"Finish Line Fever"

1 MORE MONTH and ‘ADIÓS’ VENLO.

There is an avalanche of things to do coming up (or “coming down”, because avalanches are supposed to go down, right… whatever):
Exams, projects, presentations, reports, letters, e-mails, horses, visas (and this is just the short list)…

25 hours a day and 8 days a week are needed to do the amount of things that are asked from me (and because, from past experiences, I’ve found out that stressing out doesn’t really help; now I’m in a Hakuna matata mode).

…But, out of all these things to do, there is at least ONE thing that is almost over: The mini company (…and this makes me very happy).

mini     COMPANY???

The mini company is just a project you do during your second year at Fontys. You get ‘mixed up’ in a group with approx. 12 other students from different courses (IBMS, IBE, F&FM and IM).

The idea is simulating a real company. So, as a group, you come up with a product, write a business plan, sell shares to people; then you produce the product and sell it.

It is a good learning experience that gives you a chance to apply what you’ve learned so far. Still, in the end your own experience pretty much will depend on the group you end up working with (and of course other factors as well).

I know of friends whose experience has been good and others whose experience has been quite bad. Either way, in the end the mini company is simply another class to pass.

I, personally, was expecting something else from what it was. And to write a bit more ‘objectively’ I will let a dictionary briefly describe to you how my mini company experience was:


Semester no. 1 - Lesson learned: Definition of communism: “A system of social organization in which all economic and social activity is controlled by a totalitarian state…” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/communism?s=t).

If you got the point, then yes; I must say that the power in our mini company during this semester was concentrated in the hands of just a few people. Fidel Castro would have definitely felt just like at home in our group, back then.

The result of this:
90% of the group’s decisions and ideas ended up coming just from the ‘elite’ members of our mini company. The remaining 10% came from those who this minority believed were ‘adequate enough’ to contribute to the group.

  

Outcome:
- Product to be sold for the rest of the year: “The Beer Pong Kit”.
- Further description of the product: 20 plastic cups, 3 ping pong balls, and a piece of paper (instructions manual) placed in a plastic tube; with a cost of 9.99 Euros.
- Concept behind the product: None.

“In between semesters” period – Every group member participated in an individual talk with the group’s general management team to review the past semester. In my case, it gave me the chance to address the ‘communism issue’ mentioned above.
The roles in the group were changed; and semester no. 2 began, along with a relatively ‘new start’.

Semester no. 2 – Lesson learned: Definition of democracy: “Government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people…” (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/democracy?s=t).

The result of this: 
The group decisions and ideas ended up coming from almost all group members.

Outcome:
- The break-even point was reached. 
- Got rid of all The Beer Pong Kits (some of them for less than half the price, but at least that’s something, right?).

Bottom line I guess everyone learned something (…at least, a lot of our group members became ‘professional’ beer pong players).

 

Now, I leave you with this video as an example of the tasks you might run into while in the mini company [in terms of time and human resources this is an example of a low budget video (‘cause I was asked to do it the same day we were supposed to hand it in), other mini companies might have done the video differently]. So turn your speakers on, and enjoy (…or not):

“When there’s nothing left to burn you have to set your ‘phone’ on fire”

A ‘technical type of writing’ suits best on ‘un-inspirational’/lazy days like today:

EXPERIMENT: What exactly occurs when you give Korean, Japanese, Mexican, Chinese, Taiwanese, Latvian, Thai and Guatemalan (“business-related”) students large quantities of meat, beer and a grill?

HYPOTHESIS: They will, effectively and efficiently, cook a great barbecue.

RESULTS OF THE EXPERIMENT: (You are free to make your own observations...)

CONCLUSIONS: Hypothesis 100% rejected.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Next time decrease ethanol (alcohol) ingested quantities and… hide all of the group members’ mobile phones to prevent 'inconveniences'. 

*Source of this blog post’s title: Song from Canadian band ‘Stars’.     

