Hi!

I finished already seven weeks of my internship, which means that less than half to go. I didn't understand how much time I am working at my Business Unit until the second group of SLP interns joined the program three weeks ago and I saw how much I can help them or at least point them to the right person. It makes me feel good about how much I integrated with my team. The project is on the fast track and we are on schedule, which is impressive as this is the biggest competitive strategic sourcing the company has done. I also started meeting both my Business Unit President and my Senior Vice President on a weekly basis, so I get better understanding about the strategy behind the process. Last week I even participated at the board meeting of my Business Unit and learned the future growth strategy of Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard.

Another exiting event that happened this Friday was going to a Hot Road race in Route 66, where I was a guest of DieHard which is the main sponsor of one of the teams that competed. I never imagined I would be in such an event.

One last thing I would share in this post is how much Chicago is amazing in summer. I tour the city, going to its museums and walking a lot in downtown where I live. Right now I came back from the movie Transformers 3 which was almost entirely filmed at the block I live in and where the teater is located. For the first time in my life I stepped out of a movie and felt I am part of this movie, a feeling which was much more exiting than the real movie...

Life in the Twin Cities

I am at the mid point of my internship at Ecolab. On the work front, I scheduled a couple of mid point check-ins with my manager to ensure that we are all on the same page. The response has been very encouraging and the team is very excited to see the final presentation.

That said, I think the highlight of the week was getting a chance to tour the Twin Cities. HR organized a half-day tour for the interns, and for me, it was a great way to get a sense of the place, and ultimately decide if this is somewhere I can live in and consider a long-term career. We started the tour at Summit Avenue at downtown Saint Paul, a street known for its historical Victorian-style buildings. The architecture of the houses, churches and schools were breathtaking. It is rare to find old buildings that are so well preserved in today’s day and age – it almost felt like I was momentarily transported back in time.

We also drove to a couple of lakes: Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun to name a few. People were out and about, and everywhere you could see Minnesotans jogging around the lakes, kayaking or simply lying out in the sun to enjoy the outdoors. If you are a nature love like I am, Minnesota is definitely a place to consider doing a summer internship. Borrowing the words of our tour guide, despite how brutal winter is, summer is so gorgeous that it compensates for the cold weather. Indeed, there is a reason why Minnesota is known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”.

We ended the tour at Minnehaha Falls, which unfortunately, was the number one attraction in Minnesota until the Mall of America came along. I can’t deny the benefits of tax-free shopping and having an indoor amusement park, but personally, I would prefer the falls any day.

Well, that’s all for now. I am heading out to enjoy some sun, before calling it an early night. Tomorrow is going to be an exciting day. The interns are taking the day off to participate in Habitat for Humanity. Time to roll up our sleeves and get some work done!

Social games are changing the industry

Halfway into my internship at Ubisoft. It keeps getting better. After working on various projects in digital casual games, my supervisor put me on the GRO team.
GRO stands for Ghost Recon Online. Ghost Recon is a award winning, 10 years old franchise, based on best selling author Tom Clancy novels. The background story revolves around a fictional secret military unit (the Ghosts), which serves as the last resort of the U.S. Army when stuff gets really bad. The games have generally been first or third person shooters , with a strong emphasis on cooperation and team strategy. Ghost Recon online will be a free to play game. Players will download it on their computers and play online for free. Thanks to Ross , a lot of us ended up working with great stuff such as bleach, food, drugs.. or Ghost Recon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-6P5rE9L4o

As the title of this post mention, Social games are changing the videogame industry. and this is good news for any MBA who wants to be in this field. The industry has been recession proof since the nineties, and thanks to Facebook, broadband and the Nintendo Wii, a new , huge market was born. Social and Casual games are all the games that.. people who dont play videogames play. Farmville, Cityville, Bejeweled, but even Guitar Hero, Angry Birds are played by women in careers, bored fathers, grandparents. The market is so much wider and there is so much money to be made. Companies like Zynga receive skyhigh valuations , while giants like EA purchase smaller companies (Playfish, Popcap maybe) for impressive prices. Social gaming is about number, how many people play, how many people pay. It is not as artistic as gaming , and require a lot of analysis, promotion, marketing strategy and pricing. Several MBAs are getting into those new companies, using their business skills to improve the games and to find out what happens behind the scene. While I cant say I love casual and social games now, I am very intrigued in seeing what will happen and how this industry will evolve. It feels like the videogame industry is going to change impressively (probably in less than 10 years we will have no consoles anymore), and the industry leaders are acting as pioneers. I cant wait to see what will happen in five or six years, and how the whole system will evolve. And hopefully, I would like to be a part of this.
Speak soon.
Nicola,

Hello Rossers!

