Girl and City

Coming-of-age story about a girl and her city.

Browsing Girl and City blog archives for January, 2010.

University rivalry, I-bankers, and alcohol

So I had an utterly exhausting weekend. Mostly because I slept about 10 hours in total since Thursday. Coffee saved me. Every. Single. Day.

I had a conference in The City the last few days. In order not to miss class, I went to an 8:00AM class on Thursday morning, then got on the train for The City. On the train, I ran into a classmate who was also heading into The City for interviews (it’s summer recruiting season for him). I had wanted to sleep on the train, but no luck. Instead, he spent two hours running his mouth off about all the interviews he had1. When I got off the train, I wanted to take a taxi to the hotel, because I didn’t want to walk the two blocks with my luggage. Yeah, I was tired and lazy. But the taxi driver wouldn’t take me! He said it was too close, I should just walk. So he literally dumped me on the sidewalk.

By the time I arrived at the hotel, the cocktail reception had already started. I checked into my room to realize that I had roommates. Three roommates, no less. Was this a joke?
When I realized the conference organizers weren’t joking, that I was expected to share a bed with a complete stranger, I was not amused. Two of my roommates were in first year, and my bed-mate was in fourth year. They were all from the commerce program of The Other University.
I quickly staked my claim by unpacking my stuff over as much area as possible (their shit seemed to have exploded all over the hotel room and bathroom counter – although I should have expected that when I realized there were going to be four girls sharing one very small bathroom), and changed into a business casual dress for the reception.

At the reception, I realized that of the 100 delegates, about 15 were external delegates (including myself). That means that only 15 people were from another university, and the rest of the 85 people were from The Other University. The Other University and The Business School are rivals, so I tried to avoid the question, “So what school are you from?” lest the mob descend on me on the first night.
It got worse. I also realized that most of the delegates were first and second year students. I was probably one of four upper-year students.
Let me explain the gravity of the situation. I was in enemy territory, surrounded by nearly 100 people who did not go to my school and did not like my school. I was also surrounded by nearly 100 people who were barely of age and were running around asking for fake IDs so they could go to the evening bar festivities. They were so naive that they had no idea what the difference between finance, accounting, and consulting were, and was under the delusion that they could get a career in any industry they wanted. I wanted to strangle them.
Suffice to say, this was not my scene. (more…)

  1. He had literally gotten every single interview. He had second rounds from every single investment bank as well as the top three consulting firms. This kid was impressive. [↩]

8 comments on this entry so far. University rivalry, I-bankers, and alcohol was published on January 25th, 2010, under the Away From Home category.

Will you have my baby?

During dinner with my high school friends over the holidays, an interesting question popped up.

“SG, will you be a surrogate for me?” OBF asked me.
Somehow, we had started talking about surrogacy, which is defined by Wikipedia as: “a method of reproduction whereby a woman agrees to become pregnant and deliver a child for a contracted party.” It is important to note, however, that (at least in Canada), it is against the law to compensate (in monetary or other terms) a surrogate mother. That is to reduce potential abuse of someone offering a large sum of money for someone else to be a surrogate. So, in Canada, you would have to volunteer to be a surrogate without receiving anything in return. My friends were debating whether that was fair, given that you would have to be either incredibly nice or incredibly empathetic or both to volunteer to carry someone’s baby for nine months and risk complications related to pregnancy and giving birth.

I was not actively participating in this discussion when OBF suddenly turned to me and asked, “If MS and I can’t conceive, would you be willing to be our surrogate?”

I spat out my drink and laughed. Then, when I realized she was asking in earnest, I practically shouted, “Um, NO! I don’t even want to carry my own baby, why would I want to carry someone else’s?!”
Her eyes widened. There was suddenly silence around the table as everyone’s face matched hers. Wait, did I say something wrong? Did they honestly think I was going to say, “Yes! Please let me be your baby incubator!”?

“Really?” She asked disbelieving, as if I would change my mind on second thought. “If there was something wrong with my uterus, you wouldn’t have my baby?” Her eyes were so wide I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets.
“Well…” I chuckled awkwardly, “I hope it doesn’t come to that. I mean, I hope you and MS are both healthy and fertile.” Then I added, “If you want to be.”
Still, no one said a word.
I looked around the table. If wanting a baby and being physically equipped to have one was the equation for happiness in their mind, I didn’t want to leave anyone out. So I extended my wish to everyone as an afterthought, “I hope you’re all fertile, if you want to be.”

It was awkward. Oh, it was awkward.

Luckily, someone started to chuckle and relieved me of the spotlight.

