Sunday, July 1, 2012

Back to the Drawing Board

I am exhausted; today was the practice run-throughs for our hotel presentations, and it was rough. My group and I met up at 1 PM to decide if everything was ready for the TAs' and Mark's inspection. Our only problem was that Alva did not have any dress pants; so we both hopped on the bus, and I helped him shop at the mall ten minutes away. I'm not sure how much he knew - he did not seem to know how to use the changing room system (telling the number clothes he has, picking his own changing room, etc.). He also had no idea what size he was because it went by waist size and pants length (I think). Through a little trial-and-error, we found his size and the color he wanted. He also bought some shoes. Apparently in China, a nicer pair of shoes (like Nike or Adidas) can go for over $600!

After our shopping excursions, I went back to my dorm to work some more on my slides. After dinner, we all practiced individually in the computer labs; when our turn finally came, I knew there would be a lot of constructive criticism, but I also felt that my group was at least well-prepared. Sure enough, Mark liked our facts, but not the way we presented them.

I have just spent the past five hours fixing my slides and doing more research via my family (mostly my life-saving uncle, who is an economics teacher) on the stock market. Mark was looking for perfomance over time represented by a percentage. I couldn't find that exact data, so instead I settled for profit margin (representing a company's efficiency) and quarterly revenue growth by year (representing a company's sale improvement). Unfortunately, I had to spend an hour trying to redo my slides after PowerPoint decided it was time to corrupt files. Thankfully, though, I was able to finish before the lounge closed. Overall, it's been a long day. I hope presentations go well.

By the way, happy birthday Alex! I'm sorry I didn't know, but it sounds like you had a great day.

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