Horse 'overdose' week

In this blog post I will let you ‘follow me’ into the “secretive” part of my “student life” (it is not so much of a secret, but I’m just trying to make it a little bit more interesting for you to read). This is (…I guess I could call it): “My horse-life”… [What?!] Yes, my horse-life: 

I don’t turn into a horse by midnight or anything, I just work with horses. Now it's been 16 years since I started doing this as a sport. It is one of the main reasons I left home and also one of the reasons that brought me to The Netherlands.

Lately I have been ‘adapting’ to this new stable. It was a very 'unexpected door' that opened after I stopped riding for another stable which had to close.  

It is a bit far away, located near a city called ‘S-Hertogenbosch (2 hours away from Venlo); and it requires me to use four different 'transportation means’ to get there: Bike, train, bus and, my loyal companions which never ever fail, my “BM‘double-foot’”… Yes, no BMW for me, just my feet (haha… Bad joke!). 

If I could add 'helicopter' to my list things would get easier! But, for now a couple of good books to read during the  long 'journey' and a 'non-complaining attitude' do the trick!

So, what exactly goes on in this stable?
Well, most of the horses that are there are bred by the same owners. In general, this is done by selective breeding, to try to pass ‘winning genes’ from parents to offspring. Some horses are owned by other people, and are just placed there for training.
(You can think of it like a factory for making 'super horses')
Then, these horses are sold to many different countries like some here in Europe, in the USA, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Arab Emirats, Canada… Many destinations.

So in the stable, horses are ridden/trained, especially for show jumping competitions that take place almost every weekend, in different places here in The Netherlands.
This weekend for example was Eindhoven; and in this case horses are prepared, put in a truck and then ready to ‘hit the road’.

What do I do there?  

I basically just ride the horses and train there… So, I go round and round and round like a carrousel! (just kidding!) [But for some reason everyone thinks it’s something like that (…the reputation of lazy riders, and the horses who do everything)].  

No.. It is working around 4 horses per day; usually different ones every time; and when riding you do exercises that develop the horse’s muscles that are needed for jumping, develop their flexibility, make them psychologically calm...Then, you jump whenever the horse’s ‘jumping day’ is.     

100% of patience needed, sometimes they can squeeze it up to 150%... 

(I'm trying to stop while writing, because I could write a 50 page an essay on this and bore you to death!).   

To end things up: Why/for what do I do this?   

Of course all of this is leading somewhere. I’ve got some goals set for some years from now. But, in reality it is all about waiting to see what happens, because things also change. 

..You know, just “go with the flow”.   

Then for now, I have eyes set in competing for my country in my first big championship, a few weeks right before having to go to India (which will change the ‘adventurous route’ a bit). This is recent information so my brain is still in the "process of processing things out"... Controlling the nerves.

So, in between ups, downs, turns and all the 'chaos', things start to work out and  'dreams start to come true'; and the cool thing is that it pretty much applies to everyone's situation  ;) (uu how romantic.. I guess it's time for me to quit with the blogging and turn into a poet!).

‘ARDUOUS’ STUDENT LIFE – Group work (‘obstacles’ to be faced)

By, almost, the end of this week off Thailand, Nigeria, Latvia and Guatemala “joined forces” to work on a project for the Sustainable Innovation learning arrangement:   

  
Topic of the project: Is the company PUMA sustainable?    
Goal of the day: Make a Power Point Presentation using the info. we all had already collected.
Amount of time to do it: Actually no time was fixed; but lets say that approximately 5 hours.

Yes. It seems like a simple task to do and a “doable” “goal of the day” to achieve, too.     
And, yes. Everything seemed VERY SIMPLE and VERY DOABLE, UNTIL… Things started to come up, ‘things’ that in this blog post we will call ‘obstacles’.

 

Obstacle no. 1- “Filling up the tank”: Or in other words, eating. Because you know what they say about ‘studying without eating is like trying to drive a car without fuel’… And of course, as students we take that very seriously, because we want to give our 100% of high-quality-work input.

