Progress

Today it was better, I didn't feel so tired again like the last two days and so I was full of energy to continue my studies ... the Modules 8 and 9 are much better to study then the 5 before, so I made good progress and even had time to go back to Module 7 and try the stuff again ... didn't work, but at least i tried :) ... Tomorrow I'll try to go trough 10 and maybe 11 and if there is time back to 5 to 7 where I didn't get the stuff in my head ...

Weather is horrible at the moment, when it is not raining it is cold and windy and so it's impossible to go jogging at the moment ...

How can you see the difference between Scots and Tourists? ... Tourists try to open the umbrella when the rain starts, Scots already know that this fight will just win the wind and blow the umbrella away ... -> Which means, that I gave it up to try to go out with the umbrella when it rains ... the only stuff which helps is a jacket with hood...

Accounting

Today I'm a bit down because I didn't sleep very well again, but usually even on bad days I manage it to read a few pages and understand something of this stuff, but today I was sitting just 1 hour in front of a page about pensions and how to put them into the accounts and then I have it up and just skipped this part ... With the books I read till now I always managed it, that I understood what the guys are writing and what we are supposed to know even when I couldn't just remember it after first reading ... but here in Accounting I don't get the point :( ... I hope that I understand a bit more when I reach the second part of the Book which is from Module 8 to 16 with the topic "Managment Accounting for Decision Making" :)

First results are out

Hi Guys... today we got the first results for my December exams.
I'm a bit frustrated, because I thought, that I would score higher, but at least an A is not too bad.




I thought about the results and what I did wrong to score less then expected and I think I had two major weaknesses in my exams: First, I Rushed through the multiple choice questions, Second, I was writing too less, I have to write much more, even the most obvious things.

And so I will learn as hard as before and try to fix my weaknesses and be prepared well for the next exams which are just 49 days away ...

Getting proper food!!!!

Today was really disappointing for getting proper food! I don't know if it's my fault, but here in Scotland it's sometimes really hard to get good food! I went to the pub of the student union for having lunch... the place where they usually serve good sandwiches was closed ( I don't know why, usually it was open on Sundays but you never know ) ... so we had to go to the second place where the food is usually not that good... I decided to try a "Cesars Salad" ... and now I can understand why people here are getting fat with eating "just" salad... the salad was more or less a piece of green salad covered by chicken and bacon ( it's new for me, that there is any bacon in such a salad, but anyway ...) ... the sauce was covering the hole plate and it was full of mayonnaise ... so I tried to eat a bit of the stuff without too much of the sauce but didn't finish this meal... after eating this I felt really sick and had to drink a coke to recover a bit ...

Then I continued my accounting studies....

...at about 8:30pm Lachlan and me decided to have proper food after the lunch experience ...
so we drover to a place round the corner where we have been before ... we had a look at the menu and wanted to order when the guys there told us, that the kitchen is closed (on the door is written that food is served till 10! ) ... so we drove a bit further to the next place went inside the pub and ... of course is the kitchen closed ... so we ended up eating at a Italian place where they served a least proper Pizza :)

I'm tired of this experiences! Why is it so difficult to have good food in this country!?!?

Buying a Kilt!

Tomorrow is the birthday of the Scottish poet Robert Burns and for this day there are all over Scotland gatherings to celebrate this day, eat haggis and read poets of him. EBS invited all students to come to such an event and the dresscode is: "Black Tie/Smart/National Dress" ... because I don't have a Bavarian dress here, I decided to use this event to buy a Kilt and have so the Scottish national dress :) So next week I can offer you some pictures of my wearing a kilt :)

Marketing Classes

Today was the second day of the Marketing course and it's really good! The teacher has a good mix of teaching, group discussions and group work! I really like this and because she creates it interesting with many examples and not too many slides it's not getting boring at all!
I just slept horrible last night again :( ... hope tonight will be better!

... we are still waiting for the results to come out!

