movie and the special effect was pretty good. I thought some of the lines were a bit cheesy but I guess that's how it's suppose to be. Also, I thought Superman's face looked kind of plastic-ky...kind of like a mannequin. Afterwards, went to a bar with Chris and hung out with him until wee hours. Next night, I had dinner with friends at Rowland Heights at this somewhat new HK/Chinese cafe called Boston Cafe. The food was pretty good. Then went to a bar with a friend in Laguna Beach. The place was pretty fun and I had a great time.

The next day, I just did some more houseware shopping during the day at Ikea and went to the Beverly Center and shopped in the afternoon. I also took a whole bunch of my "almost new" clothes that I cleaned out from my closet and took it to this used clothing store on Melrose to sell. I figured I no longer wear any of these clothes and might as well get some cash for it. It's quite interesting how used clothes store work. I have never bought or sold anything to them so it was interesting to check it out. Well, I had no idea they were this picky! Basically, you show them what you want to sell them and they'll tell you how much they can sell it for in their store. They will offer to pay you 35% of their selling price. After inspecting my clothes, they told me they don't buy any "non-designer" clothes such as French Connection, Banana Republic, and Armani Exchange brand. And out of my two bags of clothes they only wanted to buy 2 pieces of clothes. They bought my brand new dolce & gabbana summer jacket and this new d&g shirt (still with tags!) that I have never worn for $25 -- for both! I guess it's better to get some money then just toss it or collect dust in my closet. Looking back, those two were actually pretty hideous....I have no idea why I even bought them in the first place. Then I took the rest of the stuff to a 2nd vintage clothing store on Melrose and sold 2 more pairs of jeans for some more pocket cash. Then at night, I went out with a friend to a bar till the wee hours. Overall, it was a very good weekend.



The Devil Wears Prada
Last night, I went to see Devil Wears Prada with R and B. I really liked the movie A LOT. It was pretty funny and Meryl Streep's character was awesome. Anne Hathaway also did a good job with her character. She's always so good at playing a "before" and "after" kind of movie like in Princess Diary. Overall, I highly recommend this movie.

Lobster

Had dinner tonight with my bro, mom, and some of her friends at this somewhat fancy Seafood place in Long Beach. The food was delicious, and the place was right next to the water with awesome view of the ocean.

I ate 4 humongous lobsters and they were so goooood. My cholestrol level probably doubled after the meal but it was well worth it. I think the last time I had had lobster was last October in Boston when I was there for the Japanese career fair.

At night, Ellen, James, Ryan, and I went to Ellen's UCLA friend's birthday party in Santa Monica. The party was pretty fun and got to meet many cool people. I only had two glasses of wine but I was a bit buzzed. I've become such a light weight with alcohol ever since my long alcohol hiatus last year.

Another week in LA

Since my last entry, I haven't been doing much but errands. There are so many things I need to take care of before my crazy move to HK via NYC via London. Here are some of the stuff I've been doing:

Getting Ready for the Big Move
I've been making so many trips to Ikea and Target since I got back....mainly buying stuff that will be shipped to HK when my movers come in 2 weeks. I bought most of the essential kitchen and house stuff already...new plate set, utensils, pots and pans, etc. Also bought small furnitures like a new coffee table, a nice rug, and I need to buy a new bed this weekend. Since I've been moving to different countries once every two years, I've been practically buying all of this same stuff...well, once every 2 years. Like my kitchen stuff, I got rid of it in NY when I moved back few weeks ago, but now I'm buying most of the same stuff all over again...argh.

San Francisco
I made a trip up to San Francisco last weekend. It was a super busy weekend for me but like always, I had a great time up there. I went up there because I wanted to see my friends and relatives one last time before I move half way across the world to HK. On Saturday nite, I went to Doris' welcome back party at her sister's place. The party was pretty cool and I got to meet many of Doris' friends. I went with Gorton and Mayuko. It was nice seeing Gorton, Doris, and Mayuko and catching up with them! Then, I spent the next day with Winnie, my ex-coworker/friend from HK last summer. We drove across the Golden Gate bridge, hung out and had lunch in Sausalito, fisherman's wharf, and had dessert at Ghiradelli. In the afternoon, we met up with Doris, Gorton, and Mayuko for high-tea at Ritz Carlton.

