The emptiness inside

schoolwork has been absolutely busy for the past month. for example, my schedule for this past week has been:
9-5 product development class
5-6 homework for product development class
6-9:30 project that was due this friday
10:30-1am other work

so you probably figure I would go get pissed drunk after the project was over right? wrong.

I was so used to slaving myself day and night that it didnt feel comfortable not having any work. Now that I have finished this big project, the purpose or drive in me for the past week is now gone and I feel empty. I didnt want to celebrate (partly because our work was average), I didnt want to eat, I didnt want to play games, I didnt want to youtube. Youtube-ing is nowhere as fun when you dont have work and the only thing i wanted to do was to either stare at the sun or sit and stare at the wall. And you know something is wrong 90% of the time when a person just wants to stare at something for a longed period of time.

This is probably the feeling people get when they retire. Empty... which is probably also the reason why people get older a lot quicker after they retire

...It took me one afternoon but luckily Camden Crawl has gotten me somewhat back to my groove

Pointing finger at MBA..???

A survey recently asked some MBA students why people like me want to take an MBA:

Increase in salary
Open new career opportunities
Extend personal network

Up until university, all of our education has been about... EDUCATION. All other masters degree are there for educational purposes. Only MBA is for something different. Is that the reason why MBAs are the ones to blame for this financial crisis?

Further reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15school.html

The cycle

There was a time back in university when I really wished to be in school forever. Imagine how life would be. No need to worry about jobs & money, living in an all expenses paid for life. I remember at some point, probably when work started getting really crazy, I gave up that thought.

After working for a couple years and living off that silly salary, the school > work thought came back. Wouldnt life be great if i can just get paid for reading books? Then MBA came along, it was all good and fun UP UNTIL NOW. UP UNTIL NOW. when I have a ton of paper / presentation / BLAH BLAH BLAH to write.

Job > School

humans... we are never satisfied with what we have

Another alcohol related topic

Alcohol is such a fun topic to write about. It can be 2060 now and i can probably still find new things to write about alcohol.

Alcohol brings out the best AND worst of everybody. There are people who are completely normal and classy but gets ultra slutty & horny after some booze. There are your loud and talkative people who gets louder AND more talkative. And of course, the classic case of someone quiet and calm getting all violent and picking fights.

None of the above ones are the worst. Hkgirl and I are really the worst type of drunks. We want more. The one thing alcohol does very well is that it turns off our brain. In our case, the internal alcohol inhibitor turns off and we just keep asking for more; next thing we know, we are at home not knowing how we got back. BUT (and this is a huge but) there is 1 big positive that I can extract from our drinking habits. We dont get drunk anymore. Last friday the entire MBA class (well, 95% of the MBA class) went out for drinks and I must have had like 8-10 shots of tequila/vodka. Guess what? I was only tipsy. I was surprised myself. I even got bored with the drinking and went home early.

Seriously, WTF is wrong with me?

Who we are

It is a subjective world. All of our judgments and decisions are made based on our perceptions of right and wrong, good or bad. For example, people from some countries finds death penalty is worth keeping while some are strongly against it. The problem is, our perceptions change all the time due to the situation presented to us. Most people probably wouldnt think of stealing something but when you have no money and have been starving for 3-4 days, you would probably try to steal something. It is really the situation around us that makes us.

In a simpler case, you may have a very good friend. But the moment you find that he betrays you, your feeling towards him changes. And maybe, just maybe, you will never trust someone as much ever again. We learn from experiences but we also change who we are in the process, which is why you often see friends who are very different if you dont see them much.

Like i said before, people generally get less and less happy as they get old but eventually gets content with what they have by the time they retire.

I personally just hope that I stay happy... and i wish the same for you too.

Iron chef!

The last time I lived alone was in my university days in the US. The interesting bit about US is that no matter how poor you are, you will still have a car. Why? Well the closest supermarket to my apartment was a good 10 minute drive away, thats why. Work was a good 45+ minutes drive and movie theaters were another good 20+ minutes away... well big cities like NYC are obviously exceptions but you get the point.

I must say one of the things I like the most about my living conditions in London is that the supermarket is only a 5 minute walk away! Then again... I do travel 20+ minutes to get some nice food also but the main point is that through these 5 months, I can "somewhat" confidently say that I have gone from hobby cooking to semi-skillful cooking.

I started with only grilling meat in september and I am now making orange sauce duck, seafood pasta, bacon wrapped scallops, etc etc. I am truly, truly enjoying this. I guess the scientist inside me never quite went away. Why? To start... it takes a great amount of courage to cook day after day when I was cooking was just horrible.

