Presentations!

Today was the big day. Presentation Day. I was surprised because I didn't feel nervous as group after group present and the time for me to present came closer and closer. I took notes on all the other presentations about not only content but how that group presented so I could make mental notes about what to do and what not to do.

After ten presentations, we had lunch which I ate quickly so I could make it back to Statler Hotel where I practiced by myself for a good half hour. I went over and over and over what I was going to say and when I was done practicing, I got to know some students from China as we waited for the rest of our class to show up for a class picture.

When class resumed, the next 10 groups, including my group, presented. It was cool to see Mr. Chan-Law who came to class just to watch us present. Right before my group had to go up, the other group presenting about Host Hotels and Resorts had information that was conflicting with mine, but when we calmed down and reviewed our notes, we were confident that we had the right information. That gave us a little bit of a confidence boost that we carried into the presentation. When it was my turn to talk, I felt like I was beginning to lose the class because they had already sat through 15 presentation that repeat information, but Mark's thumbs up and nods gave me more confidence as I moved along.

At the end of class, Mark and Reneta announced that office hours would be canceled today because we had worked extremely hard on Sunday and just assigned us homework and told us to study for our quiz tomorrow.

Also, today we watched Ithaca's Fourth of July fireworks that was put on tonight. ( I have no clue why.) Matt, Frank, and I walked to the clock tower to see the fireworks. We sat with the rest of the Hotelies and snacked on food that our T.A.s provided. The firework show was pretty good for a town like Ithaca and it gave Matt, Frank, and I some time to relax and talk before we made our way back to our dorms to attack our homework.

Exhausting Presentations

Presentations have finally arrived. Every one had to dress up, and it was very uncomfortable walking in dress shoes. I must be honest though, I was concerned about nervousness because our group didn't even put together our finished PowerPoint before breakfast. Luckily, our group was really organized, so I was confident that we would finish before class started, which we eventually did.


Presentations started at 8:45 AM, and they were all very informative. There was a total of 10 groups that went up before lunch, which meant 5 hotels, as every 2 groups do 1 hotel. After a quick lunch and a group picture, I was about to go up to present. Mr. Chan-Law came to see Eric, Rachael, and me, since we all presenting close to each other. My group went up to the spotlight in around 2:15 PM. It was not as intimidating as I first thought. As I stood up behind the podium, Mr. McCarthy was always giving me encouraging nods, which helped. After all the groups presented, we received great news. Our office hours for today was cancelled.


After class, Eric and I met up with Alex, Calvin, Matt, and Eric Wilson in the TV lounge and because there was no rush to get to office hours, watched part of the Brides Maid. It took way too long so Matt, Eric, and I went to dinner while the other three continued to watch. After dinner, everyone was waiting for the fireworks. For some reason, the fireworks weren't going to be on July 4th, but instead, be 2 days early.


The place was packed. There was at least 300 people lying on the grass. I met up with the hotel  management TAs, who provided snacks to us. The fireworks were not bad, but not the best I've ever seen. It was pretty cool because everyone was just gathered in one area. The fireworks were not as high as I was used to seeing with fireworks, but because the location was great, as Cornell University is on a slope and a person could see the surroundings, it was worth going to. 


This day was one of the most eventful days in Cornell, with the presentations and fireworks.

Happy 2nd of July!

Our first weekend has come and gone, and now it's back to work. Our lecture today covered the beliefs and ideology of John Locke in the mid 17th century. The main theme throughout both the lecture and discussion session was about Locke's natural rights to "Life, Liberty, and Property" and the consequences of infringing on these rights. After a week of lectures, I noticed that it gets more interesting as Professor Kramnick goes on in the lecture. Maybe it's the coffee kicking in, but I definitely get more and more engaged as the lecture progresses, so by the end, I really don't want it to end. 

After class, Eric, Alex, and I found this neat little group study room in the Uris Library where we reviewed all of our reading for our midterm on Wednesday. We actually quite quite a lot of work done in that time span that we decided we should go there after class everyday to trade notes and go over what our TAs said (I have a different TA from Eric and Alex). After our review session, we explored the so-called "Harry Potter Library" which was jaw-dropping, but unfortunately, I did not have any picture-taking devices at that time. We then went to the Technology Center so that Alex could get wifi on his iPod Touch. We then headed back to Donlon Hall and watched the movies Armoured and Bridesmaid. Funny story, in the middle of Bridesmaid, I went to the bathroom and discovered that I had a bloody nose (probably from the heat, so drink a lot of water!).

Our review board in our secret hideout

After a quick dinner, we all went to play pool for a while before watching the fireworks. I guess I forgot to mention that Cornell actually has it's 4th of July fireworks on the 2nd. Eric Wilson, Alex, and I went with our friends Samantha (better known as Sam), Morgan, and Alyssa. We eventually picked a spot on the hill and waited for about 45 minutes for the fireworks to begin, only to be disappointed that our view was blocked off by a tree. However, the majority of the fireworks were big enough that the tree didn't pose a huge problem. The finale was absolutely amazing with bright flashes everywhere and the boom of the rockets resonating throughout the city.