Marketing course ahead

Tomorrow starts our Marketing seminar for the next 4 days, each day will be from 9am till 6pm. You can see when classes are coming when you're in a study room a week before, because it's getting busy and many guys now finally started reading the book :)

Today I finished reading Accounting Module 3 and started taking notes for Marketing Module 3... so I think it will be fine to finish the Accounting book till the 4th of February...

The most exciting question at the moment is not the Marketing seminar, everybody is excited, because our results for Economics and OB should be come out this week...

Pentland Hills

Today the weather was fine and so Lachlan and me hiked again a bit in the Pentland hills.
I found a map and marked you guys our rout with a red line ...

Finished Marketing! Accounting... I'm coming! :)

Today at round 11pm came the moment where I finally finished reading the Marketing book!!!
Unfortunately there is a Accounting book with another 16 Modules waiting for me and then I still have to take the notes which is in average another day for each Module in Marketing and Accounting ... so it won't be boring the next weeks here ... :(

Tomorrow we will have a little Birthday and Term-starting party at the Canadians house, should be fun :)

Oh and one of the guys at EBS told me today, that maybe we will get our results of the December exams tomorrow... so I'm getting a bit excited... :)

First sunny day!

Yeah, I couldn't believe it, but yesterday there was something different when I woke up... there was more light in my room and when I pulled back the curtains I could see the sun!!! :) And she was there for the whole day! So after lunch and a bit of Marketing study my body cried for getting outside and so I put on my jogging shoes and run to the research park which is next to the university... at the moment there is not too much happening which means, that the planned research park is more a field with a proper street infrastructure which is great to run there... and because there are no buildings it's a nice place to run in the sunshine :)

Last moduels of Marketing ahead

After my relaxing weekend I feel much more refreshed then the last week where I was sleepy the whole day and now I reach my 10 hour study days again to reach my goal and finish the Marketing book within the next two days... today I finished Module 14 and 15 and half of 16. For tomorrow I plan the rest of 16 and hope to finish 17 and parts of 18 so I will have 18/19 for Thursday. Then I have to start Accounting and make a proper plan when I finish my notes for Marketing where I'm stuck at Module 3 :)

By the way, the weather here is getting more and more depressing... today I didn't see the sun and it was not my fault of sleeping to long... I was ready to see it, but the fog and could mix made it impossible ... can you imagine how depressing it is to look out of the window at noon/midday and see, that the street lights are still on because it's still dark?!?!

Here is a picture out of my study room... (sorry for the quality, this mobile is shit and my good one is broken since a few weeks, I have to buy a new one soon...)
This is a picture at about 12:30 !!!

Weekend in Bavaria

My last weekend was really good, I enjoyed to be home for a few days and visiting my Family and some Friends! :) What a pity the time there is always short, but I hope that I can spend some more time at home, probably after the next exams...

The weather was really great and I even found out, that the sun is not gone forever so the disappearing here in Scotland might be a local problem ;)

Birthday

Hi Guys... sorry I didn't write the last days, I had Birthday on the 8th and so I've been in town with some guys to celebrate this :)

Today I've been in the city in the evening again and I found out, that the Library of the University of Edinburgh is a place to be :) ... there are 3 Bars in the Library (compared to Heriot-Watt with ZERO Bars). I just had the time to visit one of them and it was amazing, it's over tow floors, in the middle open and you sit between the books and can enjoy your drinks... you even can have some games like "Monopoly" or "Risk" to play there !!! And then they have a pool-room where you can play for 50p, compared to the other pubs, where you usually pay 1£ each game... so I'll be there next week again to have a bit of life here :)

Studies are going on well, I reached Module 14 in Marketing, 5 more to go and then I start Accounting :)

I'm now looking forward to spend my weekend home in Bavaria!

New students arrvied

Today arrived 6 new students, which will join our class. It should have been 12, but the other 6 have problems with work or visa and so there just showed up 6. ... 1 from the Ivory Coast, 1 from India and 4 from Nigeria.

