My new term

My new term started very slowly. I have only three classes this term and am starting on my business project which we all have to do instead of writing a thesis. A fact, that I appreciate a lot. The best of all is that I only have one core class left, so the majority of classes I do this term are all chosen by me. That makes a bit of a difference. I’m especially excited about my business project. We are five people in our team. We work for a small company, Hinge Digital, which was founded last year by three animators who decided that they had enough of California and moved to Portland. Our main task will be to give them recommendations in relation to how they should position and market themselves being a brand new start-up company. It is very exciting since I have never worked with a start-up company and I have no idea about the entertainment industry especially the wide field of animation. Apart from my business project I’m doing the “Cases in Financial Analysis” and “Introduction to Entrepreneurship” classes. Don’t ask me how I came up with this combination. So far I like both classes very much. Although I assume that I will definitely be fed up with case studies after this finance class, since that is all we do. I sometimes feel lost with all the finance specialists, but I’m fighting my way through it. For the other elective we have to work on our individual business ideas, which is a very interesting process and one I have never done before. Let’s see, maybe I will end up as an entrepreneur. Hey, I hope I do not hear anyone laughing at this point. I have no new pictures to add for you today, but I have a big birthday bash coming up and hopefully some good pictures that come with it.

The break

After a long term I packed my bags and was looking forward to a nice, relaxed Christmas with Sören and my family back home. It was definitely very nice and I had tons of fun seeing Sören, my friends and family again, although I’m not 100% sure about the relaxing part. ;) I stayed at my parent’s house for a night, then in Nuremberg for four days, came back to my parent’s place for the Christmas days and then went on to Hamburg from the 26^th till the 1^st to stay with Sören again. On the 1^st we went back to my parent’s place before I took off on the 2^nd. However, it was wonderful to see everyone again. My roommates Vanessa and Max came to see me in Hamburg. I should probably mention at this point that Max did a semester abroad in Copenhagen and went back to the US on the 2^nd as well. And I had a fantastic New Years’ eve with some of my closest friends. I uploaded some impressions from my time back in Germany.

Christmas break 2009

My old term

The last term went by so fast that I hardly had begun writing for my blog, before it was over. Well, I guess true is that it was a busy term, but that should not serve as an excuse. After coming back from my awesome road trip with Sören, I had three weeks of leisure time, before my so far craziest term in this MBA started. Next to finishing up 13 credits of core classes, I had the insanity to choose an elective. Everything went well, however, and I had some interesting classes such as business strategy, organizational management and new product management. As a proof though that I was not only studying the whole time, I attached pictures of some fun activities that I did during the fall. Most importantly, of course, I moved into my new home. Since September I have been living in a big house on the East side of Portland owned by Max and Vanessa. Max is a classmate of mine. Apart from Max and Vanessa, another roommate, Nate, is living in the house. And of course I should not forget the coolest cat in town ‘Vino’ (see pictures). The house is very pretty as you can see in the pictures and it is located right in the middle of a lovely neighbourhood. I just love the East side. It is very unique and there are a lot of really good bars, restaurants and cafes. We have a $3 movie theatre a couple of blocks away and a local bar that shows German soccer. What do you want more? Another highlight was my attendance of the 2009 Net Impact Conference in Ithaca, New York. Net Impact, I should probably explain to those who don’t know, is an international non-profit organization whose goal is to use the power of businesses to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. The membership is made up of student and professional chapters. I’m a member of our Net Impact student chapter at PSU. As a member of this chapter I got a stipend to attend the conference with the overall subject “Advancing Sustainable Global Enterprises”. Not only that I got the chance to travel to the East Coast of which I have only seen New York so far, there were also a lot of really interesting speakers. I spear you with details, but the most prominent was probably the CEO of General Electrics, Jeffrey Immelt, although he was definitely not the most impressive one. So far so good, here are some pictures from my fall 2009 in Portland.

Fall Term

After I spent most of my summer back in Germany spending time with Sören, family and friends and doing an internship with Ashoka, I went back to the US and on a three week roadtrip with Sören. To give you a better idea of our tour, I uploaded the map with our stops.