So it has been again two weeks since my last post. I am right in the midpoint of my internship which means my midpoint review is due this Friday and I am writing this post before that so I will not know if they “recommend” me for future opportunities at Microsoft Corporation (hopefully I will have a nice weekend with a “yes”).

These couple of weeks have been interesting, we are finally getting to a point with the agency where we are all comfortable with what they are developing, drafts have been presented and approved (or at least not vetoed) by senior management, the rest of the team has been a bit late on presenting what I need (I guess part of being an intern is having to make other people work *for* you when you are an intern) so this last week I have been stalking all of them (since before I was stalking the agency). The project is going well and if nothing (bad) happens we will be online with the campaign in early August just a couple weeks before I have to (sadly) leave.

One of the things that MS encourages its interns to do is to go and talk to people around the organization, so this week I decided to go and do that. I went and talked to a Group Program Manager to understand what they do, how they do it and how they relate to the marketing team. It was fun (and interesting) to learn how they do work, how they plan it and then how they develop it (though PMs are considered part of the engineering team they are more of a business part of engineering and the liaison between marketing and developers/testers). They write the specifications for any given feature and it was interesting to see on how they have to think about a problem to be able to solve *every* possible outcome (decision trees!! Remember them? They do come in handy).

Other than that, I had a very nice 4^th of July (if you end up in Seattle, you should go to Bainbridge Island it is not amazing, but the ferry ride is nice and only $7 and they have an amazing ice cream shop – Mora) and I will be waiting for my review (if things go like I feel they are going then I should have a nice weekend) and enjoy the weekend!

See you all in two weeks!!

Gabriel.

How many weeks do I have left?

A couple weeks into the internship at Merrill along with living in NYC! Wow, I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that one. There is a park outside my dorm - it's the only thing keeping my sane. Don't get my wrong, I love the city. It's just I need some quiet time to myself to just chilax a little bit. I really have been learning a lot though, which is kinda why things are getting a little slow actually, but shhhh don't tell anyone! Since I have learned the fundamentals, it's on to the busy work. I really am liking the guys I am working with though. We sit very close to each other, so we really are a closely knit team. My manager has been out of town a lot of the time, which lightens things up a little bit even though he really is a great guy. Despite all of this, I am not sure working in sales with concentrated equity will be part of my career in the long term. After experiencing my first real job, being an entrepreneur sounds pretty good to me!!

-alex

Summer Slowdown

So I'm a bit more than halfway through my internship now and things are coming together pretty nicely. I'm comfortable with everyone in the office and I'm getting to know the other interns better, which is cool. As unlicensed wealth management interns we can't really do a lot of work that has a real impact but we help out as much as we're able to.

Things have slown down a fair amount since my last post. Between bosses being out of the office and two other guys starting on the same team as me, the work is spread pretty thin lately. My daily responsibilities haven't changed much, but my longer term projects are wrapping up so I've begun to think about the next step. Rather than just do what I'm asked for the rest of my time at UBS I've been brainstorming projects to work on that would have an impact even after I've taken my last steps out of the office at the end of the internship. When I;m able to start working on it I plan to put together a report for my FA about the local economy and outlook over the next decade or two. If I'm able to identify where the growth will be in this time frame I'll be able to recommend strategies for him to build his group's book of business and tap the market by targeting small business, the lawyers and CPAs who workwith them, and support networks. It's a longer term project but could actually be useful, as my team is constantly in acquisition mode and this would expand the landscape some.

In all, I'm a little surprised by how laid back this segment of the finance industry can be, but that's turned out to be a good thing so far. Rather than spending all my time sitting behind a computer staring at excel all day, I'm able to do things like chat at the coffee machine for a few minutes without feeling guilty or go out to lunch and strengthen some of the new connections I've made. I've found a good balance between work and socializing, and I hope I'm able to continue to approach my internship in the way I've done up to this point.

