New York vs. Paris

It's true that you always want to move to the places where you vacation.  Never before, however, had I felt such a strong urge to drop everything and move than when I was in Paris.  The feeling eventually passed, and as I've settled back into normal life, I've realized that there are so many things I'd miss about New York.  Paris and New York are both incredible cities with so much to offer their residents, yet so different in their quirks as illustrated by Vahram Muratyan in his blog Paris versus New York: a tally of two cities. 

Here are a few of my personal favorites:

 Whichever you prefer, make sure you keep le ticket with you at all times or you may get a fine from the SNCF.

 I think pigeons are worse.  Rats can't fly. 

Pistachio macaron vs. red velvet cupcake?  Now this is a tough one...

I'm not sure how I.M. Pei would like having his creation compared to a retail store, but they do look similar...

I've never been to the 3rd or Williamsburg, but I imagine those who have can attest to the accuracy of this image.

Business Cards from Moo

Professionelle's free business cards from Moo came yesterday and I am absoultely in love with them!  I discovered Moo through about.me which I discovered through Loni, my tech-fabulous friend who is the co-founder of Approved by Friends, a website that allows you to easily explore and plan where to go and what to do in your city and around the world. 
With your about.me account, you get a free pack of Moo business cards that come with a QR code that links to your about.me page.  I made Aman try it yesterday on his iPhone and it worked!  Check out Professionelle's about.me page here.

You can create custom cards on Moo or you can choose one of their existing designs.  Here are a few of my favorites, all 69.99 for a pack of 200:

Pocket Piano: you can fold along the lines and create a mini-piano.  How clever!

Affirmations

Perfect Palette

Typographical Moustaches

Welcome to the New Professionelle!

Professionelle has a whole new look (and url, so make sure you change your rss feeds)! First of all, I'm so sorry I that haven't posted in so long. It's taken a while to get the new website up and running, but I love it! I hope you do too. I could not have done this blog makeover without the help of Angelo Adam and Fi Figueroa from the fabulous blog, Previously Owned.  Angelo did the layout and Fi did the beautiful header and buttons. Thank you Angelo and Fi!

And thank you all for being such wonderful and loyal readers.  Lots of great posts will be coming in the next few weeks so please follow Professionelle on your RSS feed, Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Comment Away!

Even though I've been doing this "blog" thing for about two years, I just recently discovered how to turn on anonymous comments on Professionelle.  Now you can feel free to comment away even if you don't have a Google I.D.  Looking forward to hearing your suggestions and feedback.

Also, stay tuned for a follow up post on the popular Summer Associate Wardrobe Guide from two years ago, updated with new firms and more details.  Also to-come, a feature on my favorite lawyer-turned-blogger links.

Mission Accomplished

 

I don't know what it is about Apple products that makes them so darn addictive, but that addiction has spread around the world like wildfire.  Case and point: my mother called me last week to ask me to bring her an iPad 2 which was apparently selling for RMB $20,000 on the black market.  That's nearly US $3000!  So, I did what any good Chinese daughter would do, I called every single Apple store in New York, every single day to see if they had any in stock.  At one point, I encountered a clerk who answered with phone with, "Thanks for calling the W. 14th Street Apple Store where we are all sold out of the iPad 2."  I'm not sure how this was any more efficient because even after this greeting I (and I'm sure everyone else) repeated, "So...that means you don't have the iPad 2?"  He reiterated that indeed, they were all sold out, but informed me that I could come in early in the morning and wait in line when their morning stock arrived.  Frustrated, I asked a friend how he had managed to get his iPad 2 so quickly.  "Easy," he said, "I simply waited in line for 5 hours...rather...I paid someone else to wait in line for 5 hours...."  And this is how I discovered Agent Anything.  Through Agent Anything, I posted a "mission" for someone to wait in line at the Apple store at 6am in exchange for $30.  Yup, you heard right, a mere $30.  "Agents" aka college students (you must have a valid .edu email address to be an agent to make it easier for the website to keep its agents accountable) can "accept" your mission.  Within 10 minutes, a CUNY student accepted my iPad 2 mission.  I was provided with his email address and phone number.  The next morning, he went to the Apple store at 6am to wait in line for my mother's iPad 2.  Unfortunately, the store received very little stock so I was not able to actually get an iPad 2, but the overall Agent Anything experience was quite good.  Clients can propose any kind of mission they want (within the bounds of legality I presume).  I've seen people post missions to return a medical device to a hospital, paint their living room or help them set up an e-commerce site.  Agent Anything has even partnered with Ben and Jerry's ice cream.  The client pays for the price of the ice cream and the website pays $10 to the agent who delivers it.  That sounds like a win win for everyone.  So, check out Agent Anything the next time you need...well...anything I guess.

Future Professionelle in the Making

Adorable.  This is apparently Alexander Wang's niece.  Found at copper + lace.

Do Nothing for Two Minutes

New (Lunar) year, new resolutions.  My resolution this year is to relax more, which is a very difficult task for my type-A mind.  Needless to say, I failed miserably at my first few attempts on this link, but eventually I was able to relax for two whole minutes.  Check it out and tell me what you think: aggravating or amazing? 

Courtesy of Marissa.

The Crimson Issue?

Hello from Kansas City! I'm writing you from a cozy little coffee shop called Latteland in the Plaza area of KC. Being in the Midwest with one week to go before I start work has led me to reminisce about school, which in turn reminded me of this article Sarah's boyfriend sent me a while back. I know there's at least one of you out there (you know who you are, you yellow shirt, teal shorts wearing, bracelet matching, you) who likes her men dressed like this:

But, will Harvard's venture into the fashion world be a success?

Mental Break

I probably shouldn't be posting this (or posting at all) since the Bar Exam is less than a week away, but here are two of my favorite ways to take a mental break from studying. Also great for those of you already in the real world who need some help getting through a slow Wednesday at work.

1) The Best of Youtube. Here's just one example, visit the website to see hundreds of similarly entertaining videos.



2) Lucky Magazine's list of the top 100 online retailers selling items for under $100