華威森林

Zebria bought me a book called 英倫留學誌/華威森林 (U of Warwick) by Pearl Lee from Hong Kong Book Fair, thanks, I am very impressed. I finished the book within four hours till 2am this morning and found there are some similarities between the author and I:
- Christian
- busy at work in HK
- similar age when go to UK
- go to London on 23 Sept
- set up a blog to document the 1 year U life

I've also browsed the author's blog at http://pearlee26.spaces.live.com/

See the book and my new spectacles. Spectacles will be useful as I expect we need to study/do project late at night.

African Drumming in Oxford MBA

When I tendered my resignation in mid June, my boss challenged me "Have you thought about your career prospect seriously? You are now practising what you will learn from mba, why need to spend time there?" He is absolutely correct but sometimes we can't easily measure the "fair value" of a personal dream even though we are CPA!

I have learnt marketing, management, finance & accounting in CUHK and even African drumming during Macau senior manager conference in KPMG!! Share with you my drum + Miffy and Oxford MBA drumming video in youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag9JYpxReYA

Oxford Said vs Cambridge Judge

A friend is still struggling on Oxford vs Cambridge. From my preliminary understanding and gut feeling:

Oxford Said Business School:

- longer business school history --> stronger network

- more students per year --> more alumni --> stronger network

- more students with business background

- more financial training --> more graduates joining iBank

- more competitive in campus recruitment because many students are looking for finance and consulting jobs

Cambridge Judge Business School:

- more diversify in student background e.g. medical, engineers

- less students per year --> stronger bonding among students and professors

- better scenary

Anyway, I chose Oxford, should be a right choice!

KCRC Audit Team

During the coming 6 weeks in the firm, I need to finish at least the US GAAP audit for KCRC and prepare it to merge with MTRC. Hope the work would be substantially completed before I left, otherwise, Louis will suffer from it. Luckily, I have a helpful and committed audit team: Rex, Tracy, Calista (last day today), Johnny, Eddie, Cecilia while Louis & Margaret are not in the picture. Different from Moiselle/Zara team lead by Kurt, K team members are very quiet (although Rex and Johnny are noisy when I am not around!) and extremely obedient, they never say NO, just like me.

I dislike this job in last year because it occupied me a lot of time to do many tedious stuffs and things are not under my control, I nearly quit because of this and found last year was my dark age in KPMG. Fortunately, life far better in this year and I discover that I am a person who loves challenges. I have become even more patient, learnt US GAAP / Sarbanes Oxley Act, write formal emails/discussion papers etc. The most valuable thing I have learnt is I must overcome difficulties/challenges rather than simply give up, otherwise, I will regret.

Count Down

I only have 7 more weeks to go before I leave my firm where I have been working for 10 years since graduated from CUHK in 1997. Time flies quickly, faster than a Ferrari........ I still remember the first day I joined KPMG: we had orientation class in Wanchai Tai Yau training centre, with some ice-breaking puzzle games and form 5 groups sitting in tables. I carried the heavy KPMG briefcase with tonnes of handbooks which was useless at all, how stupid I was.

There were about 35 people in my orientation class while only 7 left behind, they are Money, Alex, Frankie, Malcolm, Frank, Andes and I; all of them now staying in the PRC offices except Money and I. Obviously, they will become partners in the coming 1-3 years, thus, somehow I am stupid to leave the firm at this moment and join SBS. Anyway, I still trust that my decision can be justified because I definitely won't have any chance or brave enough to quit the job and start a new journey when I am getting older.

After 10 years training in KPMG, I believe I could get used to SBS life quickly in particular I am trained to work in teams and face high time pressure. Let's see.

New SBS classmates

Yammie called me today because she knows a girl (Bergitta) who just got an offer from SBS. I feel very happy because she is only one year younger than me, thus, I expect we can share more on our trip preparation. Hope we can be good friends in the future. There is a serious imbalance between male and female in mba, I can't seek advice from the male on many areas such as how many suits, high heel shoes, handbags, cosmetics should I pack.

Other than Bergitta, Andrew Chan (KPMG / EY consulting) and Eric Hui (Hang Seng) also come from HK. I also know some other friends through SBS MBA Discussion Forum such as Adrian Shen from BJ, Melody Xu from Lianning, Adif Yu from Taiwan and my first friend / Wadham friend Tarun Dhillon from India who is currently working in Sweden. Knowing these friends makes me have a more tangible feeling towards my mba study - an exhilarating trip that I am going to start very soon!!!

