On a recent trip to Japan, I tested out my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC1 camera attached to a Leica lens. I ended up taking over 1,000 pictures during the seven days in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Nara. Click the links below to view some of the photos that I took.
(Note: Since the original file sizes were fairly large, I’ve uploaded only a few in high resolution, while others have been scaled-down to 640x480 for faster download.)

Click here for PHOTOS OF JAPANESE SIGHTS (linked to 1600x1200 originals)

Click here for PHOTOS OF JAPANESE SIGNS (linked to 640x480 scaled-down)

Click here for PHOTOS OF JAPANESE FOOD (linked to 640x480 scaled-down)

Federal Aviation Administration...Today I start my new job at the FAA headquarters here in Washington DC. I will be working in the Financial Analysis & Process Re-engineering (FAPR) department. This department assists the Senior VP of Finance for the Air Traffic Organization (ATO) in establishing policies, planning, and providing analysis on a variety of programs (i.e. human resource management, labor/management relations, and air traffic workforce staffing).

MBA Graduation on the National Mall...Today GW had our commencement ceremony on the National Mall in front of the Capitol building. Click here to see more photos from the graduation ceremony.

I just started my final semester of the GW MBA program...I'm taking the following courses this semester: 1.) International Business Finance, 2.) Financial Statement Analysis, 3.) Economics of U.S. Trade Policy, 4.) International Trade Theory & Policy, 5.) Secretaries of State and the Practice of International Affairs, and 6.) Managing in Developing Countries.

U.S. Department of State...As a complement to my Economic Integration of the Americas class, today I began an internship across the street from GW at the Department of State. I'm interning in the Economic Bureau (EB). More specifically in the Trade Policy and Programs (TPP) office of Bilateral Trade Affairs for Europe and the Western Hemisphere (BTA/EWH). A lot of the work that goes on in the office deals with Free Trade Areas (FTAs) and the office works closely with the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). Click here for a list of FTAs.

The second year of my 2-year GW MBA program starts today...I've decided to focus on international economic development as my field of concentration. This semester I'm taking the following classes: International Business Negotiations, Strategy Formulation and Implementation, Economic Integration of the Americas, and External Development Financing.

Today I finished my "Open Water Diver" SCUBA certification...Before starting my research fellowship in Micronesia this summer, everybody that I had spoken to about it thought all I would do was go to the beach and not have time for any research. I'll have to say, it was quite the contrary. I found very little time to pursue my goal of obtaining my SCUBA certification while in the CNMI. All my lessons were held during long lunch hours, evenings, or during the weekends. And believe it or not, I took the written exam just hours before my flight to the mainland!

The word mirconesia literally means "small islands". Most divers know that some of the best snorkeling and SCUBA diving in the world is located in this remote area because of the incredible coral reefs surrounding the islands.

Below is a summary of my dives over a three week period in the Northern Mariana Islands. I saw unbelievable coral reefs, fire coral, schools of skipjack tuna, clown fish, sea anemone, giant sea turtles, garden eel, and even an octopus.

Dive #1 @ Sugar Dock Beach, Saipan - max. depth of 10 feet.

Dive #2 @ LauLau Beach, Saipan - max. depth of 40 feet.

Dive #3 @ LauLau Beach, Saipan - max. depth of 50 feet.

Dive #4 @ Obyan Beach, Saipan - max. depth of 45 feet.

Dive #5 @ LauLau Beach, Saipan - max. depth of 85 feet.
(FYI: at this depth it is possible to experience nitrogen narcosis but I was at this depth for such a short period of time that I didn't feel anything unusual besides the pressure.)

A meeting with the governor of the CNMI...This past week I attended Governor Benigno Fitial's weekly Friday press conference. Click here to see a photo published in the Saipan Tribune.

Island Summer Fellowship program in Saipan, CNMI...I recently accepted a research fellowship for the summer. Believe it or not, I'll start out studying the culture of micronesia at the University of Hawaii, then fly to Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) for a couple weeks of research, and finally return to Washington DC to write and present my findings. It sounds like one of the most interesting fellowships ever offered! The goal of the program is to assess the business climate of Saipan, CNMI. More specificlly I will be researching factors such as tax policy, business and investment incentives, regulatory policy, the permitting process, and the general relationship between the public and private sectors within the islands. Besides myself, there are 7 other MBA students that will take part in the summer program (students from UPenn, Harvard, Northwestern, Georgetown, and Univ of Hawaii). We will work in groups of two and study different territories of the US, such as Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, and the CNMI. The research project is funded by the US Department of Interior (Office of Insular Affairs) and administered by the University of Hawaii. I'm excited for the start of the project and expecting it to be an extremely unique summer experience!