The rest of the day I spent with studying Marketing. I finished reading of Module 10 and just now finished my notes for Module 2 ... tomorrow morning I have to decide if I continue doing some notes or continue reading Marketing or switch to Accounting and start there ...

latest Service News :)

It's getting more and more funny here about the storries I can describe for you guys about our service-experiences in this country.

I just got a new one of a guy in our group going to Virgin Fitnes to find out the price for a membership (no, it's not on the homepage and they don't tell you on the phone, so he had to made an appointment to meet the guys there...)

1.Step, going by bus to town to the fitnes club... after almoast beeing in town, the bus turned around and was driving back... everybody in the bus looked a bit wired and the guy went down to ask the driver what's up. The reason was, that there should have been a replacement of the driver and he missed the new driver on a stop, so he had to drive back to pick up the new driver...

2.Step, fitnes club... after filling out the form he was offered to sit down and wait... and wait... and wait... after 30 minutes nobody cared about him he left the place ... after another 30 minutes the guys called him and told him they have been busy ( please reminde, he had an appointment!!! ) ... so he just told them he is no longer interested ... we still don't know the price :-)

3.Step, bus back to the campus... yeah, that's the theory, the bus stopped one stop before the campus and the driver shouted "last stop" ... so all the students in the bus had to walk the last half mile to the campus ...

... I'm looking forward to our next adventures :)

PS: Today the door of EBS was locked and so we couldn't go inside... some guys asked the front desk at the main reception to open the building which they refused and told them, it will open again on monday! ... because I knew it from another day, I just went to the security office round the desk and asked this guy to open the building and a minute later there was a girl unlocking the door :-)

Service desert UK

Till I came here, I thought, that in Germany the service is the worst I ever had, but now after a while in UK I have to change my mind. There is not a single country (even so called 3rd world) where I ever had such a bad service like in this country... and it's not just me, it happens to everybody on every corner... I give you a few examples of our live here:

-- Bus experiences:
1.) We wanted to go bowling once and have been waiting at the bus stop for the bus. After 1 hour waiting without a single bus of this line coming, we decided to go by car, at this time the guy who have been waiting for us at the bowling center already left ...
2.) One of your group was going to the town by bus, then the bus stopped at one of the stops for a change of the driver ... just the new driver haven't been here ... the bus was waiting there 30(!!!) minutes for the new driver, nobody told the guys in the bus, what to do or to change the bus...
3.) I was going to the town on Monday for the New Year celebration. When I was coming to the bus stop, there have been 3 (!!!) buses for the same route starting to drive, everybody jumped in the first one... the bus driver was driving like on a race, then at the half of the distance he stopped at a bus stop, stopped the engine and jumped out of the bus and started talking to other bus drivers ... the two other buses for the same route passed us meanwhile ... then finally the driver remembered somehow, that there are still people in his bus and he stopped another bus passing to take us to town ... it was just a complete different route and so I ended up in the city but had to walk for 15 minutes to meet my friend at a place where the other bus just would have stopped in front ...

-- Being hungry...
1.) One of my friends called Domino's Pizza for ordering a pizza 45 minutes before they close ... They answered the phone, but told him that they already switched off the oven and it would take too long to start it again ... why did they then answer the phone if they don't offer service?
2.) Chinese restaurant ... after sitting down, the waiter is telling you, that the cook is just not here, he would come back in round 30 minutes!?

And that's just a few examples, there are a lot more where you don't know if you should just shake the head or get crazy ... the best thing is, that if you wanna complain they NEVER would say "sorry", they try to explain you, why it's YOUR fault!?!

Edinburgh by night

I took a few pictures a little while ago of Edinburgh by night which I wanted to show you guys...

Part of the Old Town

Edinburgh Castle
Part of the Christmas market

2008 !!!

Last night I was celebrating with 100.000 others on the streets of Edinburgh to celebrate the new year, it was really amazing with a great firework at midnight.


I know it's not my picture, but I didn't bring my camera with me to the party and so I have to show you pictures of others :)


At the Princes street...
Pub later ...

After sleeping almost the whole day to recover I plan to start my studies tomorrow again to get the stuff done before classes starting again ...