BARCELONA, for the books and for the sun!

Saturday, June 23, 2007

In Hong Kong

This is not a good sign. I’m currently waiting for my last connecting flight to Taipei at the Hong Kong airport. When I got off the plane from Munich, the humid and warm breeze blew right into my face. Dios Mios. And I’m not even home yet. I know it will be hot, humid and unbearable. But, feeling it firsthand is different. The plane nearby that is boarding right now is heading to LA. Maybe I should hop onto that plane instead.

Another not-too-good sign. I cannot hold a conversation in total Mandarin. Seriously, I left Taiwan almost for a year and a half, hardly been speaking Mandarin. It’s going to be worse then when I was working. Great. Maybe now I can say that my English is better than my Mandarin. (Originally, my Mandarin is as bad as my English.) What can I do in work. Before at Deloitte, it was okay, we use English quite often. But, I don’t think that is going to be the same case with my summer job. I hope they forgive my Chinglish.

Yet, and another not-too-good sign recently discovered. While typing this blog right now, I can see my reflection on my monitor… and… I gained weight. I was suppose to loose weight during the past two weeks so I can pig out in Taipei for two weeks. I actually had a plan, to cook extremely healthy meals, which is not so hard for me. But, I had not considered the fact that we are all (almost all are) leaving, that means, a lot of farewell dinners. Mismanagement, failed projections, wrong model, inadequate analysis… I did better on my strategy midterm than this.

Didn’t I say before that I love Lufthansa. (Remember the incident where Lufthansa moved me to a private jet flying business class?) Add one more too it. Determined to eat as healthy as possible when possible, I ordered a special meal from Lufthansa, a low-sodium diet meal. And my god, wasn’t that good. Either my tongue has changed, or chefs nowadays can cook very delicious diet meals. I couldn’t even tell I was eating a special meal. (And yes, it was low in sodium and low in fat.) They actually have more than a dozen special meals that you can choose from 24 hours before the flight. They even have Indian vegetarian meals. I should try a different one on my return flight. Okay, one draw back of a diet meal on the plane. I AM HUNGRY NOW!!! I got a Twix bar I sneaked off the plane to Munich. Eat or not to eat. I’m not a sweets person.

Hey, I’m so old. My two connecting flight (BCN-MUN-HKG-TPE) is about the same as it was back in college (BOS-DET-OSK-TPE). But it wasn’t this long. I mean, it didn’t feel that long. But just now, on the longest leg (MUN-HKG), I felt so restless. Maybe I didn’t plan well. I didn’t even have a book. Well, I did. I had my Spanish book. But didn’t feel like reading it while LEAVING Spain. When I was in college, I used to fly to Taipei with a friend. Guess that time flies when you are entertaining someone (or being entertained).

Got my 3rd term results back, better than the second term. Well, up ‘till now, it’s the best term, especially considering that I really, really, REALLY thought that I was going to flunk corporate finance. Hehe, I got a solid B for that course. The only upset was macroeconomics. I was aiming for an A, but a B+ instead. But, considering how bad I was in econ back at Wellesley (despite it being my major), I should be happy. Happy, but not proud. Only thing to be proud of is corp finance. Well, one more thing to be proud of, my first year performance as a whole, even practically all individual courses (except for, hehe, managerial accounting). Sorry daddy, guess after all these years of trying (and working at TNS/Deloitte), I’m not really made for accounting. (Inside joke, ignore it if you want.)

Hey, there is free Wifi here. I’m going to post this blog now.

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

3 More Days Left...

...and I will be back in Taiwan. Yup, the first year of my MBA has just ended. And I have gotten word that I won't need to stay back to take the make-up exam. (Well, actually, I didn't get any call saying that I need to stay back, so why don't I just pretend everything is fine for now.)

I haven't blogged for more than 2 months. My excuse is... is... well... oh yeah... 'cause I was travelling. After the Turkey trip, I went to Amsterday for Queen's Day with JD. AMAZING CITY!!! People there are very friendly, quite a change of atmosphere from BCN. We went to Anne Frank's house, Heineken Experience, Van Gogh museum, Rembrandt house, Red Light District, Chinatown (Amsterdam's Chinatown is bigger than Boston's Chinatown!), and Madam Toussaud's Wax Museum. What else did we do, dragged JD up and down the street to "show" JD what "cannibis" smelled like. Couldn't explain with words, had to find an example. Anyways, I LOVE the city.

Early may, the day after the midterms, Fuji and I took a day trip to Girona for the flower festival.

Later, we went to Rome to celebrate JD's birthday. My god. THERE WERE SO MANY PEOPLE even if it's only the start of the peak travel season. Took us about half an hour to enter St. Peter's Square, 1 hour to wait in line to climb up the Dome. 320 steps. Reclining, narrow, tall, all different types of staircases you can think of were there. Originally, I wasn't planning to go up. But I'm glad that I did. The climb up took almost an hour. The view from the top of the Dome was beyond amazing. Breathtaking. The climb down, albeit faster, was more scarier. The second day, JD, AS and I stood in line for more than 2 hours just to enter the Vatican museum. BH and Fuji were in line for almost four hours. Not only I saw Santi's (Raphael) tomb in the Panteon, in the Vatican Museum, I found myself standing literally in front of "The School of Athens," my favorite painting from the Renaissance. I was never so moved by a painting before. The Sistine Chapel was quite an experience. (The guards there were a bit annoying. "(Clap, clap) Silenzio, (clap, clap) No fotos.") However, with the help of my high resolution Nokia N73, I was able to take a few pictures of the fresco, specifically the one where Christ gave the keys to St. Peter.

These few days, I have been busily packing and moving my stuff to either's AJ or Fuji's place. I HAVE SO MUCH STUFF. Well, the stack of cases and notes is about the same height as I am. Over the past few months I was somehow able to accumulate about two dozen Spanish books, of which I don't think I really read any of them in its entirety. Left those books at Fuji's place, hopefully she can make good use of them over the summer. I got about another 60% more stuff I need to move. Manaña, Manaña.

Okay, it's 3 in the morning, I should either go back to packing or go to bed. Wait, I cannot go to bed. EVERYTHING is on my bed. No place to sleep.