Weblog

Saturday, 22 December 2007

  • HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

    Finals are over yay! Don't know how I did yet, but hopefully not that bad. So here is a quick update to what has been going on in my life.

    Dec 18- done with finals =) Watched "I am Legend"- not a bad movie
    Dec 19-work; desserts with Ray, Jeff, and Anthony
    Dec 20-work; Citigroup Winter Party at the Starlight room in St. Francis Drake Hotel. Beautiful view of Union Square and SF night life. Free drinks the entire night as well as food which included prime rib mmhmm... I went a little bit over with the drinks since no carding went on. The following five drinks I had that night: Cosmo, Mojito, Gin & Tonic, Lemon Drop, and Long Island (don't recommend this one unless you really like hard alcohol because it is basically vodka, gin, tequilla, rum, and whisky all mixed together with a little soda chaser)
    Dec 21- work; Happy Hour at the Chaya

    Update for the coming weeks
    Dec 22-hotpot with Jeff, Ray, Henry, Weihua, Ephu, and Preston
    Dec 23-moving days; for those who don't know yet, I am not living in Berkeley next semester so I'm moving back home because I will be interning for 20 hours next year in the city
    Dec 24-25-Merry Christmas and family festivities
    Dec 28-Jan1- LA and countdown at Disneyland
    Jan 2- NY for intern training; I will be returning to SF sometime in mid-January.

    If I don't get to see or visit you during these two weeks, I will drive, sail, fly etc.. to see you when I am back from training. Ok take care everyone!

Sunday, 09 December 2007

  • HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAYS TO ANTHONY & HENRY

    Dead Week has begun... meaning finals are around the corner. Everyone should be busy cramming for their exams as should I. So what have I done since I last updated...

    Nov. 11 Veteran's Day Wknd- PwC xACT case competition. Although my team didn't place it was a good experience. We got treated to dinner by PwC at Adagia, this nice classy Mediterranean restaurant near campus, as well as a gift certificate for Amazon.

    Nov. 23-25 Thanksgiving- family dinner with aunts & uncles, black friday shopping, met up with Jeff & Anthony for a bit

    Nov 29-present: study, cram, work etc... life has been pretty boring for the last two weeks

    On the other note, I got another internship that actually already started, making my life busier than ever, and it will last through the end of next summer. Good thing is I don't need to worry about recruiting next semester. Recruiting is pretty stressful, considering all the preparation that needs to be down prior to an interview. So I still intern with the same company, Citigroup Inc, but different division & department. I transfered from Private Client Group at Smith Barneyto Citi Global Markets- Asset Management.

    Hours are longer but I love the new office and team as well as my supervisor. She is so nice and a very good mentor. The other day she treated me and her associate to lunch at Rubicon, this California-French cuisine, in the financial district. The food was really good as well as the presentation of it. Too bad I don't have a camera or else I would have taken lots of photos. Speaking of a camera, it seems to be taking me ages to get another one since my last one malfunctioned. I meant to buy one on black friday but then I missed all the good deals because I didn't get up early enough, but I still have the Winter Holiday specials coming up.

    My upcoming schedule:
    Dec 10: last day of instruction
    Dec 11-18: Study & Finals Week
    Dec 20: Citigroup Winter Formal Party
    I will be taking a short trip to NY for maybe a week for work purposes. I will be going with my team to visit Citi headquarters in NY, for intern training, and auditing a conference with private banking analysts. But this is still in the planning process.

    For those who have asked about Christmas gifts, I give the same answer every year: no purses or bags or totes, nothing pink or cutesy. Gift cards are fine. Can't think of anything that I particularly want, or more like the stuff that I do want is not affordable for college students i.e. new car, laptop, trip to Europe etc..

    Good luck with FINALS!

Tuesday, 06 November 2007

  • Midterms are finally over! Yet I am still piled with work i.e. presentations and papers. I seriously can't wait for this semester to be over, I am not liking it at all.

    Currently I am working on a case competition organized by Pricewaters Coopers (PWC), one of the big four auditing firms. I am working on the case with people I don't really even know, but so far it has been pretty cool besides many long intensive meetings, and there is so much work to be done for the case comp. It looks like I will be spending Veterans Day Wknd on this case as well.

    Weather in Berkeley (Bay Area) is getting really chilly, even when the sun is out, you can feel the cold breeze blowing against your face....signs that winter is around the corner.

