Weekend

I scored top in class on last week’s test in my world civilization class. I got 92 out of 100 after getting two of my answers wrong. One of those two wrong answers confused me because I thought that I had answered that question differently. Ultimately, it does not matter since I was the only one getting an A on the test.

Since we have tests every week, I had another test yesterday. This time, it covered subjects regarding the Greek empire and the Fertile Crescent. Some of this material is pretty heavy to get through but I find Greek and Roman history pretty interesting. I am currently looking for a good book about Greek mythology so if you know an entertaining, yet factual book, let me know.

My professor suggested books by Edith Hamilton and Robert Graves but they have not come out with a new edition in more than ten years, which scares me off a bit. The positive effect is that they are fairly cheap. They go for about $15 each online so I might buy a copy just because of that.

I might go out for dinner with my friends this weekend. I only have two days so I try to utilize my time effectively. I will go to get a haircut after work and take out my girlfriend for dinner later tonight at a Sichuan restaurant. Luckily, I do not have any classes on Friday’s so I have plenty of time after work before bedtime.

The weather seems to be getting cooler. I have not used the air conditioner for a week now and every morning is chillier than before, which is wonderful. One thing that really bothers me is that all weather people seem to assume that the hotter it is the better it is. The truth is that most people in New York hate the humidity and the excruciatingly hot subways. At least I know that I do.

This will be my last quarter of blogging. I graduate in September and will be pursuing my career within the transportation industry after that. I have not decided whether to entirely give up blogging or not. However, it is time consuming so I will have to see whether the time allows for it or not.

Political Arguments

My class in political science yesterday reminded me of how liberal people in New York are. In other words, a wide majority of people would vote for democrats in elections. My professor openly announced that he was registered as a republican and this lead to an uproar of questions by students. I think this is unfortunate because it shows how bigoted people can be.

If a person does not like someone’s opinion, he or she should not become aggressive and suddenly turn against that person. Instead, they should listen and learn from that person. Many people in New York grow devil horns when they hear the word republican. It is really that bad. This leads to some sort of discrimination where people start to automatically assume that everything republicans do is bad.

One problem for the republicans is that they do not have a strong spokesperson in New York at the moment. Also, schools especially are dominated by democratic professors and textbooks written by liberal journalists.

I am not trying to advocate for the republicans. Instead, I want to raise awareness that both political parties should listen to each other. Having a balanced House of Representatives and Senate can lead to exceedingly innovative solutions and this also pertains to classroom discussions. Most importantly, neither party should look upon the other with despise. That only proves that there is a lack of knowledge and understanding.

There are of course republicans in the classroom. The problem with having 90% of the class yelling out anti-republican statements is that the other 10% rather sit quiet than challenge their statements. It takes a courageous person to step up because he or she will most likely be looked down upon for the rest of the quarter if most other students are narrow-minded extremists.

However, if another left-wing stream of arguments occurs again, I am going to speak up. It will be interesting to observe whether students can actually start accepting others’ opinions or if they will go berserk. The professor is fairly neutral although he did announce his political standpoint. I do believe that he would appreciate some balance in the classroom though and I do not mind being the target of criticism in that class.

Nyquil

I actually really enjoy my operations management class. I thought the math part would make me lose interest, but the math makes sense and I can see several uses of it in a professional environment. We talked about supply chains yesterday and I find that stuff really interesting. We also learned how to calculate the indifference point and more, which is useful in situations where companies plan to outsource.

Eight students will present next week about their topics, which have been selected from the table of contents in the textbook. I do not really enjoy classes like that because they take time and include so many subjects that it is impossible to stay focused on all of the presentations.

I was really lucky last weekend. I was watching television and a few of electronics suddenly stopped working including my television. I checked the power cord and one of my adapters had melted. I bought the adapter from Sweden so that I could charge my Swedish cell phone a while ago. However, I recently used it as an extension cord.

I am really thankful that it did not start a fire and I now only use two wires in my bedroom. Apparently, it is not good to use too many adapters and extension wires. I plan to turn off all my extension cords in the future before I leave home. That could actually also save me some money.

I got a fever last Friday and I still have a cold. I drank some Nyquil last night, hoping I would feel better today. However, I do not think Nyquil has ever worked for me. It was really hard for me to get up this morning because it makes you quite drowsy. I will probably stick to Excedrin and other aspirins in the future.  