Then on Monday, I had lunch with Paigie in Japantown before driving back home to LA. In the morning, I made a quick trip down memory lane and drove to Berkeley! It's been awhile since I visited my alma mater and it was very nostalgic. I walked down telegraph and was surprised to see that the GAP store across the street from school went out of business. I use to buy all kinds of crap from that GAP during college....when I was going through my GAP phase...hahaha. Then I briefly walked around the Berkeley campus, and everything looked pretty much the same as it was when I was there for college...maybe some of the buildings like Sproul Hall was repainted and looks newer. But other than that, Berkeley was pretty much Berkeley. Visiting the campus made me miss college....and seeing the students there made me feel really old.

Overall, the trip to SF was awesome and it was good seeing my friends. Hopefully, I'll see most of them again...perhaps in HK next time.

Nacho Libre
Went to see Nacho Libre last night with a friend. Surprisingly, I liked the movie a lot. We couldn't stop laughing through out the movie. It was hilarious! HAHAHAHA

Braces
Looks like I'll be getting my braces off next week...or so I was told by my ortho doc yesterday. woohoo! They started taking some of the brackets off my teeth in the back and I can already feel the difference. Can't wait to get them all of my bling-bling off! It's been 3 long bling-years since I had braces.

Time for the gym. Ya'll have a great weekend!

la update

it's so great to be back home. i love the sunny socal weather and love spending time with my family and friends. everytime i'm home, i keep telling myself that one day i'll come back and settle down here. but in the mean time (i.e. the next 2~3 years) i'll have to compromise and make hk my new home. i realized that i can't have everything in life - the career that i want in a city that i want to be in, so there are certain sacrifices that i have to make in life to get what i want. i guess that's part of being an adult.

so i've been trying to use my time efficiently at home. well, i've volunteered to do a major cleaning and organizing of the entire house. with all the stuff that i moved back from ny, the house is even more cluttered with stuff everywhere. i'm completely reorganizing the den, my room, and even my brother's room. donated/tossed out old furniture and will need to go shopping for new ones (i.e. couch, entertainment set, etc for the den). i've always been the anal "neat freak" in the family but somebody has to be, right? my family thinks i'm crazy for trying to do all this cleaning. i feel like a monica geller sometimes.

yesterday, one of our family friend invited me over to his company for some meeting. he didn't tell me what the meeting was about but thinking that it was probably something casual, i went over to his office. basically they own this large global corporation that designs and manufactures high end furniture.. pretty impressive company. anyways, so i show up at the company thinking that our family friend probably just wants to tell me about something... maybe some weekend plans with my parents which is nothing unusual since my parents are really good friends with them. so i get there, and the receptionist shows me to a conference room. right when i walk in, i see a panel of probably 10+ people all dressed up, all employees of the company, sitting across the large conference room table all waiting for me! then the family friend shows up...basically, he wanted to conduct a panel interview and discussion specifically to learn more about my MBA experience -- and i was their guest speaker! i was completely suprised... but i managed to share my own experience and give them tips and recommendations. overall i think the session went pretty well considering that i was basically thrown into it unexpectedly. i got asked tons of mba related questions but no curve ball questions since i've practically heard all of the possible questions there is to be asked in the past year from being part of the admissions committee. i probably turned slightly red in the beginning though, but lucky for me, i'm too dark for anybody to even notice =D

alright, will write more tomorrow... going to sleep now.. oyasumi!

back in lalaland

i'm back in LA! i got back last night. after haeran picked me up from the airport, we met up with billie, ryan, and ellen and had dinner around the sawtelle area for some japanese curry at this place called hurry curry of tokyo. the food was pretty good. i was totally craving for japanese curry few weeks ago so it felt good to finally be able to eat it. afterwards, we went to Urth Cafe in west hollywood and had coffee and dessert... had a blueberry cheesecake which was awesome. during desserts, my friends surprised me with two gifts. they got a new mont blanc pen and a set of tiffany's cuff links for my birthday and graduation. its totally nice of them! but i can totally use it for my new job! thanks guys - if you're reading this!

today, i had dim sum for lunch with my family and then visited my grandma at rose hills. then came home and started organizing and cleaning mine and my brother's room. since my room is bigger, and i'll be moving to hk shortly, my bro will be using my room and the den. so i had to tidy it up a bit. in my room, i still have all these pictures from high school and college up on my wall along with many other high school/college things. it's as if my entire room froze in time and everything was still there since i left for college.

getting sleepy.. going to bed now... g'nite!

waiting for my connecting flight in JFK

i'm currently at JFK waiting for my connecting flight. thank gawd JFK has free wifi because this layover is 3+ hours long. i left ithaca for good this morning. hard to believe that i won't be going back to ithaca or syr anymore.

