Chinese New Year INSEAD Style

We have school on Chinese New Year. I am currently in a group meeting with my Chinese Singaporean groupmate. I just learned a few things.

I asked about how much they give and to whom.
My groupmate (who will remain nameless) was telling me I actually don't have to give to anyone because I'm not Chinese. Score.
She was also telling me that you give $2, $4 or $6 or $8 to kids. I said, "what? You give $4? I thought that was a bad number in Chinese culture." She replied "INFLATION!" She said they used to give $2, but now kids are expecting more, and they care more about the money than the auspicious number.

She also said that she keeps a spreadsheet of the amounts that people give her kids so she can be sure to reciprocate.

Spreadsheets and inflation! That's Chinese New Year business school style.

Sleeping on the Plane

I have a problem where I always sleep with my mouth open on the plane or the bus. I can't control it. It's gravity.

It must be hilarious/disturbing for the people next to me. Out of respect, I tried to rather lean my head on my arm. But...oops, then I woke up, because I had drool running down my arm. I must be tired.

I must say that I liked Langkawi more today. If you want a place where you can ONLY sit on a GORGEOUS beach - it's it. It is absolutely beautiful (if you ignore the trash on the beach - which isn't SO bad for Asia...). While Matt and Tenley went to see the mangroves, I read on the beach for a few hours, and I was happy. Then Tenley and I talked on the beach while Matt read in the shade. I liked that too. Yay for vacations. Boo for school tomorrow - ON CHINESE NEW YEAR!!

Langkawi

I would rather blog than study, but I must study, so this must be quick...

Matt, Tenley and I are in Langkawi for the long weekend. We left on Friday night, and on Thursday when I looked up whether or not the hotel has wireless (it does - in the lobby), I came upon trip advisor and other sites that all had HORRIBLE things to say about this hotel. See for yourself - they're HORRIBLE. I saw that we had paid in full for it (I have to say that I took myself out of planning for this trip, because I was too busy, so I take no responsibility, but I also have no right to put blame - but WHY didn't someone look at the reviews? I'm not sure.). I looked at all of the terms of the booking, and indeed we could not cancel. Well, since my priorities for the weekend at the beach were doing work and sleeping, and the review said bed bugs, smelly rooms and other horrible things, I looked into canceling my ticket. It wasn't refundable or anything of the sort. So we came.

Okay - if you're used to staying in fancy resorts - yes this place is shit. If you need clean - yes - it's pretty not so clean. If you want fancy, fresh fruit - you're not in your element. BUT, if you're used to totally simple backpacker places, and all you need is a place to sleep that has pretty good location and is kind of clean - it's FINE!

My funny experiences, though, include the fact that it has "the biggest pool in Malaysia," and it has TONS of rooms, but it has only about 15 or 20 lounge chairs by the pool. This morning, when Tenley and Matt went on a tour, I wanted to sit and write, so I started looking for a chair that wasn't occupied. Every one had a towl on it or something, but NOT a person, and it was just after 9:00 am. Finally, I saw four in the shade, and while three had towels on them, the other had nothing.

I sat in one of the chairs. For 45 minutes I wrote in peace, and finally a woman came up to me and said, "You know, you're sitting in our chair." I said, "well, no one was sitting in it, it had nothing on it, and there was literally no other chair that didn't have something on it." "Well we reserved it last night, and just because we slept late doesn't mean it's not our chair." "Well, you're not sitting in it, so why don't I just sit in it and continue to do what I'm doing until you have four people that fill these four chairs." "Well, I think you can sit in OUR chair until we have two people that come, because we saved four chairs over here in the shade so we could have our privacy." "Fine. Bitch." (The bitch part was under my breath).

Then, I was here catching up on emails (50 related to INDEVOR!!! Oy), and all of the sudden there was no more internet. What? I went to the desk, and I said, can you please let me know why there is all of the sudden no internet? She said, "oh, we're charging our mobile phone." Oy. Maybe find an outlet that doesn't affect the internet for the whole place? Welcome to Malaysia.

