Back from 3 months of Hiatus

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 3 months since my last blog entry. I apologize for not keeping many of you updated with my ins and outs of my daily Ithacan life after coming back from Hong Kong over the summer. The truth is, things have been so outrageously busy and stressful ever since I came back that I haven’t taken good care of myself. The stress from trying to figure out exactly what I want to do after b-school, traveling to these companies for job interviews, while trying to do all my school work, and eating and sleeping irregularly has definitely taken a toll on my health. As many of you already know, I was hospitalized once back in September in California, and again in NYC a week later. Both times, we called 911 for ambulance to take me to the nearest emergency room. Having to call 911 to take me to ER was a pretty scary experience that I hope I will never have to repeat. After spending a total of 4 nights in ICU, going to the hospital for weekly checkup for the past 6 weeks, and having had a total of 30+ shots to get my blood drawn every day and now every week, I feel somewhat close to my old self again. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m 100% back to normal, but at least I do feel much better than how I felt last month. I’m no longer anemic and hopefully my blood count level will be back to normal. Basically, I lost about 2000 cc of blood back in September when I vomited blood. This was caused by some ruptures on my stomach lining – which some doctors claimed to be caused by an ulcer while other doctors disagreed. To this day, I still don’t know what caused me to vomit that much blood. I’m not really sure if I’ll ever find out what happened. For now, I’m trying to take my doctor’s advice and rest and sleep more than usual (I’ve been sleeping an average of 7.5 hours every night – that’s 3 hours more than I use to get), and try to relax and not stress too much. If this was indeed caused by ulcers, than the doctor is probably right -- I should try not to stress too much since stress = ulcers. Because of all this, I’ve decided to drop 2 classes this semester and really focus on getting better.

Ever since my hospitalization, I’ve been trying to watch my health. But that’s easier said than done since I still need to look for a full time job. I tried to limit my interview traveling but it’s hard since most of the companies are located outside of Ithaca. Let’s see, in the last month and a half, I’ve traveled to: LA, NYC (4 times), Boston, and Philadelphia. This week, I’m flying off to San Francisco for another final round interview for a banking position. Then the week after that I have a final round interview with GS.

Last, last weekend, I was in Philadelphia for an all-day interview for a consulting gig. I can honestly say that this was one of the hardest interviews I have ever had. It consisted of 3 rounds of interviews with 4 case interviews and one 60 minute multiple choice question. But I’m happy to report that I came out ahead that night with an offer J It was a total relief after getting the phone call from the Partner as I was driving back from Philly to Ithaca. It’s a great company and basically I can choose to work in any of their Asia Pacific offices – mainly HK, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, and Taipei. If I were to choose, I’ll probably choose to work in Hong Kong since it’s their biggest office. Most likely, as a Consultant, I’ll be traveling to Beijing and Shanghai quite often anyways so it really wouldn’t matter where I’m based out of I guess. Hopefully, I’ll get couple more offers and can see what all my options are before accepting one and be done with all this interviewing. Sometimes I forget if I’m a full time student or just a full time interviewee. J

Anyway, just wanted to let everybody know that I’m still alive and recovering from my ulcer problem. I’m hoping to get back on track and start blogging regularly again.