Posts Tagged ‘Travel’
This is version two of the blog, which currently contains 136 published posts. To some extent, this blog represents the creative excesses of a design enthusiast who is somewhere in the process of applying to grad school, working at a law firm and resides in the Financial District of New York City.
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So, the countdown begins in two days, at which time there will be 100 days till graduation. The fact that I’ll be entering the fray soon scares me less than I thought it would, but it is definitely a weird realization. At the same time, it also puts into sharp perspective how far away I am from where I plan on being someday. I mean, as abrupt as it was, four years is a pretty long time. I feel like I’m not all that much closer to the idea of myself I have in mind — lawyer, family, etc. I certainly don’t feel $160,000 closer, haha.
But enough with the introspection. The Europe trip is officially on! The flights and hotels are booked, credit cards have been charged, and now we’re on the prowl for things like travel adapters. Here’s the itinerary thus far:
TH March 6 – Flight into London overnight
FRI March 7 – Check into base2stay in Kensington
TU March 11 – Take the light rail to Paris and check into Hotel Residence Foch
SA March 15 – Take the rail back to London and stay the night at the Hilton Gatwick
SU March 16 – Flight back to Atlanta, get home at night
By the way, in case you haven’t guessed, this is pretty much going to turn into a My-Trip-to-London-and-Paris blog for the next month and a half. I am very happy about this.
Oh, last thing, progress has been made on the job search, but I’ll give updates soon enough.
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I finally figured out what to do about my last P.E credit. Good riddance. I’m going on the ski trip — it took a surprising amount of maneuvering to get done, but I filled out the forms and turned in my check earlier today.
So, here’s the story: I found out someone wanted to drop out yesterday (because sign-ups were last semester) so I immediately e-mailed him, knowing that the deadline was imminent. I thought we had worked it out and was waiting for a confirmation, so I went to the coordinator’s office to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. However, after talking to her I found out he’d given his spot to someone else and I was still, well, spotless.
So, I e-mailed two other people and had “maybe”s from them. Meanwhile, I had a second problem to deal with. Both of these two other guys were assigned to rooms with three other guys. This, obviously, would be pretty awkward. I asked around and, by chance, found out that a girl had swapped out of a quad the other day. Her replacement was a guy and he’d be living with three other girls. I didn’t know if he’d be willing to give it up, though, but I e-mailed him anyway, inquiring about a swap.
Long story short, late last night, we finally worked out the details – I would take one guy’s spot and swap into the all-female room. The coordinator let us know that 3:00 today was the final deadline for everything. I turned in the forms and the check, and viola! I’m off to North Carolina on my first skiing trip next week!
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So, I have bad news and good news. Bad news is: I forgot to bring a camera with me to Ohio State. I know, I know, what’s the point of getting a nice camera if you never use it? I know. But that aside, it was a very good weekend, which leads me to the good news…
We won! Yay! More explaination. Paul, Eden and I competed on behalf of Goizueta Business School at the 2007 Nationwide Fisher Biz Quiz Competition, hosted by Ohio State University. It’s a quiz bowl-type competition with preliminaries, semi-finals and a televised (local station, of course) finals round. Basically, we’re assigned to read the Wall Street Journal for seven weeks and then we face off against other schools. I’ve actually worked with Paul and Eden before; we all did the Georgetown case competition together last semester along with Minnie.
Anyway, I think a lot of things were working to my advantage this weekend. For starters, Ohio State is actually my dad’s alma mater, so that’s clearly automatic luck right there. Also, I am in love with the Wall Street Journal, so that’s a no-brainer, too. In the end, Emory took home first place wins in both the individual and team competitions. We’re happy, but also relieved that we don’t get lynched by the mob that is the Goizueta administrators. Our Ohio State host was also wonderful.
Basically, we decided to divvy up all the articles by section. Because I got Marketplace, Pursuits, Weekend Journal and Personal Journal, I was also responsible for the individual competition, which is over the Personal Journal. Eden was Front Page and global What’s News. Paul was Money & Investing and domestic What’s News. In all honestly, I think my job was the easiest, both in subject matter and the sheer number of articles, though I think doing the investing section would have been very helpful.
All in all, it was a great weekend. The teams were all really nice, though the competition was decidedly male-heavy, clearly a lot of finance majors. Paul and Eden were really helpful to work with — I think we learned more explaining concepts and things to one another — usually, them explaining and me listening — than from the articles themselves. (Anyone want to know what a Ponzi scheme is? I can talk about it all day.)
