Week 4

眨下眼巳是week 4了,八個weeks之後就温習考試,所以這個星期要盡量catch up未温的東西,否則之後上堂可能會唔明. 都係果句,雖然我唔信會肥佬,但都要比心机嘅. 不過想温書的時候,practical work (group assignment)又剎到,花我們超級多時間去discuss,周未一定唔少得要返学校開會,搞到無時間去玩,真可憐! 晚上常常讀到一兩點才睡(雖然也花了不少時間玩電腦),不過一點也不寂寞,因為在Gmail or MSN上仍然見到很多同学未瞓,而且比起以前KPMG的生活這些都算不得什麽. 我巳比較幸運,因為我暫時唔揾工,可以應付少一件事.今日有兩個同学不約而同跟我說他們壓力很大,主要是揾工好煩,唯有傾下舒發一下.

我有上Econ & Decision Science 的support class (補習班), 聽多一次好過自己返屋企温書,再搞唔掂便就找CFA Level 3的同学補習. 我term break會去Barcelona & southern part of France,所以現在要找机票和酒店,好忙.......... Though frantic still find it fulfilling.

MBA Class Photo

Clock back

Clock back by one hour in UK means I am having 8 hours timing difference to HK. It is not good to me because I will have no chance to chat with HK friends when I get back home at 6pm i.e. 2am HK time.

I went to another church today, Oxfordshire Community Churches. I woke up late after the London trip a day before and Melody called me saying that this church may be suitable to me which has Sunday worship at 10:30am. I looked at my watch which shown 11:10am. Melody said we will be able to catch the session because the clock was adjusted to back one hour due to winter timetable.

I think I like this church, it is a feeling when I step into the church, a home-like feeling. The time is good (i.e. 10:30am) which allow me to utilise the afternoon session. Location is excellent which is near my school so that I could have project meeting in the afternoon (though no one wish to work on Sunday "^"). There is a high freedom in worship, people do not need to sit closely together because the church is very big. Unlike the previous church that I visited, we are not "forced" to chat with the people sitting beside you, I like this! I think it is better than the Chinese church that I plan to go which is far away (need to take a bus) and the time is bad i.e. 2:30pm. Thanks God for arranging such a nice church to me!

London Trip

Musical - Avenue Q


London Eye - makes more profits than British Airway airline business!


Star War Exhibition in County Hall Westminster starting from 1 Sept 2007


Sirena and I went to London on Sat because of the 1 pound Oxford Tube (coach) coupon. London impression to me is : old, dirty and crowded; may be I took too much Underground and it was cloudy. Sirena showed me the must go places : Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Eye etc. I will go to London again three weeks later because Marge will have training there, thus, I don't need to visit all spots in a hurry.

Shopping in London is very convenient because you can find all shops in Oxford Street. I didn't buy anything because there is no discount and Oxford also has some of the shops e.g. Zara, Next, Primark, Gap, Marks & Spencer etc. The only shop that interest me is Burberry, the price is cheaper than that in HK and we decided to go to Bicester Village (an outlet near Oxford) in the coming week.

One thing that is weird (X 10 times per Sirena) is that all restaurants in China Town were closed when we went there at 10:30am, I think we need to go there either earlier to have dim sum or later to have lunch there. We finally find a place to have my 艇仔粥, we also have egg tart and 菠蘿飽though the bread is not fresh enough.

We watched a musical called "Avenue Q" which is played by puppets and humans, a very innovative idea with meaningful story. It's about seeking a purpose in life, a love story with some hilarious songs. Hope I can watch as much musical as possible in this year.


一睇就知我在Oxford好食好住啦,可能要買個磅旁下身先得.

Friday night

We dined at a Chinese restaurant followed by drink at Oxford Retreat and decided to dine out every Friday target to try every nice restaurant in Oxford. We have girls' talk, also discussed about our personality test results. My areas of improvements : be more assertive, can't be too modest and need clarification if I found being offended. On top of these, I add forget and forgive. These are general business manner, as an MBA student, I need to sharpen these skills in this year.

Practical work result

Practical work means group assignments which represent around 40% (may be 20% for each assignment) of the total score. We have the first practical work result for Developing Effective Managers today, my group has 65, quite okay.

Below is the marking conventions:
80-100 Superb work
75-79 Excellent work
70-74 Fine work
65-69 Strong pass
55-64 Good pass
50-54 Pass
45-49 Marginal fail
0-44 Outright fail

We have tailor-made a name for our group i.e. SanTeenThree. It is very meaningful because we are Group 27 officially which is the cube of three. SanTeenThree means 3-3-3 in the language of Japanese/Chinese - Indonesian - English, representing the countries of six of us.



