Monday Blues

Music: Butterfly- Jason Mraz
Mood: already waiting for the weekend

Wow. This weekend was pretty fun. It was nice and relaxing, but much needed. I feel like the only thing that gets me through the week is looking forward to the weekend. Every monday begins with a count-down to Thursday afternoon. It's pitiful and a sort of depressing way to look at my spring, junior year, but it's the truth. I'm ready either for senior year and graduation. (Maybe because this semester has been so long and drawn out because of recruiting and plan II physics).

But a quick recap of the weekend: Friday- I didn't do much. Acutally, I can't remember what I did. I thought I was sort of productive but can't remmeber what I did. Oh, ok, sorry, yes, I remember now (proof that this is a stream of concious blog). I had a couple interviews and did my finance group project. I also went for a nice 3mile jog around campus after all the group work. Saturday, I woke up early to volunteer/work at Discover BHP (which is the chance where we get to meet the admitted students and tell them all about BHP). After Discover BHP, my friend Tracey and I went to the Keep Austin Spicy Asian Food Festival. Entrance was $5 and the food costed money too. But then, we walked through the volunteer section and were stopped and told to go around. We asked if they needed volunteer and we signed up to volunteer! We ended up getting some free food, enjoyed the amazing weather, and then picked up trash for the last 10 minutes before heading out. It was a pretty cool afternoon. Saturday night, I lounged for a bit, met some friends downtown, and then called it a night. Sunday, I did 3 loads of landry, did some errands, and read applications for the Barbra Jordan and George Mitchell Award to make decisions for interviews.

This week doesn't look too busy. I've got some quizzes and group projects next week, but we'll see how much work I can get done this week so I can relax on the weekend. This is pretty gutsy, but I'm really wanting to go to the Astros Opening Day next Monday, but we'll see.

Me and Tracey volunteering

EDIT:
-Wow. That was a close call. My car was in the process of getting towed and I stopped the guy. Every Monday, I love to watch How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) with my friends, so I drove over to their apartment and parked in another apartment's visitor parking. Apparently, you need visitors pass to park in that visitor parking, (the free visitor parking is in the next apartment over). Good thing the show ended at 8:00 and I walked out with my friend to catch and stop the tow truck. It was frightening but good to know that my life does not entirely stink right now! =)
- Also, I want to go to Bill Nye's talk next Tuesday, so I'm going to get up early tomorrow to go get tickets.. then I think I'm going to have to wait in line next tuesday to get seated. It's going to suck, but hopefully worth it.
- and on a random note: HEB has mango on sale, and it's reaffirmed my love for mango. I think if I open an resturant, it'll be called Mango. (please don't steal my idea!)
-and lastly, i don't know why this is in all italics, but blogger won't let me change it so oh well. Hehe.

Thursday Bliss

Music: How Do You Sleep- Jesse McCartney
Read: Peony in Love- Lisa See
Mood: savoring my cup of tea

Wow. It's already Thursday? This week has gone by surprisingly fast. It's flown by, but it's been an alright week. Homework hasn't been too bad, and I've been getting at least 7 hours of sleep plus naps, so that's a good thing.

Let me do a quick run-down on the classes for the week: We got our Finance 367 test back on Monday, and I did a lot better than I thought, considering how much I though I missed because I just froze and went black on one 30 point question. In FAP class, I was working with my assigned MBA over break to do a DCF of a company of my choosing. I choose to do a model of Amazon to figure out the current value of the stock given projected growth, etc. It was my first real DCF where I got the numbers online and from the actual Amazon.com annual report. I messed up a bit, but the MBA I was assigned with was really helpful and it actually pretty fun. Now, however, I need to do DCFs of Amazon's competitors in the industry and sector to see which companies are under and overvalued. In the Plan II Physics part of my life, this week's homework was pretty simple. We're studying cosmology, which is actually pretty interesting, if you understand it. The homework didn't take to long, so I was able to go to be at a decent time last night.

My only issue is that I finished PHY hwk at 11:40 last night, and I just watched junk TV till about 1:10am, when I realized I should be going to bed instead of snacking and watching TV. Guess what junk I was watching- Millionaire Matchmaker on Bravo, Jon and Kate Plus 8 (which is a really cute show), and Make Me a Supermodel (which is ridiculous, only because I'd love to make it big as a model in like Asia. haha! One can dream, right?)

