Ubiquitous

Halloween and Other Shenanigans

// November 1st, 2009 // 5 Comments » // Academic, Personal

I swear, college is one of the greatest impediments to blogging. With so much going on and us students getting so little sleep, blogging is one of those first pasttimes to go.

The motto for this semester is “Work Hard, Play Harder”. I’m happy to report I’ve been getting consistent A’s on prelims (Cornell’s name for “midterms”, weird, I know). The weekends, which start on Thursdays really, consist of endless partying, with the frat scene and house parties dominating. Sunday is a day of recovery, and the cycle repeats again. The frat brothers range from your standard total Ivy League douchebag to the WASPy Polo-shirt-boat-shoe-wearing gentleman to the huge engineer geek. Everything and anything. Any person, any study I suppose. I’m not meeting as many people as I’d like, but I’m sure that will come with time (I want to know everyone in my small faculty, for example).

I had two costumes scraped together at the last minute for Halloween. Night 1: gold dress + shovel = … GOLD DIGGER! Night 2: pink dress with bow + pink headband with bow + pink clutch + flats with bow = … I have no idea what I was but the boys said I was Barbie so I went with that. The notable costumes included your standard supermen, slutty bunny/maid/I’m-just-going-to-well-lingerie, rappers, nerd, bumble bee, police officer, Keystone light (rofl) etc. I might post photos at Snark if I have time.

I’m looking forward to my next 3 or 4 weekends.

• Nov 6 - 8: going to Harvard for HUWIB’s Inter-Collegiate Business Convention
• Nov 13 - 15: going to Syracuse University for an all-expense paid charrette
• Nov 20 - 22: going to Kingston, Canada for Royal Military College’s annual Christmas Ball
• Nov 27-29: Thanksgiving, everyone in my suite will be gone. If I stay in Ithaca, my friend from UPenn might be coming to visit.

For Fall Break I went to visit friends in Toronto, had a blast, shopped a lot, it’s nice to be near civilization again!

P.S. - Anyone doing Nanoblomo? I don’t think I will be, but I will subscribe!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Summer Schedule

// July 22nd, 2008 // 13 Comments » // QOTW, Work/Volunteer

It’s easy to sum up my summer these past few weeks in Vancouver: working two jobs, sleeping as much as I can, splurging on end-of-summer shopping sprees, hanging out with friends, and having angsty momenets when the thought of university creeps on.

Technically, the first job I had this summer was working as an assistant in a travel agency, booking tours to Whistler, Banff, and wonderful filled-with-the-glories-of-mother-nature places in British Columbia. It was a parttime job that paid $10 an hour (ha! stil higher than what most of of my classmates are getting) with a short-tempered boss. Even though the job was as relaxing as it comes (and in the process allowing me to learn loads about the international tourism industry), I didn’t feel like it explored my full potentials.

So after three days of melancholy and lots of Facebooking while the boss was away, I quit that job and took up a fulltime job offer as a business receptionist in a furniture manufacturer.  The pay is a bit higher here but more importantly, I actually had a really nice girl train me and show me the ropes of the business. While the employment title sounds easy, it actually entails all the duties and responsibilities of the office manager. I’m in charge of ordering supplies, emailing pricing quotes to customers, overseeing the process of the furniture production from cutting to assembly.  I have a chance to walk around and examine all the cool pieces in the warehouse (reminds me of IKEA). So for once, I found a job I actually enjoy doing!

On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, I have a five hour shift at an inbound call centre which coincidentally is a few metres away from the furniture place. That job was mind-boggling at first because the centre uses an elite computer dialing system with way too many bloody keyboard shortcuts. The companies’ clients include doctors, real estate agents, and government branches, who reroute their phones to our call centre after business hours (we run 24/7). So everytime someone calls, say a closed doctor’s office, we get the call and a screen pops up with prompts and message boxes and such. It’s AWESOME when there are no calls and the five or six people in the office are just sitting there reading. Maybe I’ll bring my laptop next time and watch a movie or something. Getting $50 bucks every night for that, pretty sweet!

Just for the hell of it, I want to work at Starbucks on my free evenings (can you say no life at all?! I don’t even know how I managed in that tight schedule of mine to lavishly spend on meals and shopping sprees - where is the time?!). I calculated that I should be making $5000 - $6000 bucks this summer. Ahh… financial independence is on the horizon!

QOTW: Do you have a summer job? What is it like? What do you plan to spend your hard-earned wages on?

Popularity: 5% [?]

The Real Thing: China Summer 2008

// July 7th, 2008 // 12 Comments » // Personal

During the entire trip, I kept a play by play journal listing the events of each day. I also… when my cellphone had batteries left… recorded random audio musings. Now I decided to just let the pictures do the narration. Please note that my camera really sucked (wait til next entry, where it turned the gorgeous Chateau Lake Louise into a one-dimensioned murky grey, so apologies for that.)

Random other people leaving at Vancouver International Airport. Wow, look at the red carpet they have for the business class people!

One last look at the gorgeous blue sky baby! (And of course, plane necessity: flip-flops)

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A journey of THREE thousand miles requires lots of food and entertainment.

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