Swedish Meatballs

I cooked Swedish meatballs this weekend. I got the recipe from my father because I wanted it to taste like home. I was afraid that it would not be the same, as the meat and all other ingredients come from a different place. However, it turned out really well. It was probably the best meatballs that I have ever made myself.

IKEA’s meatballs are okay. Some people say they do not taste good but I disagree with them. Making your own meatballs can take a while especially since you will have to roll them manually. I think it took me about hour to cook but it was worth the time I put in.

My weekend was pretty quiet. I do not have much homework to do so far. I only have one class online and online classes are usually quite demanding in terms of assignments. Right now I am studying value chains and supply chains in my operations management class. I find that very interesting especially since I am working with that at my internship.

I will probably start to prepare for a couple of future assignments that are due the last week of this quarter. I need to conduct a competitive analysis for the current company that I work for and I also have to make a presentation about designing supply chains. Both assignments are very interesting so I am looking forward to doing it.

Berkeley College rewards two students at the end of every quarter with the Robert Maher Outstanding Student Award. This is the greatest award a student can earn. I am highly interested in being awarded this so I am currently looking into how I can be considered for it.

There is a board that votes for which student that should receive it. The student must show a strong commitment towards his or her education and have achieved personal, as well as professional goals. I believe that I match this criteria and I strongly hope that I will be considered.

Phoenicians

All my classes except my internship class are electives meaning I chose to take them voluntarily. Most students would prefer taking less difficult classes their last quarter. I picked classes that I wanted to take and thought would be interesting with one exception, world civilization.

My professor has now made up his mind in regards to testing. He has decided to test us every week through multiple-choice tests containing 24 questions. Our weekly lectures are very significant and contain a lot of information. I used my laptop yesterday because I knew that I would have to take a lot of notes.

During class, I could hear students sighing because of tired hands. That was how much we had to write down. Of course for me it was not a problem thanks to my laptop. In any event, the professor could have made all this much easier by uploading the PowerPoint slides to blackboard, but he is not a very technical person unfortunately.

The test yesterday was not easy. It pretty much contained everything we talked about the last two weeks. That might not seem like very much but it really was since the material covered everything from Phoenicians to domestication.

I hope that I did well. The good thing with having tests every week is that it is easier to get a good final grade. In practice, you can miss one test and still get an A if you get a 100% on the rest of the tests. Of course, this is unlikely to happen, but the professor will be able to judge with more accuracy if he assigns several tests.

Today is Friday and I am looking forward to the weekend. I am going to a Chinese Sichuan restaurant today that is within walking distance from my home. Sichuan food is definitely my favorite kind and it will be interesting to see if this new restaurant is good or not. Let us hope so.

Freedom Tower

The One World Trade Center is taking shape. Actually, I prefer to call the tower by its original name, Freedom Tower. Looking at the artificial pictures and what the tower will look like is always a pleasure. I never got the chance to see the original World Trade Center so I am thrilled to be here in New York for the inauguration of the Freedom Tower.

I took the picture this morning on my way to work. There is another building under construction where the second World Trade Center stood. This building will not be as tall as the Freedom Tower however. There are always a lot of people in this area during rush hour and space is limited. It will be a pleasure walking there when everything is complete.

I honestly do not understand why it is taking so long for them to complete the tower. It is scheduled to be done by 2013, seven years after construction was started. The Empire State Building only took 16 months to build and that was in the 1930s.

I had political science yesterday. It is an enjoyable class, but it can be frustrating at times. For example, some students start spontaneous debates with one another. Being quite loud and with the professor taking a passive stance, not much progress is made in terms of learning. These students let their opinion direct the conversation instead of discussing topics backed by facts.

However, this class will hopefully teach them about the American government, its laws, and policies that will help them to understand why certain procedures exist and how the political system works. The professor is very lenient. Instead midterms, we will have take-home exams. I actually believe this is a good way of testing for the purpose of this class. A well thought-out term paper probably means more than a multiple-choice test.

Math

I am starting to like my operations management class. First of all, I was lucky in the selection of presentation dates and topic. I will go the week after the midterm with the topic of my choice. I choose supply chain design, which is something that I am involved with at work and find exceedingly interesting.

We also went over some mathematical problems and they were not very difficult. The professor focuses more on understanding the results of the calculations than doing the math, which I feel is very useful. That way, we can improve our abilities to analyze outcomes.

I believe that many math geniuses are great with calculations but lack the ability to study the results and to compare it with real time situations. I guess since I cannot compete with “Einsteins”, I prefer competing on the level of analysis.

