Thursday, March 15, 2007

I haven't written in a while...

I just got back from a run, and started thinking that I haven't written in a while... apparently 11 Feb... We have been really busy, I am not sure where to start. We have had a ton of cases to read, projects and papers. The first was an economics project about the pharmaceutical industry.
The most, I guess you could say intensive, project was the Integrative Project. The project was assigned on a Thursday afternoon - XFM bicycles. The case was about a Chinese company hoping to convert their bicycle factory into a motor bicycle factory. Our assignment was to prepare and present a marketing strategy for the company, including segmenting the market, financials, everything. We had to be prepared to present our preliminary plan Friday morning and the final on Saturday morning. Every group was assigned times to present between 8am and 12pm - my group was assigned 8am...
So we after reviewing the case about an hour, we started. Over the next 60 hours I think we may have slept a combined total of 5 hours, mostly done on the floor of our study roooms. I actually managed on only 1 can of red bull as well. As tired as we were and as stressful as it could be at times, especially on very little sleep and trying to be rational and think logically - it was a lot of fun. When we finally reached Saturday morning and did our presentation, we were relieved and happy it was over and went out for a group breakfast.
That night we went out to Red Club, but it was a pretty quiet evening, and no one drank too much.
Last week, we had an exam on Friday, and 2 projects (Economics and Marketing) with papers due on Friday as well. So it was a long week... but we managed to get everything done and submitted on time.
This week has been calm, not too much to do, so it has be strange not to function under pressure - for me at least. Now I am lazy, and don't feel like reading - but I have about 50 pages or so for tomorrow. I also have to rewrite the leadership paper from February... new and improved with more metaphors and graphs... somehow I think I will come out short on the metaphors - but I think I can make some graphs for them.
In other news & social life... Sadly there isn't much time for that lately. I spend my walks home at night day dreaming about last year, the long, rattling train and bus rides to Sofia and around Bulgaria... going out almost every weekend and spending long afternoons at cafes. I have found I miss Bulgaria a lot, and that my Bulgarian speaking is starting to get a little worse. My friend Eva was here (from BG, but now living in Paris) this weekend, and she will only speak to me in Bulgarian.
Saturday night we went to dinner at another student's house which was a lot of fun. There were about 7 other students, some of her friends from the Netherlands, and Eva and her boyfriend. Sunday I studied.. but managed to find time to go out to Malaysian food :).
My newest travel news: For Easter I will be going to Kiev! So I will be able to add another country to my list :). We will also visit Chernoble. I will go with 2 friends from class, Brant and Paul, and Paul's friend from NY. It should be fun, and a good break from school and studying.
Well I must get going... I have no time to proofread tonight, so I am sorry if it is disorganised. Hope all is going well with everyone!

1 comment:

Joel said...

Zdrasti, Jen!
Aw, I wanted to go to the Ukraine (and to Chernobyl specifically.) You stole my idea! Well, I guess it doesn't count if you don't act on it. ;-)