Junk Boat Cruise

A great fun evening filled with drinking and dancing all night. Just loved the view from the Boat of the Hong Kong skyline. Was great to meet all the exchange students before some of them started off on their travels around Asia.

Here we have the entire (well almost) Indian gang singing a few Hindi numbers on public demand. Think we did pretty ok and we were the first to start it off. As you can see, a lot of beer was guzzled and the best part of it was with all the dancing in LKF and a near fist fight (I was involved in - but I have no idea what the other guys problem was) after we came back, didn't even have a hint of a hangover. So now I know what to do to avoid a Hangover.

End of the first half of the first semester

Just finished one half of a semester. Still a few assignments to wrap up - but done with my first open book exam. Continuing the celebrations with a Junk Boat cruise, and celebrating Halloween in Ocean Park tonight.



What have I learnt so far?



I'm just not challenging myself enough. There is a lot more that I can do in life and that's been my biggest discovery. I'm not talking about anything specific. But just meeting so many people with so many unique characterstics and going through some real stiff time management challenges teaches you that the life you are leading so far has been so relaxed. In fact relaxing itself is such a pleasure now. We celebrate getting 8 hours of sleep on the trot. Not that I'm sleeping 3-4 hours everyday. If you add up all my power naps, I'm sure I'm sleeping a lot more than 8 hours. :-)



The ELP/RP was a revelation for me because that taught me the different kinds of personalities and also about my own personality. How I need to change it - what are the weak areas? Just that being a chameleon is good. It's changed the way I interact with different people to bring out the best in them.



Marketing - I just didn't know what Marketing was about. This course taught me a few things. But overall a fun class - just all his corny jokes. Discussions about the course with classmates revealed that most people were not too happy about the course since most of his examples were examples from the 80s and 90s. I agree it was. But I guess I didn't have as many expectations from this course as the others.



Statistics exemption was great. Just that I might need to brush upon my stats sometime soon before I start struggling through the other courses.



Economics - The less said about it the better. Until some Chinese prof fixes it sometime soon. I'm going to typecast all Chinese Profs as Bad Teachers. This guy had nothing right. He was boring, talked about some really old standard examples, did not create enough interest in class, did not involve class enough, and so on and so forth. What did he do right? We didn't have an exam. And that was the best part of it.



Accounting - Still going on. Will update once done with the course.



Case Presentation - A light course supposedly in terms of not having an exam. But the effort put in this was probably the greatest. So many long nights, so many practice sessions, a few decent learnings about things to do and things to be avoided in the future and the big one's coming up next week.



Towngas and Climate Change - what can I say? Go back to Bullock Carts and use their dung. That's the suggestion I'm going to give. Actually I'm talking Biogas. Let's see if my group buys it first.

My favorite Pasta Recipe

Fast and delicious - A must try for people pressed for time!!!

Ingredients: Campbell Soup - Small Can, Your Favorite Pasta, One Egg - Yolk (optional - For nutrition only ;-) ), Salt and Pepper (To Taste)

Mix ingredients and cook in Microwave or Electric Cooker for about 12 mins. Let the delicious dish cool down and gobble it up!!!

This is my "I'm starving and lazy to go out" backup dish over the past few days. Have to grab a few more campbell soup cans from ParkNShop sometime soon.

Chili - Anitha ... Wish you the very best in life!!!

Congrats to Chili and Anitha. Wish you both a wonderful marriage and a happy married life!!!

Another one goes down - with Avi getting married next month, that leaves me feeling lonely and betrayed!!! Keep me posted on your marital woes guys - so that I can cheer myself up with how lucky I am that I'm still single!!! j/k

Hope to see you in a month's time - Giving you time to wrap up your honeymoon!!! :-)

Just got my weekend trip extended to a week's trip. Missing a few classes and feeling guilty about doing so. But then my only brother is getting married - so well worth ditching a few stupid classes.

Mini Olympics!!!

Today was a day of fun - almost felt like a school sports day. Well it actually was the MBA School sports day with alumni, exchange, part time, faculty and everyone else vying for the big honors of the champion team. Proud to say that we won and had a lot of fun too!!!



That's me after getting my face painted and hair color sprayed. Thanks Ann and Wei Ling. I look weird and tired.

Well that was after I'd played Volleyball (we were the champions) and Table Tennis (lost in the first round in Singles and came second in the Doubles with Arthi).

We also won the Tug of War event too after scaring our opponents with the Haka Warrior Dance - Thanks to Joseph Lin, the New Zealander in our class. The NZ All Blacks do this traditional dance before every game I believe to intimidate the opposition. I don't know if we succeeded in intimidating the opposition, but we won convnincingly none the less thanks to a great extent to the effort of Big Vas who just put the rope under his under-arm and refused to let go. He's now nursing his bruises and a torn ligament. Wish him a speedy recovery.

And I contributed too ... Volleyball, TT-Doubles and Tug of War. 2 Medals and a towel richer. :-) Considering that I'd to ditch a HKUST Cricket Game to be a part of this, well worth the sacrifice. ;-)

And here we are - the Full Time class of 2009 with the Overall Championship!!!

Veggie Bonanza

A treat for all the veggie lovers. Had some duck, eel, chicken, and a host of other animals - atleast they were called that and they tasted like the actual animals according to those who had eaten them. :-) Thanks Chris for introducing me to the place. I'm sure going to go back sometime. I loved it!!!

Only I don't know the way, so will probably pull you along the next time as well. :-)

CDC Hotpot!!!

Thanks to Carrie's Dining Club, got a taste of a real Hot Pot. I'd done a Chinese Hot Pot a couple of year's back thanks to my bro's boss who'd hosted one at his home in Atlanta.

Unfortunately didn't learn from my mistake the last time - both me and my bro had taken up the challenge of the Habanero Peppers - supposedly the world's hottest peppers into our hot pot. This time it wasn't the Habaneros. But still some hot peppers that I over did and paid for it. I was dancing to the tunes of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers soon after.

Networking Cover Letters

Connections are wonderful beautiful and fragile things that need to be cultivated, so make sure you use the proper networking etiquette. Do not use networking cover letters to ask for a job. People with the power to hire new employees take their responsibilities as gate keepers to the company seriously and someone asking for a job using their contacts really turns them off. Instead use the cover letter to ask for a career advice, information on the industry, or just more contacts and this can convince them to become a more welcoming mentor and the job offer might just follow.