We rented a car and started from Portland. I tried to keep the description short as I'm sure you are mostly interested in the pictures at the end of this post. :)

Destination 1: Hell’s Canyon (B)

Things to see: deepest canyon in the US (deeper than Grand Canyon)
Things to do: Jetboat Tour along the Snake river over several big rapids

Destination 2: Craters of the Moon (C)

Things to see: old lava flows, cones and lava tube caves
Things to do: drive the 7 mile loop road, walk up the cones and master the caves

Destination 3: Yellowstone National Park (D)

Things to see: the most incredible and surreal landscape full of geysers, hot springs, a beautiful canyon, wide open valleys with wildlife feeding of the grass next to the river

Things to do: drive around the park and check out all the incredible natural wonders what nearly feels like visiting a museum (probably that’s because of the numerous tourists here); have a wonderful picnic at the Yellowstone lake; camp in the park and try to endure the constant Sulphur smell; wildlife viewing at Lamar Valley (our highlights were: two bison herds, two Grizzly bears – one of them feeding of a bison carcass, deers, Pronghorns, Bighorn sheeps)

Destination 4: Glacier National Park (E)

Things to see: beautiful alpine landscape with spectacular lakes, glaciers and of course wildlife

Things to do: driving the Going-to-the-sun road and doing beautiful hikes to “remote” lakes (remote is relative as we were definitely not the only people hiking there); watch mountain sheeps, mountain goats, marmots and many squirrels on your way; enjoy a picnic at one of the lakes; do a full day hike in Waterton Park (the Canadian part)

Destination 5: Banff National Park & Yoho National Park (F)

Things to see: the town Banff itself, even more mountain scenery, amazingly blue colored lakes and glaciers

Things to do: ride up the gondola in Banff to enjoy a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains and Bow River; see the Fairmont chateau in Banff; hike Johnston Canyon on the way to Lake Louis; have a short walk along Moraine Lake; enjoy the crowd at Lake Louise; do a day hike in Yoho National Park along glaciers, small mountain lakes and several waterfalls (longest hike of the trip about 20km (!)); on the drive towards the Columbia Icefield Parkway stop at Bow Lake and view the amazingly blue Peyto Lake from a lookout

Destination 6: Jasper National Park (G)

Things to see: Columbia Icefield with its numerous glaciers, and yet again beautiful lakes and waterfalls

Things to do: drive along the Columbia Icefield Parkway and take a walk to the foot of the Athabasca Glacier; visit the Athabasca Falls; do a short hike at Mount Edith Cavell to see the Angel Glacier and a lake filled with icebergs; finally do a hike to a lookout above Maligne Lake & meet a bear on your way back to the car (seriously I thought this would not happen, but there he was, the small black bear just meters away from us)

Destination 7: Vancouver (H)

Things to see & do: take the Aqua bus to Granville Island and stroll around the different market stands; rent a bike and cycle around Stanley Park; meet up with my good friend Laura (who by chance happened to visit Vancouver from Australia at the same time) and do the Grouse grind up Grouse Mountain; have lots of good and cheap Sushi

Destination 8: San Juan Island (I)

Things to see: group of islands in the northwest of the state of Washington

Things to do: spent two nights in a fantastic guesthouse where you can enjoy a nice breakfast in the morning sun on the patio of your room; drive around the island to enjoy the nice views on the other islands, soak in the sun and see Orcas feeding on salmon just off the coast; do a kayaking trip to meet Harbor seals and enjoy the spectacular sunset; watch some more Orcas very close from the whale watching boat

Destination 9: Seattle (J)

Things to see & do: stroll around Pike Place market; walk along the waterfront (although not that recommendable); have a nice dinner in Belltown; go up the Space Needle and enjoy the view on Seattle (they have a lot of cool interactive gadgets up there); spend some time in the sun watching the International Fountain

Destination 10: Portland (K)

Things to see & do: moving into a new place on the East Side of which I will post some pictures in my next post

And here are the pictures from our trip. I tried to limit them and ended up with 276 pictures – probably still too many, but I hope you enjoy them nevertheless.