But seriously, pregnancy? Not on my list of things I have to experience in life, thankyouverymuch. Even if I wanted a baby, I would probably adopt. So why in the world would I volunteer to be someone else’s baby incubator, even if the couple in question were my oldest friends? There are a lot of things I am willing to do for my friends – hold their hair up when they’re throwing up, go along with their crazy plans to seduce an older/married/otherwise unavailable man, make comfort food for them when they’re sad, and even go skydiving if that’s what it takes to cheer them up – but I will not have their baby, no sirree.

What are your thoughts on surrogacy? Would you have your best friend’s baby if she asked you to?

26 comments on this entry so far. Will you have my baby? was published on January 18th, 2010, under the Friends, Random Shit category.

Hopelessly bad at courtship

Classes have started, although that is not as ominous as it sounds. Last semester, I had to take a couple mandatory courses that were dreadfully boring, but this semester is all electives. So in order to pick ones that I will actually enjoy (it is my last opportunity to get a bang for my buck tuition-wise), I registered myself in eight courses even though I am only allowed five. So after I went to the first class of each, I had to cut three. The result? I have an excellent schedule and some very interesting classes.

One of my classes is called “Global Strategy,” taught by a Taiwanese professor with a very thick Chinese accent. Half the time, I can’t understand what he’s saying, and I’m Chinese! It doesn’t help that listening to him speak makes me want to laugh. I can’t even hold it in, it’s that bad. His accent is so classically Asian, he can’t pronounce ses for the life of him, and he kind of makes up his own sounds when he doesn’t know exactly how something is pronounced. Like “strategy” comes out sounding like “training” – I mean, how do you even do that?
But even without the accent, he is a very amusing professor. In our first class, he was trying to convince us of the necessity of this class by showing us the extent of globalization (foreigners invading our home environment even if we don’t have any intention to go abroad).
“You wake up in the morning, you put on your underwear, made in China. You put on your jeans, made in Bangladesh. You put on your t-shirt, made in Pakistan. You drive to school in your car made in Japan. You buy a coffee, imported from Columbia. And then you get to class and you realize, your professor is imported from Taiwan!” (Imagine this whole monologue with a thick Chinese accent, the kind that Russel Peters imitates.)

Anyway, other than school, I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to get things back on track with PLB. I knew a month-long break at the start of a (potential) relationship would be hazardous, and I was completely right.
Actually, it’s more my fault that his. Ever since we came back from the holidays, I have been really awkward around him. It’s not like I want to be, but I just get really nervous around him, because now we are both fairly aware that we like each other1. He was in my first class when I came back, and I didn’t prepare myself at all for that, so I barely acknowledged him there and left right after class. The second morning (we had the same class again), he did come over to talk to me, but I wasn’t really helping the conversation and avoided his eyes the whole time. The same sort of thing happened over and over again as we ran into each other over the next few days; I would be too nervous to flirt or say something remotely interesting, even if I told myself not to freeze up.
I was hopeless, and my awkwardness was going to ruin this!

Last night, I decided to try to redeem myself. I was going to Zee’s going-away party2, and afterward, DG and I were going to The Club (the club that The Business School students go to every Thursday night). He was going to be there, that much I knew. So I drank, a little bit more and a little bit faster than normal, at the going-away party, so I was sufficiently drunk (but not sloppy) by the time we got to The Club. He was one of the first people we ran into, but it was in passing so I didn’t get to talk to him. The rest of the night I spent switching between the dance floor and the table where he was sitting. But every time I went to their table, some guy I knew would spot me and come over to talk to me. Many of them were my classmates from last year, so we’d always be very excited to see each other (one guy even picked me up and twirled me around – he’s really strong). I don’t know how it looked to PLB, that every time I sat down, a new guy would come to the table. Somehow, I wasn’t sure the jealousy card was a viable strategy for me at that point. In between guys, I tried to have a conversation with him, but it was hard with the loud music. I did find it more easy to talk to him, and flirt, now that I had lost my nervousness. But still, he did not make a move.

DG got frustrated and decided that I needed to redeem my self-respect, so she dragged me away from him for nearly an hour. When we went to the washroom, we ran into him at coat-check. He was leaving?!
I waited outside the washroom for DG so that he would have an opportunity to talk to me. He did come over, explaining how he had an interview the next day so he didn’t want to party too hard tonight. Understandable, but I was still disappointed. We hugged a couple times, but he seemed no more interested in me than any other guy I’d seen that night.

DG was more upset that PLB left than I was. “What the hell is wrong with him?” She shouted, a little too loudly. A guy nearby overheard us and said, “Forget him. I would never ditch a girl like you.” I rolled my eyes as a signal for him to move on3. Why was it that, today of all days, when the last thing I felt like was hooking up with a random guy, guys would hit on me so aggressively? Even the cab driver had offered to go out with me to “make that guy jealous.” (Yeah, I was pretty creeped out. I mean, obviously cab drivers eavesdrop, but isn’t it a cardinal rule to pretend not to be able to hear the passengers? Much less getting yourself involved and hitting on a girl at least ten years your junior?)
“Come on, let’s go get you a guy,” DG said as she dragged me to the dance floor.
“But I don’t want a guy,” I whined, although I didn’t think she heard me.

