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