Have you all heard Jesse McCartney's single, How Do You Sleep? It's actually REALLY catchy. He's really done a pretty good job at making his comeback, from Leavin' to this new single. Check out the music video. Ludacris makes a feat in this video, and I think that's pretty clever marketing.. Luda + Jesse, who would have ever thought. haha. Check out the video (which btw, how cool is youtube, you can now customize the borders and the size of the embeded videos! =)




Anyways, I'm also reading a book called Peony In Love, by Lisa See. This was on my to read list this past summer but I never got around to it. It's about a girl who loves the chinese play, Peony Pavilion, and her life ends up being exactly like the play. It's a bit cheese and romantic, but we'll see where it goes. There are so many other books I'd like to read but just don't have the time.

This weekend, I'm going to be working Discover BHP all day and interacting with the accepted BHP students and telling them all about BHP! Then, I'm planning on going to the Keep Austin Spicy, Asian Food Festival down at Zilker Park later that day with some friends. There's not much homework for me this weekend, so that's a good thing. Maybe I'll get to relax and sleep in (and watch more junk tv... Gosh, I watch too much reality TV.. it's so much easier to watch than real TV shows but real TV shows, you have to follow, but with like Jon Kate + 8, Millionare Matchmaker, Ace of Cakes, Real Housewives of OC, NYC, ATL, you don't really have to follow.. oh, and the news is also fun to watch some times.. and I love the Suze Orman show on MSNBC. I think she's on tonight! =)) Haha, with that, have a great weekend. I'm off to do a bit of homework and then go to cycling class before heading to physics class, signing the lease with my realtor, and then going to a BHP junior Make-a-mark event and then maybe the BC DINE event for free dinner.

7 weeks till summer (and to find a job)

Music: in class, so nothing
Mood: not wanting to be back...


Wow. Today, my alarm rang at 6:45am, and let me tell you, it was not something I wanted to hear this Monday. I totally snoozed (which, if you know me, I NEVER do) till like 6:55am, showered, and then got ready for my 8am class. It was painful and sort of depressing.

How was your spring break? Mine was simply amazing. Going up to Seattle was relaxing, and it was cool exploring the city and enjoying the wonderful weather. We drove up to Whistler, Canada to hit the slopes for two days, and it is the best skiing I've done in ages. Not having skied in over 4 years, it took a while for me to get a hang of it, but after the first day, I was already on the blues and blacks. On the 2nd day, we went on Blackcomb Mountain (the first day, we stayed on Whister Mountain). In my opinion, Blackcomb is a lot better. There were more slopes and more things to try. But also on the 2nd day, we had about 6in of fresh powder, and it kept falling all day, so my falls were padded and the skiing was AMAZING! I really want to go back up to Whistler sometime. I'd also like to check out skiing in Colorado or Utah. I've only done skiing in California near Lake Tahoe, and it's nothing compared to Whistler.

For the 2nd half of spring break, I stayed at home and was extremely productive. I did so much home work and got to "hang out" with my parents, which was nice. I really didn't feel like going back to Austin, which is weird. Freshman and Soph year, I was always ready to come back to Austin, but now, this year, everytime I've gone back home, I really didn't want to come back. But I guess I had to. We only have about 7 or 8 weeks of school left until finals.

I had a phone interview today with an insurance brokerage, and I have another phone interview with a regulatory agency tomorrow and an on-campus interview with a hedge fund company in New York. Hopefully I'll be able to convert something into a full-time offer. I'm cautiously optimistic. I mean, I was chatting with my Dad, and statistically speaking, with all the interviews I've had, I should have had at least one offer. It's kind of weird. I must be doing something wrong. Are they reading my blog and getting a bad impression!? Haha. I just need to market myself and convince recruiters that I'm the right fit for the position. So the chugging continues.

As a back-up, however, I'll stay in Austin and take accounting classes so I can get my accounting minor. Other than that, maybe travel, but I shouldn't even entertain those ideas until I really don't have any offers, so the recruiting process continues.

Well, now, here are some photos from my spring break trip.

Me and my Brother on Whistler Mt.

A View of Whistler Village from near the base of the Huge mt

A gorgeous shot of the fresh powder on Blackcomb Mtn

Spring Break= T minus 1

Music: Somewhere Over the Rainbow- Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Mood: ready for break

I'm back in my apartment after an early morning. I woke up at 8:30 and made it to the b-school for an interview with a boutique hedge fund in Austin. That interview went well, and I really enjoyed chatting with the guys. I still haven't heard from the tech company or bank I interviewed with last week. Then, I had a blogger meeting at 11. Now Im back in my apartment and about to go take a nap. I have physcis class and then TA session from 2 to like 5:30. Then I have a waltz test in Ballroom dancing and a finance test tomorrow in FIN 367 on portfolio theory.