Balancing work, training and social events

So, I just finished the third week of my internship. In fact, I would say it is the second week in terms of real job as the first week was almost full-time training. Now, I have clear the objective of my summer project. I have to analyze the strategy of an existing business card and create a new one to replace it, so it is very interesting and challenging at the same time. I have to recognize that I was concern if I would finish my project in the time that I have, so I started to plan how I would approach the project and set weekly goals. As my assigned manager is a vice president, she is really busy and difficult to talk with. This is why looked for a person within my group, whom I can ask and talk more easily. He is a senior manager and is helping me a lot as he has a great experience in credit cards.

In parallel, as part of the Internship program, Citi organizes a speaker series program where, once or twice week, different senior representatives from the bank talk to all Citi Summer interns. So far, we have heard the CEO, CFO and Chief of Technology Office. Additionally, we, the Consumer Summer Associates, have weekly lunch sessions with different senior managers from the Consumer Banking group, so they can talk about their areas and let us know beyond the areas we are working on. So far, I can say that I have learned a lot from all this sessions, and equally importantly I have heard amazing stories about professional experiences within Citi.

Last, but not least, we also have social events included in the program. For example, we have had happy hours with ex-summer associates (and now full-time employees), or networking events with Consumer Banking senior managers; and this incoming week we have a picnic with the Finance Summer Associates. Besides this, we have named a Social Chair in our group, so we also have our own happy hours and weekly lunches, so we have a lot of social activity.

I feel really lucky to been in this program, as not only I am working in a great project but also, I feel Citi is really concern about us to learn more about banking and Citi. And obviously, I am having a lot of fun with my peers in the program. As I mentioned in the previous post, our group is a really diverse group, you can see it in the picture I above. We took this picture in our visit to Citi’s Union Square branch, Citi’s flagship branch in NY, as this is how they want to be in the future. It is great; I suggest that if you are in NY, you go there!

Hope you enjoyed the post.

Shila Arias

My BJ’s intern journal, week 5

The past two weeks are a lot of fun! As China market is booming right now, some interns who are based in the US or Singapore came to Beijing to meet people and gather information. I led colleagues from Kellogg, Tuck and China Europe international business school to try the Beijing duck and traditional massage.

Luckily, I joined the bi-annual employee meeting last week. This event helped me better understand JD China’s overall performance and outlook. During the Q&A session, I threw a question to our head of business unit. “As a foreign company which has been in China for a while what’s JD’s biggest obstacle so far? He answered “Talent acquisition,” as there are more and more international companies coming to China, don’t know how to let the China talents know how good John Deere is. During the reception later, I introduced myself to the VP level management team and happened to know one of them is from Ohio….ohhhhhhhh!

One disadvantage of living in a big city is the bad traffic, especially in the rainy days!!!
I got my memorable Beijing experience the day after. It rained heavily from early morning. When I finally arrived in the office building around 8:15 am, I found thousands of people waiting at the lobby and escalators.

Later I found we had a terrible power off because of the bad weather. People just chatted with each other aloud, making the building like a real market. I finally climbed the stairs to 5th floor where our office is, working for 2 hours with my NB’s remaining electricity. Finally, HR announced the IT has to shut down the server so everyone can have an early weekend.

Another cons is that the housing problem is also getting worse in Beijing. A three-bedroom apartment 15 minutes away from work costs $1250 USD per month, while the average salary for a fresh graduate is only $650 USD. So after all my roommates decided going back to Taiwan, I am moving out again during the three month period……

Yea, here is some update about the projects I am working on. I am going to the field next week, visiting Yunnan, Guangxi and Guangdong these three major provinces accounting for 90% of the sugarcane output. The main purpose for the trip is to eliminate the understanding gaps in some major areas and potential customers. I planned the whole trip from scratch, from finding locations in the map, contacting the officials and booking tickets. From my communication experiences, sometimes you really need to insist on things you are not willing to let go or people would fool you around and find an easier way to do things. Wish me a good trip and I will share more interesting stuff next time!

The investment banking journey continues...

It’s been only two weeks of full time work and I learned tremendously. Working hours are pretty intense but once you start you get used to it quickly. The pace is fast, extremely challenging and every day there are new things to learn. It is exactly how I thought it would be.

My colleagues are very nice and helpful. Every time I have a question they are ready to sit down with me and help me. In my first week I got staffed on two live deals related to two different industries. It is very exciting because even if I never worked in those specific industries, I have the possibility to learn a lot in few days by reading reports, asking my colleagues and using all the resources that Citi has.