i have 2 ginormous luggages that i had to check in this morning at the counter...both were clearly over the weight limit.. but lucky me, i was able to talk my way out of paying the additional 100 bucks they were going to charge me...heehee.

while i was sitting at SYR waiting to board my flight, i overheard a funny convo between 2 ladies in their 30's standing few feet from me:

lady 1: i love your blouse!
lady 2: oh thank you
lady 1: so when are you due?
lady 2: excuse me?
lady 1: how many months into your pregnancy are you?
lady 2: umm.... i'm *not* pregnant... beeotch!
lady 1: ... oh i'm sorry

bahahaha... i tried so hard not to laugh... i just walked away. okay, she didn't really call her a beeotch but she should have!

okay peeps -- gotta go catch my flight now! woohoo!

waiting for my connecting flight in JFK

i'm currently at JFK waiting for my connecting flight. thank gawd JFK has free wifi because this layover is 3+ hours long. i left ithaca for good this morning. hard to believe that i won't be going back to ithaca or syr anymore.

i have 2 ginormous luggages that i had to check in this morning at the counter...both were clearly over the weight limit.. but lucky me, i was able to talk my way out of paying the additional 100 bucks they were going to charge me...heehee.

while i was sitting at SYR waiting to board my flight, i overheard a funny convo between 2 ladies in their 30's standing few feet from me:

lady 1: i love your blouse!
lady 2: oh thank you
lady 1: so when are you due?
lady 2: excuse me?
lady 1: how many months into your pregnancy are you?
lady 2: umm.... i'm *not* pregnant... beeotch!
lady 1: ... oh i'm sorry

bahahaha... i had to walk away because i almost bust out laughing. okay, she didn't really call her a beeotch but she should have!

okay peeps -- gotta go catch my flight now! woohoo!

MBA Graduation

Last weekend was finally my mba graduation. It feels good to be all done and ready to move onto the next stage of my life. Last week was hectic since my family and relatives flew in to attend the graduation. I also got a chance to show them around Ithaca and spent 2 days in NYC after the ceremony. It was great hanging out with my family especially since we haven't travelled together in awhile. After my parents went back home, I've been busy running around errands, packing, and cleaning. I am now sitting in my empty house getting ready for the morning flight back to LA. It's been quite sad seeing my friends leave one by one...some I will probably see over the summer in NYC, and some I have no idea when I'll see them again :( But it's a small world, so I'm sure we'll see each other sooner or later.

Here are the pictures from my graduation:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?
Uc=fxxtaq7.6grk46of&Uy=-fk8ewk&Upost_signin=
Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=
373087618117_573728486303

back from the bahamas!

just got back from the Bahamas last night. man, i had a really good time on this trip! i slept so much on the beach everyday, it was great. i also got few shades darker....now i am dark and exotic...heehee. the resort we stayed at was ok but the beach was excellent. we also did some minor hiking one day and went to the beach next to the Lucaya National Park. that beach was probably the *best* beach i have ever been to. the water was so clear... the beach resembled one of those beach pictures you see in the travel magazines! it was amazing! i feel fully recharged now and ready for the graduation ceremony this weekend. but before that, i have to pack up for my move back to LA!

Stick a fork in me - I'm done!

I'm done! As of 12:01 PM today, I'm officially done with my MBA!!I took my last final exam this morning and handed in my last final project. I still can't believe how quickly the last 2 years has been for me. It almost still feels like I just moved here and I did my summer internship in HK not too long ago. I'm sure years from now, I'll look back and miss all of the projects, exams, and the numerous presentations I had to give. But right now, for all its worth, it just feels GREAT to be all done. I'm anxious to move onto the next stage in my life.

Once I leave here, there's no doubt I'll miss my Ithacan life and all of my friends that I've made over the last 2 years. I honestly feel lucky that I've made so many good friends here. Prior to coming to Cornell, whenever I talked to other business school students, I would always hear how great their experiences were and how they made so many great friends and network. Now I can say the same thing about my own experience. So much has happened in the last two years, so many stories to tell.

I'll be leaving for the Bahamas the day after tomorrow! I can't wait to just lounge around the beach and do nothing but read and drink =) We will be coming back few days before the graduation.

Okay, that's all folks! I'm gonna go clean my room and pack up for the Bahamas! Cheers!

Mother's Day

For all the mothers out there - HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Hope you have a great day. And for all others, don't forget to call your mom!