USA & Canada Trip

Spring Break

Yes, I'm still alive and doing fine. :) That happens when you take on a New Year's resolution about writing posts on your blog on a regular basis. It just does not works out. As a consequence it is over a month ago since you last heard of me. In the meantime I enjoyed a very nice holiday with Sören who came over to visit me for about three weeks. As I had Spring break, we were able to go on a week long road trip along the Californian and Oregon coast. Our travel itinerary arranged for a flight from Portland to Oakland as our first stop would be in San Francisco. After two nights in SF we would pick up our car to drive south along Big Sur. This seemed like a great plan, except for the problem that our airline had different plans for us. As the flight was overbooked, there was only one spot left on the plane. After long discussions with the airline, we decided that I would take the spot that would at least guarantee me and both of our luggage to arrive in Oakland as planned. Sören was rescheduled on a flight to Seattle where he supposedly could have catched the next flight to Oakland (arrival time 10pm). Well, of course the plane going to Seattle was delayed. At the end our holiday started with Sören staying in Seattle overnight and me enjoying our hotel room in SF alone.

After such a bumpy start we deserved a beautiful roadtrip with nice weather and no other incidents which turned out to be true for us. Over the next week we spent a great week traveling through California and Oregon as you can assure yourself of in the following pictures:

Spring Break & Ski Trip Mount Hood Meadows

After returning from our roadtrip I had to split my schedule between university and spending my time with Sören. The prioritization of tasks in this case was pretty simple. We spent as much time as we could together and amongst others went on a long weekend skiing trip to Mount Hood (see pictures). After Sören left, the "boring" life of a MBA student started again and I'm right in the middle of the term trying to keep up with the deadlines for our assignments.

Nashville Fulbright Seminar

From the 26th February till 1st March I spent four days in Nashville for a Fulbright seminar. Each year Fulbright is offering these seminars to first-years scholars that came to study in the US. We were more than 150 students from 70 different countries! Throughout the four days we had different panels, presentations and workshops related to Social Entrepreneurship. However, most importantly we had the chance to party for four days in a city known for country music. No, I didn't buy a cowboy hat after all and I didn't meet Dolly Parton, but we heard some good live music and not only country music. ;)

Here are some pictures from the four days

Nashville Fulbright Seminar

NBA

Last Saturday I went to watch my first NBA basketball game ever. The Portland Trailblazers were playing against the Washington Wizards. From what I heard this was not a topnotch game, so I was able to concentrate more on the shows during the breaks. :) I uploaded some pictures to give you an impression. The game was fun and I definitely would love to watch another (more important) match of the Trailblazers. However, I have to say that I missed a bit of the "fan culture" which is celebrated in the German soccer league. Where was all the "Shalalalalalahlalah"? And honestly I would be irritated as a basketball player if my fans are shouting "Chalupa" (which refers to some dish from Taco Bell) when the team gets close to scoring 100. ;)

NBA Portland Trailblaser vs Washington Wizards

Inauguration

I’m sure everybody of you had the chance to see at least some parts of the Inauguration yesterday. For my part I only watched the oath and maybe 5 minutes of Obama’s speech due to technical problems with my internet connection. And the little piece I saw was through a German website and they directly translated it into German. I have to say that I favour Obama’s voice over the translator’s one. It was a big day and my impression was that everybody around me was relieved and happy that Bush is finally gone. My landlord even invited everybody to join in for an Inauguration party with Democrats cupcakes and Presidential punch. Maybe I should take into consideration to organize a party in September and offer some Chancellor punch. ;) To end this little post I would like to share my favourite picture of the day with you.

Source: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/20/article-1124043-031F41BF000005DC-321_468x550.jpg

Day at the gorge

The weather this weekend was so beautiful that we had to take a break from studying. Mike Shall offered Bettina and me to take us out for a little trip to the gorge. The Columbia River gorge is a canyon through which the Columbia River flows. It is partially forming the border between the state of Washington and Oregon and it is famous for the wind coming through it. Naturally we had the chance to enjoy this “wind” (I put it in quotation marks, because in my opinion it was rather a storm that day.). To give you an impression of how strong the wind was, I will give you a short description of different scenes at the Vista House: all the cars parking there were shaking; a man got out of the car and his glasses were immediately blown away; a man had to hold his 6 year old kid, because it was nearly blown away; and on our way back to the car, we actually had to grab the handrail and pull ourselves towards the car. We had a great time and the view was surreal. I tried to capture it with my camera, but it is not even close to reality. After this little adventure Mike took us on a quieter tour along the river shore and showed us different water falls, a fish hatchery, a dam. We finished the afternoon with a little hike towards another waterfall. It was a great day and a great change for a day.

