Girl and City

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

Browsing the archives for the Away From Home category.

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.

Wanderlust, a curable illness

A few minutes ago, my mother came in to find me looking at a very chaotic map on Google. “What’s that?” She asked.
“Linz, Austria,” I replied calmly.
“What are you doing looking at Austria?” She asked, quite rightly. In fact, I had never given too much thought to Austria. It was just a random country, adjacent to much more exciting places like Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.
“I’m going.” I said.
My mother should have looked at me like I was mad, but instead, she just turned around and walked away. This wasn’t the first time she’d caught me staring at a random piece of the world. Once, it was Shenyang, China, a random industrial city in northern China, not far from the border of North Korea. Another time, it was a gray patch of ice on the tip of Chile and Argentina, called the Patagonia Ice Fields. Another time, it was Palau1, a tiny sliver of island 800 km east of the Philippines.

Admission: to me, Google Maps might as well be Vicodin. It is totally addictive. I could be on it for hours, zooming into random corners of the world, islands, cities, straits, what have you, and then looking them up on Wikipedia. The combination of Google Maps and Wikipedia is like Vicodin and alcohol – beautiful but deadly.

At the ripe age of 21, I have a serious case of wanderlust. This is an illness that makes me want to throw a clean pair of socks and underwear into my backpack, grab my passport, camera, and wallet, and go. This is the type of illness that can only be combated by action, and inability or hesitation to act would paralyze me with the fear that I might never complete my Life List. This is serious business.

It was this overwhelming wanderlust that compelled me to sit down in front of my computer on January 1, 2010, open up Google Maps, zoom out until I had a map of the world, start zooming in until –
I decided: I am going to Europe2

Even writing this entry about my imaginary trip to Europe didn’t help. I need to actually do it. And believe me, I will. On April 15, 2010, I plan to say goodbye to Canada and hello to Europe. Eight countries, eight weeks. It’s on.

Summer 2010 Travel Plans
  1. Or rather Republic of Palau, one of the world’s youngest and smallest sovereign countries according to Wikipedia. [↩]
  2. I have been debating for quite some time whether, after April 10, 2010 when I am officially done school, I should take a trip to Europe or Asia. And Europe won. [↩]

9 comments on this entry so far. Wanderlust, a curable illness was published on January 3rd, 2010, under the Away From Home, Me, Me, Me! category.

Live it up in NYC

Last Thursday, I went to New York for TheConsultingFirm’s “Sell Day”. It is basically a dinner that they invite all offerees (everyone who got an offer) to, and try to convince you to accept the offer. There were also some people there who had already accepted their offer, like me.

Most of the offerees there were vying for the New York office, but I did meet two girls who were also going to Singapore (and had also already signed their offers) < -- potential roommates!

TheConsultingFirm had booked out the second floor of Country, a restaurant in mid-town New York that has received considerable praise since its opening in 2005. Unlike the name, the restaurant was not "country" at all, it was very much the height of cosmopolitan sophistication. The finger-food that came around during cocktail hour was impeccable. There was a particularly memorable lobster pastry that makes me want to go back to New York just for another bite.
After some cocktails, finger-food, and mingling with the consultants and other recruits, we got down to dinner.

The dinner consisted of a butternut squash appetizer, which was smooth with the subtle hint of autumn ingredients. For my entree, I chose the mushroom risotto, which was creamy and very flavourful. For dessert, there was a hazelnut chocolate mousse cake, as well as miniature chocolate fruit cups and dipped chocolate "kabobs".

For everyone who had already signed their offer, or announced that they were going to sign, the firm had prepared an expensive bottle of French champagne. Several consultants hinted to us that we should open up the champagne right there and then, but I wanted to save mine and share it with my parents. After all, I am the most indebted to my parents, and they are the least likely to ever have expensive champagne, whereas I will probably have plenty of opportunity to be wined and dined during my consulting career (in fact, later that very night, some of the partners bought us several bottles of champagne at the afterparty).

At the dinner, one of the consultants who interviewed me in the first-round came up to congratulate me. From her, I learned that not only was I the only one from my school, but also the only one from Canada. There's nothing like the weight of your nation's reputation sitting on your shoulders to make you drink faster. All the other recruits were from top American universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, UPenn, Cornell, MIT, and so on. Ironically, I became the center of attention for being the only Canadian and for coming from a school that few had heard of.
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2 comments on this entry so far. Live it up in NYC was published on November 23rd, 2009, under the Away From Home, Job category.

Photos from New York City

Photos and commentary from my trip to New York City (click to enlarge):




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12 comments on this entry so far. Photos from New York City was published on October 25th, 2009, under the Away From Home category.