Life Expectancy

Check this out: Life Expectancy Calculator

Whoa! According to the site, my life expectancy is 94 years old!

M:I:3

Saw Mission Impossible 3 Friday night. It was awesome! I especially liked the parts that were filmed in Rome and Shanghai. Della and I both looked at each other when they showed the scene in Vatican City and St. Peter's Cathedral since it felt like we spent an eternity there during our Europe trip.

I think this is the best one out of all the MI series. But I do admit that some of the lines in the movie was a bit cheesy. Despite that, I still think this is one of the best movies that I've seen this year...or maybe I'm just biased because Tom Cruise is still one of my favorite actor.

Happy Birthday to me

Yesterday was a really long day. In the morning, I took my final exam for my real estate class which I stayed up really late studying for. The good thing was that the test was a lot easier than I had expected, so hopefully I did okay in the class overall. Than in the afternoon, I went to our school's happy hour to celebrate the end of the semester! It was pretty cool event and the food was not so shabby either...to top it off, they even had a chocolate fondue fountain! Later, I quickly rushed to the Cornell store with Della to pick up few Cornell paraphernalia like t-shirts and gym shorts before they closed.

Btw, this is the last week for all my classes! Which means I just have 2 more papers to write and a final exam next week and I'll be ALL FINISHED with my MBA! This semester has whizzed by in a blink of an eye.

Anyways, back to my day.....than at night, I met up with all of my friends for my birthday dinner at this new restaurant in town called Lokalani's. The dinner and the company was great. I am now officially 29 years old. It's strange to be almost 30 but feeling like I'm still in my mid 20's.

After dinner, we walked over to a school event where they showed bunch of student filmed videos recapping the entire year. After that, my friends organized a birthday party at their apartment. I was already so full before the party but I just ignored it and continued to stuff myself like a cow again. The food was delicious...For drinks, Doris and Bea made Arnold Palmer with Vodka! They always make fun of me when I order an Arnold Palmer at a restaurant in Ithaca...because most of the waitresses here have no clue what that is. So they decided to make that for me on my birthday...but with vodka...heehee. The party was fun and towards the end, we played a drinking game called ping-pong-pang and I started losing so I drank until I was slightly drunk. Overall, I had a great memorable 29th birthday! I can't believe this will be my last year in my 20's before I hit the big 3-0! Hope this will be an even better year for me.

Some pictures from last night:

hectic day

Today was one hectic day...but a good day nevertheless. Our group gave a presentation for International Finance class. Our topic was investment opportunities and risks in Malaysia. My portion was pitching a Malaysian equity investment to the class. I liked this presentation because I felt like I learned alot about the Malaysian market (which might come in handy when I'm in Asia). Did you know Malaysia's Export is roughly 120% of its GDP? I know, at firsthand, that doesn't make any sense. How can Export > GDP, right? Anyway, I'll spare you from the boredom of my explanation. But the point is that this class was actually pretty interesting. Yah, I know, I sound nerdy. I think we did pretty well in our presentation. I'm totally relieved that the presentation is done and this class is now officially over. Yay! And in the afternoon, I had to give another presentation in my Business Chinese class all in Chinese. That presentation went pretty well as well based on the comments and feedback we received from the professor and classmates.

That basically leaves me with one more presentation on Thursday and I'll be done! Okay, that's a lie. That day I'll have my Real Estate final exam. Than I have 2 more projects due next week, and a final in Derivatives the day before I leave for Bahamas. This week is a crazy week for me but anything after this week will be a breeze.

Alright, I better go back to studying for my real estate final! g'nite people! Selamat Tinggal !!

mini conversation

so i was at school today for my group meeting and i bumped into one of our international student from Asia in the hallway. I had a mini-conversation with him and it went something like this:

Jack: How's your weekend going?
Int'l Student (IS): Oh, I'm good, thank you. [um, I asked about his weekend but watever]
Jack: Excited that school is almost over?
IS: Oh yes! I'm quite excited...after school is over, I plan to visit California! woohoo!
Jack: Oh cool, which part of California are you visiting? LA? San Francisco?
IS: No, Las Vegas!!!
Jack: .... ... ....
Jack: Great, have a nice trip!

I really wonder if a lot of people outside of the US think Las Vegas is in California?!?!

