TORONTO!!

i went to toronto over thanksgiving break with my cousin bernard. here are some pics!



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Photo sharing by JussPress.com




Photo sharing by JussPress.com




Photo sharing by JussPress.com


oh man all i did was eat! jook, dim sum, chinese desserts, chinese cafe snacks, boba drinks, the list goes on. i spent the whole week in various states of full. the only time i actually felt any type of hunger was in the morning when i woke up. bernard showed me around downtown, we went to all the huge chinese malls, went to read at a book store, went to steven's parent's house where his mom cooked a marvelous meal. she made almond dessert from scratch!!

we talked a lot about bschool stuff. career, internships, treks to other countries. it would nice to do a joint event with MIT. one funny thing is that all the students at MIT gained weight while all the students at Carnegie lost weight. it's cuz us carnegie people study harder! haha...actually bernard was the one studying all during vacation. but it was because carnegie finished all the homework and midterms before break. also bernard was in charge of planning the asia trek so he has a lot more work to do than i do. it was so kool to hang with him after not seeing him for 3 years. it woulda been kool if i had applied to MIT and been in the same class as bernard? actually i found out that MIT had a Biomedical Enterprise Program in which i would get a masters in health from harvard as well as an MBA from MIT. it would have been great on my resume to have that. however then i'd have compete with the 100 plus students in venture capital. over here i'm one of the few into VC. only about 20 students ...if that. Also as a result i got to be first student to talk to vc's that come over to speak to us and they remember me. so maybe it's better to be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond. :)

Burrrrrrill

and why is this name important? it's the name (well kinda) of a biotech merchant company in SF. what's a merchant company? well i'm not exactly sure...but it seems like they do a mixture of mergers and acquisitions. venture capital, and strategic consulting specifically for biotechs. the CEO came to speak to us yesterday. IT WAS AWESOME. barely anyone was there since the times were changed last minute and half the class was in the economics midterm. there was maybe 10 people there at most. which is unfortunate for CMU but great for me! because it meant that he knew who i was when i came in and i got to ask questions and talk to him. every time i go to hear someone speak about VC i get more and more excited. it just sounds like something i'd love to do everyday. and when we get these great speakers...i really get the feeling like i'm meeting a rock star! this CEO helped take companies like genentech and amgen public! he knows the head of the FDA on a first name basis. he asked the prime minister of malaysia for 100 billion like it was nothing! crazy! him and his associates practically invented the term "biotech". he has some very interesting things to say...that pharma will phase out in the next 10 years. pharma??!! large pharma phase out? the reason is because things are moving towards preventive medicine rather than prescriptive. he also said that no matter how great an idea, even with great management, it all depends on what the capital market allows you to do. afterall u can't do anything without funding in biotech. well anyways i won't bore u with the details. my friends look at me like i'm crazy since every time i go to these speakers i get all excited. haha..

the important thing is...this company has internship positions, they are in SF, i was the first student to ask a question, it was a question that seemed to impress him, and so i got his card to email my resume. SCORE!!!!

and the studying goes on...

yet another late nite studying. we had three midterms last week along with a quiz and homework. and we're still not done. a midterm tomorrow, a presentation and finance homework. does it never end??

i suppose i must be a masochist because..i keep asking for more! haha...i just signed up for 5 more classes in mini 3 and 5 more classes in mini 4. among the classes is Venture Capital and Private Equity. This is how the prof describes the class...


Some Cautions and Policies
1) If you choose to take this class, expect a heavy workload. Preparing cases is a lot of effort. In order to benefit from the case-style of this course, you must prepare a detailed analysis of the cases. Therefore, this class will not be available for audit or pass/fail.
2) People often find the ambiguity of cases stressful. There are no right or wrong answers. However, there are good and bad arguments, logic and presentation. Part of the goal of cases is to learn to prepare a logical approach for an ambiguous situation.
3) Due to the structure of the course, the class discussion is crucial. This is reflected in the proposed grading scheme. It is important that you attend each class. Missing a class will lower your grade.
4) All of this sounds a bit harsh. However, I want there to be no misunderstanding. This class is an elective! If you elect to take it, this means you are committed to working hard, in groups, on ambiguous cases.

transformers...more that meets the eye

CLICK ME

student ID number

i have a really kool student ID number. 9 digits. and all it has are 0's, 1's and 8's. asian good luck! :D

midterms

enuf said. :-p

it's official

so it's official. my old company merged with another company. is this good or bad news? well in my opinion we had a great product and great potential. what happened? bad decisions. instead, now there is a merger to a private company that doesn't really have much improved standing. the ceo got a severance, and the founder's stocks are worthless. makes me sad really. i remember when i first started working there. i was so excited to go to work everyday because i felt like what we were doing that was going to become huge. so many late nites spent working to get the product out. it wasn't just me either, everyone was like that. passionate. now...? all we are left with are the memories of when things were good.

i think a lot of people came away from the company feeling bitter. but the thing is, i don't really feel that way. i learned a lot while i was there. about management, about installing and configuring servers, about a product life cycle, about running a company, about people, about friends. those lessons are invaluable to me. i don't think i would have the passion for early stage venture capital like i do now if i hadn't worked there. i wouldn't have become a bo. i wouldn't have worked with a truly great manager like janet. i wouldn't have gotten to gossip in the fishbowl. i wouldn't have spoken my mind to the CEO. my coworkers there would not have become my friends.

life is what you make of it.