Outside of our hotel (which is where we have spent most of our time), we have spent a day diving with very poor visibility, but it was nice none the less. We played settlers on the beach at a nice place (I won all three games - yup). Yesterday we rented a dude with his car, and we went all around the island. To be honest, it's nothing special, and definitely nothing we haven't seen before in SE Asia. I don't think I would come back unless there was something special going on, but it's definitely pretty. We were a bit bored, so we went to the Westin, on the recommendation of Jeff (Tenley's husband who has stayed there before), and it was awesome. We sat in their beautiful bar/restaurant with an amazing view for four hours - I studied, Matt slept, Tenley read. We even got the complimentary cocktail at 6pm. Pretty sure it wasn't meant for us, but oh well. Only US$300 per night to stay there. In my dreams...

Last night we went to another nice place on the beach, had great food, Tenley won settlers (way to go!!!), and I'm heading back to Singapore later today. Matt and Tenley come back tomorrow.

One more weird thing - we saw monkey roadkill. I have never seen that before. Kind of felt bad.

Bali

Since I'm seriously back blogged, and I have ten minutes, I'm going for the Bali part.

I went to Bali with two friends this weekend - Julie and Julia. They sometimes introduce themselves as Melissa and Susan. That's only when they don't really want to be meeting people.

Essentially we left Friday night, dove all day Saturday at Tulamben, hung out Saturday night, relaxed Sunday morning, went to Ubud, relaxed, went to Legian to the beach on Sunday afternoon, and relaxed. Then we came back to Singapore. Basically, we relaxed, and we had a really great time.

A couple of highlights...
On our third dive at Tulamben, we swam with bumphead parrotfish. They're my favorite. I will post a picture or two of them, but it was amazing. They're huge. They're the Dr. Seuss ones that I have mentioned in the past.

We walked to our dives along a stony "beach." I thought it was hard to get to the place where we get in the water. Well...the locals put our BCDs and tanks on their heads (two at a time!), and carried them for us. They get less than $1 per tank per carry.

I had a defining moment on Sunday. We tried to work out transportation on Sunday to get from Sanur to Ubud, then get to Legian, then get to the airport. The airport is right by Legian, but our stuff was in Sanur. After exploring options (having a driver for the day, taking a bus to Ubud, hiring taxis, hiring private cars, etc.), we decided we would figure out a way through taxi or private car to get to Ubud, find a way to get to Legian, and then the guys from our hotel were going to meet us, with our bags, in Legian to take us to the airport. I am NOT a trusting person. In fact, sometimes I think the world is out to get me. Well...I relaxed, and I did it. I left all of our stuff with some random guys and hoped that they met up with us to take us to the airport (with all of my scuba equipment!). I explored their incentives for each choice, and it seemed okay, but I did get nervous throughout the day. It worked! The guy was there, and all was well. I am slowly getting back hope for humanity.

One weird thing was the beach at Legian (and Kuta and Seminyak). When I went there in August, it was the most beautiful beach I had ever been to. Perfect clean sand, going on forever, super fun waves, and facing a wonderful sunset. There must have been a shift in the tides or something. There was trash ALL over the beach. It was filled with plastic bags - even some trees had washed up on shore. It was totally disgusting. When I went into the water, I had to get out, because there were plastic bags swimming around my ankles, and it made me gag. Yuck.

We met an unsuccessful suicidal gekko at Cafe Wayan in Ubud. He was hanging by his hands, upside down from a beam on the ceiling, and we were watching him. All was fine and good until we heard a smack. He jumped off the beam and then walked away. Poor guy. Must have hurt.

One last note on Bali - it was fun to travel with girls. I love going places with Matt, but I had a whole new perspective with these girls, and it was kind of fun to be checked out! (I don't get that when I walk around with Matt). Even if they guys were looking at Julie and Julia...it was still nice.

Pictures include Tulamben diving area, Julie and Julia underwater, a bumphead. Videos are the bumphead, a Julie Fish, a Julia Fish, a Ranta Fish, and a Melanie Fish at the end. The second one is oriental sweetlips. Click here to see more photos from our trip.

