Aside from getting drenched in the rain, this weekend was pretty cool. On Saturday morning, I saw G again at the gym. You remember G don’t you? – the ‘06 Columbia alum who works long hours and never leaves work before 11pm. Anyway, we talked about Columbia interviews, which are conducted by alumni. G says if I manage to secure an interview *knock on wood* my interviewer would be selected on a random basis. He also says that he use to participate in that process, just not this year. It would’ve been hella sweet if he still did and I got him as my interviewer. It also turns out we both like to run along the West Side Highway path by the Hudson River. So I gave him my email and we went running Sunday morning. But I’ll return to that later.
Saturday night, I attended my cousin’s wedding. Congrats to her and her new husband! It seems like everybody nowadays is getting married. All the family members were there –even my relatives from down South. The oldest is our matriarch, my grandmother who has also been a great grandmother for some time now. I think she is in her 90s and is still commanding and fiery. The female side of our family typically is. My baby cousins have gotten so big and tall. One of them plays for his school’s football team as a linebacker. What do they feed them down there?? Must be all that good old Southern cooking. It was nice seeing everyone again. I can’t remember the last time the whole clan was together at the same place and time. The food was awesome! There was lobster, birdnest’s soup (expensive stuff), and lots and lots of seafood. I think I drank a little bit too much red wine. Between me, my brother and my dad, we finished off like five bottles of cheap French red wine. I’m just glad our side of the family doesn’t get the embarrassing “Asian flush.” At the end of the night, everybody had a good time and said their goodbyes.
So Sunday morning, G and I went running. Obviously I had a slight hang over. Thank goodness it was cloudy and not sunny. Otherwise I don’t think I could’ve taken the sun beaming in my face during – it would’ve just aggravated the headache. We ran 10 miles. Running is all mental. If you are running with somebody, it’s much easier. Having someone to talk to takes your mind of what you’re doing. Before we knew it, we were done, which was just in time because the rain started to come back in. It felt good to sweat the alcohol out. The pace was slightly slower than what I’m use to, but I tried to take it slower because G wasn’t use to that kind of distance. G never ran 10 miles before. So I showed him some of the new trails that the city built along the river, including the High Line park. He seem to like it. It took us about an hour and 40 minutes, slightly longer than what I normally take. I also showed and explained to him some different stretching techniques to prevent cramping up. During the run, we talked about a number of things. We chatted about Columbia obviously, about work especially in finance and about life in New York. He said that he won the “accounting award” when he was at Columbia and met some pretty good people during his time there. At the end, he wished me good luck and said he’ll be happy to answer any question that I may have in the future. Now I’m considering whether I should put him down as one of my Columbia contacts in my application. Technically, he is not an official representative. And I have more than enough names. So I’m leaning towards no. Anyway, we’ll probably run again sometime this week or on Sunday. So I got a good workout and some helpful advice on Columbia. Pretty productive I would say.
I also finally got a tune-up for my bike. Figured it was about time. This baby has been pretty good to me –gotten me through many tough rides- and she deserves it. I went with the works, including crank adjustment and wheel alignment and of course lubing –even threw in a new bottle holder. Afterwards, I took it out for a test ride and this baby flew like a rocket, mighty fast, fierce and true. Too bad I got caught in the rain. For those interested, I ride a Cannondale bad boy deluxe ultra – yes the highest end of the bad boy series, the series that put Cannondale on the map for city riding.
On a side note, this morning on my way to work was kind of embarrassing. I had left my money in my other pair of jeans and so didn’t have any to pay for the two apples and one peach that I usually buy every morning. The fruit seller was pretty cool and just said I can pay tomorrow seeing how I’ve been a customer of his for some time now. Mental note, hit up the atm before lunch.
Read the full article: Weekend Report