Neville Isdell, CEO of Coca Cola Group, gives us a seminar on marketing, society and culture. He graduated from faculty of social worker and Nelson Mendela is his idol. He mentioned a lot about corporate governance (e.g. Aids, pollution) and he said being a CEO can help more people than being a social worker which I also agree because they have strong financial back up.

Food

I usually have nice dinner in Wadham, otherwise, I may have finger food after seminars/talks in SBS lobby or Randolf Hotel. See my dinning picture at Wadham refectory. I don't always have deep fried food as posted in my blog on 10 Oct. No worry ^0^


For lunch, I usually dine near SBS (such as Chinese cuisine with dim sum and Thai food) which costs around 6 pounds per meal. The food that I found not worthy is 碟頭义燒飯at東方不敗快歺店 (<-- Yammie, u've told me before) which charges 7 pounds (~HK$110), taste worse than Fairwood!! I rarely eat in SBS dinning room because it is usually crowded and the food is just ok ish. The quality is fair enough compared with the price of only 2 pounds. See the dinning room menu above.

Post Office

This is the Post Office at High Street that I often go to send parcels and letters to HK. I am trying to source some nice X'mas cards, unfortunately there is none related to Oxford. You guys will probably receive my X'mas cards in early Dec because I will fly to Spain & Italy immediately after exam on 17/18 Dec. Just wish to go to some warmer places in Europe.

Laundry

I don't like doing laundry because I need to ensure I have four hours available to keep an eye on my clothes. I just collected my clothes from the dryer machine at 11pm but all of them are still wet; suspecting someone has opened the door before I reached there.

Anyway, doing laundry is still better than goes off of fire alarm. There has been 3 firm alarm in 4 weeks including 1am on last Saturaday and 8am this morning. Hope it won't happen too frequently when it is getting colder in the near future.

Many reading materials

Six core subjects in the Michaelmas Term (1st term) which lasts for only 8 weeks plus 1 week for revision and the last week for exam. Other than the recommended textbooks, there are many additional reading materials and group assignments. Although I believe that it is not easy to fail in exams because there group assignments already represent 30-40% of the marks, I still wish to read as much as I can in order to learn more things.

For example, after taking Decision Science (~ statistics), I recognise that audit sample size of 30J is based on Central Limit Theorem and 5% acceptable variance is within two standard deviation on a normal distribution curve. From Developing Effective Manager, I noted that my inertia to stick to one firm may be due to anchoring bias or escalation of commitment. I find it very interesting to explore the rationale behind my past acts.

As a result of the high volume of reading materials, my life become very simple: attend lessons, read at home or coffee shops, group project discussion, send emails, write blog, attend recruitment or CEO seminars, read yahoo news, listen to RTHK radio or music and go to church. "Special events" include drinks & parties usually during weekends and tour outside Oxford. In order not to be so bored before term break, I plan to play basketball on Friday morning and learn horse riding. I didn't have a work-life balance in Hong Kong and hopefully I could have a more study-life balance in UK.

Mandarin

今天碰到一個北京朋友,我便用普通話跟他打招呼. 怎料他說:「Jenny, 不好意思,我的白話（即廣東話)不好, 不如妳講英文吧!」........ 唉, 其實我係講緊普通話.........

Sub-fusc Bop at St. Cross

Date : 13 Oct (matriculation)
Time : 10pm
Venue : St. Cross College
Dress code : sub-fusc look i.e. black, white, ribbon / bow tie or even mortar board & gown

So cold outside but very HOT inside...........

A special thanks to Angus

The weather is exceptionally good here since I arrived on 24 Sept but it rained heavily today. Do you know why?? It's because an important person arrived here,正所謂貴人出門招風雨. Angus piloted a Cathy Pacific aircraft to Heathrow, then took a coach to Oxford and delivered my supplementary luggage to me. Thanks sooooooooooo much! This so-called supplementary luggage is heavier than my original one, please see above. Also thanks Inez family for squeezing my stuffs in a magical way.

Carfax Tower

I climbed 99 steps to the top of Carfax Tower (built in 1818) to get a bird's eye view of Oxford.

Matriculation Photo

Matriculation Video

Hop-on-Hop-off Sightseeing Bus

好搞笑的旁白,我諗我會講得好過佢,你地話呢?

First friend visit

Wadham Food

The food at Wadham refectory and dinning hall is quite delicious. GBP 3.15 per dinner is included in our accommodation fee, sounds reasonable.

Rail Merger

Poll result of the MTRCL extraordinary general meeting held on 9 Oct 2007.

Total number of votes : 308,421,208
No. of votes for : 253,800,897 (82.29%)
No. of votes against : 54,620,311 (17.71%)

Study Group

今個学期有六科,每科也有group assignments,這樣都好,可以减低individual exam的風險,可算是risk management 的一種. 我門巳被分派到六人一組的study group,有机會才續一介紹. 今日上workshop recap 一下怎樣才能成為成為 一個有效率的study group, 相信我的組員很生性,靠晒佢地啦!