Backblogged Again

I don't have five minutes to write about:
P2 Grades
Bali
Watching the inauguration with SO many Americans in Singapore until 2 in the morning (mistake? maybe). I am so happy Bush is done.

Matt's a Superstar

Matt gave a presentation to 1,300 Malaysian insurance conference-goers today. At the end of the presentation, a woman came up to him and asked for his autograph on the conference program, and she also got a picture with him. He took one too. He's famous. (I blocked out her eyes to protect her identity).

There is such a thing as a free lunch!!

I had Macro from 8:30 -10. International Political Analysis from 10:15-11:45. Executing Strategy from 12-1:30. A negotiation for my Negotiation class from 1:45-2:15. Then I had to watch the negotiation until about 3. I finally got to the hawker center across from school at 3:05. I was so hungry. I walked almost past my vegetarian food auntie, straight to the fishball noodles, since they're the only one who usually has food this late. But...she called me over, and she gave me her special brown rice with a whole lot of tofu and veggies, and I had not negotiate HARD to get her to take $1 from me. She said it's her policy to give free lunch when they're packing up. I'm too stubborn though, so from the $2 I was ready to pay, I compromised with $1. I had just come from a negotiation, you know...

Starbucks

Apparently text messages are going around that say that Starbucks supports Israel in the current conflict with Gaza. The text messages are asking people to boycott Starbucks. I went today (not knowing any of this and happy to go if they are supporting Israel anyway) to study, and it was EMPTY! Usually the Starbucks by our house is PACKED on Sundays - outside and inside - I can never find a seat, and I usually feel bad sitting and studying for hours. Today nearly the entire place was empty the entire four hours I was there.

In other news I had a nice birthday celebration with our wonderful friends here. Unfortunately it was the same night as a big INSEAD party, so only one friend from INSEAD came, but most of the other people I love were able to come, and it was really nice.

Also, Tali and Alon showed me this German bakery by our house, and I tried their pretzel today. It was good. Oh, and I finally ate at a wonderful Thai restaurant that I have been dying to try. It was so yummy. So spicy. Yum.

Fitting In

Last night I was talking to one of the students who came over to Singapore from Fonty. He said, "it seems like people go clubbing a lot here." I said they do, which actually leaves not that many opportunities for those of us who don't party so hard (me!) to hang with each other and get to know each other. In general, people do seem to go out to extremely expensive dinners and then go clubbing. A lot. I said, "I'm trying to find some people who play board games or do other lower key things to get to know each other." He said, "Yeah, or you could start the knitting club, or the club for people who have cats." I think he was making fun of me, and I do knit, and I have a cat. I am certainly not the average student at INSEAD (if there were to be one).

INSEAD Blogging

I just had a discussion with another INSEAD blogger, but she's for real an INSEAD blogger. I happen to be blogging while I'm at INSEAD, but I'm not super comfortable blogging about INSEAD too much. I don't actually think I have so many INSEAD readers, right? (You can let me know!)

Apparently many people have been reading her blog before they came to Singapore. Pretty funny. She offers good insight on what it's like for us here.

In the spirit...some reflections about what's been going on at INSEAD for the past week. As I mentioned earlier in the week, there are MANY new people, but as I'm getting to meet them and seeing them multiple times, they're becoming familiar faces. It is taking a bit longer to meet people, since they as well as we already have people we're comfortable with, so it takes a bit more of an effort to reach out and meet new people.

My new group (Italian, Dutch, Canadian (French), Singaporean, Ghanaian) had our first presentation of the term today. It was a bit rushed for us, since we met on Monday, and then right away we had to start working on it, but we basically had to show why India has a brighter future than China, and that this is due to democracy. I do believe that India will excel beyond China, but I'm not sure it's because of democracy. The presentation was great, and I think we got most of the arguments right on. That was our only group assignment in that class! We also work together for Macroeconomics, but those projects haven't started yet.

I have my first negotiation on Monday. I will be trying to negotiate the salary of Michael Jordan of the S. American soccer movement. Wish me luck.

