Module 1 week 1

This Monday we started classes. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned, so for this module we’re doing a total of 4 classes plus regular forums. Of the four classes, three meet regularly and one will meet in a workshop format over 2 weeks later in the module. The forums are required and options workshops usually coordinated by the career center and cover a wide range of topics. We’re required to attend a certain percent (I want to say 80%) and get Pass / Fail credit for them, I think 1 credit per module.

More specifically, this module  I’m taking:

·         Accounting for Managers – 3 credits, meets 3 times per week

·         Business Analytics – 3 credits, meets 3 times per week

·         Behavior in Organizations – 2 credits, meets 2 times per week

·         Project Management – 2 credits, meets for 2 full days in late September

Project Management is actually an elective. I’ve actually taken PM training before, when I work in IT, but I’m taking this, too, on the theory that:

·         Theories and practices have changed in the past 6 – 7 years

·         I pay the same amount regardless of whether I attend

·         If I decide, later on, I do want to do a project, I am required to have taken this

·         2 credits now may make a difference later!

On the one hand, I’ve taken accounting and statistics before (twice! Once at Valencia and once at Stetson). On the other, after 1 week / 3 sessions we’re already almost through everything I recall learning before in stats and not far behind in accounting. Yay?

On Monday I stopped by Svenja’s office and gave her everything she needs to get my residency permit processed for me next Monday. This includes my passport, so I initially thought that’d keep me close to home. Later on, though, someone posted that he was getting a group together to go to Hamburg and I jumped in … forgetting about the passport. It turned out fine, possibly because I was travelling inside the state.

Anyway. I got Svenja everything she needed, including the “biometric” picture, and figured everything was fine. Thursday I got an email from her that there might be a problem with my picture – it has a blue background and she thinks it has to be white. Awesome.  The thing is, I got my picture in a photo booth and I was 80% sure there wasn’t a shade or something to pull down for different backgrounds. And it (the booth) advertises passport photos! So, great, I have to find time to go back downtown and do this again.

The deal is we all have to have everything to her by Friday at the latest since her appointment is on Monday. Soo I went downtown after classes on Thursday, paying my 4.20 euros for the round trip, walked to the hauptbahnhof and back to the Gepäck room, verified that, no, there’s not another option. BUT … I vaguely remember that at the end of the process I had an option to lighten the background? Right. Paid another 5 euros, took more pictures, selected the ‘lighter background’ … and absolutely no difference that I can see. Whatever. I sent Svenja an email saying that I’d gone and got more photos but there is no option for a different background so hopefully this will be fine. Fingers crossed.

Friday, at what felt like at long last, we had our outdoor teambuilding day. We assembled by 9. The day ultimately got hot – in the 80s, but it started out quite cool so those of us who dressed for the later heat were a bit uncomfortable in the morning. Regardless. We had our coffees and assembled outside. The first item was to ask for volunteers for ‘project managers’, and 5 were needed. I ultimately volunteered, when the first round had only 5 people. It ended up being a split of 3 guys, 2 girls.

While the rest of the group got warmed up and had an activity, the 5 of us were given basic info on where we were going, what time we had to be there, and told to figure out 5 teams and how we would manage them. The only team criteria was to keep them diverse. Other than that, management had no limits. After about 30 minutes, we decided to have everyone stand in a line, knowing ppl would stand near their friends, and count off. As for the managers, we decided we’d each stay with one station, so that after the first team we’d be more knowledgeable and could more easily help the teams accomplish their goals. This means it wasn’t quite as much fun for us, but fun none-the-less.

We started at 10:30 and got through 4 rotations, finishing around 1:30, I think. Then we all assembled for feeding and a group activity. The group activity was super fun: we had to make cars from provided materials. The cars had to steer, break and have a driver. And then we raced them (against a clock)! In the end, only 1 team finished in under 60 seconds, but a great time was had by all.

After all that, Friday night was a party night! A small number of us got together at Jessica’s place for dinner. There were 6 of us. We drank 3 bottles of wine, have a liter of ouzo and half a bottle of sangria. And THEN we rushed out, an hour late, to meet a much larger group downtown!

We had the advantage of a member of last year’s class being with us, and he took us to Heaven, a favorite of his cohort. Unfortunately, Heaven was full and we couldn’t get in (and, yes, there’s a few jokes there). On the advice of a GISMA staff member we ran into (Kali), we headed for the beer stock exchange. This was about 10:30 and, as in most places, it was pretty dead that early. Still, we had some drinks and then someone, possibly my roommate Marita, figured out there were a bunch more rooms with various genres of music and dancing! We went to, I believe, the 90s room … possibly the current pop room? Anyway, we went there and danced. For probably a couple hours.

Around 1 I figured I needed to head out, since I was going to Hamburg the next morning and meeting at 6:45 in the lobby. As it happened, three other people going on the trip were there so we and a couple others all left and got home around 1:15am. Drunk.

6am came really early, but I got up, popped some Tylenol and took a shower. Just as I was back in my bedroom, my door buzzer rang and it was Bala. Apparently we were meeting at 6:30. Whoops. This was 6:40 and I was still in a towel. I managed to get dressed and downstairs in 4 minutes! Unfortunately, that 4 minute rush meant I was in a t-shirt and sandals (and slacks, no worries there) and it was raining and around 15 C. Brr. No worries. We made the tram, got a little breakfast, met Jia* under the horse’s tail** and easily made our train. Well. Okay, the train was there and left about 4 minutes after we boarded. But we made it!

* Another classmate, coming on the train with us as her husband is living in Hamburg and it was her turn to visit

** There is a statue in front of the hauptbahnhof (the main train station) of King Ernst August, Hannover’s only king. He is on a horse and facing away from the station (apparently he didn’t like trains), so the traditional meeting point is under the horse’s tail

We traveled on this incredibly cheap ticket: 32 euros for 5 people, good for public transit anywhere in the state. This means we couldn’t take the ICE, but we could (and did) use the metro system in Hannover and in Hamburg and even took the ferry in Hannover. Nice!

We did have to change trains in the middle, but that’s no worry.

Once we got to Hamburg, we stopped in the tourist office, then separated to get a few of us desperately needed coffee. Then we stopped for lunch (it was around 11). We spent about an hour there, arguing over the map. Apparently the concept had been to take the metro everywhere, which is crazy – it’s not a big city AND you can’t see anything when you’re underground! Eventually sense (aka my opinion) prevailed and we spent the day on foot.

The trip itself, though cold and damp until around 5pm, was fun, and we saw a lot of Hamburg. Unfortunately the train back was just before 9 and the really interesting district was only just coming alive as we left. No worries, it’s not going anywhere,  and I’ll be back.

There was apparently another outing on Saturday night, but the 5 of us (me, Qasim, Deepika, Ankeet and Bala) got back around midnight. Considering 4 of the 5 of us had had around 4 hours of sleep, it’s impressive only Bala was literally asleep on his feet, but we basically crawled back to the dorm and crashed. Good times!

Sunday was for studying and laundry, getting ready for week 2. Not much to tell.