Hello my faithful readers:
It's Thursday evening and I'm sitting here in my little studio feeling a whole lot better than I was a couple of days ago. The past few days I've been living at the VLG building and it was making me a tired, grumpy, young(ish), woman. This has also contributed to my lack of blogs in the past week. Hopefully the group work that I've been doing will slow down in the next few weeks, or at least be limited to in-class only; but I have the feeling that the slow down in group work won't happen anytime soon.
Our MBA program focuses a lot of time on getting us to work together in groups. We have all been broken out into different groups for each class based on our nationality, gender and background. I, however, am not a fan of working in groups. Both in my professional and personal life I view myself as a bit of a loner. In our Managing Across Cultures course the term for this is "individualist" and in general that's where most Americans fall in the grand scheme of things. It's all about me, me, me and I, I, I...and I'd say the control freak in me likes this an awful lot. Working in groups requires you to trust the others in the group to do what they say they will do, it also requires you to learn to be open-minded enough to see things from a different perspective (even if you think your way is absolutely right). I've learned a lot about myself this week. Yes - I can be a bit of a pushy 'diva' when things aren't going my way; and I believe I still need to do some serious reflection about my behavior when I'm required to work with others.
This weekend is going to be a much needed re-set and rest for me. I need a weekend to recover and decompress from an intense week. Thankfully I survived without completely breaking down (although I started feeling sick earlier this week). Now my focus is on working smarter, because to be honest this 1 year intensive MBA program is more of a marathon for me and not a sprint. My goal for myself over the next few weeks is to find a nice balanced life here in Leuven.
Mwuah,
Georgia Peach
P.S. - I got word earlier this week that my money won't hit my account until the end of next week.
P.P.S - Good news is my police visit was completed without my knowledge and by the end of day tomorrow I will have my Belgian Residence card! Things are looking up!
P.P.P.S. - Did you catch that my sports analogy was an individual sport? (that was my subconscious taking over - I swear!)
Showing posts with label studying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label studying. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
A different way of doing things
Hello my faithful readers:
This week I have been focused on passing the pre-coursework my program has assigned us; all should be completed prior to the first day of classes on September 1. The school also ambitiously assigned us several books to read prior to our arrival here in Leuven. Out of the 3 classes we are to take online I have completed one and classes begin less than a week from now. I see a future with lots of nights spent here in the school (where I currently am) in my little study cubby.
I'll admit that in undergrad, (and even high school) I was never much of a disciplined studier. Nothing seems to motivate me more than an impending deadline and usually it is less than 24 hours away. With the workload that we're going to cover in this 1 year MBA program I will have to change some of my bad habits. I'll have to figure out more efficient ways to manage my time and spend less time surfing the web, checking my facebook page or just tweeting about how much studying I'm NOT doing.
Today was a poor study day for me, but I feel like it was time (mostly) well spent with getting other important tasks completed. I picked up my disbursement three checks from the International Office here at the school and learned that the student loan process for US based loans is very different here in Belgium than it is in the US. The biggest difference is that I got the first half of my loans (1/2 tuition + 1/2 living expenses) and I am responsible for making the payment to the school for my tuition. I took the checks to my bank and I was hoping that I could use a portion of my living fees expenses to pay the deposit on my studio. No such luck, apparently because of issues with check cashing fraud no Belgian banks allow you to cash checks. Ever! I deposited all of the money into my ING account, although the lovely woman couldn't give me a specific timetable of when I would have access to the money. One other (important) lesson learned at the bank today is that you should be very specific with them about the currency of the checks you're depositing. You should also keep in mind that here in Europe- the comma in currency is used in the same way as the decimal point is used in the US. I was glad that they checked with me because I would have been quite upset if they had assumed I was depositing checks for small dollar amounts(e.g. $5). That would have been a really bad exchange rate!
After doing the banking thing, I bought a few things that I needed in my room and went back to my kamer to grab a bite to eat and take a nap. That evening I needed to pay the deposit + 1st months rent to my landlord so I had to call and make special arrangements with my US based bank. I also set up my renters insurance since the same company has my current US renters insurance and luckily my rate is a little lower here in Leuven than it was in NYC, which is great considering Leuven is one of the safest cities in the world. I went to a couple of ATM machines here to withdraw the money and stopped by to pay the deposit to my new landlord. I also realized later that the exchange rates seem to be a whole lot better if you're withdrawing directly from the ATM machines.
Although I didn't get my intended studying completed, I learned that there are many differences in the ways that Americans and Belgians get things done. I think overall I'm going to learn more patience and become a lot more laid back after my experiences here. Plus I'll need to carry lots of cash around because lots of places don't seem to accept debit/atm cards here! That's enough of my rambling for tonight - I'll try to squeeze in at least one more blog this week, but for the rest of this week I'm all about getting my Statistics and Accounting courses completed!
Mwuah,
Georgia Peach
This week I have been focused on passing the pre-coursework my program has assigned us; all should be completed prior to the first day of classes on September 1. The school also ambitiously assigned us several books to read prior to our arrival here in Leuven. Out of the 3 classes we are to take online I have completed one and classes begin less than a week from now. I see a future with lots of nights spent here in the school (where I currently am) in my little study cubby.
I'll admit that in undergrad, (and even high school) I was never much of a disciplined studier. Nothing seems to motivate me more than an impending deadline and usually it is less than 24 hours away. With the workload that we're going to cover in this 1 year MBA program I will have to change some of my bad habits. I'll have to figure out more efficient ways to manage my time and spend less time surfing the web, checking my facebook page or just tweeting about how much studying I'm NOT doing.
Today was a poor study day for me, but I feel like it was time (mostly) well spent with getting other important tasks completed. I picked up my disbursement three checks from the International Office here at the school and learned that the student loan process for US based loans is very different here in Belgium than it is in the US. The biggest difference is that I got the first half of my loans (1/2 tuition + 1/2 living expenses) and I am responsible for making the payment to the school for my tuition. I took the checks to my bank and I was hoping that I could use a portion of my living fees expenses to pay the deposit on my studio. No such luck, apparently because of issues with check cashing fraud no Belgian banks allow you to cash checks. Ever! I deposited all of the money into my ING account, although the lovely woman couldn't give me a specific timetable of when I would have access to the money. One other (important) lesson learned at the bank today is that you should be very specific with them about the currency of the checks you're depositing. You should also keep in mind that here in Europe- the comma in currency is used in the same way as the decimal point is used in the US. I was glad that they checked with me because I would have been quite upset if they had assumed I was depositing checks for small dollar amounts(e.g. $5). That would have been a really bad exchange rate!
After doing the banking thing, I bought a few things that I needed in my room and went back to my kamer to grab a bite to eat and take a nap. That evening I needed to pay the deposit + 1st months rent to my landlord so I had to call and make special arrangements with my US based bank. I also set up my renters insurance since the same company has my current US renters insurance and luckily my rate is a little lower here in Leuven than it was in NYC, which is great considering Leuven is one of the safest cities in the world. I went to a couple of ATM machines here to withdraw the money and stopped by to pay the deposit to my new landlord. I also realized later that the exchange rates seem to be a whole lot better if you're withdrawing directly from the ATM machines.
Although I didn't get my intended studying completed, I learned that there are many differences in the ways that Americans and Belgians get things done. I think overall I'm going to learn more patience and become a lot more laid back after my experiences here. Plus I'll need to carry lots of cash around because lots of places don't seem to accept debit/atm cards here! That's enough of my rambling for tonight - I'll try to squeeze in at least one more blog this week, but for the rest of this week I'm all about getting my Statistics and Accounting courses completed!
Mwuah,
Georgia Peach
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