Life on the Hill Blogs: http://www.cornell.edu/studentlife/blogs/

My Cornell Blog: http://blogs.cornell.edu/phoebe/

And since I have an obligation to write at least twice a week, the entries won’t be as sparse as here on Ivy Years. This also means I will no longer be updating this blog (at least until I graduate). Hope you join me on my new venture.

I am home.

These past several months have been both exciting and overwhelming at times. I managed to drag my suitcases out of England and move into my tiny little flat in Soho. Before I knew it, training was underway and all a hundred of us were put into a ballroom at the Marriott in the Financial District. Fast forward a few weeks, I’m at my cubicle jamming away on a model and putting together a book. In between the coffee runs, Seamless dinners in the conference rooms, 1 AM drinks, and insane amount of ping pong, we the interns became a part of this world that have been mysterious for so long.

I learned three valuable things this summer

1) Banking lingo
2) Excel shortcuts
3) And the fact that I want to do investment banking in M&A for two years when I graduate

I’m going to miss everyone I worked with this summer quite a bit.

Now that I’m back in Vancouver, it’s time to recuperate and just spend time with the people I love. Senior year starts in just over a week. Jeezes. Getting old.

“Def identifying with: 1) word counting 2) hating everything i write 3) working at random speeds 4) being inconveniently tired 5) exploring the fridge to procrastinate 6) “in just two days”" – Syd.

I see you. I see you at your desk with a stack of names – candidates with seemingly-flawless resumes and stellar academic credentials. By this point you may have become bored with the monotonous process of Googling names. Or you may be Facebooking your potential interns and gleefully chuckling to yourself as you come upon some blurry shot of said intern doing a keg stand while making a lewd gesture to scantily-clad female cohorts who are in compromising positions.

As a freelance web designer and a (very eager) future intern, I have an especially great interest in my online reputation, which is why I had my hesitations about this blog entry. You see Dear Potential Employers, I have picked up a hobby while I’m here in England. While not exactly self-destructive or harmful to society, this hobby has the potential to burn holes through my wallet, make my evenings go by in a hazy blur, and raise questions about my status as an alcoholic. The hobby? I am currently a card-carrying member of the Oxford Wine Tasting Society.

At the beginning of term, a friend of mine suggested joining the Wine Society here. At first I thought this was a bit unnecessary, because 1) tequila is cheaper* 2) my palate isn’t that perceptive or sensitive and I will probably mistaken a Chateau Mouton Rothschild – Pauillac 2000 vintage for a £5 watered-down bottle from the Tesco supermarket  3) I’ll be taking HADM4430 – Intro to Wines at Cornell next year anyway. My skepticism eventually gave in to curiosity and I went to my first tasting: Introduction to Alsace.

* This is a joke.

A tasting session at Oxford is neither the stuffy hoity-toity scene you imagine nor… okay who am I kidding, wine tasting can be pretty darn pretentious. The meetings usually take place at Merton College and go on for about 2.5 hours. Each session revolves around a geographic region – we’ve done the aforementioned Alsace, Lebanese, Chilean, Rioja, Burgundy etc.so far – and is led either by an expert from the winery/region or the Bacchus Society’s president, the lovely Alex Linsley. The talks are very educational actually – we learned about growing conditions, wine-making traditions, the peculiarities of each vintage, and more.

Upon learning about my new-found obsession, my Oxford tutor for International Economics actually suggested that I do a paper on the wine trade and international wine regulation! THIS IS WHY I LOVE OXFORD. For research, my tutor gave me a DVD of the award-winning film about wine, Mondovino, and told me to go to the grocery store and buy a bottle from every major wine-producing region. Needless to say, my 3000 word essay was a tipsy masterpiece.

Over the course of Hilary term, my roommate and I have accumulated a large number of wine bottles. I was horrified to have this shelf collection pointed out to me one day when I was Skyping with my parents. However, my dad was VERY excited that I joined Bacchus and promptly told me he actually just bought a wine fridge. Here’s a screenshot haha:

During Easter break, we took this wine obsession one step further and went to Bordeaux to have St. Emilion wine (now that’s a whole story on its own). C’est la vie.