The Gorge

Returning to Portland & A new term starts

Back to Portland the new term has already started and it promises to become an exciting term with statistics and two accounting classes. ;) To make a change for all the numbers, I’m having an ethics class and I signed up for an interesting new class which PSU is offering in conjunction with Mercy Corps (a big NGO with their headquarters in Portland). The first week I was busy in getting used to studying again. ;) And I was working a bit on my apartment to make it more comfortable. Yes, I was at Ikea and of course spent more money than I expected to. But I would say it was worth it.

Christmas at home & Portland in snow

On 16th December I finally started my trip back home! I was so looking forward to see my family, friends and Sören again. I had two and a half weeks back in Germany and used the time to be a bit all over the place. The first few days I spent in Nuremberg with Sören. Over Christmas I actually stayed at my parents’ home close to Karlsruhe. On 26th December I left to Hamburg and stayed at Sörens’ place till we went to Sylt to spend New Years Eve there. I had a great break and enjoyed being back home and see some of the people again. After a wonderful break I packed my suitcase full with chocolate (I’m sorry to say that, but you just cannot get good chocolate in the US) and souvenirs and flew back to Portland.

First term is over

Beginning of December we did it! We finished our first term and after the busy last couple of weeks we deserved a good party. You know the reportedly motto of business students: Work hard, party hard! So we all went to Anna’s house to celebrate the end of the term and Adrian’s birthday (see pictures).

Anna's and Adrian's Party

Thanksgiving Invitation

I was lucky enough to experience my first American Thanksgiving. I was invited to a good friend’s house to spend the day with his wife and their families. It was a lot of delicious food and good wine. Unfortunately I (as always) forget my camera, so I can not show the pictures of the delicious turkey we had, but be sure I ate so much turkey on that and the following day (you have to finish the leftovers) that I won’t be able to eat turkey till the next Thanksgiving.

Day at the beach

Some time in November we actually managed to take the day off of studying and spent a wonderful day at the beach. We had blue sky and it was so warm that we could even walk along the beach with our sweaters on. And then everybody keeps on talking about the rain in Portland. ;) I attached some pictures of the day.

Cannon Beach

Election party

I know it has been a long time and by now all the euphoria about Barack Obama being elected has long give way to a more realistic view on the difficult tasks Obama will face as soon as he is in office. However, I still would like to give you a short look back on what I actually did on election night and about the impression I got. It was the first time ever that I went on an election party. I’m usually used to follow the election results in front of a TV while doing some other stuff. This time I was drawn by the excitement of the people around me. Already following the campaign was something new to me. Compared to that campaigning in Germany is really boring. As I showed you on one of my pictures, could you imagine finding Merkel or Steinmeier outfits to buy in stores? However, I have to say that the debates in Germany seem to be more fun, because the candidates Obama and McCain were usually quite nice to each other (at least during the debates). Anyways I wanted to see how the Americans are spending the election night on such an historical election. I ended up attending two parties, so I can tell you that I had enough of celebration on that night. Most impressing to me was just to see how happy and relieved especially here in Portland (traditionally democratic) the people were once Obama was announced as the president elected. It was clearly a historical moment and I was glad I could experience it. When Obama held his speech I’m sure a lot of the people around me were close to or actually crying. I added some pictures of the election night in the Random pictures album. Unfortunately the quality is not that good.