Tomorrow, I have class from 8 to 12:15-- I'm going to drag my suitcase to the B-school, go to class, and then at 12:15, I'm going to go catch the bus to the airport and then catch my 2:30 flight to Seattle. Getting into Seattle around 6, I'll spend Wed night with my brother, explore seattle on Thursday, drive to Whistler, Canada on Thurs night, ski on Fri and Saturday, spend sunday in Vancouver and then drive back Sunday and spend monday morning in Seattle before flying back to Austin at 2pm on Monday. Then I'll drive to Houston on Tuesday and probably go to the beach on Wednesday and relax the rest of the week and catch up on sleep and homework.

I'm looking forward to a great spring break! Hope y'all have a good one too. I won't be updating until after I get back from Seattle, with PICTURES! =) So get excited!

Have a great rest of the week!

Too Short of a Weekend: "we watched our cellphones jump from 1:59 to 3:00"

Music: Silence
Mood: missing an hour

This weekend was by far the shortest weekend of the year so far, and to add to that, we even lost an hour of sleep! How egregious.

Anyway, here's a quick recap of the weekend:
Friday- met with the Finance group to work on our group project; got half of it done; went to the gym for a quick 30 minutes (because I didn't have time) then did a BHP recruiting information session followed by an appointment with a realator that proved pointless. I finished doing research for my professor and then moved on to read the biography of Gates for my Plan II TC course. I really just skimmed the book because it was so dry and boring.

Saturday- volunteer at Explore UT from 11 to 1, talking with interested students about BHP and McCombs; then went to Green Mesquite for barbaque with the HKUST exchange students. We originally were going to Rudy's but then we heard about Green Mesquite on the Food Channel (featured by Guy); the place wasn't that good and took forever. We got to the resturant at like 1:45, ordered by 2 and didn't get our food until 3 so ate till 4. Then we dropped the exchange students off at riverside and then I picked up my friends to meet with another realtor to look at another property-- that turned out futile as well. I'm hoping to sign a lease at a house on 29th and rio but we're waiting on our potential 5th roommate to confirm before we can sign so that's why 4 of us were looking for housing all this weekend.

Then, after getting back from talking with the realator, I was browsing Craigslist (because i've been on the prowl for a dresser, a desk, and a desk chair for my place next year). I found a posting for a dresser for $40 and emailed the guy right away. He responded pretty instantly and then I called him, grabbed my friend Rachel and drove to South Austin to pick it up. It was this guy from France who had just been laid off over working here in Austin for about a year. Anyways, we dragged the dresser to the parking lot of his apartment and then proceded to attempt to stuff it into my 4dr car. It didnt fit... Originally, I thought that the backseats could fold down, but they couldn't. So we stuffed the dresser drawers into my car and drove by to my apartment; and then my wonderful roommate (THANKS MARGARET!!!) let me borrow her SUV and drive back down to meet the guy to pick up the actual dresser. We put down the seats but then had issues trying to shove the dresser in because there was the part that covers up the back part of the cargo area of the SUV that wouldn't come out. After like 20 minutes of thinking, my friend Rachel had the smart idea to see if there was the car manual in the glove box-- it turns out, there was and it taught us how to remove the cover. So with the cover out, we finally loaded up the rest of the dresser and then drove back, moved it up to my room on the 3rd floor. All that took about 2.5 hours.. I didn't think a craigslist adventure would require 2 cars and 2.5 hours... all for a $40 dresser.. but hey, i guess it was worth it; so after that, it was about 1030pm; i realized it was my grandpa's birthday so I called his cell phone in Hong Kong and chatted with him for a bit and wished him a happy birthday. Afterwards, I hung out with friends and then watched us loose an hour.. we watched our cell phones jump from 1:59 to 3:00. It was sad. Then we proceded to make grilled cheese sandwiches.. I had seen on the food channel that theyre good with apples or even spinach so we made apple grilled cheese sandwiches, which are AMAZING! Then I went to bed at like 4am.

Me holding the keys of the 2 vehicles we used with the dresser disassembled

The new dresser in my room! (taken with a tiny camera)

Sunday- I woke up around 11am after being awakened all throughout the morning by the Coop across the street that had it's party go on till about 8 or 9am. After waking up, I read my marketing notes for a bit, then meet up with the Barbara Jordan/George Mitchell Award committee to discuss the award and timelines. Afterwards, I made myself a grilled cheese sandwich with spinach, tomatoes, and cucumber (which was DELICIOUS!). Afterwards, I went over to a friend's apartment to study more marketing. I then took my car out to gas it up and then go to Academy Sports to get skiing gloves.. it turns out that academy doesnt really stock skiing gear this time of year so I didn't get any gloves; however, I saw some ski goggles on sale and I know my brother needed a new pair so I got one that was on clearance; after academy, I went back to my friend's apartment to study marketing; after that; at 7pm I went to my group member's house to finish up the finance project. That took longer than expected, and i was finally done around 10pm. I was hoping to go the gym at 8, expecting the group mtg to take an hour but I had to skip the gym. Now I'm back in my apartment and thinking of all the things I have to do this week before I leave on Wednesday.