American Dreamz, and my dumb AIM

once again, all my buddies on my aim list managed to disappear AGAIN!! ahh!!! it's like the 3rd or 4th time this has happened in the last few months....sigh... I'm not really sure why it keeps happening. my only guess is that either i'm using an older version of aim (which i like) or i just dont know what i'm doing. either way, i'm screwed because i have to remember everyone's screen name and manually input it one by one again...argh. anyway, if you are reading this, drop me a message on AIM so that i can add you back onto my list!

today was another relaxing day... rolled out of bed, had lunch at Plum Tree with Della, than went shopping together at the pyramid mall. i decided to skip my sailing class today because i just didn't feel like dragging myself to the lake and hoping onto a sailboat and possibly get sea sick again. instead, i came home and spent few hours cranking out my ppt presentation for my international finance class.

at night, i went to see "American Dreamz" with Della, Gorton, and Bea. the movie was pretty entertaining but i think i would have enjoyed it more if i was an american idols... i have never seen american idols before.

here's my empty aim list :/



anyways, gonna go to bed now... i have to wake up early to have brunch with the crew! g'nite people!

1 more week of classes

Last night I got together with all of my friends and had dinner at John Thomas Steakhouse. This place is probably the nicest and most expensive restaurant in town. We wanted to have a nice group dinner since school is almost over. I had the ribeye 24oz steak and it was pretty good. But the side dishes were not as good as last time though. I think the steak here is pretty comparable to Ruth Chris or Morton's in terms of the price and quality.

Afterwards, we head over to Madeline's for desserts and cappucino. I really like their desserts and each of us ended up ordering one so we had 7 different desserts to share! The funny thing is that we go out and eat like this all the time so tonight wasn't that unusual for us. Since all of us are into good food, we usually spend a good fortune every week eating out at different restaurants. We're quite a decadent group....if you see the way we've each been spending money the last 2 years we were here, nobody would ever believe us that we are poor graduate students! we've been spending money as if we're making 6 figures! but i'm definitely going to miss hanging out with my crew that i've really gotten to known the last two years. i'm thankful to have met them and hopefully we'll keep in touch after school ends. most of them will be in NYC and i'll be the only one out of the country. it's funny how when Bea first met me last year, she thought I was an international student! hahaha... we still talk about it.... I guess I'm fobblicious!

I was going to sleep in this morning, but I was woken up by a phone call. My friend, Winnie called me from HK! Apparently, she just got back from her vacation in Italy and wanted to catch up. Although it was 8am, it was nice talking to her and hearing about her trip. Next week, she's going to Amsterdam and London for work -- lucky girl!

In the afternoon, I played tennis with Sundar. I haven't played in about 6 years or so!! Man, I was so rusty on the court, but luckily we were about the same. We tied at 5-5 and we stopped. Good game.

Now, I'm off to the new Starbucks (again) with Sundar and Bea for some cappucino and dessert... I swear! I don't just sit around drinking cappucino all day long!

Have a great weekend peeps!

weekend

g'morning world! happy monday to you all.

so a couple of rants. gasoline is over $3 again! it cost me over 60 bucks to fill my SUV. WTF's going on?! time for me to ditch the SUV and go with something more fuel efficient...that's if i still need a car after cornell. luckily for me, i won't be driving in HK so i don't have that to worry about.

most of my friends were out of town this weekend for apartment hunting in NYC. i was planning to go and hang out with them but i had to stay behind because of the admissions interviews i had to conduct. other than the interviews, i had a lot of time to myself which was awesome. one morning, i went jogging around the lake again which was nice and relaxing. i'm trying to do my outdoorsy stuff these days before i leave Ithaca since I probably won't be able to jog outside when i move to HK...unless I want to jog in the heavily polluted air and have my white workout t-shirt turn grey when i come home...ugh, no thanks. than majority of the day was spent lounging around at cafes, catching up with my magazines, and studying. i love spending my afternoons in a cafe with my favorite cup of cappucino and reading magazines! aww...the joy of being a student. i've really grown accustom to this carefree lifestyle of mine and i'll definitely look back in few months and miss it for sure. actually, i probably won't even have the time to look back since i'll be busy on the trading floor, constantly bombarded with endless phonecalls.

btw, starbucks has just finally opened its first store in Ithaca this weekend! i know we're so behind but the local small coffee shops are just as good =)

Senioritis
this week will be a busy one for me with a paper, test, and a homework assignment due. with all this work, i'm not even remotely sweating over it. weird huh? my usual self would get stressed and lock myself up in the library all weekend long studying for the test. but these don't seem to impact me anymore..in fact, i'm very nonchalent about it. i blame it on the possible case of senioritis...hahaha... anyway, gonna go do some research on my bahamas trip now! i'll catch ya'll later!

happy 1st birthday

happy birthday to my blog. this month marks my 1 year anniversay since i started blogging. yes, very exciting stuff.