View from before the fireworks began

Overall this day was extremely productive with the discovery of our review room. The fireworks were amazing and my pool-playing is actually really good! I now have to put that all behind me since I need to study for my midterm on Wednesday!

Into the Night

A Nice Letter from Asher and Riley, our R.A.'s

We got up particularly early this morning because we had to go to the computer lab to print our Plato essays before class. The job was easier and faster than we anticipated, and arrived to class about 25 minutes early. Today we were introduced to John Locke, an English philosopher in the 18th century. He focuses especially on the principles of the individual's rights and justifies his theories through what he calls the "State of Nature." Even though I spent the weekend reading about the philosophy of John Locke it took me a while to understand the concepts that Professor Kramnick and Ulas were explaining. We compared the ideas of John Locke to the other people we have studied: St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, Jesus Christ, and Plato. This will be particularly important as the preliminary exam approaches. We received a copy if an example of the format of the preliminary exam to preview the test, which consisted of a choice of an essay between three broad questions, and five short answer questions that are to be chosen from eight.

After class Eric and I, who are in the same discussion group, met up with Calvin and headed toward Uris Library to study and outline what we have learned so far. We reserved a private group study room and reviewed the teachings of each philosopher and religious text. I found that studying in the lounge where the different conversations and activities are always taking place is sometimes distracting; working in the library with only Freedom and Justice students proves to be a lot more beneficial.  Before leaving Uris, we went upstairs to check out the  "Harry Potter Library," where certain parts of Harry Potter had been filmed.

Looking over the southern side of the campus before fireworks

The evening was spent in Donlon Hall, playing pool and watching television before dinner, but once the sun went down the real fun started. Cornell seems to have a tradition of having a fireworks display not only on the Fourth of July, but for all the days in the week leading up to the holiday and then lasting through until the ninth. We joined friends Morgan, Sam, and Alyssa for the fireworks, finding a perfect spot on the hill behind the McGraw clock tower.  We saw the fireworks light up the sky above the lake; unfortunately it was too dark to capture any pictures.  The evening ended up being a nice break away from our studies.

Tomorrow we will conclude the teachings of Locke and hopefully have enough time to study in the afternoon, since our preliminary exam is on Wednesday. Wish us luck!

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.

Surprises and a Little Work

Happy, Happy Birthday from all of us to you, we wish it was our birthday so we could party too! Today we celebrated Alex's 17th birthday. Eric and I went down to the Donlon lobby early in the morning to pick up the cake we had delivered. We waited for everyone to show up in the our friend Matt's room (he had a freezer so the cake wouldn't melt) but we were missing one member of our group, Eric Wilson. We went to his room and banged on his door and called him until he woke up. After everyone was ready, we went to Alex's room in Risley Hall to surprise him. We had a party in his room eating ice cream cake as we joked around until it we could not eat any more ice cream.

After lunch at the RPCC, Eric and I went to class to work on the group presentation. While Eric stayed until 4:30 PM, I left earlier because I finished my work and relaxed with Matt, Eric Wilson, Calvin, and the birthday boy before I met Eric at the RPCC for a quick dinner. Eric and I ate by ourselves because the others weren't on such a tight schedule, and instead, wanted to finish their movie: the Matrix.

Eric and I went straight down from the dining hall to the computer labs, to work on the presentations. We arrived a little before 6 PM, and worked on the project. It was very, long, and our group was doing a dry run, to prepare for the actual presentation, at 9. We practiced and was getting everything organized for the three hours in between.

We walked into the room, ready to present our dry run to Mr. McCarthy. It well fairly well, and we only had a few errors here and there. It was a very long day, but after the presentation is over tomorrow, life will finally be a little bit easier.

A Very Special Sunday

I woke up to the knocking on my door the morning of July 1^st.  I opened it to be greeted by my fellow cohort who were holding a birthday cake (with no eggs!).  I was so surprised and so touched to have them think of me.  We had a great time spending the morning in my dorm, eating cake and complaining about how much work we had to do today.  We skipped breakfast before heading to the Donlon formal lounge to continue our assignments for the weekend.  I completed the majority of the assignment before breaking for lunch.

My egg-free ice cream cake. Thanks guys!

After lunch we resumed our to studies but later headed to the television lounge to watch the Euro 2012 Championship between Spain and Italy.  Being an FC Barcelona fan I was rooting for Spain, who played an excellent game, beating the Italians 4-0.  Watching the Spanish national team play is really something; there is no other team who has such great ball control and possession throughout the game.  One of my favorite players, David Silva from Manchester City, scored the first goal of the game in the 11^th minute to put Spain ahead. 

The rest of the evening was spent on schoolwork.  We swapped between revising our essay and taking (frequent) breaks.  We watched Liam Neeson’s Taken before calling it a night.  I had a great birthday spending time with my cohort and newly made friends. 

