a new direction...

things do not change; we change ~ Henry Thoreau

2006-12-29T00:47:00.001-05:00

during the exhausting finals week, the one thing that motivated me through the painful thoughts of "find the profit maximization price for this company," "what is the cost function of firm a," or "what was the significance of the japanese occupation in Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand," etc, was going back home (cali) to see my friends

after my fourth day of my long-awaited arrival, i must say either i have changed or my friends have. here's a brief recap:
one of my friend is now labeled a rapist (long story)
one has not walked into a barbershop in 2 years
most can't live without smoking at least a gram a day
one is an alcoholic now
one constantly praises about his car
one thinks he is going to be a professional poker player next year
etc

i honestly think i am the only sane one left out of the group. i am not sure if i am the one to be blame, throughout high school i knew they were not the most prudent kids in the school but that did not stop me from being friends with them since we played the same sports and shared the same interests. or is it the lack of ambition in them? i hate saying this, but when i see them, i see no future for them. i want to help them, but i do not even know how to break it to them, i have never been good at counseling people since i consider myself a failure at times.

the other day, i was strolling downtown and what not. i have never noticed this, but people in the midwest are much more friendlier than here. the friendly faces are non-existent here. i thought i would never say this, but i miss madison already. the other night, insomnia visited me, i thought about what i wanted to do after i graduate. chicago was the first thing that came to my mind. i think i am going to move there after i graduate. before college started, i was hard-headed about going back to hong kong. but that thought is long gone.

i guess i am the one that haschanged, not my friends, not the people in california, not hong kong but because i have opened myself up to the mid-western life. so get ready for me chicago, 24 credits left for IS major, 16 for Econ...

road to the final four...

2006-10-26T13:36:00.000-04:00

this is our year. we have the talent, the coach (bo ryan), the kohl center, the smallest student section in big ten. i'm talking about our upcoming badger basketball season.

there are four games everyone should pay special attention to, when we go play at marquette, when we host pitt and the two games vs. ohio state in conference play. these games will tell us a lot about our team.

in cbs sportsline rpi, we are currently ranked fourth behind florida, kansas, and north carolina. to be honest, i hate being ranked so high in the preseason, experts and analysts never get anything right. but i'm optimistic about this year. we should easily win big ten, the big ten tournament, and at least an elite eight berth. anything less than that is a embarrassment, a colossal disappointment. but should i have such exceeding expectations, or should i not? i remember two years ago, our football team was destined to go to the rose bowl, all we had to do was win one of our remaining two games versus michigan state or iowa. we lost both games and went to play in a pity bowl game.

our achilles heel this year is our bench, it is inexperienced. finding consistent, reliable scorers besides tucker and "chris rock" will be a dilemma bo ryan would lose his sleep over. oh yea, i just thought of another one. marcus marcus marcus, mr. landry, i'm praying for you, please get above a 2.0, you have all the resources in the world, cheat off my roommate in radiology or whatever if you need to.

if you haven't already been familiar with trevon hughes, well, just wait and see. bo ryan recruited him out of queens, NY. that's enough said, i mean it is NEW YORK! they produce division-1 guards like philly is known for their cheesesteaks. okay that's a bad analogy, but just expect big things from him either this year or next year when chris rock leaves for the nba.

the badgers are no longer the underdogs. in the past six years, the badgers have posted a .656 winning percentage in big ten. this year, i am hoping for to boost that average up to .80 (haha). on the national level, wisconsin has reached the ncaa tourney eight years in a row, finishes in the final four (2000), elite eight (2005, fuck you north carolina), and sweet sixteen (2003). this is the year our expectations will finally match, or exceed their potential. the highest seed we have ever received from the dumb tournament committee is fifth which badgers can easily surpass this year.

it is not secret the badgers have a chance to do something special, very special…LIKE WIN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

if we win the national championship, i'll say screw you internship and go on a scavenger hunt for a traineeship right away after i see bo ryan cutting down the nets in atlanta, georgia, 4/2/2007

the departed vs infernal affairs

2006-10-20T02:44:00.000-04:00

just for clarification:
the departed - american version
infernal affairs - hong kong version

as i promised, my bac would be at probably .2

so tonight, i went to see the departed with my new buddy kristina from aiesec, her friend julia and one of my roommates. my two other roommates went to see it earlier in the week and came back praising how much better the american version was than hong kong’s. for the past two years, we have probably seen over fifty movies together, i thought we pretty much have the same taste. but after tonight, i am going to have to recalculate their standards.