2 more weeks till end of classes!

I finally had time this week to catch up with some of the new TV shows that I've been TiVo-ing the last few weeks. So I have a favorite new TV show called "What about Brian" that I'm starting to get hooked watching. This show is about a guy named Brian in his early 30's. Basically one day he realizes that he's the only one out of all his friends who is still single. All his friends are either already married, married with kids, or engaged. He's probably worried whether or not he will ever find someone to settle down with. I guess the reason why I enjoy watching this show is probably because it closely hits home. I sympathize how he's feeling and I can relate to a certain extent. Although I still have many single friends, I'm starting to notice that every year, more and more of my friends are getting married. Anyways, check it ou if you get bored at home.

On a different note, I've been feeling really antsy and quite happy these days. My guess is that it's because school is ending in 2 more weeks! There are so many things that I need to take care of or happening in the next month:
(1) Take my final exams (hopefully the last final that I will ever take)
(2) Bahamas Trip!
(3) Grad-week events
(4) Parents, bro, relatives and cousin coming to Ithaca for the graduation
(5) The 2 graduation ceremonies
(6) Trip down to NYC with parents and bro
(7) Packing all my stuff and moving back to LA
(8) Shipping my car back to LA

I've been totally enjoying and seeing more of Ithaca lately. When the weather is good, Ithaca really is a beautiful city, plus the weather has been fantastic the last couple of weeks. Yesterday it was such a beautiful day so I went around campus taking pictures. There's this row of cherry blossom trees that I walk by every morning on the way to class. These trees have been fully blooming and it absolutely reminds me of the cherry blossom seasons in Japan. Here are few pics I snapped:

The clock tower on campus.... looks very similar to the one at Berkeley...except the one at Berkeley had metal bars on the top to prevent people from jumping off. I remember it was a huge ordeal at Berkeley because people would jump off from the tower especially during final exam season. Seems like most Universities have this kind of clock tower on campus...

Yesterday, I went to get a haircut and the lady asked me if I was finishing up my Junior or Senior at Cornell. That's like 21 or 22 years old?! I don't think I look THAT young...in fact, I know I don't look THAT young. Instead of correcting her, I just went along and told her that I was a Senior =)

Tonight, I saw the movie, Lucky Number Slevin with Lucy Liu and Josh Hartnett. They both are great actors. I liked the movie and the semi-surprise ending.

what a weekend

Friday:
Jogged 4 miles around BeBe Lake in the morning. The weather was terrific! Than went shopping at Syracuse mall and bought few shirts for the Bahamas trip in few weeks!

Saturday:
Studied at the library in the morning, than went sailing at Cayuga Lake in the afternoon. It was the perfect day to be at the lake -- the weather was nice and warm. Our sailboat came close to flipping over in the middle of the lake. The instructor freaked out and screamed "WTF!" which in turn freaked all of us students out on the boat. That's when you know you're in deep trouble. But luckily it was just a close call and our boat didn't flip.

At night, Bea invited all of us over for some home-cooked meal. She's a fantastic cook. We first had crab and aspragus soup, than Vietnamese fried fish with tomatic garlic sauce, and Sundar made some Indian curry and cashew rice -- which was equally delicious. For dessert, Bea made Vietnamese coconut rice pudding with black eyed peas. It was REALLY good (in fact, I'm salivating right now). Bea's really sweet, she always invite us over for dinner. I feel bad because I know everytime we go over, she must spend at least few hours cooking. After dinner, we all sat around and had fruits and wine and just chatted the night away. It was a very good night.

Sunday:
Had Dim Sum with my roommate and 2 other classmates at Hai Hong. The dim sum wasn't bad for Ithaca. Than just spent the day at Sage studying and team meetings.

Done with Taxes!

I finally finished my taxes after procrastinating for so long. The good news is that I don't owe any money. The bad news is that I don't get any money back either. It was a wash.

So I decided to reward myself for finishing my taxes on time by getting the new iPod video! My current iPod (2nd generation) has served me well the last 3.5 years and has travelled with me all over the world. But it was time for me to get a new one since my current one is slowly dying on me. Can't wait till my new toy arrives in the mail!

