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)