Christmas in New York (Long Overdue)

I know this post is highly highly overdue, but here we go. Spending a month in nyc over christmas was a truly amazing experience. The grime kills your oxfords(I had to spend $60 reconditioning them), I'm positive that there's a dead human body at the Bleecker subway stop, and you hear incessant sirens as you try to go to bed at night. You can't sleep in peace at night, you can't walk down the streets without constantly being somewhat on the edge, and you can't talk public transportation without silently cursing the screech of the trains that maniacally thunder past. I love it. There is a constant sense of edginess coupled with a vibe of unending excitement and dissatisfaction that seems strangely appealing and homely to me.

Dance Off

The following was played just before my corporate strategy class. Hilarious stuff.

Business Major, Well and Proper

I realize that it has been a while since I last recorded inane verbatim on this space. Forgive the tardiness, but life in New York and settling into classes back in school have kept me rather busy. Since starting school, I have come to realize that there really isn't much difference between spending 8 hours a day walking from cupcake store to cupcake store and spending the same amount of time walking from class to class while doing case readings and replying emails in between. In fact, I have rather come to enjoy it. Constantly being on top of things, and actually having things to be on top of (for lack of a better expression), gives me a sense of fulfillment, although I know that it's an artificial one and that alone will not be able to sustain me.

I have also come to the conclusion that under the current weather conditions, it is not worth being a business student here. I have spent the last 4 days wearing a suit under a trenchcoat /peacoat, and by golly are those 3 layers excessively insufficient. Walking to class when it is -23 outside requires alot more insulation than that. I'll have to gorge myself to the weight of an average american and build up a layer of blubber thick enough to insulate a london bus in order to keep warm. Now imagine what it would take to get sunny old Singapore to freeze over. Well, after that happens, stretch your imagination a little more and create a situation where the Singapore that has frozen over is in actuality as hot and humid as it originally was at O degrees celcius. Imagine it going down another 30 degrees again to get it to freeze over once more. You get the idea of what I have to deal with everyday now.

Being the analytical and sharp business major that I am, I have come to realize as well, that racism nothing but the action of treating nominal data as ordinal data or in worse-case scenarios, ratio level data. However, the assumption here of course, is that there are truly no desirable qualites that are unique to the subjects belonging to the different categories that have been formed and designated as nominal that might provide a basis of comparison. Kudos to statistical analysis.

Merry Christmas.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

TED

It's a week to my finals, but i'm incredibly distracted. My only consolation is that in my distraction, I hope that I'm enriching other aspects of my life as well. Let me introduce you to ted.com.

"We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other." - ted.com



It's not just the case for Africa. Ayittey's controlled outburst towards the incumbents of the continent powerfully and incisively analyzes and deconstructs the corrupted co-dependence of poverty, the abuse of power and despot authoritarianism that is evident in many of our neighbours as well. More than that, he pleads, nay, yells for change in the generation that is to come. This is the future of development. Consultants, offer expertise to governments and state-owned enterprises that define such developing economies. Bankers, create monetary systems that provide locals opportunities to rise above their poverty. The advancement of the nations would spell out an immense amount of wealth for the private sector as well.

Do your part. If not now, then in time to come.

To all drunken mistakes, hook-ups of delusion and times that we wished we had chosen to stay home instead. dayumm.



Memories of MOS, a buddy and a certain transverstite. Good times.

Words of wisdom

Word of advice for the day: Never play leapfrog with a unicorn.