So Dear Potential Employer, when you come across my resume and see that I have listed “wine” as an item under “Activities, Skills, and Interests”, do not be alarmed. After all, wine – while I’m legal in the UK – fits under all three categories of “Activities, Skills, and Interests.”

Warm regards,

Phoebe

P.S. – Here are some wonderful blogs I found and now follow =)

• Dr. Vino – The author, Tyler Colman, is pretty prominent in the wine world. He wrote one of the books I read for my Intl Econ tutorials! His writing is accessible and to-the-point.
• WSJ On Wine – “Incisive criticism and accessible advice on the world of wine”
• Jamie Goode’s Wine Blog – Expect lots of pictures and tasting notes!
• The Terroirist – The name of this blog refers to terroir, a French word that holds particular significance for winegrowers. The terroir is basically the belief that the micro-climate, soil, wine-making techniques etc. all contribute to the composition of the wine.  The entire French system of appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) for wine classification is based on terroir.
• Sociology of Wine – fascinating background into this dynamic industry

I wholeheartedly agreed with the speech; yet the ironic thing is, I stopped reading it halfway to share the link on Twitter and Tumblr and “like” the friend’s post that led me to it. It’s a behavior I’ve noticed when I try to do anything productive online. I start the work night by opening a PDF about the economics of regulatory agencies, and half an hour later I’m browsing someone’s Facebook pool party album from July 2007 and there are four other windows open with Twitter, some half written email draft, and a random video. The motion of “Ctrl + Tab + fa… + Down Arrow + Enter” no longer requires any thought but instead is a reflex on my fingers. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but when I’m trying to crank out essays, every time there is a pause or blank spot in my mind, I almost automatically click another tab to go to some distractions like MSN or GChat.

Try catch yourself sometimes. It’s like we’re afraid of deep thoughts, yet it’s this very lack of activities in our brain that leads to new ideas being born. Multi-tasking is an illusion.

We talk a lot about “critical thinking” in secondary and higher education. Yes, college classes are challenging and usually require us to go beyond merely summarizing and regurgitating the facts. However, with some basic tools and a dose of common sense, it’s not that hard to cruise by in college, in the U.S. anyway (I know Cornell engineers would beg to differ but bear with me here). The academic system at Oxford is an entirely different story. For those not familiar with the tutorial system (also known as a “tute”), it basically involves meeting one-on-one with your tutor once a week or biweekly for an hour to discuss readings, problem sets, or the paper you supposedly spent a whole week researching and writing. Only a few people have lectures to go to while the rest of us have no classes at all. Our days are supposed to be immersed in books, self-learning, and deep reflections.

This is what my week actually looks like.

Instead of doing the  sacred academic rituals scholars before us have practiced for centuries, our generation mastered the art of procrastination and manages to “enjoy life” more (which incidentally involves drinking cheap liquer dancing like an madperson in close quarters in a sweaty nightclub til 2am) while cranking out a largely sensible essay at 9 a.m. the morning it’s due.

Um, maybe that’s just certain people…

My friend Phil, who’s another visiting student here, wrote an interesting entry about life structure at Oxford. Oxford is challenging in the sense that it requires our own impetus, discipline, and resolve to make learning happen. From now on I want to make a conscious effort to embrace academia and solitude in learning. To have a tutor’s brain to pick for an hour a week is a precious opportunity that ought not to be wasted. It also doesn’t hurt that my next paper for my tutorial is on international institutions and regulations of wine! Gotta run and do wine sampling for research, be right back.

* I haven’t gone to the Hall at Christ Church college yet, where they filmed the ACTUAL Great Hall and staircase in the movies, but I’ll get there soon.

For dinner (isn’t it fitting that I start this entire study abroad experience off by talking about what I have for dinner?) we have the option of “scaf”, or self-serve like those at Cornell dining halls, or “hall”, where you sit and wait to be served a formal three-course meal. Some colleges even require dinner attendees to dress of for hall, but over at St. Catherine’s we’re pretty chill about that.

This is our hall.

This is our hall during dinner (photo credit: webshots).

The faculty (the “Master” who is our dean plus other professors, tutors, and fellows) sits at a slightly elevated table at the head of the room. They arrive every night in a procession and everyone immediately stands up when they come in. The Master then says some blessings in Latin, like “Benedictus Benedicat” and then bangs a gravel. Everyone sit down and lively conversation immediately erupt in the hall. Sounds familiar?