so i was all pumped up to see this movie. when the end credits rolled, i wanted my 8.25 back. the whole premise of the movie was crippled. the movie did not keep me on my toes like the original one. there were a few shots in the departed i felt were poorly shot.

i guess it is unfair to compare the two films because they are meant to target different audiences, different demographics. it is like comparing the book to the movie, the book is always better for some people, vice versa.

just a heads up, i have the infernal affairs with english subtitles if anyone is interested in seeing it.

more pictures...

2006-10-19T19:19:00.000-04:00

here is one of our apartments in hong kong, and the "decent" view

pictures...

2006-10-19T18:59:00.000-04:00

random thoughts...

2006-10-19T02:32:00.000-04:00

first and foremost, i must thank christine karlin for pulling me into this black hole. as i sit here trying to ponder what in the world should i write for my first post, i look at the clock and i realized how irregular my sleep has been in the last several months

i guess writing unorthodox blogs would a nice way to spend my wee hours because i DESPISE sleeping. this is not going to be your typical blog site, i'm going to write many random things when i'm sober, intoxicated, hungry, sleepy, tired, etc

and here it goes...

i spent this past summer in hong kong promoting CSR, although it was an unpaid internship i learned a great deal.

in case you have not noticed, i'm going to be jumping back and forth because as my title states, random as in lacking regularity

so the last few days i've been listening to the same song for about a million times now, it's weird, i can listen to the same song for literally a month without getting sick of it. my roommates hate me for it, i think it's because my speakers are on pretty much 24/7 or simply because i play the same song over and over and over and over again

anyway, back to hong kong, it's a beautiful city, check this picture out
you can ask tanja, sara, max or anyone who has been there how awesome hong kong is, the night life is exhilarating, no words to describe the food - maybe salivating?, shopping paradise, the skyscrapers are simply amazing, the exotic cars you see everyday, the pollution (damn you China)

wow, writing a blog is a lot harder than i thought, since i can't get my head straight right now, shit i have a freaking power lecture tomorrow night, or in six hours, good thing i only need 5-6 hours of sleep now which is really weird since i used to sleep until like 12 everyday last semester

i promise my next post is going to be a lot more organize, i just can't sleep right now, i should probably take like 5 shots in 5 minutes, that would probably do the job

oh yea, i'm going to see the departed tomorrow, it's actually a ripoff of a hong kong film called The Infernal Affairs, i have the dvd if anyone wants to borrow it. from what i heard, the hong kong version is 100x better

so i'm still listening to "that" song, i can't get it out of my head

blah, i need a halloween costume, but i don't want to spend 30 dollars on something that is going to last me two nights. i mean it's 30 dollars, that's like a bottle of kettle one. my utility levels (pardon my economic term) are telling me i should stop going to ragstock at the last second to find second hand clothing to wear

so my roommates and i are bumping up our standards for alcohol this semester, we swore we are not going to drink any more liquor out of plastic bottles (except seagrams), no more macro brews unless it is for beer pong. last weekend, we spent 186 dollars on alcohol, we got 1 1.75 kettle one, 3 bottles of svedka, one bottle of tanqueray, 1 12-pack of berghoff (yum), 30 pack of high life for beer pong, 3 micro brew six-packs, and 18 pack of mgd (the weird roommate refuses to buy micro brew)
don't worry, we did not drink it all, in fact, it should last us until halloween

wow, i'm finally getting tired, high five to that

So i'm still in awe when i think about pat tillman, in case you do not know who he is, he was a former nfl player who gave up a 3.6-million dollar contract to serve as a ranger in iraq and afghanistan - RIP Tillman

so i'm pretty pumped up about my international studies 301 paper, the prof gave us a list of books we can pick from to read about, and the first book on the list is The World is Flat. guess what? i read that book over the summer!!! chang ching

so one of my roommates turned 21, and now i'm jealous because i still have 8 more months
and he just got back from ho-chuk, loud as hell

i warned you this is not an ordinary blogsite

alright, this was fun, i shall continue with this madness tomorrow when my bac level is at .2