A London Winter Date Night

Another reason to like London... usually in LA Eugene and my date nights were dinner at the foodcourt at Century City (no knocking it they have a Lawry's there) and a movie. In London, since I finally got off of my crutches Eugene took me out to check out the wonderful world of Harrod's, ending with a evening trip of hot cocoa, real hamburger, and churros at the German festival of the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park.
Eugene in front of Harrod's ... this Christmas' theme is The Wizard of Oz... I'm guessing that makes Harrod's the Emerald Palace
A peek at the amazing cheese counter in Harrod's, we got a truffle cheese, gloucester, and goat cheese... ::sigh::
A small glimpse at the Charcuterie in Harrod's we got some amazing salami tartufo, salami porcini and salami montenaro ... yum!
Mohamed Al Fayed, owner of Harrod's, not only has Egyptian themed halls but he put his likenesses in the Pharoah and Sphinx statues... no comment
Eugene's dream... a cart full of Haribo candy
Eugene and me in front of the Ferris Wheel at the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park

Does this mean my bad luck with flights end? Or have I spoken too soon

My need to plan ahead outweighed my cautiousness with having no solid plans in terms of next term and I booked several flights today.

Most importantly, I decided even if USC falls through (for those that don't know my ATK team that got second place in the European Finals has been selected to represent LBS at the USC Global Case Challenge... means a lot of work but most importantly a subsidized trip home!! So I decided to fly out early wed (skipping a class there) and skipping all of my classes the following week to spend some much needed time with friends and family in LA) I'm still going to LA. So I booked my ticket.... only to discover while organizing my coursework for nxt term.. I have a special lab for one of my classes the Wed I decided to take off. Oh well, what I learned from my study group mates last term... you can skip any class. They've also ensured that I don't care about my grades anymore which makes life a little less stressful and a little more enjoyable hehe. But anyways I'll be back 2/24 to 3/6 ... 2/25-2/26 I should be competing but I guess if that falls through I'll just be stocking up all the awesome LA food and sun!

Since Eugene wants to make it to Love Bowl he will be flying out 2/14 to 3/6... that's right my hubsters is leaving me on Valentine's Day. I believe I should get best wife award for being cool with that... although our lack of celebration has already set a rather low expectation for this holiday.

Oh second set of flights I had to purchase... our trip to Prague and Vienna with Hannah and Eric... or THE Eric as he likes to be referred to as. EasyJet being the best deal we booked through them.... except this is the airline that I have already purchased two round trip flights on and not gotten on any of their planes. Barcelona got turned away at the gate. Madrid my friend didn't get her Visa and Eugene didn't want me booting it around by myself. So you can imagine my nervousness at booking a flight on this airline. Well I booked our flight out for 3/20 at 4:30PM because Hannah and Eric don't get in until 3/21 anyways and we don't like early flights.... lucky I did that because when updating my calender I discovered I have a midterm on 3/20 at 10AM to 12PM... thank goodness I booked the later flight. Hopefully this means 2010 will be a whole different ball game where I actually get to travel on the flights that I book.

I'm hoping I didn't just jinx myself with this entry... but here's hoping!!

BTW pretty cool foot update... saw the doctor today and he says I should ween myself off both my boot and crutches... what? yea that's right I'm walking (well stutter stepping really) around the apartment with no aids. I think it'll take me a little bit longer to completely be boot/crutch free outside but not bad for massively faster improvement than I expected. Will definitley help with the familia in town and all the London siteseeing we want to do.

Oh and just brief update of the week...

Mostly been just doing Physical Therapy (it's both painful and exhausting but hey if I can be up and walking in January... lay it on me!)

Saw Ms Anna off at a yummy brunch (still no Blu Jam) at Giraffe with Morgan, Meaghan, Leah, and April. Anna was on exchange from Berkeley (Go Bears) and with the partner girls had the 411 on AG01 which made for very interesting breakfast conversation. Hopefully will see her either in Cali or at Duke!

Did get to grab a drink with Chico who was doing a whirlwind in town, very cool and got to get a briefing on the going ons of they SYSCO crew. I totally admire how he is able to stay in touch with folks and how I am absolutely horrendous at it... New years resolution!

