london so far

London log

Sept 24th Friday-Arrive in London

Sat+Sunday---trying to get rid of jet lag

met bunch US kids- Annette and Sean from Columbia, Dan from Harvard, floormates Cornelius & Orion

Sunday night- walked around the city of London with warren in the freezing cold-got a bad cold afterwards-sick first weekend

Monday 27th met with Melanie at her UC flat

Tuesday 28th met up with Matt had a really good dinner at this cafe near my place-best cheese sandwich ever!walked around London- Freshers Fair

Wednesday 29th signed up for like abunch org/clubs-spent 34 pounds -_-

Thurs 30th- bank fair, but didnt get to sign up for Barclays till late-__-

Friday Oct 1st : Management Department orientation--met Dennis Hauser, Marat, Petar, Muhammed, Nicole, etc

at night- met up with Connie and later Cornelius, Kieran, Yongmin, Sandeep-bar hopping- from thai restaurant to holborn, to Crush party

Oct 2-3 weekend: slept till 2pm woke up went to computer lab and then stayed up all night scheduling and then realized sunday is the weirdest/shortest day ever

Oct 4th Monday: classes + BAML presentation (came back with Dennis, totally got lost in London-bus went other direction but it was the most fun I had since i got to london-he made me laugh so hard :) saw Paul Mentor, met his Indian GW friend Thomas whos interested in banking/securities/commodities trading. saw Marat as well

Oct 5th Tuesday: classes + Goldman Sachs company presentation- met Patrick Daniel, walked to Fleet street, saw Patrick and Dennis there, brief convo, Dennis walked away from me after seeing me at the GS door-OH well

Oct 6th-Wednesday BCG presentation at LSE: teamed up with Paul and talked to several people-John, Patty Roche, Lisa Griffiths (oxford) ;met Lillian Li, LSE grad student cambridge grad who worked for BCG China Shanghai with her friend Alex (Cambridge as well) Marat

i keep bump into the guy who I had mgmt 303 with at goldman and bcg--forgot his name but yeah he acknowledges by winking haha

London story

I just my first London investment interview today at City Financial, IRonmonger Lane. It was a memorable experience considering first time in a whole wide city full of industry professionals. London is like the center of banking for the world.

Another cool experience was that--I got woken up by a stupid fire alarm at 10 am I worked out for an hour-by the time i left my door to go run errands at school, it was already12. Then after two more hours of crazy library time, I was so hungry, cold, and lonely. But at this moment, I saw the community-loving-caring guy--he always brings free food for the students. I feel like God just shown me what good people do and I truly am grateful.

9/30/2010

think independently*

I ve been thinking about a lot of things recently to come up with a decision... I sincerely desire to travel, to experience a new world. but i also want to make sure that I am working hard to pursue a burgeoning career.

My friend Ted just traveled to China to work for FairKlima Capital, network within IMUSE, study Chinese, and experience the world.

I aspire to have the same global perspective, positive thinking, and lots desire for critical thinking. Just read his most recent blog on traveling:
"There's no doubt that traveling--NOT tourism--enhances a person's creativity, resourcefulness, and perspective. I feel that the enhancement of perspective is the longest-lasting of the three, followed by creativity, then by resourcefulness. Resourcefulness is tied to wit, and wit is largely affected by mental state. Travel puts a person in a semi-adrenalized state of fight or flight, wherein one is quicker to react and faster to focus. "

SO TRUE. I always wondered why I LOVE traveling, being abroad, meeting new people. All these opportunities somehow made me to perform my bestest, present myself the bestest, and want to be the bestest with a constant natural drive. I love that. But i need to have that drive constantly without the circumstances. Just like Ted reflected: how can I keep this level of resourcefulness in less pressing situations?

Should i follow this LSE path/unconventional path with that understanding? should i follow my "gut" or "intuition"?

P.S. when ted told me he tried his best during junior year high school to beat all the asian kids at scoring on the SAT, it brought me back to the days ... sometimes i wish i believed in myself a little bit more.

Last bit of wisdom: Its not about the answers to these questions but the questions we ask from ourselves that determines our path to success.

