I finally got the chance to try out the new Apple iPod Nano while window shopping at the Apple Store in Cambridge last Thursday. My first impression of the iPod Nano is that it is similar to the iPod Mini with the following distinctive differences:

1. Size wise, both the iPod Mini and Nano have the same height and width, but the iPod Nano is much thinner than the Mini version.
2. The iPod Nano has a color screen while the iPod Mini only has a B/W screen.
3. The iPod Nano has a bigger screen than that of iPod Mini.
4. Because of the bigger color screen, the iPod Nano can be used for viewing photos.

I thought that the iPod Mini was great, but I have to admit that I now drooling over iPod Nano.

9/19/2005 10:57:56 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Mac

Immediately after the Thompson Island Outward Bound trip, I flew to Detroit to attend Joanna and Zac's wedding. It has been 8 years since I last stepped foot on in Michigan. The last time I was in Michigan was the attendance of my commencement at Kettering University in 1997. I instantly felt the nostalgic memories of my undergrad days as soon as I arrived in Detroit airport. Siobhan, Steve, and Milt, who were still hung over from the previous night's party that they hosted in their hotel room came to the airport to pick me up. Once I got into the car, I was immediately updated with anecdotes from last night's social activity, which was apparently raved by many wedding guests to be a hugely successful occasion. Determined to maintain our good reputation as the wedding's most prolific party organizers, we stocked up on booze on our way back to the hotel to prepare for another great night of partying in our room.

Joanna and Zac's wedding was held in the beautiful Cranbrook House in Bloomfield Hills, MI. The matrimony was charming with a few moments of witty humor and wisdom from the rabbi. It was also fun meeting new people at the wedding, especially the ones that I have heard so much about from Joanna but have never met in person. Perhaps I was exhausted from the Thompson Island trip and the new school schedule, I was a little less than my usual energetic, genial self.

In any case, the post wedding party in our hotel room was a hit with a good showing of new wedding guests and the usual suspects from the night before. All in all, I had a fantastic time. As I reflect on the wedding while writing this blog, I think I have now achieved considerable "zen" from attending the wedding and partying with my partners-in-crime, Siobhan, Steve, and Milt. This is good. So, to my partners-in-crime, thanks for good times. We have to do this again - soon. Of course, to Joanna and Zac, thanks for having me at the wedding. Again, best wishes to the both of you.

9/19/2005 12:21:42 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [2]

Personal

As part of the team building and leadership development in the TPP program, all incoming TPP students are required to register for the Leadership Seminar that is taught by Prof. Dava Newman - the director for the TPP program. The highlight of this Leadership Seminar includes a trip to Outward Bound on Thompson Island. There, I was assigned to a 10 member team, which consist of Jen, Jasmine, Liz, Yoko, Yoshi, Matt, Loic, Bob, Richard, and me. Being in the military, scouts, and Outward Bound in my younger days, both as a participant and instructor (more as a participant than an instructor), I am familiar with the format of the exercises that the instructors at Outward Bound Thompson Island had our team do. However, it is always still refreshing to still be participating in the team-based exercises because to do well and to reap the benefits of these exercises is to go through the problem solving as a team. To this end, our team performed really well. But importantly, we stimulated a lot of learning and developed camaraderie on the team The experience last Friday and Saturday was definitely a great way to soak up the TPP experience. .

9/18/2005 11:14:32 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

School

It seems like fall is a time when on-campus recruiting is in full swing. In other words, many prospective companies are on campus making presentation of their company and interviewing students. Almost all companies also provide food treats when you attend their presentation event. Being a glutton that I am, this makes the first half of the fall semester my favorite time of the year. Thanks to Kevin, I have now obtain a list of on-campus company presentations. This should sustain me for a while.

9/15/2005 9:52:31 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

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School

After writing the last blog entry, I still help but to continue lament my old age. I am think I am suffering another bad case of mid-life crisis. Sigh...

9/15/2005 9:51:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Personal

In the SDM program, where the median age is about 31, my age lies somewhere in the middle percentile. Whereas in the TPP program, I am ranked the second oldest person in my cohort. Yikes... I have never felt this old until my matriculation to the TPP program, although conversely I am feeling mighty proud of my experience and wisdom. I can finally empathize what Milt and Camille meant when they said: "I was in high school when they were born." Indeed, one of my TPP classmate just turned 21 a week ago. 21 years ago, I was just a freshman in high school!!! Here's another scary thing, almost half of the incoming TPP students have less than 2 years of work experience with many coming straight from undergraduate programs. Yep, this means that I have more work experience in years than some of my fellow students have internship experience in months.

