Just a little discussion

After two good friends left Edinburgh last year in December and last week there is not a single person left to have proper conversations. I thought that in coming to a full-time program I meet people with my or even better education and knowledge, but unfortunately there is not a single person left with whom I could have a discussion e.g. about actual Finance topics like the influences of the credit crunch on our finance system and so on ... It would be really helpful for our Finance classes, too ... but the sad news is that this guys are only busy in discussing stupid stuff like what others say about others and so on ... I started calling this group "Kindergarden"...

Finance studies are going well, I just didn't reach the point where I understand all the concepts I'm reading ... hope now with the practice questions I finally reach this point soon ...

Studies

At least I was taking my books with me to Germany, but didn't really read a single page. The only thing I did to keep in touch with Finance was buying some German financial newspapers and reading some articles there. And I took some of them with me to have some material to practice the calculations I have to do now ...

Today I finally started my revision studies for getting the stuff in my head to be ready for the exams in a few weeks time ...

The weather looks good, hope tomorrow morning it will be good, too so I can try the jogging trail I have in mind round the corner here ... :)

Back on studying

After one day break on Saturday I started again studying in reading the last pages of the Finance book which I didn't finish before classes ... this topics are really heavy it is about calculating Options and Derivatives ... Despite studying the weather here is really nice! :) It is still not warmer then 11 degrees, but sunny and that makes life nicer. Yesterday I was walking along a little river called "Water of Leith" just a few minutes away and that was really nice.

Tomorrow I'll go to visit my Family in Bavaria for a few days. I'll take the Finance stuff with me, hope I'll get some stuff done ... :)

Finance seminar

Last week I had my Finance seminar from Tuesday till Friday ... it was really interesting because Ken is a teacher with plenty of knowledge in this area and so you can ask almost everything ... this leads to the problem at this course... again there were too many stupid guys who didn't read a single line of the textbook before sitting in the classes and so we lost every day more and more time when Ken was answering the most stupid questions a few times and this was really annoying for me ... I stopped asking my questions which would probably have been of more value for the course but I didn't want to get another delay ... and the discipline of this group was again really bad. I think there was not a single time that the group was back in class on time, instead of breaking for 15 or 20 minutes for coffee most of the time it was more then 30min and the lunch break was never below one hour ... this really sucks... so we ended up that we had one of the most difficult part puts/calls/futures on Friday between 5pm and 7pm and everybody was really tired so nobody payed lot of attention and we just wanted to get it over ...

So I have to study the stuff now in main parts on my own and try to find the answers to my questions in the internet instead of asking in classes ... Ken was much too nice to all this stupid guys and so I feel sorry to say that this course is one of the worst in my Money/Time/Value measurement ...

Have to start studying now to catch up with my finance stuff and try to understand some more ...

RESULTS ARE OUT!!!

Finally I've made it !!!

!!! DISTINCTION in Accounting and Marketing !!! :)


So my hard studies which I described here are rewarded by a great degree!

Tomorrow I'll have a few drinks :o)

Arthur's Seat

After we went to Roslin we decided to use the nice weather to just do a second trip and we hiked up Arthur's Seat which is located between the city of Edinburgh and the North Sea.

Rosslyn Chapel + Roslin Castle

Today I used the day between Project Management and Finance to go hiking with some of my class mates ... it was a sunny day and so it would have been a shame to waste it with too much studying after the demanding 4 days of PM ... :)

So first we went to see the Rosslyn Chapel which probably most of you know since "The Da Vinci Code" was published...

Unfortunately it is no longer allowed to take pictures inside since 1st of Jan, but who is interested can see some pictures at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosslyn_Chapel)

After looking inside the chapel we went around to the Roslin Castle:

Project Management Classes

As you could see here at my blog I didn't really have time the last days to let you know what happened ... the reason was, that I had my Project Management Seminar. It was a great time, I never enjoyed having a seminar with such a great group! As I told you before, I changed the group for this seminar to have it with the executive rather than with the full-timers.
It was a great experience, we had great discussions through the input of many guys with experience in this subject and the group work we did was really demanding! And the social part is much better, too. After the classes we went for having drinks in town at good restaurants and then went to nice bars to have a few drinks. On the last evening I made a presentation for our team for the last presentation which included a summary of all steps we made before: OBS (Organization Breakdown Structure), WBS (Work Breakdown Structure), GANTT Chart (MS Project Plan), Cost analysis of all alternatives, conclusion, open issues, Risk Map and so on... The lecturer was great as well and I'll get him again for Strategic Risk Management in the next term.