Two days ago I got staffed on a new project, my third deal. In banking you have to learn how to work in parallel on different deals, at different stages of the process and with different senior and junior people. You develop a unique set of skills that are and will always be extremely valuable for your present and future career.

All the people I met during the training week are now friends I can trust and on which I can rely. Every time our group has requests in terms of data I can ask my peers in the other groups and in few minutes I get what we need. I learned how important is to build relationships across different groups in the bank and to maintain them throughout my career.

I got assigned to a junior and senior mentor within the group. These are the people that will follow me through the process and will help me in case I have any problem with work, colleagues, etc. I have a bi-weekly coffee chat with my junior mentor, who is a director. It is very interesting to hear his perspective and also his background and role within the bank now.

Despite the fact that we work hard, we also love playing hard. Even if we go out of the office late at night, we try to find the time to hang out together. This is a great way to meet new people and to extend my network even further.

As always, I will keep you posted!

Best,

Matteo

Wk 5: Work + Fun at the Tiger's Nest

Wow, time really flies when you are having fun. I cannot believe that I am one-third done with my internship. I look forward to seeing my classmates again at school but I am also sad that my interesting, fun, and skill-building experience in Bhutan is almost over.

As always, I was busy with work these past two weeks. I continued my internal scan of the four Bhutan companies by studying cost trends, performing the tried and tested ratio analysis, and interviewing finance managers and CFOs. I am happy that the Bhutan companies have an open door policy. The top executives are all very accessible and helpful. They also do not sugarcoat financial results. It makes my job easier to know that I have the complete and accurate picture of their cost performance and activities.

Of course, I did not forget to have fun while working. An American lawyer, currently working at DHI, took me, my co-interns, and a visiting Berkeley MBA student, who did a project for DHI, to the most majestic place in Bhutan, the Tiger’s Nest. Taktsang Monastery, more popularly called the Tiger's Nest, is situated on a nearly vertical cliff at 3,000m altitude north of Paro in Bhutan. It is a prominent Himalayan Buddhist sacred site. Learn more about the Tiger’s Nest here.

I consider successfully hiking up to the Tiger’s Nest one of my best accomplishments to date. The climb up and down the steep mountain took four hours. It was raining that day so it was a very very slippery and difficult climb. I almost slipped a number of times and nearly fell face-down in the mud! Thankfully, I stuck my umbrella in the mud just in time to break my fall. Whew… The altitude also hampered my breathing and I was pitifully panting and taking deep breaths from my mouth. There were also numerous times when my legs refused to move another step but I stubbornly refused to give up. So, I pep-talked myself until my head convinced my legs to continue the hike. J I am happy that I persevered because I saw one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in my life. The Tiger’s Nest, perched on top of a mountain and partially covered by clouds, is breathtaking! I will definitely not forget this climbing experience.

This is the mountain we climbed. Do you see the white monastery near the top?

No?

Well, here is a closer look at our destination. It is partially covered by clouds (yes, so high up)!

Starting the hike

Slippery trail

View from the top

A mini waterfall and many prayer flags

Almost there…

Finally, the Tiger’s Nest!

Full Steam Ahead

This summer can't go any faster. The pressure of project deadlines are definitely peaking. I realize too that I don't have too many weekends left to explore this city. It's definitely time to hustle, both work and fun wise.

First off, work. I joined Cisco at a time when there are a lot of changes happening within the organization. It's a great opportunity for me as an intern because we get exposed to change-related initiatives. I actually see how a company reacts to market pressures. This, plus my actual project plus getting to know Cisco better have accounted for a pretty hectic summer. Navigating a highly networked organization such as Cisco is really interesting. I find that I get a lot done with building relationships. I am not really used to networking within an organization so I'm definitely developing a new skill in this respect. I am also meeting a LOT of brilliant people. It has helped me continue to shape "who I want to be when I grow up". Meeting people who do so well in a field that I am very interested in is inspiring. For that alone, I am thankful that Cisco encourages interns to reach out to whomever - and people are very receptive.

Okay on to equally important stuff - fun. I finally got the chance to go to downtown San Francisco this weekend to explore. I must admit it's growing on me and it's definitely an area that I can see myself living in. There are a lot of really cool neighborhoods, a lot of interesting spots and outdoors-y things to do. Among my favorite spots are still the De Young museum and its great observatory. I love Mission-Dolores and all of its interesting spots. I recently experienced the ferry building and all of its farmers' market wonders. A city with good food, good sights and great coffee is definitely high up my list.