Enough of lamenting on my old age, there are advantages of being old. I am more mature, financially secured, and wiser. Moreover, it is always refreshing to get different perspectives from the younger minds during class discussion. Despite the age disparity, I don't feel any older than my fellow TPP classmates. For those who don't know me, I am always the young-at-heart. For a change, it is good to actually to immerse with a group of people who are more energetic and sociable.

9/13/2005 6:52:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [6]

School

Yoav has posted on his blogsite a reference to Ivan Tribble's article on the detrimental effects of blogging have on job hunting.

I agree with Ivan's arguments to the extent that every blogger should be tactful and blog with the notion that his/her thoughts are now in public domain. However, I see that blogging is still a good way of maintaining an online presence. Regardless of audiences, search committee or job recruiter notwithstanding, a blog is still a good medium to gain insights to someone's thoughts, personality, and wit. So potential employer, read this blog to your heart's content.

9/12/2005 6:07:38 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Blog

I pleasantly surprised how many people actually visit and read my blog on a regular basis. From MIT, I have a growing legion of regular readers from my SDM cohort. Fellow SDMers like Yoav and Ilana literally got cranky with me if I didn't update my blog for more than 3 days. Well, guys... That's the highest compliment a blogger can get. Thanks for reading.

There are other surprises as well. Recently, I was approached by staff from both Sloan and ESD explicitly asking me for the url of this website so that they, too, can start reading my blog. There are also friends like Ramey, Eimear, Siobhan, Steve, Fanny, etc who now know more about me than I do of them. Last but not least, I have heard from a few people who read my blog because they appreciate my insights to MIT and the SDM program. I wonder who else besides those that I have mentioned read my blog on a fairly regular basis? You can always leave a comment on this blog entry.

9/12/2005 5:35:55 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [3]

Blog

Last Saturday, I attended Rachel and Noah's wedding ceremony. I have known the couple for a while and I happy that they are finally married. I wish them all the best in their journey together. Here's a picture of Milt and me offering Noah our congratulatory gestures.

9/12/2005 12:25:01 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

Personal

Interesting... Randal Pinkett, a 98 graduate of our sister program LFM, was selected to the upcoming season of the Apprentice. According to Tina, a former classmate of Randal and a colleague of mine, Randal was a hotshot back when he was student at MIT. Indeed, his profile was remarkable. Well, Randal you gave me a reason to watch the Apprentice this fall. Just bring home the bacon. God speed Randal, God speed...

9/7/2005 10:18:48 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [1]

School

Here's a quick blog before the next networking event at MIT. I am just wasting time before the pub crawl event at Walker Memorial in 15 minutes. So much had happened since I last blogged but I am simply have no time to chronicle them all. School hasn't officially started and I am already feeling like I am running like a chicken with its head cut off. Yikes... This is the time of the year when the school is full of energy.

The turnout for the Labor Day Sports event that I organized yesterday was so-so. Only 14 people showed up to play Ultimate Frisbee. It was disappointing at first, but as it turns out the smaller number of people did made the event more enjoyable and fun. Incoming PhD candidate Andrew from Ocean Engineering (or course 13 in MIT lingo) was extremely helpful in organizing the Ultimate Frisbee game. He was more effective as a leader and organizer than I was. Thanks Andrew.

Sorry for the incoherent writing. Ooooo.... It's almost 8pm already. Time for pub crawl.

9/6/2005 8:12:50 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

School

I have finally tasted the mythical Kobe beef last night at Grill 23. Yes, it is as good as they claim it to be, very tender and melts in your mouth. Yummy... (More later...)

9/3/2005 7:25:25 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Food

This is surreal. Almost a year ago, National Geographic ran this article, which accurately predicted the consequences of major human-induced catastrophe if a hurricane were to strike head on to the Bayou.