I have a test in world civilization on Thursday. It has not been easy to prepare for it. I have typed down my notes but that is pretty much all. I study these notes on the train to and from work and hopefully that will be enough.

I also found it difficult to find good facts about the constitution of Sweden. Since the professor only wants to discuss the topic and does not require an actual paper, I will bring a printout from Wikipedia. This is something that students should avoid and always do since Wikipedia is full of inaccuracies. However, for Tuesday’s class, it was my best alternative.

East Village

I went to East Village this weekend with my girlfriend. It has actually been a while since I was there last time. I remembered it to be much dirtier but it seems like they cleaned up the place a bit or maybe I am just getting used to New York.

We went to a great Chinese place that I do not know the name off. They have a couple of locations, all very small so take-out is probably more convenient than staying. However, we stayed because we luckily found two seats.

The food served is traditional Chinese. They do not serve rice, but instead noodles and soup. They also have a Chinese hamburger with lamb or beef that tastes great. I had Chinese noodles with pork, and I fell in love with it after my first bite.

They give you just enough to get full but I bought a hamburger to go just because of my curiosity and perhaps my big appetite. We also went to McDonald’s to try the new smoothie. It actually tastes great and is healthier than most other drinks served at McDonald’s. I hope they keep serving them after the summer.

I have been able to sell all my books from last quarter. Half.com is a great website to use for selling textbooks. I have probably mentioned that before. However, unless you have excellent reputation from old purchases and sales, it is difficult to sell something in the same category that is higher priced than the competition. I had to continuously reduce my price so that I kept showing up as the cheapest alternative. I still got a good price for the book though.

IKEA

After work this Friday, I went to IKEA in Brooklyn to enjoy some inexpensive food. I was first planning to eat meatballs or fish and chips but the line was extremely slow in the restaurant so my girlfriend and I decided to go downstairs to ea hot dogs instead.

The hot dogs are only 50 cents each, which is a bargain, especially in New York. We also enjoyed some frozen yogurt for $1. I also bought some cookies and caviar to bring home. I enjoyed a Swedish egg sandwich with caviar later that day, which I have not done in a year probably. It tasted absolutely fantastic.

I bought a microwave lid because I am tired of having to clean my microwave all the time. Accidentally, I brought the display product to the cashier, which was not allowed for purchase. I therefore had to go all the way back to get another one. Being IKEA, it probably took me ten minutes to walk there and back to the cashier.

I still have not gotten my iPhone battery replaced. The computer store called me and explained that they had “screwed up” my order. This was quite frustrating. I now have to wait for at least another week before I can have it replaced. I can still use my iPhone but it dies after about twenty minutes of use, which blows because I cannot check my email, GPS, or listen to music.

Another thing that blows (joking aside) is the subway. Trains are running more irregularly nowadays since after the MTA made the budget cuts last month. Also, it is stinking warm in the subway all day and night because of the hot and humid weather in New York. I am not kidding when saying it is over 100 degrees in the subway. Luckily, trains are air conditioned but they usually show up too late to save people from getting soaked in sweat.

Constitution of Sweden

For my next class in political science, I have to do some research on the Swedish legal system. This is not anything that I look forward to but at least it is not a very large assignment. I am to find out what the Swedish law is based on and how it was established. In all honesty, I have no idea but I would assume that it roots from laws made up by kings.

In any event, I had my second class in world civilization today. This is a pretty heavy class. By heavy, I mean that it includes a lot of material, facts, time periods, and names. The professor is making it as interesting as it could be and it definitely helps.

We will have our first class next week. The PowerPoint slides will not be posted so it will be exceedingly difficult to prepare for the test. Note taking has been based on slides and lectures but it is hard to write everything down.

We will have a review on the day of the test, which I find quite inconvenient. I would have hoped to have a review on the week before the test. Going over the test right before the test may just confuse students and it is definitely not easy to remember or learn things in a couple of minutes. With that said I hope to get a good score on the test but it is definitely something that I am worried about.

This quarter seems to involve very late classes. Last quarter most of my classes finished around 8 PM. The last few weeks have been worse and I am not home until around 10 PM most days. This is definitely tiring, especially since I am working full-time from 9 to 5.

Men and Women

I have political science on Wednesday’s. It is a pretty fun class. I had hoped it involved more discussions and fewer lectures though. The class feels a little unorganized. The professor has no real syllabus to follow it seems and he has not decided how to test us yet.

This creates issues because it makes it difficult, as a student, to prepare for future assignments. For example, I do not know if I should take notes constantly or focus more on communicating with the professor.

