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Nov 7

Finished term 1 with some happy surprises. I think the strategy is to keep up with the average during the semester and then cram / ace the final. The only thing I think I did differently from my classmates was to do all the practice problems (in the form of practice exams and problem sets) twice or 3 times (trice) before the final. It was a painful week, but I got through it just fine.

Another strategy that I learned is the importance of napping. Napping, in short amounts, helps commit learning to memory. I would take a final, come straight home, and sleep for an hour before heading back to the library for a 8 hour cram session. Breaking my sleep apart into two 3 hour sessions (3 hour nap + 3 hour night sleep) is incredible for memorization. It does take a tremendous toll on the mind though... so be forewarned!

As the new term is now underway... I feel that I just need to focus on being disciplined and more confident. Recruiting will kickoff fulltime soon, and I need to face it head-on! :D

Oct 3

It's Jolly's birthday today! He's a full 4 years old now (28 in dog years). He's the same age as me now... wow.

Our 4-week summer term has already passed, and we're 2/3 of the way through our first fall term. Recruiting is picking up, and I have a handful of company presentations to attend next week. The career management center has been pretty adament that we focus on creating our online personas. Therefore, I spent all of this morning updating my linked-in profile and creating a twitter account (don't ask why). I guess the result of all this is that I'm much more web 2.0 adept now. I've also revised my resume ~20 times in the past 2 weeks -- read the final product yourself and let me know if you like it.

One piece of very good news that I received today... I was selected to be the logistics coordinator for ICE (International Consulting Experience). It's a student-run consulting program which does for-profit strategy consulting jobs for local RTP businesses looking to expand abroad. More than anything, I just wanted to be a part of it, much less take a leadership position. It'll be a great experience, and I can't wait for the ball to get rolling next week!

Aug 7

I just finished my first week at Fuqua! Orientation and all were great... It was the most team spirit that I have felt since high school. I saw the strangest thing yesterday. People at Fuqua's cafeteria (the Fox Center) were lining up to self-pay for items they bought. I understand that it's pretty common these days to have self-pay stations at grocery stores, but even then there was some level of surveillance. At the Fox Center, there was NOBODY (unless there are closed circuit video cams that I'm not aware of). I am thoroughly impressed by the honor code here at Fuqua.

I've updated my online resume to the Fuqua standard.

Jul 29

I've uploaded all my pictures from Vancouver -- it is likely the most beautiful city I will ever visit! Most of the pictures are all on one day when I stayed behind at the client site on a Friday (March 13th, 2010) and took the opportunity to wander the city and take snapshots of whatever I saw. There is also a few pictures in that album of the Olympic medals! Enjoy here!

Jul 25

I've finally arrived at North Carolina and settled down. Aside from the heat, Durham is about as different from Shanghai as I could imagine. The heat index is well above 100 degrees everyday and the humidity is high as well. Durham itself is a small, quiet little town, which is smaller than Madison.

I fixed the wimpy popup window. Now when you click on it, the popup window is automatically sized the correct 520 x 300 window that's necssary to fit the wimpy player GUI.

I need to catch up with posting my pictures from the last year and this year... I uploaded my first pictures of Yongyan, my vacation in Alaska with Adrian, my trip to YunNan in August 2009 with Yongyan, San Francisco, and Beijing. See them all here. It's a lot... I know, but it's been a while since I've uploaded photos. There's still a bit more, but I'll wait until next time. :D

Jun 28

I've partly fixed myWimpy mp3 player. I apparently deleted my Flash editor when I updated to Flash 10, so there's no way at the moment for me to change the automatic scripts that run -- especially the one that runs to resize the new pop-up window. Sorry!

Apr 20

I've been in China for 2 full weeks now! The last time I've spent more than a month in China was in the summer of 2004. In my last 4 trips to China, I've only stayed for, at most, 17 days. I still can't believe that I have a full 90 days to be here this time!

Dad bought us a refridgerator last weekend, and we've had internet since the start of the month. It's incredible how much my grandma's little place has grown / changed since she passed away in 1998. Speaking of whom, we went to sweep her tomb last Saturday as a belated "tomb-sweeping festival."

Over the last 1/2 year, I've been building computers again to releave stress. I've posted my lastest HTPC build here and my latest desktop build here. Take a look!

Apr 10

I'm in China now for three months helping my girl with her Graduate Record Examination (GRE)! I took the longest flight of my life (and I'm well aware that there are longer flights out there) this time to get here. Detroit to Shanghai is a 14.25 hour marathon. Worst part is, I got stuck in a middle seat back in coach. Delta must have felt guilty for sticking a platinum medallion member in such a god-awful seat that they gave me 500 bonus miles for my inconvenience.

On another note... I met a future fellow Duke graduate student yesterday. He jumped on the offer to share the same apartment complex The Copper Mill in Durham. Nice guy... It'll be nice to have a familiar face in Durham when I get there.

From that paragraph, you've probably guessed right that I'm heading to Duke now. Fuqua just had a much more attractive future vision of itself than Ross did. Although Ross does send slightly fewer MBA candidates into consulting, I know that consulting is not sustainable for what I want to do long-term. In terms of a long-term goal, Fuqua had the much better match with its entrepreneuriall specialties and global brand.

Go, Duke Go!!!