|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Okay, so here's a list of things I'd like to get around blogging about - the fun events that have happened during my second year...
- Rhode Island and Montreal during Fall Break (for 2nd years, 1st years had midterms)
- Net Impact case competition
- Halloween ("We're people struck by lightning!" "You smell like
people struck by lightning...")
- Net
Impact Conference at Stanford
-
Yale-Harvard tailgate
- Fall Formal
- Tuck Puck (What the F$%@?)
- Tuck Winter Carnival
- Spring Break! MADAGASCAR! For a few pictures go to our trip website
- Phoenix Dance Troupe Spring Show! For pictures, go to their website
- Garstka Cup
- IF Auction
- Harvard Hockey Tournament
- SOM Star Search
- Class of 2006 Class Gift Campaign
- Welcome Weekend
And more to come... we've been enjoying our 2nd year immensely. I think I've gone out nearly every night this month, thanks to April Foolery. We have only 3 days of classes left and then a week of finals. Then 70 members of the SOM Class of 2006 are on a cruise for 4 days to Mexico. It's our last hurrah before graduation. It's going to be a great and bittersweet end to our MBA careers.
| | |
| So obviously, I'm a horrible blogger and poster. (Sorry NoVA friends, I know you've been eagerly awaiting my latest adventures at b-school.)
But I have bursts of inspiration, especially from my fellow b-school posters. Here's one of my first year advisee's blog. It's much better written than mine and much more frequently updated.
Anyways, here's one of the retroactive entries I wrote awhile ago and didn't post, hoping I'd get pictures for it, but never did.
10/2/05
Last
night was the wedding reception for Alan and Kristen Rosen. Alan is one of our ’06 classmates and he and
Kristen had invited everyone in the second year class to the reception.
SOM
consists of a series of buildings.
There’s one building, 135 Prospect, that has all of our classrooms,
study rooms, and social areas. There’s
one building, Donaldson, which is our dining hall. (But no one eats there, as it’s unionized and
really expensive and the food is much
better and cheaper at the little food carts outside.) There are several old houses which have been
converted to offices for professors.
There’s 55 Hillhouse, which has the Admissions office, and the GM
Room. The GM Room is a large room that’s
used for corporate presentations, the SOM holiday party, and random other
social events. And it was also rented by
Alan and Kristen for their wedding reception.
It
was a great reception. They had
decorated the GM Room in a fall motif and had desserts and candies as reception
food. The guestbook was a bunch of
scrapbook pages already decorated with Kristen and Alan pictures and ready for
us to sign. Our classmate Kaya was the
DJ and played songs off his laptop, which was hooked up to the speaker
system. Not only was there wine and
champagne, there were 3 kegs of beer. We
had all dressed up, somewhere between business-nice and cocktail party. It was a true amalgamation of a fun and
classy wedding reception and a crazy business school house party.
There
was lots of dancing and a dance-off at some point during the evening. A couple of the guys tried to out-dance each
other and pull some stunts. Thank
goodness for the carpet. Kaya played all
kinds of music, so we danced to hip-hop, techno, and even some Sinatra. It was fun to swing dance in our bare feet.
Towards
the end of the evening there was a bit of a commotion around the food
table. We all came over to see what was
going on. It turns out some of the guys
had been discussing how fast they could eat the chocolate cupcakes. A food-eating contest! Now this was too good to pass up. Everyone crowded around, we recruited a
couple of contestants, and established ground rules.
The
rules were:
- winner was whoever
could eat 5 cupcakes first
- if no one was finished
within 10 minutes, whoever had eaten the most would win
- a cellphone would be
used as the official timepiece
- no liquids were
allowed
We
had 2 contestants, Jason and Ryan.
Jason’s a big guy, 6 feet, broad shoulders, stockily built. Ryan’s thin, about 5’9”. The competition began and it wasn’t even
close. Ryan totally blew Jason out of
the water. He just calmly and cheerfully
worked his way through 5 cupcakes and didn’t even break a sweat. As he ate his last cupcake and Jason was
still on his third, he kept taking smaller and smaller bites to egg Jason
on. It was awesome. I turned to Kristen
and asked her “How cool is this?” She
was like, “I know! Who ever gets a food-eating competition at their wedding
reception?”
At
the end of the night, around 1 am, we kept trying to get Kristen and Alan to go
home, saying we’d take care of everything.
They didn’t trust us to close up after we were done partying and refused
to leave until we all did. Now I had
gone home around this point, but from what I heard… Everyone then decided the
best thing to do was to move the party to Caulkins Courtyard, the outdoor lawn
space behind 135 Prospect. So apparently
the one keg left and some food all got moved over and Alan and Kristen were able
to go home and everyone else kept partying.
This
morning, I had a group meeting at school and we had leftover cupcakes and
muffins as breakfast. It turns out
Kristen and Alan had swung by school and dropped off all the leftover desserts
in HOM. HOM is the designated place for
all leftover food from SOM events. It’s
funny to see everyone be vultures and swoop down in HOM when there’s free food.