Bill and Hillary Clinton on campus today...I was walking from the Marvin Center (that's the GW student union) back to the Gelman Library and I noticed a couple secret service people. It's normal to see these guys on campus because we are in the middle of DC and so close to the White House and every other federal building. Not to mention that it's pretty easy to notice these guys because they always wear black suits, have wired ear pieces dangling from their ears, and also drive huge black SUVs. Anyway, I didn't think it was anyone extremely important because there were only 3 vehicles (ordered: black SUV, black towncar, black SUV). Usually when Bush or Cheney are driven around town there are 10 loud Harley-Davidson motorcycles leading the motorcade, two bulletproof limos in the middle, followed by 10 SUVs and an ambulance. If you've never seen the post 9/11 motorcade, check out this video that I took a couple weeks ago that only traveled 5 blocks: GW_to_WH_motorcade. (Right click on the file and "save link as"; the video is 30 megabytes so it might take a couple minutes to download) But to get back to my story, I was walking from the Marvin Center to the Gelman Library and saw a black town car and secret service people waiting to pick someone up. I thought I'd take a quick glance just to see who it was. I was definately surprised to see both Bill and Hillary Clinton walking out of Lisner Auditorium to their waiting town car. That was actually my first time seeing Bill and/or Hillary in DC! Here's the article from the GW Hatchet explaining why both were on campus today: GW Hatchet Article.

Duquès Hall...The new home for the GW School of Business...Here are some photos of our new business school building located on 22nd St. between G St. and H St.

At the Loews Georgetown Movie Theater...Today I was doing some market research at the local movie theater for my marketing class, and just as I was leaving the theater I ran into George Stephanopoulos. If you don't remember George, he was one of President Clinton's senior advisors. I guess it just shows once again that most of these Washington politicians are just normal everyday people.

XM Radio Headquarters tour...

NASDAQ "Building a Brand"...

A visit to "The Fed"...

The Kalb Report: A conversation with Dan Rather...Today I went to the National Press Club with a couple of my GW MBA classmates to watch a taping of the Kalb Report for C-SPAN. Marvin Kalb was interviewing Dan Rather on a variety of topics but mostly focused in on the theme of journalism (more specifically what is journalism?) and how journalism has changed over the past several years. I guess it makes sense that they were speaking about journalism because we were at the National Press Club. An historic club on the corner of 14th and F Street, just a block or so east of the White House. The event was also sponsored by GWU and the Harvard University Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy which I believe is part of the Kennedy School of Government. For the past month I had seen posters around the GW campus advertising the Dan Rather interview and knew that it would an interesting event. It was a good change up from the many MBA events I had been attending lately. Back to the topic of journalism... After a couple minutes of Rather and Kalb defining journalism, reporters, and the media; the next question surprised me a bit. Were bloggers considered journalists? This question actually took up most of the interview or at least was referred back to many times. Rather actually knew before most of the audience why this question was asked by Kalb. It turns out that a blogger was the source of the orginal attack of Dan Rather's Texas Air National Guard story about George Bush. I didn't know this before the interview and I doubt many in the audience knew this either. So are bloggers journalists? I believe it was said, and I'm just parapharsing here: if the blogger was accountable for what he/she wrote, attached their name to it and were factually correct, than the blog could possibly be seen as a new form of journalism. But the highlight of the interview was the following:

Rather: an independent panel, it was appointed, headed by a longtime Republican, a man who.......Thornburgh, who was a former Attorney General of the United States, and a distinguished American. But a good friend of the Bush family headed this independent panel. And the independent panel concluded...what did they conclude? One, that what we did, whatever anybody thought about it, was not borne of political bias. Number two, that with three to four months, and many millions of dollars to spend on trying to determine, they could not, and did not determine whether the documents in question were what they were purported to be or not. And the third thing that was said by the panel was that the major, the main reason that a panel had to be appointed, and what they were most critical about, is how we defended the story after the story had run. And I'm paraphrasing here, but I think it's an accurate paraphrase. I want it to be said in my own case, that my principal...I don't want to say crime. My principal problem was that I stuck by the story. I stuck by our people for too long. I'm guilty of that. I believed in the story. The facts of the story were correct. One supporting pillar of the story, albeit an important one. But one supporting pillar was brought into question. To this day, no one has proven whether it was what it was purported to be or not. But at times it was that he stuck by the story. I stuck by the story because I believed in it. He stuck with his people. Listen, I've made nearly every mistake in the book. But my attitude when we go into stories, is we go into them together, we ride through whatever happens, and we come out the other end together. And I didn't give up on my people, our people. I didn't, and I won't.

Kalb: You said, I believe you just said, that you think the story is accurate.

Rather: Well, the story is accurate.

This was the serious side of Dan Rather. But the funnier side occured when Kalb spoke of "the end of an era" in evening news, with Tom Brokaw's retirement as well as Dan Rather's and now the passing of Peter Jennings.

