Vienna

Vienna (IPA: /viˈɛ:nʌ/; in German: Wien IPA: [viːn]; see also other names) is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria.
More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna

Skoll World Forum - the big days

Next week is a special one:
Hilary term exams
and
SKOLL WORLD FORUM!!

All seminar rooms in next week are fully booked for the forum;
Yesterday, a team started building one white big tank in the middle yard of SBS (Today the middle yard disappeared, a huge tank with big "windows", three entrances, even air conditions instead).

Not just SBS, I heard that there will be several sub-venues all around the university.

What an exciting event!
Pity it's held exactly on exam week:(.
I've booked the ticket and will attend some of meetings after the exam.

Article from NY Time

About B-schools under current situation:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/business/15school.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em

The comments also worthy reading:

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/03/15/business/15school.html

Talks from John Elkington

One of my biggest happiness and also one of my biggest sadness is that every day, there are so many interesting events/lectures/speeches in Oxford held by all the top researchers or experts.

Tonight, I attended one of them: a speech given by Mr. John Elkington. John is a big name of social sustainability who founded sustainability.com 22 years ago and volans.com last year. 

Social sustainability is not a new concept and I keep my attention on this since years ago. It's a great opportunity having chance listen and exchange ideas with such an expert from the front line. By his talk, John shared with us his story from childhood to all these years' fails and achieves. 

I asked two questions during the Q&A session:

1. Does the increasing attention on CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) Reports helps the awareness of social sustainability?

2. How is current situation of the awareness and activities of social sustainability worldwide?

I'm very happy hearing John mentioned China's increasing attention on sustainability when he answered the second question (he even used the word: "anxious" to describe how eager Chinese people on this topic). John shared his interesting experience in his answer:

When I visited China not long time ago, after the meeting during the dinner, the man sat next to me only spoke mandarin and I only spoke English. But we talked a lot. I was like a lemon that he wanted to squeeze all the knowledge about sustainability from me.

John described Sustainability.com as "still a small organisation". When I told John that next term, SBS will provide a "sustainability" course, he felt quite happy since behind this is the whole society's increasing attention to this area.

Spring

Spring is everywhere

忽如一夜春风来

千树万树梨花开

Surprisingly Oxford enters the spring in a sudden! Though companied with quite a lot rain and cold wind.

8k

First "long" distance jogging since I came to Oxford. Tough but thanks Jon and Ben, I accomplished this unbelievable thing! (Five months' totally out of jogging or any other exercises besides four times' gym.)

When we finally finished, I felt my feet were walking on the clouds other than ground...

Go Go Go! Will try keep joining this.

Michealmas review - 2 the British weather and British pace

Before I came, many people told me the weather will be terrible: a lot of rain, cold, wet, cloudy, no sun shine...
After I arrived, I found the weather was pretty sunny. But still people warned me: it's because now is summer! When winter comes, the rain will last the whole month, umbrellas will be broken easily and the life will be miserable...

However, after five months' time, I found the weather is pretty nice. It rains, but seldom lasts longer than a half day. The sunny days were more than 1/3 of the time. When we just started complain the heaters are not warm enough the weather starts warm.

The British weather is much nicer than I thought while the British pace is much worse than I expected.

I set up a bank account before I came, however it still took me 2 weeks to get the card and use it: the card didn't arrive propperly to the branch; even after it arrived, I had to sign some file and then wait another week for the PIN. It also took me one and half month, four times' visiting to correct a billing address...

Similar things happened one after another. I found that if I don't expect anything in an efficient way I will live much happier here (all these can be done in several minutes when I was in Shanghai).

Michealmas review - 1 the two most popular things on Oxford street

Spring is coming, Hilary's past half, have to write down some memories in Michealmas before they go away.

1. the two most popular things on the Oxford street

What are your guesses? 

-People in Gowns?

-Plants?

-??

I say they are:

Bottles of alcohol

Bodies of gum

It's much easier here than Shanghai to see different kinds of bottles of different types of alcohols on the street. Some are on the window tables, some are in the middle of some pillars, some are besides the wall, some have already been pieces...

Bottles get cleaned after a certain period of time, bodies of gums are not. They lie on the ground of every where. Interesting is that most of they keep in white while in other cities the bodies of gums would be grey or dark. Another interesting thing is that you can find the most popular bars, bus stops by following the bodies of gums: in front of these places there have the most bodies of gums. 

spring spring spring

When I was happy with the sunny Barcelona, I didn't expect that Oxford was going into Spring. 

New leaves, flowers, grass are everywhere. The weather is much 'friendly' too. Though it's still cold at night, you only need much less coats to spend the day time. Where is that "6 months' winter"? Or I'm pretty lucky that no need to bear normal long winter days? 

Am trying to edit photos from Barcelona via mac but in a very very slowly status:(. Hope I can share with you soon.