Had dim sum and shopping with my Cerebrations crew Alex, Beng-Fai and Mamello (we ended up giving up on the competition but I don't think its so bad because we now have a pretty fun group with pretty entertaining convos) Pretty impressed with Alex's willingness to eat all Chinese dim sum that Beng-Fai and I picked out and a little embarrassed that he knows how to hold chopsticks the correct way... making him better at it than me ::sigh:: Also Beng-Fai wins most gentlemanly person I know for shopping with Mamello and I, carrying our bags, and providing advice... he has a girlfriend and both of us are married so yea he is really just that nice =) Oh and after being denied 3 times by O2 they finally gave me a sim card! (do not understand but I've been denied 3 times for a monthly sim plan... yes all that I wanted was a sim card and I couldn't get it because I hadn't been living in London for longer that 2 months... ridiculous! They even needed my passport before they would give it to me.. yet my classmates got iPhones with their sim plans... no problem..what?) So once I get the whole transferring thing done I will finally feel like I'm a real londoner. My LBS friends will be happy too since normally I run out of my pay as you go minutes within two weeks and proceed to just text them.. I can't call back I'm out of minutes again. This is for you Venu ;)

Now Just Have to Find Time to Study...

So Naively I took this weekend off when it came to work...

Sunday my Cerebrations team (Mamello, Alex, and Beng-Fai) came over for lunch and work on our executive summary... cept we ended up spending the whole time chatting and getting fat on the desserts Alex and Beng-Fai brought over. Oh and they left a jug of milk in a lactose intolerant girl's fridge... not cool.

The Sunday dinner we went out with Ran, Hila, Michal, Roy, Venu, and Konstantin at the Golden Dragon in Chinatown (Great recommendation Ba!). That was a lot of fun and my first venture out in awhile, London is really festive with all the lights out and it was fun chatting and hanging out ...

However today I sat down, started writing up a calendar for this week, where I thought I had ALL this time to work on the Econ exam and study Finance and then bam, birthdays popped up (one in my building and one at the windsor so no excuses), holiday parties popped up, business events popped up and now most of my Monday is gone and I haven't started studying. GAH! That's what I get for letting my guard down... probably doesn't help that I'm feeling distinctly unmotivated. Maybe I'll just dig into that chocolate cake that was left in my fridge...

Where does all the time go?

So today is the night of LBS' infamous Santa Pub Crawl and I'm home getting started on my Econ Final. Yes I know its a Saturday night but it hasn't been much of a Saturday. I woke up early to review and then take my MOB Final. Which I didn't start studying until last night, since Friday morning was the Strategy exam (not bad since I basically rolled out of bed and started it) and then my switch from cast to boot took longer than I expected. I did get to do a trip to the Volunteer for our favorite Strawberry Beer, I think I've converted Marissa and Rob =)

To top it off, Ivy came and visited and I barely got to spend much time with her because she came just in time for my Strategy and MOB cramming and exams. Hopefully she at least enjoyed the London Indian food =). I absolutely loved the Macaroons she brought back from her local bakery in Versaille, enough so she might see a visit from Eugene and I soon.

For those curious about my foot. I finally got the crutch off and my calf and leg is insanely small and kind of freaky looking hehe... For some reason, I thought once the cast came off and I got into the boot I'd be walking on my own... yes I've never had a serious sports injury before. Nope the boot is a 6wk interim to walking. I still need my crutches and I'm quite a bit slower (I was getting pretty good at zipping around on the crutches) but I can go farther because I can put a portion of the weight on my foot. It's a learning process all over again. 6 wks from now expect to finally see my crutch free... I wonder if my classmates will recognize me hehe

Worked until 2AM but it was worth it

Yesterday was one of those days where you go to class at 8AM and you go non-stop from meeting to class to event without a break until 2AM. But the highlight for sure was working with my wakeforest marketing competition team from 5PM to 2AM. Despite meeting probably half of the team for the first time, it was pretty fun and we worked well together. I think we could do a 36hr marketing marathon without killing each other =). I can't take a lot of credit because Dobo and Pooya where the tech experts but I tried to help with the concept =) (btw everything in there is factual)

http://cumulusconsultants.com

Like other competitions, I didn't care too much if we won or not, I mean it would have been super cool if we did but not the end of the world if we didn't. And the theory holds true but now that I've sunk so much time and effort into it I really want to make it to the finals. I know the chances are slim (it's open to unlimited number of teams from all business schools across the world and there are only 8 places in the finals for a 36hr marathon) but now I really want it. =)

Although I am learning to prioritize, I made the conscious decision today that I didn't need to go to finance at 8AM and that sleep, and trying to fight off this cough, and studying for Business Value for IT were more important. It is a pass/fail course but I will be damned if I fail it... although fairly likely given the little amount I've absorbed =)

Eugene has promised a post and I will continue to remind him =)