Like
I said, a true amalgamation….
| | |
| Okay, a retro entry this time...
1/29/06
This past weekend was the SOM ski trip to Smuggler's Notch in Vermont. It was a blast. I'm still trying to recover.
We got up early Friday morning to catch a 6am bus to Vermont. We got there around noon and checked into our condos. Our condo was awesome. We had 7 girls and 2 guys. So of course the ladies spent the week emailing each other about what we were going to cook and what kind of breakfast food we should get. The guys were just like, "whatever... too many emails..." So when we got there we all picked rooms and then unpacked all of the food we bought. We then all changed into our ski gear and headed over to rent skis and equipment. This is always an arduous process. We got lost twice wandering around the buildings and then it takes a while to get fitted for boots and skis. Then you have to lug everything to the bottom of the green slopes before putting everything on and then getting to ski.
I did a practice run on the bunny slope and then decided to head up the green slopes. I convinced Jeffer (who's never really skied before) to come up with me. While on the lift, we managed to bang up our poles at the midpoint when they got caught on the ground. We then spent the rest of the ride trying to straighten out the poles with me holding down the safety bar and Jeffer pressing the poles against them. We finally got off and I almost managed to crash into Jeffer by going in the opposite direction of the one I yelled to go.
It was a slow trip down the slopes. Last year, I slowed everyone down by being really cautious, so I tried to not be so much this year. Plus I was more used to the slopes. So I'd ski quickly down each part and yell directions back up to Jeffer who was slowly making his way down the slopes. We finally made it all the way down and when we were ready to go back up, Jeffer was like, go without me. So I headed up and saw Ryan, Christie, and a few other people going down the slopes. I yelled for them to wait up and they were like no worries, we've got a couple of stragglers (Lynn, Sara) who are taking their time.
The key about Smugg's is that the lifts close at 4pm. So you have to get on the lifts early enough for your last run. There's also a bar/restaurant at the bottom of the blue and black slopes where we would be meeting for happy hour. However, to get there, you have to go up the green slopes and then cross-country (almost) ski across the mountain to reach the bottom of the blue/blacks. So it's essential to get on that last life ride up so you can ski to happy hour. We then started heading across. Since the trail is so flat, you have to build up as much speed as possible otherwise you're just stuck pushing with your poles. And that is ridiculously hard work.
Ryan and I made it quickly through most of the flat parts, then we stopped to wait for everyone to catch up. I had a granola bar in my sweatshirt pocket, so we sat down and had a snack. Then we all skied downhill to the restaurant/bar area. Everyone then clumped in with our ski boots (skis and poles left outside) for drinks, food, singing, and general merriment. When we got in there, Amar kept recommending me to get the hot chocolate or hot apple cider drinks that had alcohol in them. He kept saying you'd like them a lot. I was like, you're just saying that so you can try my drink without having to order a "girly drink" for yourself. He was true, but can you order one anyways so I can try it?  So I did and they were really good. I also let Amar have the second sips. 
The 2nd year guys at one point all got up and started (led by Ronan of course) singing Irish drinking songs. Pretty hysterical.
After happy hour, we all skied back to our condos in the dark. It's an easy trail but there are no lights so everyone's just yelling and trying to keep each other in sight. Lots of fun and then we all decided to meet at the pool and hot tubs to hang out and relax.
The hot tubs were very relaxing. It was great to rest some very sore muscles from skiing and then play keep-away in the pool with a volleyball. Then everyone went back to get cleaned up and grab dinner. Then of course it was party time. We had designated one condo as the party condo so everyone started meeting there around 9/10pm. There was lots of beer and drinking games and music and dancing. It was great to just chill and hang out and talk about random stuff. We (some of the 2nd years) cornered Ben, the only international Chinese student to come on the trip, and lamented about the lack of Asian internationals from the 1st year class on the trip.
Saturday morning was first spent getting real ski goggles since I managed to break my sunglasses and then spent on the green slopes. I did a couple of runs by myself and then got a call from Karen to come meet them at the restaurant at the blue/black lifts for lunch. So I cross-country skied over and met my roomies for lunch. It was good to get hot food in my tummy.
We then all decided to try out the blue slopes. But I made Scott and Sam promise not to get mad at me for going really, really slowly. They were like, you'll be fine, how slow can you go? And I was like, definitely enough to make Mike, Dairo, and Corine annoyed last year.
The blue slopes were completely exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I definitely skied a lot faster than I normally did, but still was pretty careful. We stopped at the bottom of every hill to regroup. Sam did end up getting annoyed and skied ahead. There was a lot of falling too so we'd wait for people to get back on their skis before moving forward. At one point, we thought we lost Corine because we couldn't see her and it was taking a really long time. Turns out she was just stuck trying to get back on her skis but couldn't because of the hill. It was pretty icy. After a lot of falling, screaming, directing, etc. we all made it to the bottom of the slopes. We had just enough time to go up another blue slope for a last run. We skied down about halfway and then had to make a decision which way to go. But first, being Asian we all had to take pictures. 