In other news, I accidentally scheduled my birthday party for the night of the big INSEAD integration party with the new P1s, this Saturday night. Oops. Once I found out, though, it was too late to change it, since I invited mostly outside of INSEAD people anyways. Another party I'm missing...won't affect my record too much!

Matt has been crawling into bed this week at 5:30 am, and then I wake up at 6. Pretty funny, but it's been nice to sleep together and also have our own bed for nearly the entire night. The cat doesn't sleep with me when he's gone, though. I don't know where she has been sleeping. She brought in a lizard (a baby!) three different times last night. Oy.

Curry, Water, Plants, Grandma and other random topics

Curry:
I went for curry to an Indian place with a couple of friends tonight. One is a strict vegetarian. She asked if they have vegetarian dishes. The guy said, "no. This is a curry restaurant. We serve curry. Curry means meat." My friend asked, "in what language?" He responded, "Tamil."

Water:
Many restaurants in Singapore now make you pay for water, and instead of giving you tap water, even though Singapore's water is super clean and wonderful, they give you bottled water. While places like San Fran are outlawing bottled water, because when you have drinkable taps, it is ridiculous...places like Singapore are requiring it. I hate it.

Plants:
I think I am already killing our plants. They are starting to not look so healthy. I really don't know how to keep plants alive. I have killed so many. I do EXACTLY what they tell me! I wish they could talk. I'm going to be a terrible mother.

Grandma:
Matt's grandma is not doing well. While his parents were on their way back from Singapore she got in a car accident, and along with a broken collar bone, she is having pretty serious dementia issues. I hope she gets well soon.

The cat brought in a frog again last night. And Matt wasn't even here to help.

Our neighbor Victoria told me that her grandma killed their cat by putting on the washing machine while the cat happened to be inside. I started the laundry, and I heard a sound that sounded like a cat, so I stopped the machine and looked through all of the pieces, and there was no cat. It's just squeaky, and I'm just paranoid.

At my wedding, Dena came from a long trip in S. America, and she told me she met the guy that she was going to marry. Only Dena would travel across the world to find this guy, but sure enough, she did, and she moved a Peruvian man to Israel to be with her, and last night they got engaged. I haven't yet met Juan, but I have heard the most wonderful things about him, and I know he has to be so special and wonderful to be the one chosen by Dena. MAZAL TOV!!!

Language Groups

Within a day of starting school the "I have so much to do" feeling has returned...How quickly I forget vacation!

The good news is that my new classes are really interesting to me: International Political Analysis, Macro, Strategies for Asia Pacific, Executing Strategy, Negotiation (and the Art of Communication over a weekend at the end of the month). I guess that's why they're called "electives." Macro and the politics class are actually core courses, but they're good ones.

Being back at school is actually super weird. We have something like 280 people in our promotion who are in Singapore, but only about 100 are people I know from Singapore (if even that many) - meaning I don't know about 2/3 of the people in my classes, PLUS all of the 170 or so new P1s. The moral of the story is that just as I got comfortable...I went back and I feel like there are so few familiar faces! Soon enough they will be familiar, so I'm not too worried. It is sort of weird, though, that people can just switch campuses for two months, back and forth. Bizarre concept.

Today I re-noticed something that I saw a bit in P1 and P2. People who speak the same language tend to hang out together. This is not a big revelation, I know. I see Italians hanging with Italians - sitting together in class, chatting after class, going for dinner, etc. The Greeks are with the Greeks, the Israelis with the Israelis. This is all good and well, and totally expected. The part that is interesting to me, is that since the language of the school is English, and everyone speaks English, the Americans don't do this. Certainly they didn't in the Singapore group, and it doesn't appear that they did in Fonty either. I don't think there is a group of Americans that hang out. I also don't think there is a group of Brits that hang out. Not sure what to make of this, but it's interesting.

In other news my cat is going crazy running all over the apartment and making whining sounds, and Matt took me out to dinner for my birthday. We ate a lot, and it was good.