Random

Election time

Excitement rises as it is just one more day to go. I’m looking forward to it and will make myself go to one of the presidential election parties. We will see how exciting elections can be. :) But before Tuesday arrives let me tell you a bit about how I am doing as a re-born student (that wording just came as an inspiration after watching the movie "W.") after a few weeks of classes. I “only” have three classes this term which I thought to be not a lot and I was seriously thinking about getting on another one, but I listened to our advisor. So I’m taking 11 credits this term. It does not sound very much, but I learned that I was mistaken. I soon started thinking and planning my every day life in terms of readings, assignments and team projects. However, I do not want it to look like I’m complaining. The classes are interesting and I take a lot from them. Amongst other things I’m learning to become a great leader in our leadership development class. Even if I’m not too sure if it will work out for me at the end, I definitely learn at least the concept of good leadership. By the way, from what I learned so far Barack Obama shows all the characteristics of a good leader especially his self-control and self-awareness is astonishing. So let’s keep our fingers crossed for tomorrow. :) Another class I have is economics. It is partly a repetition of what I learned during my undergraduates, but our professor definitely makes this class very entertaining for me. He is quite a character and the biggest challenge is mostly to try to follow his ever changing thoughts that he is used to speak out as soon as they come into his head. We even introduced a new verb in his honour – bizjacking. You should know that his name is Bizjack and bizjacking basically refers to every reading or studying we have to do for the class. Just substitute “I will go studying for the economics class.” with “I will go bizjacking.” and everybody in our cohort will know what you are talking about. Last but not least we have a very interesting marketing class which is called Pioneering Innovation. I never imagined that I would enjoy a marketing class. Our professor is giving us a hard time, because we have assignments to hand in every week, but I just like the innovation part of the class. We are working on a team project within which we are supposed to write a business concept for a disruptive innovation. I think our team is working on a nice new business idea. I will tell you more once we fully developed the business concept. The ultimate goal for our professor is to enable at least one of our teams in class to get their business idea presented in front of a venture capital firm. Let’s see how it goes. :)

As I have already mentioned above my life here is pretty much dominated by readings, assignments and team projects. However, I have little news to share with you as it has been a while since I posted anything. About three weeks ago I found a way to continue my studies of hospitals in different countries. It is a funny thing. I never have to go to a hospital in Germany, but as soon as I go abroad they look so attractive to me. So to make this long story short, I went climbing and fell off the wall. As I did not manage to fall on my feet and thought it a good idea to use my left arm, I dislocated my elbow. Luckily I went with some other guys from my cohort. They drove me to the emergency room and made sure that someone looked after me. I especially have to be thankful that Nate, one of my classmates, stayed with me till 5am (!) in the emergency room and made sure that I got home safely without any further damage. Right now I’m doing much better and am enjoying physical therapy to get that arm back to moving properly. So much for the bad news... About a few weeks ago I got to know that someone is actually interested in publishing my thesis which I wrote during my undergraduate studies. Unbelievable but true, I will have my own book published in about 6 to 8 weeks. The title will be “SME promotion activities in Indonesia - Ensuring a sustainable supply of raw rattan for Central Java’s rattan furniture industry”. And then of course we had Halloween last week and funny enough the Germans (Adrian, Bettina and Hannah) were having a Halloween party at their place. I will try to get some pictures to post them. There is not much to say about the party except for it was fun, crazy costumes and for the ones that know about it, I finally had “noch ein Schnelles zum Abschied.” For further explanation I would recommend you to ask one of my former colleagues of Accenture in Nuremberg. :) So much for today…I do not really want to make any promise, but I will try to give you a recount of the election party tomorrow as soon as possible. Till then keep your fingers crossed for Obama!

My favourite places

I finally managed to tear myself away from the books and write a bit more about my life in Portland. To start with I thought it interesting to show you some of my favourite places up to now.

1.) My apartment

After two weeks in my most favourite hostel, of which I already posted a picture, I moved to some friends’ place to stay there till my apartment would be ready. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it was to finally sleep without ear plugs!! It was a lot of fun staying with them, but I still lived out of my two suitcases which can be quite annoying after a while. For this reason I was very happy when I got to know that I would be able to move into my apartment last Wednesday (three days before the agreed upon date). Riding on a wave of happiness, I took the offer by a class mate (owner of a big truck) to drive with him to Ikea to buy all the furniture I needed in one big shopping marathon. I actually did quite well. It took me about three hours to buy kitchen supplies, a table and chairs, a desk, living room furniture (sofabed, side table and a rug) and the sheets for my bed. Within two days I managed to put together all the furniture by myself (I had to state that. I’m so proud. Everybody that knows my technical skills will understand that.), and am proudly presenting some pictures of my apartment.

2.) My university

One of the most important places, of course, is my university. I cannot really impress you with a beautiful façade. The building of the School of Business Administration is admittedly not the most beautiful on campus.