We had fun (in a dorky way), but they both also gave me a lot of advice on pursuing jobs in finance, which helped me see what I was doing wrong or how to better tailor myself for the job search. They’ve both got jobs/offers at top investment banks, so they’re clearly set. Anyhow, I feel pretty read to get back out there and conquer the job search, which I have been avoiding the past month.
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If you ever go to Houston, Texas you must, must, must make an effort to go to Juicebox, which is like the best place ever. EVER. They serve shaved ice and fruit with some condensed milk and ice cream. So yummy.
Anyway, I just wanted to do a quick post before tomorrow since I don’t know how busy I’ll be from then on because I’m going to New York tomorrow! Basically, after leaving Los Angeles, I flew back to Texas with my family. A couple days later my sister swung by and I went with her and her friends, Sean and Ivan, to Houston. We all stayed with her and her roommate in their apartment. We all slept in her room, but Sean got the bed because no one wanted to sleep with him. Ha ha.
The day before they left we went downtown to a club at night and accidentally parked in some office building because their gate stayed open too long and we thought it was paid parking. It was a fiasco. The club was interesting — it was all Asians and they had a live band playing, like, 80′s and 90′s music, but then all the Asians looked confused and were just standing around with these “Where’s the techno?” looks on their faces.
Iris and I watched Borat, which has been long overdue, especially because my Communication Law professor this semester, Joe Beck, actually represents Borat. It was funny. We made smoothies from scratch and lemon muffins from a Williams Sonoma mix. Delish. If you like smoothies, here’s a tried and true smoothie recipe I’ve used tons of times that has never let me down:
Blueberry-Orange Smoothie
Ingredients
- One and a half (1 1/2) cups, or eight ounces, of blueberries
- One (1) cup of orange juice
- Half (1/2) cup of plain, low-fat yogurt
- Half (1/2) cup of ice
Instructions
Put in blender. Mix. Drink. (It’s a little thick, so, add more water or OJ as needed.)
I’m somewhat apprehensive about New York just because I feel so all over the place and unsettled right now. Hopefully the three days before the internship starts will be enough time to get my mind focused (and perhaps to pick up a new pair of shoes? Maybe?) so I can concentrate. Wish me luck!
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I just got back from California where my cousin Steve sort of got married (he was married a couple months back but this was the official celebration). Anyway, it was a lot of fun seeing family again. We actually have another wedding planned for next year as well because Vivian, another cousin, is getting married to this other guy, Dave, this time next year.
We’ll see if that actually happens though because she’ll have to fight off my dad for his attentions — Dave’s an electrical engineers like my dad so I guess my dad seems to think its kismet. ANYWAY.
I’d like to be able to say I went surfing, but more correctly, my sister and her friends went surfing whereas I was hugging a surfboard for an extended amount of time and drinking copious amounts of water. Very salty, that oceanwater. But it was fun and I enjoyed looking all goofy and hardcore in my wetsuit, haha. We also went to her friend’s uncle’s house to eat and had these banana fritter things – I think it’s a Filipino dish – that were so (so, so) good. Oh man.
After my sister left, I went to visit some temples with my parents which was somewhat less exciting, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. (I’ll upload pictures later.) It was about as fun as hanging out with aunts and uncles over the age of 55 or so ever gets. We also saw a lot of pictures of my parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents when they were younger so that was cool.
Anyway, that pretty much sums up the bulk of my trip. I spent a lot of time playing on my sister’s new Dell MX1210, which made me want a new laptop. Mmm. Oh, and speaking of nerdy things, I played a PS2 game with my cousin Dennis and I can’t seem to figure out what game it was. He said it was called Time-somethingorother and it was an arcade-styled first-person shooter and you used a plastic gun to shoot at the screen. The plotline was something about some villain planting missiles on an island so you have to go stop him. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
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Good news, we got second in the Georgetown case competition, yay! The coordinator was surprised because he said that our group seemed “confused a lot” of the time, but ha! Shows you all! (To be fair, we did manage to loose all our materials within half an hour of receiving them, but let’s not dwell on mere details.)
Anyway, we pulled through the mishap at the beginning and did pretty well, I think. In the 54 hours between getting the case and doing the last presentation, we only slept seven hours or so and on day two, I worked 20 hours straight without leaving the hotel room. Our powerpoint (which I made) was pretty great anyway. However, now that the competition is over, I need a new hobby to squander my time on. I’ve decided to learn Korean! Cho-neun han-guk-mal-ul moht ham-ni-da. (I don’t speak Korean.) w00t.