We then had a big argument about which way to go. Sam was like, fun and scary and steep slope! Corine, Karen, and I were like, um.. no...the other way. So we split up. Again falling a few times and needing Gustavo at one point to come over and pick me up out of the snow drift, we made it to the bottom. All in all, definitely improved my skiing by actually tackling the blue slopes this year.
This night's happy hour, we had all managed to take over the glassed-in outside area of the bar. The entire space was SOMers sitting, eating, drinking. It was again chill and fun just to hang out. Although we did get pretty ruckusy. It's amazing how quickly we can organize a wrestling match between classmates. 2 of the 2nd year guys jokingly started trading insults and pulling off their sweatshirts. Within 20 seconds we had cleared a space by pushing away 6 tables, someone had jumped up to be the ref and we were counting in the first round. It's funny how efficient we can all be for stuff like this.
After happy hour, we skied back and a few of us went to go inner-tubing. It was fun to see a bunch of grad students standing in line with these little 3 and 5 year olds waiting patiently for our turn to sled down. Since it was so icy they had only one lane open because they needed all the mats to slow people down at the bottom. It was fun, we did a couple of runs and then all headed to the hot tubs again. Sore muscles...
After dinner and cleaning up, we all headed to the party condo again. Saturday night was Chinese New Year's Eve, so we Chinese folks decided we'd do a countdown at midnight. So around 11:58, we grabbed all the internationals and ABCs at the party. Since none of us had a cellphone with a seconds countdown, we sort of made one up with our watches and cellphones. We just all started screaming at 15 and counted down. People were like what is going on? and then realized when we all screamed "Happy New Year!" and stared hugging and kissing. The guys were especially excited about joining in for this part. 
Sunday morning I managed to get up early enough to get in a few runs on the green slopes as well before returning my skis. On the bus ride back everyone just pretty much passed out and slept the entire way.
It was a fabbo weekend. Great school bonding and just lots of fun.
| | |
| I'm back in New Haven. Had an uneventful flight and a shocking introduction to the freezing weather of Connecticut, but got back to Mansfield safely on Sunday night.
Monday was spent catching up on email, grocery shopping, cooking, and baking. Ryan hosted a Golden Globes party, so I also made up ballots for our betting pool. It was a fun party. We drank wine, ate pizza, pretzels, and cookies (Pillsbury pre-made that I baked) as we made snarky comments about the stars and traded gossip about them. Those of us in the betting pool also kept a close eye on our ballots and cheered (or groaned) each time an award was announced. Three of us ended up tying with 12(?) right guesses, so we split the pot 3 ways. All in all, a good investment.
A couple of more books for the 50 book challenge...
Book 2 is Best American Short Stories 2004 . This is an annual read for me. Each year a guest editor (a famous writer who's probably been selected for the collection before) chooses the top 20 stories out of about 100 outstanding stories from the previous year. I think I have every volume since 1997. I like reading short stories. They're quick and always interesting. Sometimes they seem less satisfying because there aren't clear resolutions, but I always like the pictures they paint. This year's collection was pretty good. There was lots of variety of characters and settings, so that makes for lots of diverse storytelling. I also like these collections because they introduce me to cool literary magazines that I end up subscribing to, such as McSweeney's.
Book 3 is The Love Wife by Gish Jen. I've read her previous novels and have enjoyed them and I liked this one as well. It's a very interesting story of an interacial couple with two adopted daughters and a newborn son who have to deal with the husband's distant relative coming from China to live with them. What's really cool is that the narration switches from character to character so you can see all these different points of view. Generally whoever is narrating is not involved in the action so you can see it from the sidelines. It's also funny to read one person's opinion and then see the exact opposite opinion from the next person narrating.
| | |
| I got a new phone. The Brick (as my SOM friends have affectionately named my old black Sanyo phone that I've had for 5.5 years) is officially retired.
I got a new phone because we had to resign our cellphone contracts to get a cheaper plan and figured if I had to reenter into a 2-year contract, I should get a new phone as well.
My phone is the LG PM-225, which besides being free comes with text messaging, a camera, and is in color! You have to understand, these features, while they may not seem like a big deal to you, is yoooge for me. My old Sanyo phone was pixelated black and couldn't receive text messages. When I excitedly showed off my new phone to Willis, saying "Look! It has color!", he just laughed and told me I'm in for a real treat.
I haven't done much with the phone yet. I've changed all the settings and entered in my friends' phone numbers (which took a couple of hours, darn those non-SIM card phones!). I also took a few pictures and texted messages to Stephen. We ended up sending each other Harry Potter quotes while sitting in the same room watching tv. Hey, I gotta practice my cellphone texting skills....
| | |
|