Bare with me as I think out what I have to do before Wednesday
- do laundry
- pack
- study for Finance Test on Wed
- print practice tests for finance
- work on Physics problem set
- print ticket boarding pass on Tuesday night
- call brother to finalize plans
- hopefully sign my lease
- pay my credit card bills
- wipe off my dresser and put clothes in it
- fill out timesheets before Wednesday!
- write rent check

Brand New Day

Music: Brand New Day- Joshua Radin
Mood: Peaceful

I had a GREAT day today! I'm so in love this song right now. Whenever I'm having a bad day or just feeling stressed, I listen to this song.

It's a brand new day
The sun is shining
it's a brand new day
For the first time in
such a long long time
I know, I'll be ok

This week has, in general, been pretty low key. We got our physics test back on Tuesday, and I did all right. I got a couple points above the class avg, which puts me at a high B. It's just still a bit disappointing that all that work only leads to a B, but I'm optimistic.

On Wednesday, I have an interview with a computer company based out of Austin for a corporate finance role. That went well and I hope to hear about 2nd rounds for that soon. Later that night, I had a night prior for a large US bank based out of San Francisco. Also, on Wed, I arranged a phone interview with a private equity firm in New York in their restructuring group. Wednesday's are always long for me because I had to do physics homework.

Today, I woke up at 7:45am to get ready for my 8:30am phone interview with the firm in New York. It was supposed to be 2 thirty-minute interviews with two people at the firm. I figured one would be behavioural and the other would be technical. So at 8:30am, I received a call from the VP of the group, and we chatted briefly about the company, my past experiences, and the usual behavioural stuff. That ended early (we chatted for about 20 minutes). Then he hung up and the other guy was supposed to call me. A call never came and the recruiting coordinator called me and said the other guy was in an urget meeting and thus, I wouldn't have the 2nd interview and that they had gathered enough information that they needed for the recruiting process. So I never did the technical interview with the other person. I'm kinda bumbed about this because I was ready for the technical stuff. I hope it's not a bad thingthat they're going to decide whether they want to advance me up to 2nd rounds based on a conversation I had with one of them for 20 minutes, but we'll see.

So after all the calls in the morning, I went back to bed for about 45 minutes and then got up to finish my my physics homework. I got that done, suited up (HIMYM reference), and went off to my physics class at 2pm. That got out at 3:15 and then I headed over to the b-school for last minute preparations for my interview with the bank. With my interveiw at 4pm, I think I and the interviewer was ready to be done. Anyways, it turns out that the person went to my high school and graduated in 2000. What a small world. This is the 2nd person I've interviewed with who went to my high school. CRAZY! It'll be interesting when I come back to UT as an alumni to interview students and I'll stumble across people who went to my high school. So with that instant connection, the interview went really well. It really was more of a conversation than an interview. We chatted about my experience and then about the company. Then we moved into the "technical" interview where he asked me what the best financial statement is to use to determine whether to give out loans or not and then asked the different methods to value a company. Easy stuff which I aced. Those questions were followed up by who the CEO of the company is, which supprisingly, I was 1 of only 3 who got the question right of all the people he talked to. Yikes! and at the night prior, they told us they'd ask us a bit about the company... WOW. You'd think that in this economy, people would prepare like crazy, but I guess not. Hopefully that works to my advantage. One issue is that 2nd rounds for this company will be when I'm already gone on spring break, so we'll have to work that out if i get a 2nd round.

So I ended the day with a group cycling class called Endurance Ride, which is an hour straight of hill climbs, speed training, and intervals. It was very intense but I enjoyed the crazy cardio. I know. I'm crazy but the instructor was even more crazy. Haha.

Well, this weekend, I need to prepare for several exams next week as well as get work done for the professor I'm researching with. Unfortunately, this Sunday, we're loosing 1 an hour because we're "springing forward." UGH! And on saturday, I'm volunteering at Explore UT with BHP to help with admissions questions and then the students who studied abroad in HKG and the current exchange students are going to go to Rudy's BBQ to get some great tx bbq! Super excited about that! =)

Well, spring break for me is less than 5 days away! I'm flying out to seattle on Wednesday afternoon to visit my brother. We're going to explore seattle and then go to vancouver to go skiing in Whistler! I'm pumped and ready for break!

Ok, long post. Kudos if you've made it this far. Have a great weekend! =)