9/2/2005 4:05:41 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Internet

So upset I was with the Sloan picture book that I went to talk to Ted about my dissatisfaction. From my conversation with Ted, I found out that I was wrong about my assumptions in my previous rant. Sorry, I was wrong. It wasn't Sloan's fault that SDM wasn't included in the picture book. It was us, the SDM students, who are to be blamed. A majority of us had failed to update our profile description on Sloanspace (a website) despite 2 earlier emails notifying us to do so. Due to the lack of information, the administration decided at the last minute to pull the SDM section off the picture book.

I even more upset by this new revelation. What a disgrace that we can't even get our act together to follow simple instructions to update our profile on the website.

9/1/2005 12:45:08 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [7]

Rants

While visiting the LFM-SDM office to check on my mail after TPP orientation, I discovered the freshly minted Sloan picture book of 2005. But when I opened the book, I couldn't find a single picture of anyone from my SDM cohort. I flipped the book multiple times but I only found pictures of students from the MBA, Sloan Fellows, Undergraduate, and Doctoral programs. I know this may sound trivial to some people, but I am really upset by this lack of representation of SDM in the Sloan picture book. Isn't the SDM program a part of Sloan? This is yet another incident that confirms the bigger pattern of the SDM program as being a second class citizen at Sloan. We often have to operate in "guerilla" mode to get around the limited Sloan elective that every SDM students are constrained with. Not to mention that we get ZERO assistance from Sloan career placement office. I can continue ranting but I am going to restrain myself for now.

In closing, I have this personal observation to share. The SDM program is a joint degree program between Sloan and ESD. So all SDM students are technically part of both Sloan and ESD. I have observed that even with the lack of goodwill and respect from Sloan, most SDM students will more likely identify themselves as students from Sloan than from ESD. All this despite that the fact that ESD holds the SDM program on a higher pedestal, hosts the SDM office in its building, and provides administrative and logistical services to SDM students. I guess the Sloan brand name is hard to beat, huh.

9/1/2005 12:49:13 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [5]

Rants

I attended the first day of the TPP orientation earlier today where I was introduced with students, staff, and faculty members. There is a total of 40 students for the TPP class entering 2005. The age of incoming students are between the ages of 20 to 35 while professional experience ranges from 0 to 12 years, with a few who came straight from undergraduate programs. 40% of the students are female, a far cry from SDM (my other degree program) where female represents only 6.25% of the students. Compared to other degree programs in ESD which are oriented more for professionals, TPP is a research-based degree program. One point that was reiterated in the orientation is that the TPP master thesis is research intensive and almost all TPP students get some form of Research Assistantship (RA) during their stay at MIT. The official amount of time required for an RA varies between 20-30 hours per week. Financially, an RA is really not a bad deal considering how expensive tuition at MIT is these days. Tuition is always covered and stipends can vary depending on the research program or department. According to one source, it averages out to about $1,500 per month after taxes. Not a bad deal at all.

8/31/2005 11:38:14 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

School

Now that I am concurrently pursuing two degrees within ESD, I have to come out with a thesis topic with content that integrates the system engineering and/or management aspect of the SDM program with the policy aspect of the TPP program. Furthermore, I am beginning to feel that I should exploit my thesis as a key determinant of getting a job in think tanks and consulting firms. During the 2-hour drive to the Ikea store in New Haven last Saturday, I contemplated deeply on the thesis topic with the new focus and purpose. A possible thesis topic that I have in mind is one that is based on economic competitiveness, specifically how the business environment is affected by government policy and a nation's infrastructure like education, transportation, and finance. I like the direction where my thesis proposal is going. In the next few weeks, I need to narrow down my topic further.

8/30/2005 12:46:19 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [4]

School

I am a huge fan of Ikea furniture and I have always longed for an Ikea store that within reasonable driving distance of Boston. The good news is that my wish is finally answered with a new Ikea store slated to be opened in Stoughton, a 20 minute drive from Boston. The bad news: it won't be opened till the end of November. Having a need for furniture for my new new apartment, I drove 2 hours to the Ikea store in New Haven last Saturday. I got a lot of stuff that I had wanted to get and even picked up gifts for 2 weddings that I will be attending next month. Notwithstanding the long hours of driving, it was a productive day for me. Unfortunately, I pulled a muscle while lifting a package at the Ikea parking lot. The back still hurts today despite spending the past 2 days nursing it. I have to remind myself that my back isn't as strong as it was 5 years ago. Alas, the consequence of growing old.

8/29/2005 11:20:18 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)

Comments [0]

Personal