Oxford has 38 colleges – think of them as the different Houses in HP (University of Toronto has a similar system). You basically eat, sleep, and hang out in your college so it’s a nice, intimate community. Dorms are grouped by staircases, so someone might be Staircase 17 Room 2 or something. Every college has a Common Room where there are tons of cushy chairs for big groups to watch football (soccer), play pool, or drink at the college bar.

Hearing the English accent everywhere is lovely. After a week here, I’ve finally stopped in squeaking in delight every time I hear one.

I’m glad malls are an American invention because I love the boutique style of shops that characterizes Oxford town center. I like to think Blackwell’s, which sells textbooks, leisure books, posters, music etc. is Flourish & Blotts. Cornmarket St. could easily be Diagon Alley. Walking around town, there are so many nooks and crannies you can sneak into and find yourself in a totally different world.

Now, Hogwarts wouldn’t be Hogwarts without… house elves! Now I’m not going to tell you that I have big-eyed, floppy eared creatures wearing tea cushions visiting my room every day. We DO have maid service, called scouts, who come to our rooms every other day to take out the trash and every week to change our sheets, vacuum, and clean the bathroom. Since my roomie and I are nocturnal, we sometimes don’t even see them coming in in the morning (probably judging us American kids for sleeping in so much).

I’m constantly in awe of how beautiful Oxford is, inside and out. Yesterday, while exploring a floor of the Bodleian Library we’ve never been to before, we stumbled upon the Duke Humfrey’s Library, which contains rare manuscripts. Photography was not allowed, neither are pens, highlighters, touching the books without washing your hands first, reading a book without putting it on the book stand first… etc (photo credit: beattiesbookblog).

Look familiar?

On the other side of the Bodleian, we saw these gorgeous windows of the Divinity School. We circled the place twice but still couldn’t find a way in (photo credit: someone’s picasa account).

I climbed the wall under one of the windows there, peeked in, and immediately recognized the ceiling that served as the backdrop to this:

Really, all I need to do is take a train from London to Oxford and my life is pretty much complete.

Coming up next

• Tutorials – how you can go from smug to horrified to relieved in two minutes
• Hall food
• Oxford Fashion Week
• “Extracurriculars”
• And other musings

]]> http://www.ivy.phoebeyu.com/archives/thats-it-im-at-hogwarts/feed/ 7 http://www.ivy.phoebeyu.com/archives/modus-operandi/ http://www.ivy.phoebeyu.com/archives/modus-operandi/#comments Mon, 29 Nov 2010 08:35:13 +0000 Phoebe Yu http://www.ivy.phoebeyu.com/?p=186

Confession: I hopped on the bandwagon and joined Tumblr. Well, actually, that’s not exactly true. I’ve been on Tumblr for years blogging under a pseudonym. The recent venture is actually tied to me. Yikes. For some reason, as a long time WP user, this almost feels like a betrayal of the blogging CMS!

[Reposted from Tumblr]

You know, I always thought that Tumblr was the sandbox for four types of people

1) the artistically-inclined posting their stream-of-conscious musings about their craft

2) the hopeless romantic floating from day to day, getting their highs from sepia graphics etched with cryptic sayings, and hitting their lows with bitter, definite vows of “never again”

3) the foodie, the photographer, or the fashion addict all flooding your stream with exquisite images that you sometimes do not understand

4) the likes of Harvard sex blogger Lena Chen – former serious bloggers who had their own successful/semi-successful blogs on a personal domain with WordPress, but then decided to go into retirement mode or “the next phase of their lives,” and migrated to the more personal, quirkier Tumblr.

I’m not sure where I fit into all of this. My pseudo-artistic musings are rested comfortably in untitled .txt files scattered around my desktop. My love-related raves and rants (and graphics) are tucked away in an emo private blog that nobody will ever find. My fashion addiction-fueled rampage for runway photos from Style.com are all organized neatly (by season and location, like “Milan-SpringSummer10” or “Paris-FallWinter09”) in folders on my computer. Finally, my WordPress blogs are neither particularly successful nor retired.