Pictures of my new flat!

Here are a few pictures of my new flat in town. Today I was driving to IKEA to get this nice little table you can see and so I have now a great place on the window to study! :)

Downtown

I spent my first night here in the flat and it's amazing! Last night was the first time in weeks that I slept without waking up through slamming doors or other noise in the hall and I managed it to sleep as long as I wanted! (During the last weeks I hardly got 6h in average of sleep and so I felt tired the whole day!) ... but now I feel strength coming back in my body :)
I even catch up with writing some emails which I avoided the last weeks and sort out some other stuff I didn't manage in a long time ...

The only bad thing today was that I got a parking penalty for my car because I went to the city council yesterday to get my resident parking permit but because it was already too late that they could go through all the process while open I had to go back today to pick up the stuff ... and of course I got a penalty meanwhile even with a letter in the window saying that I'm on the way to pick up the permit ... now I can query the permit, but I don't know if this might be successful ...
The bad thing is, that the penalty here is 60£ !!! ... if I pay within 14 days I get 50% off ... so it's 30£ ... the crazy thing here is that the parking permit for the 6 month I stay costs me 41£ !!!
... this all doesn't make much sense to me ... but I fear now that if I query the penalty it takes longer then 14 days and then I have to pay the 60£ instead of 30£ .... grrrrrrrr

Because studying at the kitchen bar is not that comfortable I might go to IKEA tomorrow to buy a cheap table to put it in front of the window to study with a nice view ... but I still managed it to go through Module 8 of Finance today, just 4 Modules left to finish till next week Tuesday... should be fine despite the fact that I have Project Management from Thursday till Sunday ...

Silence

This morning I got the keys for my new flat in town and it's really cool! It's small and a few things are not perfect, but it has a big bed, it is quiet (I her the birds when I switch off the music) and it's 10minutes walking distance to the city center!
And then this morning when I was moving I could hear the work starting for the replacement of the windows in the Hall and you could hear every hammering when they break out the frames...

After a few days where I didn't get much studies done I finished Finance module 7 now and hope after sleeping well this night I will be refreshed to speed up and get some more Finance stuff done tomorrow. I'm looking forward to my Project Management classes.

World Swim Against Malaria

Today I was doing something social, I was organizing a fund raising event for the Rotaract Club of Edinburgh where we decided to join the world wide project "World Swim Against Malaria". So I was there at a pool in Edinburgh this morning and was swimming with 3 other guys :)
We made 200 laps 25m each so we got 5km of swimming in 2 hours ...

If some of you guys are interested in sponsoring something for our effort, you're welcome :)
http://www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com/Fundraiser.aspx?ProjectID=5&FundRaiserID=3628


After this swimming I was so tired that i took a nap ... later I went to EBS to study a bit finance, but didn't reach really far and so I gave it up for today ... I'm now in the room and put the stuff together for moving out tomorrow! Can't wait to leave this place!! Tomorrow 9:30 I get the keys, then I already will have the first load of stuff in my car with me, then I put this in my flat, drive a second time and by noon I should have everything together ... then I will put the stuff on his place ... in the afternoon I go to the city council to get a parking permit and on the way back I get mobile internet. It's a cool new thing, it's offered by mobile companies and it's just a SIM-card in a little device you put on the USB-Port and you have mobile broadband and this thing is working world wide (if you have network availability ;)...

Project Management

Today I finally finished the Project Management book. The last pages seemed to take ages to finish them and I had to read some pages about 5 times till i could go on ... wanted to finish it yesterday but at 3:30am I was so tired that I gave it up for the last pages... but now it's done!!!
Unfortunatelly I have to switch back to Finance tonight to go on there ... another 9 Modules with 30 pages in average are waiting to be studied...

Moving out on Monday!

Today I signed a contract for a flat in Edinburgh city center!!! :) Unfortunatelly the cheap one I wanted to have was already gone but now I have a nice one in a quiet are which is just renovated and in a nice quiet spot where I should have the pleasure of quietness for studying and sleeping without noises round me and 15min walking distance to the city center with all the bars and restaurants! :)

Seems the timing is just right, when I came back I had a letter in my room, that on Monday work starts to replace all windows at the Hall during the next 9 weeks! Monday till Friday 9am till 5:30pm work is going on here ... I wish all the guys with exams fun in studying here the next weeks!

Lets see if I find somebody to help me moving but I don't really care, it's just about driving 2 times with my stuff and that's it :)


The "X" marks my flat, as you see the distance on the left bottom corner you see that it's about 600m to the city :)