Asian Food Festival

Because of last night's successful Friday Cooking Night(?), today is all about foods.

First, I tried "Microwave Fried nuts". This is what Biru taught me several weeks ago. It's very simple: First mix the nuts with one spoon oil then microwave them. That's it! However, today I found it was not so easy as it sounded.

Nuts with oil

haha, see? Those black ones were failures.

Pick them out.

The rests are quite nice!! I ate them with the beautiful sky this afternoon.

Later I went to the "Asian Food Festival" at evening. Emmm...many people cued at the door and it was freezing!

Even entered the college, people still had to cue to enter the dining hall. What a successful Festival!




Finally, after about half an hour's waiting, we stood in front of the foods. There were different clubs provided about eight types of foods: Chinese, HK, TW, Japanese, Korean, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia.

My dear classmates

I even met a friend from club OUSAS (em, we watched stars together):

In all, I tried some Vietnam dessert(good), HK noodle with meat (yummy), Korean Spicy chicken with sticky rice cake (nice), Malysia Meat(oh, too dry and cold...)

"MBA phenomenon"

When we cued at the door, I was stopped by Nancy and then we stopped more and more MBAs. People said in "Turkish night" on Friday there were also full of our classmates. emmm...are MBAs really so active?!

I don't think so. This only reflects we are so different in this university, haha:

1. we have more than 200 people, such a huge group makes us higher posibility to bump each other in this relevant small town;

2. we have similar time schedule and most of our time are filled with classes that we easily go out at a same time!

Allow me finish with Hang's sweet smile.

largest drop in 61 years, US CPI index

Just wrote yesterday about the customers' reaction in a real recession, saw one news today:

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081119/economy.html

Consumer prices drop record 1 percent in OctoberWednesday November 19, 2:26 pm ET By Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer
Consumer prices drop by largest amount in past 61 years as energy prices see record plunge

When recession comes

This Saturday will be the first day below zero. Emmm...winter is coming.
Are you ready?
Not just for the cold season but also the "cold" economy...
--

As I wrote in last post, the interest rate of UK dropped to a historical low. However, there is still some chances to earn a rate of 7.25%! It's true, see the photo below: it is offered from RBS.
However, it's an unusual offer. The real reason it offers such a high rate is -- money in need!!! "transfer your cash ISA"



Though everyone knows recession comes, there are some industries' sales are increasing or even double. Our market professor David quoted from today's FT: Sales of cigarette, chocolate, public transportation tickets, bet shop are increasing!

However, don't be too optismitic based on that report, we should view them in this way:
1. When winter comes, people regularly need more cigarette and chocolate;
2. Now is just the beginning of a recession which means people have some money gain from good times to spend.

See in long term, very few industries can do well during the real recession period. Every pond will be spend carefully at that time. Let's see the CPI index of this Christmas.

---

"Why pay for Blackberry's services..."

Haha, seems Nokia is trying to earn the last 'easily spent' money. A little bit desperately, though...

Discount, discount, discount...

See?
ATLEAST 20% off ALL books!
What an amazing promotion!


Yes, recently there are discounts every where

Blackwell: pay 2 get 3


Even Jamie Olive ...

I am wondering: are all these because of the Christmas, or because of this global financial crisis...

The Bank of England slashes interest rates to their lowest level since 1955

Leaves' day

I love the scenery that golden leaves cover all the roads. However after several rainy and sunny weeks, I am curious that will anyone coming to clean them or just let they going rot on the roads.

Today is the firt time I saw people piling them (under some big trees) or packing them (the extra ones are packed in dust plastics).
So I named today as "leaves' day".

Good bye, leaves.
Hi, winter.

Kongfu Panda!

Tonight, I heard "Kong fu Panda" from BBC radio1 when I occasionally turned to that chanel!!!!!!!!!!!!Emmmm, maybe I should not introduce things about "how to be experts in Chinese issues" but "Kong fu Panda" in last Friday...


Kongfu Panda, one of my favourite movies!!
Top 3!

I love the traditional Chinese elements everywhere there, from big structures to small details. Which reminds me some excellent Chinese cartoon films in early 80s drawn by hands.

Another thing I loved is its English-Chinese scripts. Sometimes they are totally no relationship at all [one in very US way while another in very Chinese way] but reflect the same spirit and lead people learn from laughing!

Some my favourite quotes:
"There'e no charge for awesomeness or to attractiveness "
"The secret ingredient of my secret ingredient soup is...nothing.To make something special ,you just have to believe it’s special"


BBC radio

BBC has many radio channels. Normally I will listen to BBC Oxford. Yesterday I found Radio 1 is interesting too: it provides more music! I like the rap and pop music there which shows me the latest trends of music.




Friday cooking night

I will hold the 2nd Friday Cooking Night this Friday. However we cannot find proper meat for the soup: spareribs. The spareribs we found in supermarkets here are all very GIANT, while in China they will be pretty small size...

What we can learn from Obama's winning

Obama won not just the united states' next presidential position but also
many many people's hearts. We can see from that famous speech, 'It’s the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives'. I also saw it from the excitement and happiness on my classmates' faces who come from US.

Paul Temporal, a visiting fellow of SBS discovered the secret of Obama's winning. Let's learn from his article: Building brand Obama

Key points:
A Central Vision
Powerful Values
Understanding the Target Audience
An Overarching and Empowering Message
Multiple Touch

All sounds familiar, right? I believe every one who studies marketing/branding knows all of them. However, the following paragraph, especially the last piece releaves something interesting: key word "dream":

"Barack Obama has used these established techniques to attract friendship, loyalty and trust and to create a compelling and attractive image that few can resist. By so doing he has changed perceptions in unprecedented ways, not just about himself, but about America, and not just in America, but also globally. The American Dream has been brought to life, and like a global brand, he has made everyone feel they can have a piece of it. "

First seminar held by me

November 07, 2008, I pensented the first seminar in SBS.

Though I was over tired even hard to speak English smoothly. I feel so happy because everyone there enjoyed.

People thought and talked, people laughed and got involved.

Two things I learnt from this trying:
1. If you want to do a seminar, do it!
You don't need to be a key member of any OBN or committee. Hesitation will be the only thing which prevents you realizing it.

2. Don’t ignore an exhausting class.
One of the three sections didn't show up anyone even several people who promised they would come because an exhausting class just before my seminar. So do take care of what will happen before the seminar and prepare for that: do more promotion!

First kick: