Hello from Pennsylvania!!
It feels good to be away from school, and have a change in scenery. There really isnt much to do here in PA but I have enough to keep me busy.
I went to the King of Prussia mall yesterday, and pretty much spent my day at Borders reading books. Didnt feel like shopping. It was way too crowded, and I didnt feel like buying anything. The difference between capitalism and socialism, is right there in front of you when you go to the malls in US and Canada. Christmas week all malls are open until midnight, people are all out there shopping until midnight, traffic is insane, restaurants are busy, all stores have some sort of crazy "specials" going on (the worst one is buy one get second at half off!!).. You dont really get this in Canada, not before Christmas. We'll have our Boxing Day on December 26th, and the specials from then will pretty much go on for a week, but that will be all. Even last weekend, on Sunday, the last Sunday before Christmas, malls closed at 5pm! If that was here Im sure people would have gone on strike! hehe..

Speaking of strike, NY seems to be in ALOT of trouble. The union doesnt care about the million dollar a day penalty, or that prosecutors are seeking jail time for them. The worst time of the year for NY and the MTA has been on strike for 3 days! It's very bad...

Ok this really is offbeat news... but what's the world coming to? penguinnapping? Give me a break! hehehe. imagine, you open your box under the christmas tree on chritmas day and out comes a penguin! hehehehe.. people are just insane!

We're on BREAK!!!! Well as much a break as it can be.. We have lots of assignments/projects to work on, but I havent done anything in 4 days but take pictures! :o)) And the weather has been really nice in Montreal, I mean to take pictures.. we had a snowstorm, and then the days were sunny. I've been going out so much, and partying, now I know I'm a student! :o))
I'll be going to Pennsylvania tomorrow and continue adding to my photo collection from there.

First presentation of Period 3 was over yesterday.. .for us anyway. We did the Marketing Strategy for iPod. I had a lot of fun doing it! So much information out there about iPod. For sure, Steve Jobs is a great business man and marketing guru. We had good feedback so we have high expectations. ;o)
With the change of our teams this period we get to experience all new working styles. I guess it's all for the better. Cant complain, seems like everybody will be doing their jobs this time around. Wont be like the previous one.
So today we have a test in Finance. Supposed to be easy, but cant really count on my luck. Then again Finance is not that hard, just yet. So it should be fine.
But once this is over, I'm going to allow myself to watch a movie EVERY night! We're doing our MBAs, not getting ready for death! I have to watch all these new movies!
Derailed, Chronicles of Narnia, Walk the Line, Rent... Then on DVD: Cinderella Man (nope I havent watched it), A Series of Unfortunate Events, Crash, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, History of Violence...

First week of Period 3 is over already. I dont think we've grasped the idea that brutal Period 2 is over.
We had our finals last weekend. All of them were more brutal than the other. Not sure why they do that. The Statistics final was especially ridiculous. If we were Stats majors, or even if we all knew that we were going to practice Stats at some point, then right, go ahead make my day! But we're not planning on specializing in regression testing!

Period 3 seems to be much more exciting! The classes are more applicable, and the professors are amazing! :o)) Marketing is my thing, and we have it this period so I cant complain... and we have finance.. but give me finance over stats any day! ;o))

Tolga is finally here!! He's been here for a week now! He's going to stay another week, then he leaves next week.. :o(( We've been able to go downtown, have dinner together and watch LOTS of movies! Yesterday, we met up with Claudia, she was visiting from Manhattan. The amazing story is that she turned out to know Raya from my class! haha.. the world is a small place. It was great seeing Claudia again, I hadnt seen her since March or something.

I need to get back to reading the billion pages we have to read for this week...

I am back!

I am at HEC Montreal right now, in the intensive MBA program. It is an experience. I'm planning/hoping to update my blog about my experience in the program.
So far, it is a learning experience. We started in August, and we have 6 week periods, at the end of which we have 3 days of finals! We are in the middle of our second period now and working on various projects.
The one I'm trying to focus on right now is a case on Eli Lilly. I cant provide too much information about it, but we're learning about their organizational structure, corporate culture and management styles. They have changed their structure in the 90s and now follow a structure based on the matrix organization and cross-functional teams...

The major complaint I have about being in the program is that we dont have the time to be able to keep up with current events, and business news. I can probably use this time on my blog to try to do that.

Walmart has been in the news recently, receiving alot of criticism about their workforce and human resources practices. They've recorded a 17% decrease in their stock price (WMT) since last year, mainly due to losing customers to competitors (i.e. Target) and increasing gas prices that took a toll on their contribution margin. If they dont change their policy on how they treat their workers, diversity in the workplace and environmental practices they are going to continue on their decline.
To improve and maintain their reputation they need to stop viewing their employees as a way of making profits, and begin seeing them as their most valuable assets with a high ROI potential. If they dont keep their employees happy, Walmart will stop growing and start shrinking. They need to improve their health-care coverage for their employees, rather than trying to decrease their own cost and give their minimum-wage employees a $1000 deductible.