Hotelies Do Not Get "Me-Time"

Day two of class, and I'm already exhausted. It often feels like I have no personal time to just...take a breath. So far, my schedule has been unbending: I woke up at 7 today, rushed to beat other girls to a sink, changed, ran down to the cafeteria by 7:30, and I'm walking to class by 8. This morning started with another lecture, this time about standardization and efficiency. Then we went to the computer lab to learn how to properly use Microsoft Word 2010. Our homework assignment is to create a memo template that's original by playing with all of the different tools; we will also have a quiz tomorrow morning about both the lecture and the different functions of Word. During lunch, we were assigned (yes, we still have to work, even during breaks) to talk with our assigned groups, establish norms (rules to abide by to ensure respect and efficiency), and to type it all up in our memo template with our signatures on it. Colleen (one of our members) took notes on the rules we decided on, and agreed to type it up before office hours.

Class fills up fast. One guy even posed for the camera.

I walked back to class with another member, Alva, who wanted to know how being gay was treated in the U.S. Surprisingly, he is the second person to ask me that. He explained to me that in China, they have a country-wide equivalent to "Don't ask, and don't ever tell." He says his generation, though, has become more accepting of it, and are interested in the topic because no one is allowed to discuss it in school and most other places. It was an interesting insight to Chinese culture and life, but I wasn't really surprised. After all, this is the same country the used to bind girls' ankles because they thought the deformed walk was attractive. Thankfully, that practice has long been banned, and it seems that people my age are thinking more globally and progressively, rather than relying on the thousands of years riddled with heavy, strict tradition.

Our afternoon class was all lecture; Reneta went over the CHESS program, and gave us a few helpful tips for the more complicated concepts. Then she further built upon hotel structures. At 4 PM I briefly met with my group before heading back to my dorm to take a quick nap. At 6 I was once again rushing through my dinner (salad again), and arrived to class at 6:50. We worked some more on our memos - both the template and the group norms - and then worked on playing with Word. I also started to research our assigned hotel group: the Choice Hotels International, a franchise group that includes brands like Quality and Comfort Inn. We have to turn in a PowerPoint presentation by Friday, as well as a memo explaining what we plan to do in CHESS to try to run our hotel successfully (using our new templates, of course). Two projects with two more days to do it! This class cannot be taken lightly.  

We put trays here in the cafeteria; unfortunately, I spend little time here exploring.