To Bermuda, Bahama Come on Pretty Mama

after months of talking about where to go for our graduation trip, we've finally decided --- the Bahamas! we'll be spending 5 nights there towards the end of May, right after finals and before graduation. Can't wait!

Interestingly weird face recognition site

A friend of mine told me to check out this new site called MyHeritage.com This site lets you upload a picture of yourself and it searches through thousands of celebrity faces and spits out pictures of celebrities that looks like you based on your facial feature. So the narcissistic side of me had to try it and this is who I got:


























Weird...apparently I look like Julia Roberts? Oliver Stone? Sharon Stone?

Trip to Montreal, Canada!

So I just got back from Montreal last night. I went with 4 of my MBA friends for three nights. It was definitely a good trip. We've been talking about making this trip up to Canada for the longest time....so we finally did it since school is almost coming to an end in few weeks.

The weather in Montreal was pretty wonky. First day it mostly rained but the next two days was sunny and great. We did some sightseeing and did A LOT of eating. The food was pretty good. I realized that it's good to go on trips with friends who also loves to eat. The opposite would probably drive me nuts. In the spirit of being in Montreal, we also had our own "Wine and Cheese" party in our very own hotel room during our last night. Overall, I had fun hanging out with my friends and getting to know them even more. They are great people and I'll definitely miss our time together once we all go our separate ways after graduation.

Pictures from Montreal:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?
Uc=fxxtaq7.b76tqbif&Uy=-7fq0dc&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3
Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0

Movie, Flu, Sailing, Montreal

Saw V for Vendetta tonight and loved it. It was entertaining and the story is pretty creative.

Oh, I'm feeling slightly better from my flu. Thanks for all those who called/emailed/texted me to ask how I'm doing :)

My sailing class started today and it was awesome! Since the wind was too strong, we weren't allowed to take the boat out into the water. Hopefully we'll get to do that next class. But at least it was really nice and relaxing to be able to go out to the lake.

This coming Thursday, I'm planning to take a weekend road trip with my school friends to Montreal, Canada. It should be fun as we've all talked about visiting Montreal for a long time.

Only 5 more weeks left until the end of classes!

Back from Taiwan

I'm finally back from Taiwan. I ate so much on this trip. On the very last day, I must have caught a cold because I had a fever and threw up few times right before boarding my flight, which btw was a journey to say the least.... that literally took 21 hours door-to-door from Taipei to LA to Pittsburgh to Ithaca. For some reason, I'm also feeling dizzy and my left ear hurts from blowing my nose too many times. I'm totally falling apart. On top of that, I'm severely jet lagged so I find myself wide awake in the wee hours of the morning, and very sleepy in the middle of the day during class...heehee.

Despite catching a cold, my spring break in Taipei was fantastic. I got to meet up with Yuko, Achan, Jenny, and Michella. I also met my godson, Hal, for the first time! Hal is SO CUTE! He's a really good baby, didn't even cry the whole night! Yuko is also a great mom, and very attentive to Hal. Seeing Hal and and pregnant Jenny made me want a baby too!! It was also really nice catching up with friends who I haven't seen over a year. Nostalgia quickly set in when we started talking about how we use to hang out in Tokyo...our weekend trips to Onsen our crazy clubbing nites and parties. Ahh... fond memories of Japan. Hopefully, I'll see more of them this year when I move back to Asia! Afterall, HK is less than an hour away from Taiwan, and only 3~4 hours from Tokyo!

Dinner with Yuko, Achan, Jenny, Michael, and HAL!




Meet my godson, Hal. Yes, I'm the Godfather. I've always wanted to be called "The Godfather"...heehee




My dad and I at Ding Tai Fung eating shao-long-bao.




Where my grandmother's old house use to be. Now, it's turned into a public swimming pool.

My dad and I at Danshui




I saw this sign at a train station :D

free internet at LAX!!

i'm in LAX right now...waiting for my singapore airline flight to Taiwan. Ugh....there are so many people here... Thank gawd for the free wireless internet here! So ever since I got back to LA 4 days ago, I've been pretty busy. I'll update you guys more later when i arrive in Taiwan...okay, i gotta go board my flight now. i'll talk to ya'll later!

spring break

i talked to my orthodontist today and she said that i can possibly get my braces off this wednesday when i go see her! no guarantees though. but she did say she would try her best. so hopefully i can get this sucker off cuz its been over 3 long years!! seeing my orthodontist in LA is like having a long distance relationship....she's always asking me where i'm living... i dont blame her though because ever since i started seeing her, i've lived in la, tokyo, and now in ny.