眼瞓到痺,去咗library瞓咗半個鐘. 好彩我有account底,可以睇少一科,否則真係唔洗瞓都搞唔掂！

School starts

終於開学了! ＋年後重返課室都幾有趣,對我來說並不太陌生,因為在舊公司也常常要上堂,包括accounting and soft skills training,甚至要幫手教書. 不同的昰我上堂時很認真,勁留心,唔會發夢(暫時),因為每科只有八堂,轉眼就過了,並且又係果句,比咗好多学費..... 我們有很多書,articles and case study要預備,如果要睇晒一定唔夠時間,所以要有策略去睇,唔好問我係咩策略,我都唔知,重唸緊.

昨天去完short trip也趕得切返崇拜,因為這裡有很多service 6:30pm才開始,可能是就我們這些人吧. 今次去咗Wadham Chapel,好傳统的,沒有燈,只用candle,黑到差啲詩歌都睇唔到,好似天主教的彌撒. 我唔習慣,所以下個星期會找過另–間,希望參加華人教會. 有╴個現象頗有趣,就是當我們站立崇拜時,我會被前面啲人遮住哂,在香港就少啲机會啦,這裡的人比較高.

1st trip - Salisbury, Stonehendge & AVEBURY

1st trip - Salisbury, STONEHENGE & Avebury

Jenny, Sirena and Jay

1st trip - SALISBURY, Stonehenge & Avebury

Ravinder's Birthday

Today is Ravi's birthday, we have a drink in Thirst. Again, a bottle of Budweiser and a small glass of Tequila........ nearly make me drunk. No worry, I can go back to hostel safely because my college friend, Deepti, doesn't drink, she can ensure I arrive home ultimately.


Wadham classmates : Jenny, Tarun, Deepti and Mitsuhiro. Only four of us.

Fire Alarm

A fire alarm went off this morning at 5:30am which is caused by someone smoking in the library. I am familiar with fire drill but it is my first time experience a real alarm. I wonder if I was dreaming and wish to ignore it. All students in my staircase evacuate to an open area eventually. You can imagine how funny it is for all of us with sleepy eyes and slippers gathering outside the cold air.

I am planning two short trip today. We will join a local tour (GBP32.5) to Stonehenge, Salisbury and Avebury on this Sunday. It is good to have a short tour before school starts on next Monday. The other trip is visiting Oxford city because my ex-colleagues will come to visit me next week before attending partners' conference in London. Looking forward to the tours!!

Freshers' Fair 2007

Freshers' Fair is a place where you can sign-in to join the clubs and societies. I have signed in many (just leave your email address and is free of charge) such as Oxford Union Society, Oxford University Dancesport Club, The Oxford Graduate Christian Union, Oxford Chinese International Awareness, Oxbridge China Club, Oxford University Chinese Association. All Chinese clubs and many other else that I can't remember. Sign-in is one thing while participating is another thing, hope I can at least participate in a few events after the school start in next week.

Wadham Graduate Dinner

Dr Oren Sussman, my interviewer, who is also my College Advisor and is going to teach us Macro Economics in Hilary term. We have Graduate Dinner at Wadham dinning hall tonite. I praised him that he picked a right person during interview ^o^


Oxford is very serious on examination, therefore, we need to wear sub-fusc (gown) and each student has a two-inch thick examination regulations book. I doubt if any of us is going to read such book.

Wadham Dinning Hall

Dinner is served in the dinning hall and new refectory during 7:00 to 7:30p.m. If you are arrived after 7:30p.m., sorry, you will have no food. I am afraid that I will still be in business school at 7:30p.m. working on the assignments and projects. Breakfast is served at 8:15 to 9:00a.m., as our business school starts lesson at 8:30a.m., sorry again, I would never have the chance to have breakfast in Wadham.

Week 0 - Registration and self introduction

Can you spot me? I am the first one of this page. This is only a small part of my class, we have 221 students in this year in which only 23% are female. One interesting phenomenon is that, I don't need to line up for the toilet but there is always long queue outside men's toilet......We have one minute to introduce ourselves on the stage in front of the whole class today, we started at 11:30am and ended at 5:30pm to finish such. Very tired now.


My school bag and name tag. I don't have such since kindergarten, it's fun!! Don't be jealous on my smart school bag, I've paid GBP28,000 tuition fee!!

Tarun's Birthday

Tarun (with red jumper in the first picture), the birthday boy, is one of my best friend here and the first classmate I know before arriving to Oxford. We live in the same staircase, so he is the guy I always seek help from when I get into trouble on my IT stuff and electrical appliances.