We watched a part of the movie, Lord of the Flies last class. This movie is usually watched by high school students, but we watched it to take note of how people may interact with one another in cases where a leader needs to step up.

We also had group exercises with the class split up into three teams. One with women only, one with men only, and one mixed. I ended up in the mixed group. We were to decide how decisions should be made if we were to set up a new government after crashing onto a deserted island with one hundred other survivors.

The group with men only had a much more authoritarian view of handling things. The women leaned more towards a democratic system where a few people would be in charge. My group decided to have a fully democratic system with the mass making decisions together. It was pretty interesting to learn about these results and how men and women may look at things from very different perspectives.

Operations

My first operations management class was interesting. My first impression of the professor was mixed. He seemed like a quite strict professor and he will use lecture material from a book that Berkeley College previously used.

The reason for that was that he thought the old book was better and although the new book is okay, it does not contain much of the calculations from the old one. With that said, this class seems to be focused highly on mathematical formulas.

This was something that worried me. I really did not want to take a math class in my last quarter. Luckily, the class also focuses on operations and techniques that do not involve math. Also, the formulas do not seem to be significantly difficult although they will require me to sit down and repeat the questions over and over again.

The class ended after two hours. Some professors like to spend the full three hours lecturing but this professor seemed to be happy cutting it down to two hours, which is pleasing, as the class requires full concentration at all times.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the classes turn out. There will be three classes of presentations and the professor will pick who goes when next class. This will be nerve-wracking since the first person chosen will pick his or her subject. Therefore, if I am picked last, I may not be able to pick the topic of my choice. Let us pray for the best.

iPhone

I work five days a week nowadays so last weekend was one of the shortest I have had in a long time. I used to have only one full day off in Sweden a week because I worked the night shift starting Sunday evening with the week ending on Friday morning so a two day weekend is not too bad.

I spent it going to Queens Mall to enjoy some shopping. I had not been there for about a year so it was a nice getaway for the day. Other than that, I had to clean my apartment, which took pretty much the whole day.

I will have my first class in operations management on Monday. I am hoping that it will not involve too much statistics and math and more management and human resources and that kind of stuff. I did not receive my book yet so I have not been able to get an insight in what we will learn so far.

In general, I feel pretty happy with my classes so far. I do realize that a few of them will involve a lot of work, specifically my world civilization and internship class. I hope to be able to continue maintaining my grade point average this last quarter and I will do everything I can to make it happen.

My iPhone’s battery is getting pretty bad. As soon as I open a somewhat large application, my phone dies after just a few minutes. I thought it would cost a fortune to replace the battery but a local electronics store in my neighborhood offered to replace the battery for me for no more than $37. I hope to have it done before next weekend because the repairer said it would take a couple of days to have it fixed.

The one thing that I find interesting is that the battery turned bad just in time for the release of the new iPhone 4. It does not seem as if I am alone either, as most batteries only last for about 16 months. I will wait to buy it though, as I do not want to commit myself to AT&T for another two years. There also seem to be some reception issues with the new phone that have caused a bunch of uproar in the media.

LinkedIn

I was recently informed about LinkedIn.com by one of my coworkers. I had heard about the website before but I never really looked into it, as I already have a Facebook account activated. However, the purpose of LinkedIn is different than that of Facebook and more formal and is something I would suggest anyone to consider signing up for.

The website works similarly to Facebook but focuses more on building resumes and networking professionally. I uploaded my resume for example and the website was able to automatically generate a list containing my background, experiences, and similar.

I now have an almost complete profile page that professional’s can access. This is not only for people looking for a job, but also for people like me who wants to stay in touch with employees and to get back in touch with old friends.

I also think this type of social media will play a crucial part in future job hunting, communication, and internal networking. It is exceedingly effective and will help people and companies to save time by not having to go over paper copies and such.

I do not mean to advertise for LinkedIn. I am sure there are other websites like this but I found this one to be the most widely used site. The reason to its popularity is most likely the site’s effective tools and simple design. So check out the site if you have some time over.

50,000 Years of History

Teaching 50,000 years of history in eleven weeks is probably one of the most difficult tasks for professors. Nevertheless, this is something that my world civilization professor will have to accomplish. Yesterday’s class being his first at Berkeley College does not help him either.

It is always nerve racking to have a brand new professor because unlike established and experienced professors, they tend to be more focused on satisfying the board than doing their best on teaching students.