I just passed the first week of classes and I’m already overwhelmed by the amount of readings, homework, individual and team assignments that we are told to do. I just dropped a little tear yesterday night when I finished my last novel. I anticipate that I will spend the rest of the term (till Christmas) adoring my economic and business books, articles and the Wall Street Journal.

3.) My places to go shopping

The Farmer’s market

The Farmer’s market takes place every Saturday on the PSU campus. Local farmers from the Portland area offer their products which rank from vegetables, fruits, cheese, bread, and meat to even flowers and other things. It is a great place to shop around for vegetables and fruits or just enjoying the nice atmosphere.

Trader Joe's

Another place I think is great is “Trader Joe’s”. They have a great selection of cheese, wine, bread (European style) and dips. I thought I would not be able to afford to buy cheese and find “real” bread in the US, but thanks to “Trader Joe’s” I’m happy. Interesting to know is that “Trader Joe’s” is a supermarket chain originally coming from California and it is owned by Theo Albrecht (Aldi).

(Adrian & Hannah)

It is somehow weird that my most favourite shopping places are supermarkets. But the basic needs have to be satisfied to be able to drive personal growth. :)

Powell's

Oh, and I have to introduce to you books’ paradise – Powell’s. I think I already mentioned it in the first post. I never saw so many books in a bookshop in my life. It is impressive and the best of all is that you can shop for used books there. Powell’s is a great place to spend the rainy days in Portland, if you don’t have any readings and assignments to work on, of course.

4.) Places to spend my leisure time

I definitely have to work more on the last section. I already uploaded some pictures of the Saturday market which is a great place. I should have mentioned it under the shopping section actually. But I will definitely have to work on that section especially to explore some places outside of town like the Columbia gorge, Mount Hood and the wineries.

I have to add this picture. It was taken last Friday (October 3rd). We went with a group of our MBA cohort to a German restaurant to celebrate our national holiday.

(starting from the left: Adrian, Nate, Michael, Harry, Liza, Bettina & Hannah)

First week in Portland

After my first week in Portland it is finally time to let you know a bit about my life here. My journey from Frankfurt to Portland unfortunately took longer than expected. I hereby thank the wonderful airport in Chicago where flights are always on time. However, I have to say that they actually might have the best immigration officer in the US. He was very nice and could of course speak a little bit of German “Guten Tag! Wie geht es Ihnen!”, but for once it was more than evident to me that he must have German ancestors, because his name tag clearly stated his family name “Schmitt” (not Smith (!)). After a nearly 24 hrs trip I finally arrived in Portland and was greeted by plain blue sky after the heavy rain falls in Chicago and Adrian (a future classmate from Germany) who helped me getting to the hostel. I attached a picture from my hostel, where I already spent a week and will spend another one as I cannot move into my new apartment before October 5th. I can tell you that by the end of next week I will know every possible way of snoring (for women).

The first three days I tried to get myself organized. My achievements so far include:

• a new bank account
• a new cell phone number: 503.820.9040
• successful class registration
• and most importantly an apartment. I found out that a good way to get to know a city is running around for hours searching for an apartment. Unfortunately I was so focused on signs saying “Apartment available!” that I forgot to take any pictures, but I promise I will do so in the future. After three days of searching and calling, I found quite a nice apartment and it is right in Downtown close to Powell’s (Yippee!). Below is a picture from my apartment building.

The rest of the week I was busy with the obligatory student orientation. My firt impression of the university was quite good. The campus is very green and thereby compensates for the sometimes grey, 80s style university buildings. During the student orientation all the MBA students (full and part time) were put together, so I only had the chance to see my cohort (about 35 students) that I will be studying with for the next two years once. Next week we will go for a beer to one of the local breweries and then I can tell you more about my future classmates. Classes will not start before the 29th September. I have to take the chance next week to do some sightseeing, because I already see my life dominated by books, case studies and team projects till the end of the term beginning of December.

In a nutshell I finally have the feeling that I arrived and from what I can say till now I’m happy that I was placed in Portland. It is a very nice city and I can only recommend everyone to come and visit me. You will love it. By the way, I'm just looking out of the window and see the first rain fall in Portland. Let's see how many will follow. ;)

First impressions