Tomorrow we will start with the teachings of English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, a supporter of individual rights.  I find it interesting that we will be studying John Locke after Plato, one who is strongly opposed to individualism.  This birthday on the East Coast has been amazing and really a great experience.

  

Final Practice

This time tomorrow, I will have my group presentation on Host Hotels and Resorts behind me. To be honest, I can't wait to finish this presentation.

Today, Frank and I woke up early to get Alex's egg free ice cream cake and met some of our buddies in Donlon before we went to surprise Alex in his dorm room. After we gave Alex his cake, we relaxed in his room eating ice cream and then made our way to the RPCC for lunch. After lunch we met with Mr. Chan-Law to discuss our plans for the next week. Frank and I then left for the computer labs in the Statler School of Hotel Administration to work on our presentations.

My group was the first group to have to do a run through with Mark. I thought we would have to actually go through and do our entire presentation, but Mark just asked us to show him our slides, speak briefly about what we're going to say, and practice our transitions. He then gave us constructive feedback on how to make our presentation better technically and told us he think we'll be just fine tomorrow. My group then did a full practice presentation with one of the T.A.s, Alexis, who told us that I should try to be more animated and that I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. We then spend the next hour fixing our PowerPoint before I sprinted back to the RPCC for a rushed dinner so I could make it back to the computer labs for office hours.

During office hours, I went through and tried to analyze every single detail and comb through trying to get  the best color combinations so that our presentation will look great on the presentation screen. My group then timed our practices over and over and over so that tomorrow can go smoothly.

Today's biggest hurdle was figuring out how Mark and Reneta wanted our presentation to be printed. There was chaos as several stressed students ran from lab to lab asking everyone how it should be printed. The reason why there was chaos was that the computer labs were going to close in 15 minutes and the T.A.s were being asked questions left and right.

Hopefully, tomorrow will not be as chaotic as the as the last 15 minutes of office hours.

The Birthday Boy

We started the day with an extremely unorganized meet up with all of us in order to surprise Alex for his birthday. Eric Wang and Frank went to pick up the ice cream cake while I had the task of waking up the others. The most difficult one was Eric Wilson. After about 20 phone calls I decided to go to Donlon Hall myself. When Eric Wang came back, we both (along with Matt) went over to Eric Wilson's room to bang on his door and call his phone again. Originally, we thought he might have been in the shower, but to our amazement, he actually slept through everything despite his phone volume being on high. Our surprise was delayed for about 45 minutes. We finally went to Risley Hall with Mr. Chan-Law to go and surprise Alex. For most of the time, we were more concerned about the cake melting than being sneaky. When we finally got there and said happy birthday to Alex we commenced the cake eating. However, the cake was rock hard and impossible to cut so our concern of the cake melting was all in vain.

Alex, Eric, and I spent most of the day working on our essays with some TV-watching thrown in there. After   finishing the essay, we met up with a bunch of people and watched Spain win the Euro Cup 2012. However, I ended up sleeping through most of the second half of the game along with Eric Wilson. After the game, we watched a little of The Matrix Reloaded, then headed up for dinner. Upon coming back from dinner, we revised our essays a little more and then watched Taken.

This day was mainly dedicated to work so not a lot of things happened. After a full week being independent, I think my time management has really improved; I find myself finishing all my work with enough time to wind down and explore other things.

Happy Birthday Alex!!!

Cutting the Cake

I awoke this morning to the sound of my phone ringing and a banging at my door. I answered them simultaneously and it turned out to be Matt, Alex ,Eric, and Frank who had forgotten to tell me about Alex's morning birthday surprise. I  had previously thought the festivities were starting at lunch. I quickly got dressed and cleaned up and we headed out to pick up the ice cream cake (egg free for Alex) from Matt's refrigeration where Eric and Frank had stored it. Then we walked down to Alex's room with Mr. Chan-Law to surprise him.

This was the first time I, and I think all of us, had ice cream cake for breakfast, an it was quite the experience. After we finished eating we walked back to Donlon Hall and met back up with Aflredo (who had left while we were eating). We again went over our plans for the next couple weeks. We spent the rest of the time before the Eurocup Championship  Game working on our essays. I actually fell asleep, along with Calvin, during the game and awoke to see, with a small level of disappointment, that Spain had won by a long shot. We watched TV for a little longer until dinner time. After dinner I finalized my essay and Alex and I proofread eachother's work and bounced ideas about the essay topic. Then we watched Taken for the rest of the night.

Tomorrow my second week at Cornell starts. It is easy to fall in to a routine, and I have become very at home. Every morning I wake up, shower, and clean up then head off to breakfast. The day varies, but every night ends up pretty much the same. After dinner is usually free time which I spend socializing until check in. After check in I spend some time with my roommate, then perform the general pre-sleep hygiene ritual and go to sleep. I am really enjoying my time at Cornell, and so far I have not felt overwhelmed or stressed out about anything. Having only one class, and complete control of my time makes getting my work done and still having plenty of free time an matter of only effective time management. This experience is making a more responsible person, and I feel like I am becoming much more mature. It is a great feeling, and an awesome thing to recognize.