Only in San Francisco

Besides the wide range of food than can be found in San Francisco, the many fashion styles you can encounter and the climate difference between a sunny corner and a corner in the shadow, San Francisco is full of those little details that make it unique in one or another sense.

Fun and cheap was one of my first discoveries, it’s an amazing webpage (http://sf.funcheap.com/) where you can find a list of any sorts of cultural, recreational, musical or gastronomic events for all tastes, interests and low budgets. Many of them are free or at least reachable at a very affordable price. Through this page I discovered for example the Food Trucks that gather on certain Fridays at Fort mason around a band. You can go, eat and chill out with some beers while enjoying the music. Trucks form a circle and offer food from all over the world. My recommendation: Vietnamese, Pica Pica Maize Kitchen (the best Venezuelan “arepas” I have gotten since I arrived to the US), and crème Brulee.

The California Academy of Sciences offers on Thursdays the event NightLife. This is a weekly event where visitors of ages 21 and older can enjoy music, science, entertainment and cocktails, while experiencing the Academy’s world-class exhibits with friends. Each weekly installment features something new and different. I happened to go when the theme was sustainability. Sustainable cocktails, food, exhibits and a cooking class accompanied by an amazing exhibit of Lizards and serpents were taking place. A highly recommended event.

Two exhibits of Picasso’s private collection at the same time in the same city. Indeed, at this exact moment, and until October the 9 of 2011, The Young museum, located at the Golden Gate Park is showing the masterpieces of the Musee National Picasso from Paris. And, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is showing, until September the 6th, the Steins Collect. This exhibition draws on collections around the world to reunite the Steins' holdings of modern art, bringing together works by Matisse, Picasso and the Parisian Avant Garde (Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and many others). For Picasso lovers, this are MUST see.

Festivals featuring the best of San Francisco diversity. In May 28 and May 29 took place one of California's largest multi-cultural celebration, and one of San Francisco's most popular and cherished traditions, the San Francisco Carnaval. This was a display of Latin American and Caribbean cultures with an array of food, music, drumming, dancing, live music, and a Grand Parade on Sunday. In the same vein, on June the 25th and 26th took place the 2011 San Francisco Pride event. The theme was "In Pride We Trust" and was selected by Pride's membership at their Annual General Planning Meeting in September. Just as in Bay-to-Breakers, you could find the widest range of costumes: from guys dressed in French aristocracy to a priest blessing naked people. A note on the side: the day of the mission festival, some friends and I decided to head to Castro neighborhood to visit. We were pleasantly surprised by 4 men, completely naked, on a Sunday afternoon at 4 pm, just hanging, chatting with each other, chatting with dressed people and having coffee. Just like that, no more preambles, no more explanations. Just SF …

San Francisco’s Lunatic characters. I can say that almost EVERYDAY I meet someone hallucinating in his/her own created world after, quite probably, a combination of amazing drug cocktails. People screaming out loud mad at the entire world, a guy shooting imaginary guns or a women walking in circles, are the type of characters that make part of the San Francisco scene. But maybe the most amazing one was the scene of a guy who was picking imaginary things from the floor and who suddenly started climbing the corner of a building and who ended climbing almost 3 meters. He truly believed he was Spiderman! After having climbed the wall calmly, he decided to go down with an impressive ability and just keep walking and picking imaginary stuff from the floor…..no concerns, he just continued his way.

Week 5

Hi,

Until now I told you how much I like my fellow interns, Chicago and how much I like to come back in some of the weekends to Ann Arbor, I didn't tell you about my project.

Well it is about time I'll do so. Sears Holdings is divided to approximately 32 Business Units which each acts as a company with its own P&L. I am a proud member of the Brands business unit which is called KCD after the top three brands Sears Holdings holds- Kenmore, Craftsman and DieHard. I joined the Strategic Sourcing Group and I am working on one of the largest sourcing in the world - choosing the vendors that will manufacture the Kenmore home appliances for the next five years. Kenmore is the leading brand in terms of market share in the U.S but the manufactures who build it are Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Samsung, LG, etc. In total the result of this initiative will be almost $10B contracts, so I see many zeroes and trying not to make any errors while modeling their bids.