Take my seafood pasta for example, it has been too spicy, salty, tasteless, watery... everything that could have went wrong happened at least once. But the hkbomber is persistent. Time after time and I cook and cook. Now? I am giving myself a B-. Pretty good improvement from D and F in 5 months.

To further proof my confidence, I have already sent audition tapes to gordon ramsey's show, top chef, american idol (who said idol can only sing?) just in case my career after MBA doesnt work out. Yes I can!

The Pursuit of HappYness - part 2

I wrote about this exact topic almost half a year ago. Needless to say, I feel like writing about it again today.

Last time my point focused around smiling more and focus more on the positive aspects of life. The key word this time is "accepting". Whining and feeling like shit doesnt make our problems or issues go away. We live in a time when everyone is brought up to say no.

Some studies have shown that 80+% of the people find no a lot easier to say than yes. Of course! Dissecting and criticizing is far easier than appreciating.

Statement 1: "My boss is giving me more work again, seems like I wont leave work on time tonight."
Statement 2: "My boss is giving me more work again, its my opportunity to show what i can do!"

Much easier to think of statement 1 than 2. Much easier. What i am suggesting is that, everyone needs to start accepting the fact that things we dont like happens. We can go onto the internet forum or to your friends and bitch all you want, but the problem is still going to be here, so? Accept it. We might not solve the negative issues with a positive attitude, but at least we are happy in the process.

Slowly then... we can all learn how to ignore (accept) the negatives and focus on our positive energy.

...now if only I can source my positive energy to finish my 40+ pages of reading...

Small Break

Apologize for the lack of updates recently. Exams are hitting up pretty hard and I have been drinking a lot to write. ...yea exam and drinks. Not study, drinks. I am, by no means, implying that MBA is something you get through with alcohol. MBA is something bigger than textbooks and lecture notes - there is no right or wrong, its all about how well you argue your case; which is essentially the case for things in life, there is no right or wrong.

We make our best judgment on any circumstances based on the scenario presented; our best judgment has no right or wrong behind it, its just what we felt like doing.

...and i just happened to feel like drinking before exams

Cocky MBA

Exams are coming up and professors do revision sessions to help students get through the exams. I am not being cocky here but while everyone is worried about their grades, I am overconfident to a point where I dont see the need of over studying.

Most of the people I talked to in this MBA thought our class and works are intense, but this is nothing new to me. This MBA is busy, yes, but it has also been a relatively easy ride for me, at least compare to the 4 years of hell I went through as a Biomed undergrad in JHU.

I have always told my parents this... "unless there is some other planet with living people, I graduated from the best biotech university from the universe and everything else in life will not be as challenging as that" Seriously, how do you top from being the best in the universe? This doesnt mean I dont treat my MBA course with the attention it needs... I just dont see the need of stressing over it, especially when its just an exam of your analytical skills (somethings you cant train in 10 days).

Why so serious?

Getting around the system

Christmas is coming up and everyone will be going home for the holidays. Do you live in the EU region (UK especially)? Will you be traveling out of the EU region for Christmas?
If your answer is yes to both of the questions above, then I have a good suggestion for you. If not, you can go back to living your life.

Student Discount + Tax Refund. UK has this amazing thing called student discount where students get a nice 10% discount for every purchase they made at most of the shops. What you dont know is that you can also get a 15% tax refund (starting 3 months prior to your departure date) for your purchases. That is 25% off of all items you buy! Crazy right?

I am a huge sucker for Yohgi Yamamoto (used to be CdG too but they got way too expensive) and guess what? I got a nice 15% discount off the pair of pants i bought and it was a nice 100 pound refund. (I was trying REALLY hard to avoid directly showing the price of the pair of pants here) This is essentially a buy 6 get 1 free scheme that us international kids can use. ON TOP OF THAT, you can also give your tax free receipts to your friends who comes to visit as well (works especially well with XXX <--> EU flight attendants). This is pretty much a year round 15% discount for all items that we can get around.

(PS - the 10+15% combo is available at top shop)


Happy shopaholics!

Continuing from where we left off...

basically, its pretty much impossible to memorize 30 words in order within 3 minutes. what you can do is make it easier for you to memorize. the memory improving lecturer taught us that if you make the words something more than just words, it will be easier to memorize them.

For instance, try coming up with a story like this:

I am now inside the ARENA looking right at the CARGO. I grabbed a CHISEL and i opened up the PARCEL. get it? basically you make a story out of it and the 30 words will be a lot easier to memorize. try it out yourself...