in other news, i just finished packing for my spring break. i'll be back in LA tomorrow night and leaving for taipei this weekend. can't wait!

okay folks, see you all soon!

i just finished my test for my int'l finance class! i'm totally relieved that all of my hard tests are over. now, all i have to do is study for my business chinese test which is coming up next monday. after that, i'm off to lalaland.

so it's been raining here since yesterday and it's quite disconcerting to look out into the sky and all you see is grey. ick. that reminds me, i gotta finish my taxes soon. i can be such a procrastinator sometimes when it comes to stuff like this.

anyhoo, i'm off to my last class for the week. see you later!

one down one more to go

So I've been spending countless hours in the library (snore) the past few days studying for my real estate midterm. *RAAR*... I was all pumped up for the test this morning. But the test turned out to be WAAY too long in the given time and most of us had to rush through to finish the test. *sigh*.... So that wasn't cool. Man, I felt like I was running a marathon. Hopefully the test is curved low enough so that I did okay -- to be honest, I shouldn't even care about grades since I'm graduating in few months...but somehow I can't help but care....*HMMM*

But I have another midterm this Thursday for my International Finance class. This class has been quite interesting so far but its just hard to study for the test because every lecture is like sitting through story telling and I'm not sure how to study for it.

Aside from studying, I've also been interviewing prospective mba candidates for our incoming class next year as part of my duty for being on the admissions committee. It's been quite interesting getting a chance to be on the other side of the table asking the exact same questions that I was asked just 2 years ago. I'm really excited for these candidates because they're about to embark on their 2-year life changing "adventure". But at the same time, these interviews are making me sad because it only reminds me of how quickly my own adventure is coming to an end.

What did you think of the Oscars this year? I only caught the first 30 minutes but I thought Jon Stewart was witty and hilarious! I'm still laughing at some of his jokes.

Jon: "Unfortunately, Bjork cannot make it to the Oscars tonight..... She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her". *cackles*

Okay folks, by this time next week, I'll be back home in LA enjoying the sun. woo hoo!

good nite!

When is spring?

I can't believe it's still snowing here even though it's March! I think we had about a foot deep of snow today. When is spring? Well it snowed so hard today that it made it unbearable but also kind of fun to walk to school today with the combination of wind and snow blowing against me. I could barely see 2 feet ahead of me! But after I got back home, I decided to grab my camera and head back out into the snow to take some pictures.

So let's see, what have I been up to lately? Nada.. Just been trying to stay on top of school work and getting myself up to speed with equity derivatives for my new job. You know, the more I learn about equity derivatives, the more interesting it gets (yah yah, i know ya'll are appalled by that comment)...but its true! hahaha

In other news, my youngest brother, Frank got his driver's license a week ago. I'm pretty happy for him because I know how excited I was when I first got my license. It's hard to believe he's 16 y/o already. Man, time flies! I still see him as this cute little 5 year old boy who use to love our weekly trips to McDonald's on the weekend to play in their McPlayground. He had this really cute haircut kind of like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. Awww, soo cute...and now, he's as tall as me, weighs more and built more, and he can eat like a MAN!

I've also been doing some research online on HK housing market. I can't quite decide if it's better to rent or just buy a place since I'll probably be there for at least few years. But I guess on a second thought, since I'm not familiar with the HK real estate market, maybe I should just rent first and decide later. This way, I'm not tied down to HK forever and I can just pack up and move back to LA whenever I feel like it :) So far, I've only come across very few rental apartments in HK that looks decent for the price. But most of the apartments there look kinda old, dingy, and fobby (ahhh!). I haven't really come across super modern apartments like the ones in Tokyo. It's strange because people in HK loves to copy anything Japanese, so why not copy their modern apartments??

I remember when I was apartment hunting in Tokyo, I specifically made a request that I only wanted to move into a brand new (and modern) apartment. It seems like there are so many more modern new apartments to choose from in Tokyo than HK. How come none of them comes with a hi-tech toilet like the one I had in Tokyo where the seat warms up? I mean, I definitely don't expect something like that in the US, but come on, it's HK we're talking about! Okay, I know ya'll are rolling your eyes right now and think that I'm spoiled, but I'm just asking :) But I'm determined to find myself a decent and modern apartment in HK..I definitely don't want to settle for a fobby place ^^

Okay people, today is Thursday which means the 4-day weekend has officially started for me again. Hope ya'll have a great weekend!