blah

i feel blah. it's one of those days that i just want to curl up in my bed. but i can't because i have to go to a conference thingy at 4:30 to see the founding partner of a VC speak. he was rated top (yes, that's number 1 in the world) VC by forbes this year. then at 6 i have another phone meeting with another VC. i should be happy! why do i feel so blah? i think i miss home, miss my fam, miss my hunny, miss my friends back home. :( it was so nice to be home last week. i want to go back!

another thing that's been bothering me. at school people keep making stupid comments about me and my other friends because a lot of the people i hang with are guys. (ok it's impossible to have a ton of girl friends here because there are only 20% girls!) i know i shouldn't be bothered by these comments since it's only because people are very frustrated here when it comes to relationships (considering so few women here) and they just need something to talk about to pass the time. in my head i know that all the talk is silly. but i think i'm bothered because i can't believe people would think it's in my character to cheat on my hunny. one thing i value most about myself...my moral character. and it pisses me off that people would question my character like that. at the same time...those who pick on others only do it because of insecurity. if you give them a reaction, sometimes it only adds more fuel to the fire. people like that are a complete waste of my time since i have many other better things to do. so....with that, i will stop wasting more of my time being mad about this. i've decided and that's that.

one more thing. weedawee where have u been? i miss u! :(

there's no place like home, there's no place like home *click ruby red slippers three times*

went home this weekend finally :)

so nice to be home. and what is the first thing i do when i get home? well...after hugging my parents.( i missed my family so much!) i ate yummy mommy food! hehehe

i had gotten so comfortable at PA that i wasn't all too excited to go home at first. actually, i think i was just dreading the long plane trip. (pit to minnesota to san jose...uggg....) it was all the more excruciating since i had to sit next to a herd rowdy high school kids from Future Farmers of America. Who really wants to be a farmer anyway? and do such things really improve your college app? the only entertaining thing was this boy was obviously had a crush on this girl who he made such a big fuss to sit next to , claiming he need to work on spanish homework with her. only the whole trip he was basically trying to hold her hand. hahaha...at one point there was turbulence and he got to sneak a quick hand hold there. but it didn't last long. hahaha.....

thursday i slept in a whole lot. did some shopping with my mom. saw hunny's new house finally! i LOVE the paint and everything! i didn't know my hunny was such the interior decorator! they even have this really kool pool table and HUGE tv.


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Photo sharing by JussPress.com

friday i renewed my drivers license at the DMV. surprisingly i waited ONLY an hour. haha... all they did was take my fingerprint and take a new picture. relatively painless. i'm surprised they didn't have me retake any tests...but i guess it's ok as long as i don't have too many tickets. i was also supposed to talk to a VC on friday but that had to be rescheduled for next friday. poop. oh wells. better to talk next friday than not at all.

friday nite i had dinner with hunny's family. his dad cooked some yummy crab, halibut, veggies, and pork. i guess he must have known how much i miss seafood. i need to learn more chinese. i know how to speak, but whenever i speak to hunny's parents it always seems like they use words my parents don't use. :-p so i feel so silly since i don't always understand everything they say. after dinner hunny had planned for a get together with a bunch of friends. we basically just hung out at lawrence's, played pool, and chatted all nite long. couldn't have had a better evening with friends. saw karin and caught up on all the recent happenings with scimagix and symyx.

saturday i had dimsum with my family. walked around santana row. then at nite i had dinner with sandy's family to celebrate sandy's and allison's bday as well as ethan's 1 month bday. baby ethan is so cute! i finally got to hold him :) and hunny was so cute...he couldn't wait to hold baby ethan. i wish i could have taken a picture but he wouldn't let me! :-p

I also saw some old HS friends because it was our 10 year high school reunion. i didn't actually go to the reunion because i didn't want to pay 85 dollars and i'm a poor student. most of the people i really talked with are people i normally speak with anyways. hung out with cindy, diana, sabrina and caroline. but it was kool to see rangit, shalini and suken again. it was especially kool to see suken again since i've known him since 4th grade and i haven't talked to him since high school. nice to catch up...things have really changed. he just graduated from harvard MBA and is now a vice president working in private equity. hunny came with me also. it was really nice to have him there to just see all the people i used to hang out with in high school. plus i just miss spending time with hunny so it was very nice to see so much of him. i was also feeling a little poopy...not sure if it was pms or what.

thanks for listening to me hunny. luv u....

A VC called me back!! woo hoo!!

so as most of you know i'm trying to get into venture capital. i know it's very difficult to get in and very competitive...but that won't stop me from trying. so i sent an email to one of the founding partners of kleiner perkins late last nite and he called me back this morning! I was in class though and i wasn't able to hear my phone ring since i had it on silent. :) turns out my old CEO knows him and i was able to drop names in the email. i know it's just a voicemail but i'm SO excited that he called me back! he even seemed very nice in the message and offered to help me with summer internships in biotech. altho i'm not sure if he was aware that i've been working in biotech for the past 3 years already...haha. i told him i used to work at scimagix but i'm sure he's seen so many companies and has just lost track. either way i'm extremely happy he called back. also thanks to cathy and hemingway i have some good leads on speaking to other companies. how exciting! =D

still-- i know i need to talk to as many people as possible since it's not just knowing people, but also being at the right place at the right time. positions don't open up in VC's unless someone retires or they expand into another area. those of you reading...lemme know if you know anyone in the industry. thanks!