I was wondering what I would write about today and didn't have to think very hard thanks to a spark from Jeremiah Owyang's meme and subsequent post from Lisa Amorao on her blog.

Here are my 8 things most of you didn't know about me:

1. I have an OCD that makes it impossible for me to handwrite a page of anything because the second I misspell a word, I have to crumple it up and start over on a new sheet of paper. I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to handwriting, my printing looks like an architect's and my cursive handwriting looks like something straight out of of the example page of those alphabet writing workbooks we used to do as kids. I've traced the source for this OCD back to my very well meaning mom who used to buy me all these extra workbooks to do as a kid. Because English is far from being her first language, my mom used to insist that my printing and cursive handwriting look EXACTLY like it did in the sample pages of those alphabet workbooks. If it didn't, she'd crumple up the piece of paper and make me start over. Years later, I do it to myself. I can't cross anything out. I can't erase it if I use a pencil (because you can still see the little imprint of the mistake etched into your paper) and I can't use white-out because it makes the page look off color and messier. So I crumple, toss and start a new sheet. If you ever wanted to torture me, you should ask me to handwrite a letter to you. All I have to say for this one is, I LOVE COMPUTERS AND THE BACKSPACE KEY.

2. I hate violent and scary movies and tv shows. I can't watch it. Ask anyone who's ever had to go to a movie with me. I get an anxiety attack just hearing the music cues that signal something bad about to happen...even before anyone shoots, stabs or jumps out of nowhere to scare the living crap out of you, I leave the room. It's not like I dodged bullets as a kid or anything. It's weird because I had a very normal childhood but I am just not into any TV or film scenes where something bad is about to happen to someone.

3. I was a crappy student. I averaged a 2.8 GPA all throughout high school and college. I'm the only one I know who did WORSE on the SAT the second time. Not going to even tell anyone what either SAT score was. That's how bad it was.

4. My son was 9.1 freakin' LBS at birth. Bringing him into the world (naturally) via my 5'2 inch frame is by far my biggest achievement in life thus far. I deserve some kind of trophy for this one.

5. I spent 12 years in Catholic school, yet I'm not Catholic.

6. I never climbed the corporate ladder in America. I tried to. My first job out of college was as a Data Network Account Manager for AT&T's Business Markets Division in Boston. I felt like I had to take the highest paying entry level job with the biggest name company in order to make the college tuition juice worth the squeeze and give my traditional Chinese parents something to brag to their friends about. I lasted less than a year before heading to Shanghai in '99 and never looked back.

7. I have a pink Nintendo DS Lite. Got it as a gift from my husband for my birthday last year. I play wifi Tetris on it exclusively. I battle mostly Japanese Tetris addicts on a nightly basis and have logged 7,000+ wins and 3 times as many losses trying to win. My average score is 6,300.

8. I have 3 tattoos.

So there you go. Some random 8 stuff about me. Who's next? It'd be fun if you could link back or post comments below. :-)

So there I was this weekend brainstorming a VIP cocktail event for tech week in Beijing later this month...

It's a week where senior level execs from all over the world will be attending the CHINICT 08 conference or the Asia VC Journal conference and holding a cocktail would be a great opportunity to give folks a chance to mix it up between the two conferences as well as with Beijing based who's who in tech and VC sectors. Yadda yadda yadda...

So in drafting up the initial invite list, I realized that a majority of those invited...would be men! A cocktail party with 99% male attendance after they've spent 2 days in conferences with each other. Boring. Definitely not fun when planning a cocktail party that's supposed to reflect a more social networking environment where real guanxi can develop.

At the same time, I also remembered that I also have a growing number of great caliber girlfriends (CEOs, VPs, Directors, Founders and other senior levels) in non-tech sectors such as advertising, PR and marketing, fashion and event planning and thought to myself that it'd be nice to invite them to the cocktail as well since I was going to be in town.

So why the name "Cute Girls Rock" you may be wondering. Why not something like "The Bitter Glass Ceiling Bitches" or "The Professional Corporate Man Haters Club" right? Because I never quite fit into either of those two during those formative years in my early 20's prior to jumping off the corporate ladder (gosh, I feel old now just for saying that). Also, in the year since I've been back in the China business space, I've come to realize that I'm not alone. My life and future success as a female entrepreneur shouldn't take fashion or corporate culture cues from some old 80's movie of what women in the work force should look or act like...and even IF shoulder padded suits and bad boardroom haircuts *did* come back into style, you won't catch me dead in one. I'll be busy holding a funeral for my wardrobe and mourning the loss of my Blahniks instead....with a glass of Clicquot in one hand no doubt.

So created the group the other night. Invited some girlfriends on Facebook and in the 24 hours since the closed invite only group was created, I've already seen some great networking amongst women from all sectors in different cities and countries. There's also a very supportive tone setting in of wanting to help one another. Example:

• An Australian lawyer who's client include large SOE's in China
• One of Shanghai TV's top lifestyle TV hosts.
• Director of Beijing Olympic program for a global sports brand
• The head of a Chinese Radio & TV company in Europe.
• The CFO of a top video sharing site also joined along with an award winning filmmaker
• CEO of a venture capital and consulting company in SF

Etc. etc. etc...

My friends know why I've got a passion for this. My life as I knew it changed in October 2004 and again in September 2005 and again in April 2007 and one more time in January 2008. Call it the universe's way of say "hey, it's time to do something with all the stuff that's been given to you the past 3 years". Heh. Understatement! So creating positive change as a result of my life and experience of the past 3 years is the journey that I'm now on. As a result, i've been talking to some friends in China for a half year now about helping them plan some kind of international women's conference and expo in 2009 so why not start building the community now.

Want to know how you can help? Is there a smart and sexy female in your network that should be in ours? Let me know.

The most important criteria is confidence. Everything else falls into place from there.

Ok, I am even later to posting this than everyone else. Let's blame to the time difference. I was doing my usual trolling through Rick's Pandapassport blog and Ryan's Humanaught blog and came across this funny video above.

This reminds me of a period of time when I was young and stupid in Shanghai (aka, college years) and bored one day, my friends and I were walking down Huai Hai Road on a super crowded Saturday and decided to stop in the middle of our tracks and just stare up at the sky. Didn't take long for a crowd to form around us and look up at what we were supposedly looking at.

...then we'd walk a few blocks further and stop in our tracks and look at the ground. Again, a crowd formed. LOL.

Needless to say, it was a short lived form of entertainment but this video reminded me of that.

Had fun in San Fran the other week meeting lots of great people, tons of great meetings...but of course, I also found time to sneak of goofy Seesmic in for everyone to say hello. (see above)

Offf to Shanghai next week! This blog is about to get lots busier and more updated. :o) Stay tuned!