Flying days

i can still remember vividly the beginning days of my time in the US. The days I spent absorbing all kinds of new things that deemed "new" to me--for my mom is for me to learn english; for me, is to absorb a much larger mass of knowledge--the american culture whether it be its history or its contemporary pop culture. As a teen, just like everyone else, of course i liked american pop culture instantly. therefore there goes so many hours wasted watching American TV soap operas like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, 7th Heaven, days of Our Lives, Passion, etc. Now its kinda ridiculous to think how much time I spent doing that~ but one thing i do not regret at all is to spend so many hours in the beverly hills public library :)
My mom would drop me and my cousin off at the Books for Teens section of the library every day before she goes to work and then pick us up after work (which ususally means we have to wait outside the library since it closes at 6pm). We would spend all entire days there reading whatever we find interesting. For me, i just digged in the teens romance section, filling my appetite for adventures with random cute stories written by teen novel writers. Two books still remains in my head because of its distinct cute covers-Flipped and Star. I forgot the authors but i still remember how i did my book report on Flipped in 7th grade. we were required to read a book and draw characterlines, write plot summaries and make something creative. I finished the book in no time and started writing my own little story with the characters in it: bryce and juli. Thats when I first found out about the boy name "bryce" i thought it was so cute! The 12 year old me imagined my own "bryce" and dreamed of my own prince charming. I had an artistic instinct need I mention. I loved drawing and painting. For me to paint something abstract onto a canvas is like the act of Creation. I drew the cover of Harry Potter, spent hours and hours using color pencils to recreate the Goblet of Fire cover drawing. This time re-creating the cover of "flipped" is a simple task: its blank canvas with a flipped chick on it, literally. I like to remember books by their cover's color scheme: Flipped was bright yellow and Star was teal green.

T'was the days when life was filled with rainbows & butterflies.

Speaking for my mind

I always loved running, or jogging. For the most part, I am not the typical runner. I love running around La Cienega Park during middle school days, getting the weekly "bonus" at Palms Middle School, running to vent off frustration, running to clear pains, running to reduce stress, and running to think things through.

i find myself somehow uncovering myths, discovering my true inner callings, and finding resolutions while I run. I run as hard as I can, I run till my body feels numb, I run while staring at the sky. Somehow, it is an inspirational process.

Someone else put in better words for me:

"Perhaps most importantly, when I run I feel as if I am not really present. It’s me vs. myself, my mind working against the dull limitations of my body and gravity. I have to fight these limitations, stay restless and unsatisfied with the current capabilities. To lose this drive is to lose the will to run, for one must to be willing to make pain and discomfort of only secondary importance."

GROW together

1. Campuses have often been launching pads and pivot stations for social movements

2. Campuses are microcosms of the real world, and have many types of people to contribute to your org

3. Campuses have organized resources (organized student groups, financial resources for student activities, faculty, staff) to tap

4. College students are looking to make early determination of their life's purpose, choosing the issues on which they will lead

5. Older people want to help you succeed if you're a college student (they don't suspect ulterior motives)

6. You're providing opportunities for leadership and learning to many other students who will forever view you as a leader. This can, if you play it right, be a hugely valuable networking play

7. You can get on the good side of the school administration by establishing yourself as a student leader

8. You have a valuable niche and a compelling story to tell older professionals. Indeed, some businesspeople, lawyers, NGO leaders, etc are looking to expand their product lines or services to college markets. You can be the connector

9. You learn (mostly through small failures and feedback from all the members and your core leadership team) a ton about leadership, professionalism, management, organizational dynamics, politics, basic economics, networking, time management, and stress management.

10. All the stuff you learn makes you a better interviewee when you graduate and you're looking for jobs. You're not just another resume in the pile. In fact, you might meet so many professionals in the process of building your org that you get a job purely through the connections. And if you're not looking for jobs upon graduation--you're taking the more entrepreneurial route--you have a solid set of experiences, resources, connections, and lessons to help you launch.

#11, just for fun: You can easily scale your org nationally by calling up friends on other campuses and telling them to start chapters.

13 3, Discovering qualities you had that you didn't know or thought you could have - starting anything new is an intensely creative process which requires you to stretch your limits, break status quos and constantly innovate by necessity of the nature of the work - allows for much inter-disciplinary learning.

Life makes you think about whatever you ever thought about, twice.

Life makes you think twice about whatever you ever thought about.