Night classes are scheduled ones a week from 6 PM to 9 PM. However, most professors only teach for about two hours because students start to be inattentive after focusing for so long. Yesterday’s class lasted until 9.05 PM. I was home around 10.30 PM, which was tough. In other words, I had to sit through three hours of listening to the origin of man and how Homo sapiens survived the ice age.

I actually liked it. The professor was able to make it entertaining by throwing in some jokes here and there and he definitely knows a lot about history. He started by drawing a timeline on the whiteboard that stretched fifty thousand years. This really helped students to get a perspective on what we are dealing with.

Other things that I found interesting were the discovery or invention of agriculture, when fire most likely was discovered, and how humans evolved throughout history. I have not really studied this before except for a short period in high school. Relearning it in college definitely helps to refresh my mind.

I also found it interesting for the fact that this class focuses more on America than I am used to. For example, we talked about how Indians survived before the domestication of horses. I am looking forward to learn more in this class.

Political Science

I had my first class in Political Science yesterday. I feel very good about the professor, who seems to be exceedingly knowledgeable and most importantly, charismatic and entertaining. The first class lasted for about two and a half hours, which is pretty long for being the first class. However, the time went fast thanks to interesting topics.

We covered a lot of history of the American government yesterday. We learned, among other things, about the 3/5 rule and how the voting system was established. Learning about these things really helps students to get a perspective on the politics of America.

It is easy to form opinions while reading newspapers. Unfortunately, these opinions are far too often based subjective and untrue statements. To know the reasons and facts about events, will definitely help me to get an advantage in arguments and debates.

The 3/5 rule was quite fascinating. Naturally, states wanted as many of their habitants to count as possible so that they had more votes in congress. Those states that allowed slaves wanted to be able to count these people towards the size of the state. However, those states that did not allow slaves thought this was unfair.

The 3/5 rule was established based on this issue. Basically, one slave would be worth 3/5 of a person. Or, out of five slaves, only three would be counted towards the population. Learning about things like this is particularly interesting, especially as an international student.

Classes Begin

I am definitely starting to feel the pressure from school now. Since it is my last quarter, I am obligated to take an internship class, valued at five credits, which is one more credit than most other classes. A reason for this is the fact that students have to work, at least, part time for a company within their area of study.

I already had an internship so for me it is not much of a change. However, I work full-time and the internship class itself will, most likely, be very busy. I am taking the class online and students usually have to correspond weekly online by posting, at least, three significant comments every week.

For this class, students are expected to correspond with at least five students a week, while keeping a weekly diary that describes daily activities and challenges encountered on the internship. Assignments and quizzes will also be included in the class. In other words, it will get busy.

I will have my first class tomorrow. The class is political science and I am definitely looking forward to it. I hope that it does not include too much lecture and instead allows students to discuss and have lively debates. I feel that would be the best way to teach a class like that.

On Thursdays, I have a humanities class called world civilization. I have no idea what to expect from this class to be honest so it will be interesting to see what it has to offer. The reason I chose to take it was much because I had to take a humanities course.

I have operations management on Monday’s so the first day for that class will be taking place next week. I noticed that statistics was a prerequisite for the class and that bothered me a little as I hoped to learn more about management and less about statistics. It still remains to see what the class has to offer though. There is still hope in other words.

Happy Fourth of July!

This break went over very quickly. I honestly did not do much during this short vacation with the reason being my recent trip to Las Vegas and the fact that I worked for the whole week.

The break only lasted for a week but was extended thanks to the Independence Day holiday on the Fourth of July. I did not do much during this day but I did spend time thinking about the brave overseas.

I did travel to Coney Island to watch the annual hot dog eating contest. It is always a joy to watch Joey Chestnut beat the competition. This time, he only ate 54 hot dogs in ten minutes, which were fourteen dogs less than last year.

However, he was still able to bring home the first price. The momentum that is built by the introducer is magnificent. People are not ashamed to show their pride and I really enjoy being part of it.

People cheered after statements such as, “No one eats more than an American” and chants of “USA USA USA,” was common. It was great being part of this especially on the fourth.

I was planning to barbeque in Prospect Park that day but I ended up grilling at home instead. I bought some Nathan’s hot dogs and turkey burgers and it turned out great. Luckily, there are several super markets close by that are open 24/7, which I greatly appreciate.

The biggest reason to why I never went to Prospect Park was the weather. It was probably around 100 degrees that day so staying inside with the air conditioner seemed like a good idea. Happy Independence Day to everyone!