Up to now, I have only got my student visa, a digital camera (Sony T10), HSBC UK bank accounts, air tickets, disposable contact lens ........... and two pieces of party dresses (tips from Margery, see the picture enclosed). I still have a long long list to do such as buy a PC, spectacles, international driving licence, change correspondence addresses, terminate the useless credit cards, paid advance tax/insurance fees etc. So many outstanding items that make me suffocated. However, I believe that it is a good exercise to train my organisation skills as I am a person that don't like to manage the tedious personal stuffs. I think the reason behind is that I don't want to take my working mode back to my personal life. I just want a so called relaxing personal life.

Mini Cooper

I nearly have two accidents today when I drove to Cheung Sha Wan to have lunch with Yammie. A motor cycle fell down beside me when I turned round. In fact I did not hit it but I guess the driver was getting too close to me thus he scared and dropped. To ensure I will not be prosecuted of hit and run, I stopped and asked if the driver is okay. Fortunately, he is not rude and both of us are inexperienced. I seek Jeffrey's advise and eventually the driver gave up negotiating with me.

I am still struggling if I should keep my mini for one year or sell it. Surely I will miss mini in particular the second hand price is not good enough. May be mini knows that I am going to sell him thus he finds way to "suicide"...........ha ha.

SMART Goals

Handsome Ethan Lam with Meena, Karen, Zoe and me

Lovely Megan Cheung

Different people set different goals, some people have new born babies as above. KPMG taught us to set SMART Goals. S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Achievable, R- Relevant, T-Time bound

My goals to study an MBA in the UK may not be SMART enough but they are real:

1. To get closer to God by walking with Him alone

2. To be more extrovert and brave when facing new people and new environment

3. To polish verbal and written English

4. To take a break, play and refresh myself after working for 10 years since U-grad

5. To sharpen critical thinking, management, presentation skills for further career development

6. To achieve personal wish of studying abroad instead of spending my whole life in HK

I need to do the following things in order to achieve the goals:

1. Read bible, pray more, attend fellowship & sunday service

2. Proactively chat with different people and attend various activities such as high table dinner, parties and pubbing

3. Actively participate in group discussion and presentation

4. Work less hard on studying

5. Do projects and assignments efficiently to earn more time for travelling during weekends and term breaks

6. Play sports such as golfing, jogging and punting

Setting up a Blog

I've never thought of setting up a blog before as I viewed it as youngster's toy and I am not interested in IT things. However, after browsing various blogs set up by SBS 2007 class, I found it valuable to document my moments and feelings systematically. I also think setting up a Blog allows me to communicate with my friends efficiently as they can view my picture and video easily.

Prior to joining SBS in late September 2007, I have made a considerable amount of effort and time before getting here:

2 Dec 06 IELTS exam

3 Jan 07 Oxford application

12 Jan 07 GMAT exam

26 Jan 07 Cambridge application

12 Mar 07 Oxford interview with Oren Sussman in Jardine House with Information Evening

15 Mar 07 Oxford offer

16 Mar 07 Chevening Scholarship Interview

19 Mar 07 Cambridge Interview with Simon Learmount in Singapore

23 Mar 07 Cambridge offer

30 Mar 07 Chevening Scholarship results

5 Jul 07 Sir Robert Black Scholarship application

Other than the tightly packed dates above, there was tremendous pressure when writing the application essays, finding referees, preparing for exams and interviews etc. Please don't forget that I need to work at the same time, in particular, being an auditor in KPMG is not an easy life in these few years. Before the series of application process, I was not that definite to quit my job and study for one year MBA programme. However, in view of the hurdles that I have jumped over throughout the 4-5 months of time, I became more treasure about the offer and decided to go ahead even though I failed in the Chevening Scholarship eventually.

Thanks God for His kind arrangement including the good timing. You can read from the above timetable that I got an offer from Oxford before attending the subsequent interviews, this lessen my pressure a lot and made my Singapore trip relaxing. Also thanks God for giving lovely friends around me:

- Alex Hui and Margery give my insight to take the MBA pragramme

- Yammie, Camie, JoJo and Jackal for proof reading my application essays

- Maria, Eddy and Cyril Lee for the reference letters

- Alan and Stanley for their GMAT and IELTS revision books

- Clara, Sandy, Flora, Jessica, Irene, Inez, Andy, churchfriends for their prayers, encouragement and support when I was not confident on the exams and interviews

All in all, these are only my preliminary experience, I expect many exciting events are coming soon.

Oxbridge Boat Race Dinner 2007

Oxbridge Boat Race Dinner

14 April 2007

The Hong Kong Club.

Before getting to the UK, parties and excitements already started in HK. Great to have Margery as companion for the dinner, we have fun that night especially because we are the youngest ladies in the party!!