I’m being completely serious, actually. I started uh…today. But I put in a good five hours in order to get down the basic sentence structure and subject/object particles. Next up, tenses! I tried learning from web sites and such, but I may need to get a book because verb conjugation has never been my strong point. I probably only know 50-ish Korean characters right now, but that’s okay because I want to focus on grammar before delving into building a vocabulary.
My plan is to continue LSAT studying and attempting to learn Korean throughout the summer. Hopefully I’ll have something to show for my efforts when the new school year starts. Wish me luck! An-nyong-hi kyeh-se-yo! (Goodbye!)
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UPDATE: Apparently, as of right now, my blog comes up first when anyone does a search for “Keys for the Homeless” on Google and not their website. Therefore, please visit KEYS at keysforthehomeless.org and please support their mission! Back to the post…
I’m in Washington D.C. right now, participating in a Business Strategy Case Competition sponsored by Georgetown. We got our cases yesterday at about noon and we’ve been working non-stop ever since, breaking only to eat. The presentation is on Saturday, but I think we worked about 8 hours yesterday and we’re hoping to get in another 14 hours today.
It’s grueling, but fun because the topic is non-profit organizations and the case is about a real non-profit who is looking for ideas to expand their operations. The impression we’re getting is that our mock “consultant” role could really change and better their organization if we presented them ideas that are feasible and well-thought out. Basically, KEYS for the Homeless gets donations from hotels of gently-used items and delivers them to local homeless shelters in the Washington D.C. area.
Anyway, hopefully, we can go back to Emory having represented Goizueta well and having dome some good. Wish us luck!
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Spring Break! And I’m … in Atlanta. Of course. Aaron called about a barbecue they’re having over in Plano, sigh. I suppose I could’ve gone to California and Disneyland with Kendra, Rita, Jun and Dan, but seeing as how I’m going to go broke over the summer, it seemed more prudent to do otherwise. So here I am.
Anyway, my roommates are an orderly pair, which is great, but sometimes it gets to be a bit much so I went on a cleaning strike the day they left. It went pretty well until I realized that I, too, do not enjoy living in flith, and earlier today I started cleaning, and cleaning, and cleaning … and now the apartment is cleaner than before they left. What can I say, I am weak. And, I remember why I like my roommates.
At any rate, I’ll be sort of having my own mini-vacation next month anyway. I’m leaving on the 11th for Washington D.C. because of Georgetown’s Business Strategy Challenge, which is a student-run undergraduate case competition, where I’m going to (along with three other Goizueta kids) be representing Team Goizueta. I’ve never done a case competition before so I’m sure this will be a bit embarrassing. However, the whole thing is run by a bunch of undergrads so I’m guessing it’ll be a little to rag-tag too take all that seriously anyway.
After that, in May, I’ll be off to California for my cousin’s wedding, which will be on the 14th, which means I’ll have to miss graduation. That makes me a little sad, but … whatever. Then it’s off to NYC and maybe Taiwan right before school starts up again.
Long story short, I’m going to be jet-setting around a lot so I’m not too sad about staying in Atlanta for Spring Break. Also, I hate plane flights. And I’ve actually had a pretty good time here so far. When I got out of the movie theater after watching 300 on Saturday, the police had surrounded the building because right past the parking lot was a field where (an) armed robber(s) had escaped into. According to an officer we asked later, they caught the guys, but not before we sat around in the parking lot watching the helicopter fly around and seeing the police do their thing. Fun stuff.
300, by the way, was great.
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I’m at my sister’s apartment cause we just road-tripped to Austin. It’s generally a four-hour drive, but of course my sister managed it in just under three.
The timing isn’t the greatest – everyone’s finally back from college and getting together. We went to Olive Garden tonight and then bowling (I had to leave early). During this time, I discovered the following:
- Hemal’s family moved to Virgina – What the hell? When did this happen?
- Thomas has been in Argentina for a semester. How did I not know this?
- Nate, our wonderful Chindian, has been in Beijing and is going back to finish off this academic year. Seriously!?
Clearly, I missed a lot by being AWOL in Atlanta over the summer. Boo. At any rate, it was good to see Bo and Khang (dude, where have you been the past three years?) again. Kasey and Cathy both look great. :D Bo claims that his university’s mascot is the color green. I am appalled to discover that this is at least partially true (Dartmouth’s unofficial mascot, says Google).
Oh, and I saved the best part of this post for last. When my sister and I went to Walmart, we ran into my friend’s mom. Apparently, Kassi’s having her second child. Rosie is adorable so I’m sure this one will be a blessing, too. Fun!
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