Living and Working in Taipei for Internship

Needless to say everyone was tired in the office yesterday because of the 2am wake-up call.  And no one enjoyed the tremors through out the day.

Taiwan Hit by Magnitude-6.3 Quake, Tremors in Taipei

By Tim Culpan and Peter S. Green

July 14 (Bloomberg) -- A magnitude-6.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan at about 2 a.m. local time today, and the temblor rattled windows and shook buildings in the capital of Taipei more than 100 kilometers away.

No major damage or injuries were reported as of 2:50 a.m. by the fire department in the eastern county of Yilan, close to the epicenter, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency said. Taiwan’s weather service warned sea levels in coastal areas may change suddenly after the quake.

A temblor measuring magnitude-4.0 struck Yilan at 2:02 a.m., followed by the 6.3 shock off the east coast at 2:05 a.m., and aftershocks of 3.9 and 5.1 magnitude in the same area, Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau reported on its Web site.

The biggest of the three struck at a depth of about 25 kilometers (15 miles), about 135 kilometers south-southeast of Taipei, the U.S. Geologic Survey said on its Web site.

Taiwan is regularly struck by earthquakes. The most deadly in recent years, a 7.6-magnitude quake in September 1999, killed about 2,400 people and caused at least $9 billion in damage.

To contact the reporters on this story: Tim Culpan in Taipei at tculpan1@bloomberg.net; Peter S. Green in New York at psgreen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 13, 2009 17:06 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=a23R4_HGnf7E

MIT personal webpage

It's finally up and running.  It's still not the way I want but it's better

web.mit.edu/emicsmi/www

You can make your own too.  So since frontpage doesn't exist anymore and everything else is really complicated I made this using publisher.  Then I spent a bit packing it and saving it such that the page was labeled index.html.  Then on an athena computer you plug it into your folder called www.  It should automatically load your webpage.

Those who have macs I'm sure this is much easier with the snifty web page creator.

It works as a nice place to store a portfolilo of your work.

IKEA to take over GM

Friend sent this.  GM to be taken over by IKEA.  Assembly required.

Ramen Noodle Locations in Boston

By popular demand from the 2011's this is my friends Ramen Blog. This page is about Boston.

http://ramenlovers.blogspot.com/search/label/Boston

There are a few missing:
Mentei
Goemon Japanese Noodle & Tapas Restaurant

Mustache march

Mustache March
Watching the guys walk around with mustaches has been HILARIOUS. So go check out the pics and help out their cause.

Travel

1. Bangkok, Thailand


2. Cheltenham, UK


3. Paris, France


4. Kyoto, Japan


5. San Juan, Puerto Rico

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• Travel Info at TripAdvisor

Power and Negotiation

This class is a lot of work.  The practice is worth it but all the negotiations required are tough.  For me the negotiations are physically exhausting.  It feels like getting in a fight with your friend every time I do them.  There also getting tougher as everyone is learning more methods to employ when negotiating. This weekend we had to do 4 negotiations over the long weekend. I had 2 back to back on Friday. I was so exhausted. It's like going to the Bazar all day and trying to figure out whats something's real price. Granted this didn't stop me from going to the gym and going out with all the girls to dinner later on Friday.

Classes are tough, not because of the difficulty of the material but because they stretch you as a person. I still recommend this class to anyone without negotiation experience. It's more work in the Spring but the Professor is much more into personal feedback to help you improve.

9 vs. 10 Hockey

[caption id="attachment_67" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The X class"][/caption]

Final score x-class 2, '09's 3.  Sad, because 10>9.  We have a remach on the 23rd so we shall see who wins in the end.  One match to rule them all.

2/23 Update

The second game is a sucess 10>9.  We won 2-1.  We were so much better.  Making plays, passing, skating and stopping.  I can't wait to see the video.

Kilimanjiro

Kili

People did many things over break.  There are all sorts of treks all over the world.  Many people went to Thailand.  I could have gone to Ecuador to help a small buisness with their sustainability, but this required a lot of grant writing.   I took the easier trip (umm, planning wise that is).

The leadership club @ Sloan was having a Safari/Climb Kilimanjiro Trip over Christmas break so I opted to go to Africa.  I spent Dec. 18th-Jan. 2nd in Tanzania.  The group was 6 Sloanies and 3 LFM's: Cal, Daniel and I.

First thing to clarify, I am not an extreme sports person.  I do enjoy life participating in once in a life time experiences.  Yes, I missed Christmas and New Years with my family but I really don't think I would get to climb a mountain through work.  I had a hard enough time convincing my friends at work to go to Paris let alone a Safari.

So I was extremely nervous about going to Africa.  I don't exercise, I don't do camping and I don't do mosquito's.  I was going to be camping in the Serengeti with wild animals and This really sounds like it was bad idea.

Funny thing is the first hotel we stayed in was the worst of it.  The Safari was the first 5 days.  The hotels were all inclusive on food.  The brought you hot towels when you got out of the safari jeep, even at the camp site.  The camp site was exactly like the 1950's movies of english people on safari.  Gaint tents with 2 people inside, a 4-poster bed, a toilet, a shower and a sink.  They also had a small bar and all the beer you could drink.  They also had electricity to charge your camera.  This was really not camping.

The hippo that could have attacked the stalled jeep

For 5 days we went to diffrent parks around Serengeti.  I saw leopards, black rhino's, baboons, monkeys, hipo's, lions.  The animals would get so close to the jeeps you could almost touch them, it was amazing.  I saw two elephants fighting.  One was really creative in using tree's to smack his opponent.  I saw a lioness stalking a zebra.  There was also a pride of lions stalking zebra that were interupted by an elephant.  This was one of the coolest experiences in my life.  I really want to go on Safari again.

The second week we climbed Kili.  It is hard to describe the bond and sense of achievement climbing Kili really was.  It's 6 days up the mountain and 2 days down.  It's really just walking with a bit of an altitude struggle.  I really got to know my Sloan classmates as we snuggled 2 to a tent each night.  You couldn't help to learn about each other as we had many crazy dicussions while walking 3-6 hours a day.  We bonded over the food.  It wasn't bad but it did get boring.  We got our breakfast porridge privileges taken away because we refused to eat it.

Honestly, climbing Kili is just a tiny bit harder than walking 3-6 hours.  There is a whole team of people that take care of you so its actually easier than classes.  They even brought a private toilet tent for us.  Really not roughing it at all.  The hardest part was summit day.

I made it to the top but there are two phrases people had for me when we were done:

"you were a blue parka'd penguin waddling to the summit"

"you were like the zombie from thriller without the hand motions"

It was tough.  The last part is really deceiving because it take an hour and is totally flat.  I was feeling ill but never got sick like many others on the summit.  It was cold, windy, the sun had just come up and was blinding and yet it was beautiful.

Cal, Daniel and me at the summit

I learned about staying together as a group.  Being accommodating even when your tired and really annoyed.  The biggest part of the learning experience came from returning to the states.  Having been away for the holiday shopping season and city life in general it was an eye-opener as to what is important.  All in all though I would say the effect the trip had on me is subtle but there.

I think the message though in all of this is that Sloan has some amazing experiences that it offers.  LFM offers a lot of new experiences but putting yourself out there and trying new and crazy things grow even more.  Trek's are also a great way to bond with classmates outside of Sloan, but you'll never be as close with the sloanies as your are with LFM.