That leaves us where we started.

I guess what I really want to do is write more, without the constraint of writing for a particular audience or achieving some particular end. Tumblr allows for the quasi-anonymity I sort of desire, but at the same time lets me follow my amazing friends who tumble. After all, when you image Google the title of this new Tumblr blog, Sayornis, all that comes up is a chubby little bird. No judgments. No expectations.

To my dismay, the clerk explained to me that this supermarket had yet to install card-swipe machines. Cash only. I relented and fumbled through the unfamiliar wad of bills stuffed in my wallet,  handed her the right change, and went home.

A couple hours of frantic housework later, everything was in place in my tiny literally-one-room apartment. My mosquito net was propped up with plastic strings tied to nails driven into the random corners of the room (left behind by the previous apartment occupant). The tradeoff for not waking up with half a dozen mosquito bites was having to avoid all the strings that haphazardly cross my room – a fair bargain, I think.

Next, I got to work on the curtains. Remember those checkered plastic Chinese restaurant table cloths? Great curtains. And their functions don’t stop there – they also make great bathroom doors! So the set-up of the apartment is that I have one bedroom, and my landlord has her bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen on the OTHER side of the hallway. Basically, if I need to use the bathroom, I would have to open my door, lock it, open her door, lock it, go to the bathroom, open her door, lock it, and unlock my door. The icing on the cake is that the sliding door of the bathroom does not close, at all. Table cloth to the rescue!

Another peculiar thing I noticed is that many Chinese people don’t believe in mattresses. For the first couple of nights before I asked my landlord for a cotton pad, I was sleeping on a hard bed frame and developing back issues at the tender age of nineteen.

Other than that, I learned that duct tape truly solves all your problems and that there’s no need to buy brooms when one’s neighbor leaves a broom in the hallway (hey, it’s a Communist country, people are obligated to share their resources… or something like that).

Frugal intern score: A+
Housewife score: D-

This makes me wonder how my fellow interns are doing in various corners of the world. Are you living in some fancy studio on the Upper West Side or downtown Vancouver? An NYU/UBC dorm shared with three other people? A leaky apartment in the Bronx? Or more likely, commuting from Jersey or Queen’s? I doubt you guys make dinner every night. How does it feel going from dining hall food in Ithaca to business lunches with bankers in the financial district? I would say that, save the exception of those currently slaving away in a cubicle or a testosterone-filled trade floor for corporate monoliths, most interns are paid somewhere near minimum wage, or nothing at all (I guess I lucked out with an awesome job overseas which I love, yes, I’m talking to you boss-who-reads-this-blog).

So fellow interns, how are you doing? What (wonderful/horrific) summer stories are you willing to share?

An observation I have about Beijing in general and the Narita Airport in Tokyo in particular, is that EVERYTHING, and I mean EVERYTHING, talks! The little fast track conveyor belt thing in the airport is telling me to “watch my steps, end is approaching” in three different languages. The buses seem to sprout artificial intelligence as they tell passengers to pay the fare, announce the next stop, warn pedestrians outside the bus that it’s turning, AND blast loud public service messages about Chinese culture. On top of that, there are 2-4 TVs on every single bus and subway car, which are either running advertisements, cute little blobs bouncing around, or CCTV clips on repeat, in full volume. Also, the subway just. never. shuts. up. And if you think getting off public transit and heading into a mall would help, you would be wrong. This one McDonald’s I went to blasted an over-the-top skit about McFlurries on its radio on repeat, so much so you can hear it half a block away. I felt really bad for the security guard who was on duty right across the speakers.

Another thing that the locals have accepted to be the norm which surprised me at first was the security checks at subways! We have to run our bags through a scanner every time we go into the subway. Once the security lady actually asked me to take out my water bottle and take a sip. Intense.

Despite all my complaints about Beijing, or Observed Eccentricities as I like to call them, I really love this city. I have fond, albeit blurry, childhood memories here and I love the fast pace with which it moves. People move fast to build careers and business empires, skylines change so fast that even locals sometimes don’t recognize some of the buildings around them, and taxis literally drive at breakneck speeds through the nooks and crannies of hutongs (alleys). You can NEVER get bored in Beijing.