Matt went to work today at 7 as usual, and he was there until 8:30, and then he went back from 10 until 4am! His group is doing a virtual marketing tour for American clients. I'm not a fan. I don't think I'll see him until Friday. I don't know how he's going to stay awake for three nights of this!! It's like consulting or something!

Last Weekend...

I start school tomorrow. Again. I have absolutely loved being on vacation. Seriously - I am really good at it.

We have been enjoying this last weekend. One funny story, then what we have been up to...

We went to buy plants yesterday. We saw this one sharp plant (the plant that's by itself), and I thought it was super cool - yellow and green and almost violent looking. The guy showing us around said, "this one mother in law tongue. Too much sun, no problem. No sun, no problem. If you forget to water, no problem. Even nuclear bomb, all will die, but mother-in-law tongue still alive." HA!!!

Friday night we said bye to the Hildebrandt clan after a yummy dinner at Chat Masala - our favorite neighborhood Indian restaurant. Matt and I cleaned the house and relaxed. Saturday we shopped for plants (they're so cheap here!). Our porch looks wonderful. Maybe some people won't look into our living room now? Probably not. Then we went to the market for a few things and noodles. I then went to see Lauren and Mo's new beautiful baby. Stopped at the pet store where I learned that the woman who works there owns 19 cats. Whoa. I ended up with a half of a big watermelon, two big mangoes, a heavy bag of cat litter, and 16 cans of cat food. Matt had to meet me at the bus stop to help me carry it all home.

Last night we went to Jeff and Tenley's for dinner and games. We learned a new game called Killer Bunnies. It's HILARIOUS. I felt bad that I got excited about killing people's bunnies. What a horrible thought! But...the cards are really funny and creative, and if you ever have the opportunity to try it out, DO! Then Settlers, obviously. They live so far away, though, that we spent more than $50 in taxis to get there and back. Singapore isn't THAT small!

Today we made yummy shakshuka and a strawberry pancake and Israeli salad and fruit salad, and we had some friends over including Deeksha and Rajeev. It was really nice.

Pictures include: our new plants on our porch, the funny plant, Fran and Tom on new years, me and Tenley at the tree top walk on our hike last Thursday, the pile of papers I recycled this week (from the first four months of school).

From 7.5 to 3.5

Hildebrandts that is (including Kitty and Mustache Man - he counts as a half, since he's not REALLY a Hildebrandt, but we love him). A mere five hours ago we had so many Hildebrandts in our house, there was barely space, and now they're on their way to Korea...then LA...then Detroit.

We had a really nice visit. Yesterday we went to two exhibits at the National Museum (and the museum happened to be FREE yesterday!). The first exhibit was a photographer - Chang Chien-Chi, and it had three parts that were all "doubleness." The first was documenting Taiwanese men going to Vietnam to get brides. The second was of this hospital for mentally ill patients in China, and two patients are chained together FOR LIFE, and the less crazy one leads the other - FOREVER. The third was showing the life of men who have left their families in China to go to NYC - mostly Chinatown. It shows the life of the women and children they leave behind and the life of the men in NY. The second exhibit was "portraits" by Robert Wilson - which was basically video portraits of mostly famous people, and some had music too. They were awesome. My favorite was a dog panting with the best music that fit it perfectly.

We have also eaten a lot of good food including (but not limited to) roti prata and peanut pancake for breakfast today, Chat Masala (Indian) for dinner, Vietnamese on new years, satay and other hawker stall food at the food stalls on the beach at east coast park, Mediterranean for our special birthday dinner (celebrating all birthdays including two 60s, a 30 and a 25! - all in one family!!). LOTS of good food.

In other news - it is Kenny's yartzheit right now, but I'm not sure what to write about it, since nothing seems to be changing from year to year and birthday to birthday...but at least I'll acknowledge it. I was going to go to shul in the morning, but it's an hour each way, and I really hate the shul here...so I will go to the market instead. I think Kenny would appreciate noodles and fruit more than god. Just a guess...

2009

We have already been living in it for 12 hours, and from experience, I can tell all of you living in America (who have yet to taste the sweetness) that 2009 is way better than 2008. Trust me.