Five months in San Francisco really helped developing my mentality and personality. In my mind at that time, moving to Boston would not make my life worse than this. It was during the Christmas holidays, and air tickets were so expensive that I could not afford to fly. After been searching for the cheapest way of going to the East Coast, finally, I decided to cross the country by Greyhound bus. It was such a long trip that took 4 days and 3 nights on the road. Christmas time, with not that many people traveling on the road made me feel all alone. I was anxious and concerned about my safety. I would become very nervous every time I had to transfer from bus to bus. I was so afraid that I would be left out in the middle of nowhere.

The bus took me more than 10 states. It was the first time I saw the snow in Iowa and it was on Christmas Eve. I felt so peaceful. What I did to kill time was to read books and to write my traveling journals.
New York City was the stop before Boston. While I was so excited and thrilled that finally I had set my feet on my dream city, I was shocked when I learned that my luggage was lost. The news was devastating for me because all my clothes, important documents like my visa, bank account and I20 were all in there. The Greyhound staff told me that they would try to get the luggage back for me or they would compensate me. It was such a warm welcome for me. However, I had them back three days after I arrived in Boston.
I started working in the Thai restaurant right away. I studied three days a week and the rest of the week I just worked. Four days working as a waiter was not enough to pay my tuition. The first year, I used my first credit card to pay some of them. I told myself that I had to find a way to reduce my tuition fee.

Firstly, I looked for the TA position but all of them were filled. Then I changed my direction, in stead of trying to have the TA position, I tried to get the scholarship. To have those scholarships, my GPA needed to be high enough. However, I thought the higher the GPA, the better chance I would have the scholarship. Therefore, I would challenge my professors if I felt like I deserved more scores than they gave me on any exam. Finally, with my entire effort, I got a brake from school. I was granted the scholarship for the rest of my MBA program. I was so delighted that I would be able to pay back my credit card debt.

The two and a half year in school were hard but also fun for me. It was hard because I had to work until late every weekend and got back to the apartment like midnight. Since I was staying in Waltham out of Boston, the train schedule was not that convenient. Winter was always brutal in particular when I had to wait for the train and the weather outside was sub-zero. There were many times, I sat down by myself at the quiet train station and what I did was just singing and sometimes crying when I had a bad day. Then, in the morning, I had to get up and go to school and study until 9 pm. However, I also had a great time in Boston, in particular, after I had a scholarship I had a chance to travel all around the country. It was a hard time for me but at least I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I was about to achieve my dream.

Life is like the never ending class. We always live and learn and I have learned a lot of things after three years in Boston. Unlike San Francisco, I met several great people who became my best friends for life.

I graduated in October of 2002.

After school, I decided to follow another of my dream: moving to New York City. My life in Boston for three years was enough; I had seen enough of the dog eat dog society here already. I need something new. I need some new adventures.

Therefore, I moved my stuff to New York City. What would happen to me there, I had no idea. But I would not scare because if life had mercy to me so far, I knew life would not be cruel to me after.