    Current classes for next semester: Econometrics (what fun....)
                                                        Managerial Accounting
                                                        Chinese Economy
                                                        Astronomy (suggested by Julia because we both need GPA booster classes)

    Here is another good song that I've been stuck to lately.

    Thanksgiving is in two weeks! Can't wait, people back in SF, we need to chill!

Thursday, 11 October 2007

  • Random question: how many EECS (electrical engineering & computer science) major does it take to reformat a computer? So my laptop is having major spyware problems again, and I think it really needs reformatting. I brought it over to my friend, Mark, to fix since they have a good number of EECS and tech people in their apartment. Unfortunately four EECS major can't seem to reformat my computer....

    Anyways, it was pretty cool hanging around Gene and Nelson's place, everyone in the apt is pretty chill. Here are some random quotes and discussion from last night.

    On school schedule...
    Nelson: i can't believe we are half way into the semester already
    Me: i know, it feels like i haven't done much; my weekly schedule is basically classes, study, and work.
    Gene: you know what our 8-day cycle is like, it's class, eat, sleep, and video games, and maybe study one day out of 8
    Mark: get your priorities straight, we play video games before sleeping
    Gene: yeah, video games first then sleep

    Viruses and EECS....
    Me: does TJ know how to get rid of the spyware problems in my computer w/out reformatting?
    Mark: no, he doesn't, and we can't reformat without this XP disk (illegally downloaded) which I can't seem to burn
    Me: didn't TJ work for Samsung this summer? EECS major work for tech firms, they should know how to deal with viruses right?
    Mark: i think they actually learn to make viruses in their classes not get rid of them.

    Health...
    Me: i need someone to drive me back to my apt; i don't want to get mug or rob on the way
    Gene: i'll walk you back. i'm going to stop by RSF anyways
    Me: you don't need to lose weight Gene; you are way too skinny already
    Gene: i'm not going to lose weight. i'm going because i don't want my heart to die.

    Lol Gene and Mark are so funny and random.

    Next week is another tough week for me... I think I will be on the brink of collapsing soon. I have a game theory ps due, and also 100+ review questions to prepare for my econ midterm on thursday ah.......

    I've currently been addicted to this song by Raymond Lam. It is the sub theme to HK/CCTV series Drive of Life.

Thursday, 04 October 2007

  • I can't believe it is October already! Feels like I haven't done much in the past month, well... at least nothing exciting besides school and work. It is currently midterm season so everyone is very stressed these days. I won't be done with midterms until November 5, since I have one every week. So what is my schedule like for this semester? I am taking three upper division core econ classes plus one outside investment banking elective, so a total of 4 classes, with an additional 20 hours of work on top of that. For those who don't know, I am still interning at Citigroup Smith Barney this semester, so I commute back and forth to SF every other day. Plus I also have a side job on campus where I go help out every now and then.

    Julia and I are seeing which one of us will collapse first since we are putting so much workload on ourselves this semester. She says I will since I have 2 jobs and more core classes, but I say that she has a heavier load with 5 clubs and 4 upper division classes. I guess we will see in two months who gives up. The most exciting thing that I did since last month was rush for a fraternity Phi Sigma Pi, but then depledge before pledging even started lol. I decided in the end that frats aren't really my thing, and just rushing for it took so much time.

    On the other hand, I have been really getting into stocks and investments. Everytime I am at work I would grab my coworker's copy of the Wall Street and flip to the Money and Investing section. Last week I sold my shares of Pfizer, which did fairly well. Now I am looking into the Chinese stocks, which have been doing really well despite the drop in the market yesterday but share prices are a bit too high at the moment. I should be careful with buying stocks since I am not that experienced, and it really scares me how much Richard and Gene have in their portfolio already, considering that we all don't have much solid experience in this field.

    Besides that, nothing much going on, the year is starting off a bit down and slow. Hope things pick up along the way. Anyways, before it slips my mind and I totally forget, special thanks to Gary for my late birthday present, a 16th month Harry Potter calendar, and it is seriously 16th months, unlike some of the ones at borders where they just cram 4 months onto one page.

    Thanks so much to Anthony for all the help in Game Theory! I would totally be failing the class right now without your help.

    Lastly, thanks to Gene for the ipod! I am like addicted to using it right now. Ok good luck with midterms everyone, more updates when I am done with my exams.