Although I am part of a very professional and experienced team I also have my own responsibilities that sometimes I am amazed that I own them. My team and I prepared the Request For Proposals (RFPs) for the different segments (refrigerators, laundry, cooking and dishwashers), evaluating the returning bids, meet the vendors who demonstrate the features and modeling the financial aspects of the bids in order that in the end of the process we will choose together with the buyers and the product managers which vendor will manufacture what. Because this process is very fast and occurring during the summer, I am very fortunate to be part of it.

I think it is enough information for one post, but I will keep you updated how it is evolving in the future.

Yoav.

Marie Claire

I've been at Marie Claire for over five whole weeks now, and my experiences have really grown. Because I've become so much more familiar with the streets and areas in Manhattan, pick ups and drop offs are hardly strenuous (unless, of course, you are chanced with taking 5 heavy garment bags) and instead relaxing and enjoyable.

Update on luncheon with the editors. We were allowed to sign up to have lunches with certain top editors at Marie Claire, and the three that I chose were Katie Connor (Fashion Features Editor), Suzanne Sykes (Creative Director), and- of course- Joanna Coles (Editor in Chief anyone??). I am very interested in what they do at work and hearing from them personally about how they got to where they are now. Lunches with Katie and Suzanne are this upcoming week, and a lovely dine-in with Mrs. Coles will be held a couple of weeks from now. All I need to do at this point is to do some research and come up with some fun questions to ask them!

Fashion Director Nina Garcia, Editor-in-chief Joanna Coles, at Prabal Gurung Fall 2011 Mercedez-Benz Fashion Week

As I mentioned in my last post, the MC fashion interns were all asked to do a project where we make inspiration boards. By now, all of the interns have submitted lookboards, and it was brought to my attention just last week that the Senior Fashion Editor, Zanna Roberts Rassi, will be reviewing them. It's really purely for fun, so she can get a sense of our personal style and of the things that inspire us. However, you never know if an intern's inspiration board has the ability to provide ideas for an editor for a theme in an upcoming issue. My inspiration board was built upon rather limited resources that I had. With a stack of 20 or so old MC issues, I flipped through each magazine and cut out anything and everything that I liked. I initially had absolutely no idea what the theme of my board was to be. However, through several magazines-worth of snipping, my theme became rather clear. I ended up making a collage of studs, shimmer, shine, and sparkle (mostly gold tones) and fuzed those looks with blooming freesias and peonies in purples and pinks. I also added a revival theme to the collage, where I glued on a couple of photos from S/S 1990 shows in Milan and Madrid, and then juxtaposed those looks with a similiar look from a modern-day fashion spread.

Now there is one more piece of news that is worth writing about. MC partnered up with LOFT is hosting the Front Row Challenge, a competition to find a stylish college student, whom when picked will get the so-often-dreamed-of opportunity to fully style and host a fashion show at his or her own campus (with courtesy of apparel from LOFT). Here is a video promotion for the Front Row Challenge:



This is a very fun yet challenging project that I am currently working on, and I will keep you posted in the following weeks regarding my application for the contest!

Until next time...

Fun Seeking

It is a little akward for me to live in a very small town in mid-west US as I was born and raised up in a city with 10 million people. In order to be not so boring after work or during weekends, fun seeking became a very important factor to keep live sustainable.

The good thing in summer is that a lot of interns around the same age do live in the town, you can either organize event or join event to know the people, thus enlarge your social circle. Last week, a birthday party was hosted at my place, although it was not my birthday. More than 15 people showed up and we definitely had a great time. Chinese food was prepared by a friend's parents and drinks were plenty. I love the sweet and sour rib. BE CAREFUL, this is not the sweet and sour thing at Chinese restaurant in US, this is REAL Shanghai family style sweet and sour rib. For the desert, I like the "OREO meatball". It was prepared by an undergraduate intern and he had to smash the OREO biscuit by hand. I wondered if his hand was clean enough to make it. But it tasted good!

Besides those events, I joined some sports game just to keep myself healthy, especially when I noticed that I am in my 30s. Playing basketball with younger folks is not a easy job, considering I am a non-atheletic Chinese. During weekend, I drove to Indy for hanging out with folks who are smarter as they decided to live in a real city. There are definitely plenty of restaurants and bars on the massachusette avenue in Indy. Being socially inactive for the first year of my MBA program, I certainly should know more people so that I can know a little more about everything.