Obstacle no. 2- “Saying the magic words”: Come on! It was a week off, so of course before starting to do something we have to share our week’s adventures (which then lead to having a conversation of 10 or more other topics); definitely, an indispensable step to take in order to being able to fully concentrate on working in our project afterwards.

Obstacle no. 3- “What are magic words without a background tune?”: Ups! Somehow a banjo got in our way, which led to giving a short ‘how to play a banjo’ lesson.

Obstacle no. 4- “Before we start… Lets take a few minutes to save memories”: Ok, finally! Everyone was almost about to start! Hands on the laptops. Our minds begin to ‘function in the correct direction’.  
BUT… haven’t you noticed that lately cameras are invading EVERYTHING, from phones, to laptops, to watches (at least in James Bond’s case), just wait a few years and your shoes will be taking pictures on their own while you walk…    
Well, in our case a laptop’s camera was the problem, because it took some other minutes from our ‘precious working time’.

(Hidden) Obstacle no. 5- “LASTLY, LETS GET DOWN TO WORK! (No more obstacles?)”: Yes, finally we did it! We managed to get started!
But, don’t you forget the 21st century student’s ‘archenemies’ when trying to concentrate… If you thought ‘social media’, then yes, you are right.    
By some means, you begin googling information you need, and you end up Facebooking, Twittering or Skyping something else.    
…What have they done to us?

Obstacle no. 6- “Brain damage. We still have time tomorrow anyways!”: Without a doubt, after all the long ‘working’ hours, you end up with completely tired brains. So then, it’s time to stop! And just… postpone it ‘till tomorrow!

(Indirect & final)Obstacle no. 7- “Dehydration”: “Tired brains” don’t necessarily mean “time to go to sleep” (I mean, there is still time and energy to do other important things). So, why not just go to Venlo’s bar Lokomotief and drink something to calm down the thirst?

Hmm... Tomorrow will be another day!

(By the way, today is “tomorrow” and we did manage to finish everything. Yes, mission accomplished!)

“Koninginnedag”

This week is a week off from school because it’s ‘Spring Break’. Up to now it has been a bit of a busy week (just have in mind that busy does not necessarily mean responsible-type-of-busy)... It has been from a “pool night” to a (supposedly) “poker/baking cake night” with friends; and from watching a friends’ football game to celebrating Queensday in Eindhoven. So, it was just until today that my two 'acquaintances', responsibility and discipline, knocked on my door, woke me up very early and made me set foot on earth! 

But what is this “Koninginnedag” blog post title all about? (I bet that if you are not a Dutch speaker you will have trouble pronouncing that... at least I do!). Well "Koninginnedag" is just a word invented by Dutch people to make fun of foreigners when they try to pronounce it! No, not really. It just means "Queensday" in Dutch. 

And what is "Queensday"? (If you are awake or    even semi-awake while reading this then you probably can figure it out without me having to explain anything because… … …) Queensday is the day of the queen, of the Dutch queen of course. 

It is not really the queen's birthday, but it’s her mother’s birthday - the ex-queen - and they celebrate her mother’s birthday because her birthday is in winter, and who wants to party outside in winter? (Yes, I know, it is pretty confusing).

(Don’t think I am a very ‘cult’ person, because I actually just googled all these things up. In fact when I just came to The Netherlands I didn’t even know that they actually had a queen).

And what is happening in Queensday? Well, if you like extremely crowded places, beer and feeling like you are standing in the middle of a stampede of ‘orange human beings’ then you’re in for a lot of fun. If you are not into any of those kinds of things, then you’re in for a lot of suffering; OR a surprise that you end up having a good time!

Personally, I’m not a fan of neither of those things, but I ended up having really GOOD TIME. 

If only Queen Beatrix could celebrate her birthday more than once per year:

Incomplete video? Yes! I deleted the part when "some random person" tried to attack my friend with a beer while shooting the video. The best part definitely... sorry you missed it. I guess you’ll just have to go to Queensday 2013 to try yourself!