Rather: Listen, three guys who read the news, is not all that important, now in what ever we did...

Kalb: 30 million people watched the three guys who read the news.

Rather: Now, but you know, 50 million watch nymphomaniac housewives on Sunday nights!

An article about tonight's interview can be found here at The GW Hatchet

Here is a photo of two of my GW MBA friends (Evan and Tetsuro), Dan Rather and I at the National Press Club in Washington DC.

United for Peace Rally, "March on Washington"... A couple blocks down from my apartment or just east of the GWU campus, the United for Peace rally was taking place. It was a gathering of what seemed like 100,000 people or so. I decided to go check out the first big "protest" that has occurred while living here in Washington DC. In addition, other anti-war protests were taking place around the world today in places such as London, Rome and Paris. The event was planned more as an anti-war march but there were also many protesters against the government's effort or lack of effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as well as the usual crowd of anti-globalization people. I believe the slogan of the day was "Make Levees, not War". Supposedly Jesse Jackson and Cindy Sheehan were two of the organizers of the event, but I didn't see them through the massive crowds around the White House. Of course the President stayed away from the White House during the protest (although the VP was having surgery just a couple blocks away at the GWU hospital) . I think the President was in Colorado and then went down to survey the damage of Hurricane Rita around Texas and Louisiana. The mainstream media was mostly interested in Hurricane Rita and very little was mentioned about the United for Peace rally here in DC. Here are a couple pictures from my camera's viewfinder ( 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ).

Boilercasting...Podcasting meets the classroom. I've been thinking about recording the MBA lectures here at GW for the past couple weeks, but I haven't gotten around to buying an iTalk or similar microphone for my iPod yet. Interestingly enough, I was reading through the weekly Purdue newsletter on my email and saw that Purdue University is starting to podcast some of the class lectures through a website that they are calling Boilercast. This seems like a great idea, the only problem is that I'll be listening to an Economics lecture from a Purdue professor rather than a GW professor on my Ipod. I guess I'm thinking of this as a way to compliment my MBA courses rather than substituting the lectures. Hopefully other universities including GW will start a similar program. If you're still thinking: how can these podcasts be useful?...here are some benefits that were listed in the Purdue News article.
• Students are able to repeat lectures at their convenience, whether that's while exercising, driving or walking on campus.
• Non-native English speaking students can replay lectures to increase their comprehension.
• Students can review lectures before exams.
• Instructors can listen to their own lectures to improve their presentations.
• And, of course, students can listen in on classes they've missed.

Classes start tomorrow...Today was our last day of the 2 week MBA orientation otherwise known as the GW MBA Institute. Over the past two weeks the cohorts have been involved in many intense workshops to prepare us for the semester. (By the way, this year's Fulltime MBA class is split up into two different cohorts, one is named cohort G and the other cohort W. ) The workshop topics included: Teambuilding, Communications, Case Study Analysis and several other information sessions to help become acquainted with the Career Center and the Library. This may sound a bit boring but each day usually ended with a happy hour or some sort of catered event. There have also been many fun outdoor activities to help us get to know each other and work in teams. We went bowling at the Hippodrome, demonstrated our great teamwork on a ropes challenge course, had a scavenger hunt, played softball at the National Mall, as well as attended a Washington Nationals baseball game.

GW Global MBA orientation...Today marked the end of my relaxing summer vacation and the beginning of my 2 year MBA program at GW. The orientation consisted mostly of an overview of the next several day's events which are to prepare us for classes which start on August 31st. We were also given our class schedules and syllabi as well as had the opportunity to meet the other students in the program. I believe there are 76 first year MBA students in the program along with another 100 or so in their second year. Another interesting statistic is that about half the class consists of international students. Also presented to us were our first assignments of HBR case studies as well as other GLOBE activities. After the reception we were invited to an informal Happy Hour at one of the local pubs which was sponsored by the MBA Association (MBAA).

Whats new... I will start my graduate studies on August 17th, 2005 at The George Washington University. I'm planning a dual Master's Program: MBA International Business and a Masters in International Affairs. Here is a photo from the 2005 GW Global MBA conference. We are atop the Freedom Forum building in Rosslyn, Virginia. Notice downtown Washington DC in the background...you can clearly see the Washington Monument and the Kennedy Center (just to the left of the Kennedy Center is the GWU main campus).

Today's my last day of work before I go on an Educational Leave of Absence from my job at IBM. It's been 5 years since I started as a summer intern in the Latin America HQ Accounting group in Somers, New York. Over the past several years I've worked for 4 great IBM managers in both White Plains and Somers. I'm truly going to miss all of my co-workers and friends in New York, but this summer will be a well deserved vacation for me before my MBA program starts in August. On Monday June 20th, Nadia and I will be moving to the historic Foggy Bottom neighborhood in Washington DC, just two blocks from the main campus of GWU.