In the end, DG found a guy, and I went home alone. Am I really that pathetic? I guess I am.

  1. God, I hope so. Because if I’m just making things up in my head again, I am going to feel like a huge fool. [↩]
  2. She’s going to Australia for medical school at the end of the week. [↩]
  3. Later, that guy found me on the dance floor and I literally had to push him away and tell him, “I don’t want to dance with you!” before he got the message. [↩]

9 comments on this entry so far. Hopelessly bad at courtship was published on January 15th, 2010, under the Alcoholic, Dating & Relationships, School category.

Epic Scavenger Hunt

Last night was epic. Seriously, it was one of those nights that I will always look back on fondly and say, “Remember that time when…”
As a result of last night, that sentence can end in one of the following ways:

  • Remember that time when… I snuck into a hotel, into their men’s staff change room (and shower room), looking for a mini bottle of shampoo?
  • Remember that time when… we got a mango?
  • Remember that time when… I asked a stranger to text me the phrase “wo shi yi ge long xia” (I am a lobster, in pinyin Chinese).
  • Remember that time when… we broke into a closed salon to take a picture of their Engrish sign?
  • Remember that time when… we went looking for a BMW 7 series?

So late last night, I met up with MFL, AHB, and EN at a popular bubble tea cafe1 This place was packed, as if all the Asians in the city had come out that night. It took me forever to find a parking spot. Unsurprisingly, the lot was filled with a lot of high-end Japanese and European cars. We Asians love showing off our cars, and this was apparently the place to be seen with one.
After bubble tea, we had trouble deciding what to do next, as usual. After discussing for nearly an hour, someone came up with a brilliant idea. “Let’s do a scavenger hunt! In our cars!” The idea snowballed. Soon, we had split into two teams of two and were off.
I was with AHB, driving a BMW X5, unsurprisingly. We had 15 minutes to do each challenge (which is not a lot of time when we’re driving and the roaming area is unlimited), and we were to call the other team as soon as we had completed a challenge. The losing team got to decide the next challenge.

That was how, in the middle of the night, I found myself running into Asian restaurants, asking for a mango.
We finally spotted a juice shop in one of the plazas and ran in, only to find the other team had beat us there. The lady behind the counter looked utterly confused as we tried to explain to her, while interrupting the other team, that we were playing a game and that she needed to give us a mango, and not to the other guys. Finally, she sold us a mango for $2.

For another challenge, we had to try to get a stranger to text us the phrase “Wo shi yi ge long xia” (I am a lobster). I ran into the bubble tea cafe we were at earlier, spotted a guy with a group of friends, quickly explained that we were playing a scavenger hunt and could he text me a phrase? He, and his friends, looked at me like I was crazy, but at least they were slightly more amused than the juice lady. With relief, I saw that he had pulled out his phone and was starting to text. He sent me the message in Cantonese, but it was good enough. Later, MFL said I had a natural advantage with that challenge, being a girl. I guess he was right.

AHB and I also had to sneak into a hotel to look for a mini bottle of shampoo. We lost that challenge though, the other team went to a convenient store and found a mini bottle of shampoo tied to a big bottle of shampoo.

Photographic evidence from last night:
Engrish - we had to look for a misspelling The 'I am a lobster' text in Cantonese

At the end of the night, we decided this was an awesome idea and we should do it again with more people and more cars. However, there is the possibility that we won’t all be together in The City at the same time (ever again, gasp), so we decided that we could turn this into a larger scale worldwide scavenger hunt. For example, we’d each come up with five challenges and post them online to compile a full list. They would have to be challenges we could do anywhere in the world2 – for example, it couldn’t be take a picture in a rainforest, because not everyone will have access to a rainforest, but it could be take a picture with a family of eight (although this will be more likely in some places of the world, but it’s a given that any given challenge will afford advantages to people in a different parts of the world). We would then have one year to try to complete as many on the list as possible, posting photographic evidence each time we’re done. And the prize for winning? We would have to meet up in a location of the winner’s choosing.

All in all, it was a very memorable night. However, coming home at 2am with a mango was tricky to explain to my parents…

  1. Asians don’t go to bars in the middle of the night, we go to bubble tea cafes. [↩]
  2. After graduation, I will be in Singapore, or wherever I am for consulting, AHB will probably be in Hong Kong, EN will be in Toronto, and MFL will be somewhere in the U.S. (wherever he gets in for medical school). [↩]

16 comments on this entry so far. Epic Scavenger Hunt was published on January 10th, 2010, under the Friends, Random Shit category.