...except there isnt much situation in real life where u need to just memorize words...

Silly Learnings

Considering that I (super not myself-ly) pretty much completed all my studies and even read ahead (!), I have some time to blog again.

Instead of diving into another topic I am going to give you readers (yea the few of you) a memory test. Try to memorize the following 30 words in order. You have 3 minutes to memorize them. If you get a word and its position correctly, you get 2 points, and you get 1 point deducted for every wrong position and words. Blanks are just plain Zero.

1 arena 11 calcium 21 cannon
2 cargo 12 bung 22 editor
3 chisel 13 grain 23 wrist
4 parcel 14 Leonardo da Vinci 24 bride
5 eighteen 15 head 25 coral
6 moment 16 astronaut 26 window
7 kink 17 cradle 27 bank
8 craft 18 lung 28 daffodil
9 console 19 coin 29 target
10 bride 20 box 30 alarm

Yep its a memory test and basically there is a way to improve your memory and I will reveal show how you can memorize all 30 words in order within 3 minutes in 2 days after you guys try the memory test out.

Something Simple

Noticed something when I see a person do public speaking. There is no need to panic, your message will come across a lot more convincingly (is that a word?) if you dont A, stutter, B, shake, or C, look down. I know its easy to say and hard to do but its really simple. You just have to believe that you have what it takes to do the speech. You cant convince others if you cant even convince yourself. You might as well give up and not do the speech really.

Confidence is the main point I would like to emphasize. A lot of people lose their confidence and worry about their performance and gets that stage fright and I understand that. But confidence is something that even if you dont have it, you can pretend like you have it. The fear of failing itself probably increases the chance of failing... Elvis Presley is amongst one of the many celebrities who gets super nervous before going on stage. I dont want to go too much into details... but I am sure public speaking in front of hundreds cant be worse than Elvis performing.

These are advices for my friends... problem is I have a teacher who panics daily during lectures...

The Day When Tofu Is Hard To Find

Living alone means doing everything alone. You wash your clothes yourself. You cook yourself. You clean the room yourself. You prepare your gym clothes yourself. Everything done by self, get it?

So today I went to the gym for the first time since I got here to London. I had a great workout. Lifted and ran for a total of 2 and a half hours. Loads of sweat. Felt great and erased most of my negativity. BUT... then problem came. I DIDNT BRING AN EXTRA PAIR OF BOXERS!!! I actually didnt realize that I didnt bring an extra pair of boxers AFTER spending my time in the sauna in my original sweaty boxers. (Usually I go in sauna naked but all the UK people were wearing boxers inside so I figure I should just follow them) So I have the choice of wearing a pair of SOAKED boxers or not wearing them. Let's guess what I did.

I went and do groceries shopping after gym. I have been reading on how to cook a corn & tofu soup. (I should really start a topic on tofu because that's actually the only *REAL* chinese food that a common westerner will eat. I don't understand why no one else has made a point about it) Buying canned sweet corn was easy. Tofu was the difficult part. You would THINK that tofu is so common worldwide that you can get it in any supermarket. In fact, I have never been inside a US or UK supermarket that doesn't have it. Well there is a first time to everything, the supermarket I went to had NO tofu. The best alternative I had was fried tofu. I bought it and made the soup with fried tofu anyway... By the way.. the soup was a failure.

I lived in the US alone before too but I think living in HK with my mom and maid has made me totally lost my independent skills. Chances are that by the time I learn how to cook again I will be back in HK spoiled by my mom and my maids again...

oh yea... time for the answer from earlier. For the first time in my life, I didn't wear boxers inside my jeans today. The feeling was quite free, actually made me question if i should actually give up boxers...

I am ok!

I have arrived...

first day in school here... spent all day learning how to use the internet, library, and where to go...

the irony of "learning" the simplest things at a high level education...

P.S. - for those of you who care, hkgirl is wandering in the street of London.

Who Moved My Cheese?

As my countdown to London is less than a week now, I figure I should write something about it.

It is very interesting how a person's mind works. When I first start out with the idea of doing MBA in UK, I was excited about it, I looked forward to it and thought of many things I could do in London. Now with less than a week away, I cant say I feel the same. In fact, it has gotten to the point where I can tell everyone "I am not looking forward to it anymore". I am already missing HK before I leave.

HK has just been too nice to me for the past 3 months. I have learned to appreciate everyone better because I know I won't be seeing them for most of the next year. This kind of also means that I wasnt cherishing what I had before... at least not until I was about to lose it. Its just sad that I have to leave just as I am starting to super love HK .

I just hope HK will treat me the same when I come back.