2/19/09

2m walk + dance

2/28/09

5m walk

...

2m walk + dance

Stenography

On the subway this afternoon, the lady next to me was working on exercises in a language workbook.  However, unlike normal languages, the letters on these pages were stacked in random orders with spacing of various sizes interspersed in between.  It used the Roman alphabet, but was neither a romantic nor a germanic language.  My curiosity piqued, I asked her what she was studying.  Though I'd never seen it before, I hypothesized that it could potentially be court room stenography.

My hypothesis was correct!  She was studying to be a court room typist.  As a stenographer she would use this shortform langauge to type upwards of 200 wpm.  Wow.  She also showed me the small typewriter that she had with her -- it had half as many keys as a typical keyboard.  She said that the left hand side dictated the beginning of the word and the right hand side typed the end, this way, an entire word could be typed at once.

She said that a typical course of study takes 3 years and she was about halfway through.  Her goal is to work to become a close caption typist to  make upwards of $140,000 a year, but that would take another year of two of training.

So very interesting!  Learned something cool over the course of short 3 subway stops! 

2m walk + 3 m run + dance

Understanding firms

Most people who are not in consulting and have few friends in the industry have neither idea of a consultant's job nor of the major firms that operate in this space. 

Why is there a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in New York City -- isn't it suppose to be in Boston? Same reason that HSBC, Deutsche Bank and UBS are in the US and that Bank of America is in Europe.  Note to entrepreneurers, picking a suitable firm name is vital, and having a location in the company name will invite a lot of questions down the road.

One industry that I'm unfamiliar with is law.  Most law firm names are long concatenated names of their founders.  I'm slowly starting to recognize some of these names including Skadden, Wachtell, Cravath, Allen Overy, etc.   It's still a process to figure out the differences among the firms.  So thus far, I've gotten the large banks and the consulting firms straight.  Now, I'm working on law firms and further down the road, hedge funds and PE shops.

2m walk

Dim sum

Dim sum for the 3rd weekend in a row.  And 3 different non Jing Fong places--very exciting.  I think my favorite so far is Golden Unicorn as it's very nicely decorated, also bright.  Dim sum go go is nice too -- better service and cleaner than most chinese places.

Watched "He's Just Not That Into You" with a few friends this weekend.  Even though it was a movie, there was truth in some of its messages.  Though I give the girl major props for being forward. 

Celebrating differences

A couple of my friends who are in relationships constantly constantly bemoan an underlying problem that their bfs are of a different cultural backgound.  My friends want to speak Chinese at home.  They want to celebrate Chinese Holidays.  They want to raise their children to speak Chinese and retain the Chinese background.  Therefore, their current bfs of different ethnicities throw a slight wrinkle in otherwise perfect relationships.

Yet my take is that having parents of different backgrounds provides a richer family culture.  Instead of just English and Chinese, the family can share in Arabic+English+Chinese, or Polish+English+Chinese or Hebrew+Spanish+English+Chinese+XYZ languages, etc.  Isn't that even better?  The family can observe all holidays (as long as neither is super religious). Isn't this the American Dream?  The reason for immigration, and the mixing of cultures?  I find beauty in diversity, and wonderment in differences.  So rather than view their varied upbringings as a concern, their distinct perspectives should be a point of celebration.  It should make their relationships all the stronger and exciting in the long run.  We all share a passion for learning, and learning about each other is one of the easiest ways to do so.