Things You Learn

Music: Don’t Blink- Kenny Chesney
Mood: Post-midterm Relief

Today is my Grandma’s birthday! And yesterday, we went to dinner to celebrate!

There’s that old (and annoying) cliché—“You learn a new thing every day.”—Yesterday, I learned a lot, but not from school. (Well, I learned about different models of line waiting in OM, analysis on Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum, and some Chinese prose of the Late Ming Dynsaty). But besides that, I learned a lot about Chinese culture.

I had made this picture for my grandma to give to her along with flowers. Since my grandma doesn’t know how to speak or read English, I found on Google-images pictures of Happy Birthday written in Chinese. I superimposed that image along with the numbers 2008 from the “Bejing 2008” logo and put it in a picture frame. See below—

Notice the Black Letters (..eek!)

So, when I went to develop the photo and then showed it to my cousin, she was like.. that’s,… interesting, and she wouldn’t tell me why. I kept annoying her and asking her what was going on, and she said that the font was black, which, when written on things like gifts, etc. symbolizes death, which I totally hadn’t realized. She explained that on gifts, font colors are usually red or gold (gold being better!). I totally didn’t realize this mistake at all, but it was too late. I couldn’t do anything because I already created the image and developed it. My cousin reassured me that it was okay because the background wasn’t pure white (it was a tan-ish background with black font, so it’s a little better. See above). I still gave the picture and flowers to my grandma, and she still liked it. So, I was relieved.

During this whole gift preparation (all of yesterday and Wednesday), I learned so much more of things we take for granted in the US.

1. Photolabs at all the pharmacies and Kodak express machine—I guess this is something we really don’t realize but selling drugs and photos in the same store is a weird combination. Here, the photo stores are separate from pharmacies. So on Wednesday, when I went to the mall to buy a picture frame, I also wanted to develop the picture I made. I scoured the places and couldn’t find a photolab open (because I went right after my finance midterm and all the places were closed). So on Thursday, on my way to dinner, I thought I could just go to the photolab near the MTR stop because all the MTR stores have these shops called Fotomax. They, however, don’t have Kodak express machines. I thought I’d be able to go up and find one to develop the photo. However, the only instant developing they have is for 4x6 photos and I needed a 5x7 photo. It was so frustrating because the Kodak machine in the States can develop anything instantly! So I just went ahead and developed the 4x6 one and put it awkwardly into the large 5x7 frame. I got luck though, because at the MTR stop near my grandparents, I went to the Fotomax over there and they weren’t that busy, so they were able to develop the picture for me in 5x7 in 30 minutes. It was still frustrating. So moral of the story, don’t take for granted Kodak machines at every CVS!
2. Florists at the grocery stores—I had no idea where I was going to get flowers, so I had my cousin help me. We went to this first florist near the MTR stop by my grandparent’s house, and they were too busy making arrangements for a wedding, so we couldn’t get a bouquet made from them. We walked around for a bit and couldn’t find a florist, and this lady overheard us complaining and she pointed us to two different florists (both which were closed). Then, we decided to give up and just go to the restaurant, and if we stumbled along a florist on the way, we would get a bouquet. Luckily, right near the restaurant, we foCund a florist, and they arranged the bouquet while we ate and then my cousin and I pretended to go to the bathroom and went to fetch the bouquet to give to my grandma. In the States, this would have never been an issue. I would have driven to the HEB, Kroger, Whole Foods, Randalls, or whatever and simply bought a bouquet! How simple! Haha.
3. Country Music—this is unrelated to anything involved in getting the gift for my grandma, but I miss country music and miss staying current with the latest country hits. I swear, when I go back to the States in the spring, I’m going to be 6 months behind in pop-culture.

In other news, I’m done with midterms for now! (My next one is Halloween.. yes, I have an exam on October 31st from 6 to 8pm. Seriously?!?! What was this professor thinking?) These midterms/essays were worth about 40% of my grade. How scary or ridiculous is that?! For finance, we have just exam, the final, and a few homework grades. Besides school, UT Alumni in Hong Kong have a mixer tomorrow from 7 to 10, so I’m going to try to go to that. I’d be cool to network with the alumni and see how they got their jobs in Hong Kong. I’m trying to look for an internship in Hong Kong, but I’m assuming that’s going to be pretty difficult because (1) the market is horrible right now and (2) the pay is so much less than in the States. My roommate is currently going through recruiting and it’s such a pain. They don’t have something like OCR where they can just drop their resume to a posting. Instead, they apply to each company online at each company’s website, writing the silly essays and things for each company. Imagine that!?! He had a “group” interview today where he and a group of like 6 people all work together on a case and present it in front of the interviewers. How ridiculous is that!? I’m so glad I don’t have to do that (unless I start looking for an internship here).

I don’t even know what to do about my internship search. I’m hoping to go for strategic consulting, but I don’t know how to get that started because I feel all the recruiting events like mixers and such are in the fall, so I won’t know anyone there in the spring when it comes time for me to recruit. Ekk. What am I to do? I’m also considering law school, so I need to really reflect on that because then I might just do a May-mester abroad with the Plan II program in Rome and then take the rest of the summer to study for my LSAT and maybe work for some senator or congressman. I really need to figure out if I’m hardcore law or not. I mean, I’m not too thrilled about business though. Nothing has excited me yet. I either need to find that excitement soon in a future internship or I’m going to get bored and go Law (or business PHD is still an option, but I’d rather just become a lecturer after I retire and do research).

And who needs to work? Why can’t we just travel all the time? (Answer: because you need money to travel!)

The Texas vs OkState game is this Saturday. I won’t be able to see the game, but we better win. Seriously! I don’t think we can lose to OkState, no way… and I’m hoping Ohio State beats Penn State this weekend too! Hook ‘em Horns!

Oh, and the HKUST + CitiBank International Case Competition is this week. Too bad UT wasn’t invited this year (ask me why in an email), but a team from Tammassat University in Bangkok, Thailand is here. It turns out that one of the university friends of Tracey, a UT BHPer studying abroad in Bangkok, who I met while in Bangkok is actually in Hong Kong competing. Their team didn’t make it to finals, but I ran into her on campus. We’re totally going out tonight! I’m pretty excited! Random, but cool! Haha.

Ok, I’m going to watch some of the office right now. I keep saying this, but I don’t know what I’m going to do once I run out of Season 3. I need season 4 (and then season 5 is right now!). On Saturday, I’m planning on getting my hair cut. I want an Asian haircut, and I think I’m going to get red highlights this time as well! =) So excited. Then I’m going to go shopping for real. I haven’t bought anything here yet, so we’re going shopping on Saturday.

Here are some photos from the dinner. Look at the pretty bouquet of flowers! =)

Grandma and her presents!

With my Grandparents on my Grandma's birthday

I saw this ad on the MTR. I don't understand why the sheep is pooping and there's a poop symbol in the speech bubble of the other sheep. I haven't taken marketing yet, but I don't know if Poop-sheep is an effective tool, regardless of the culture...