Priorities

It´s saturday evening, 22:45 and I´m sitting at home on my laptop writing this just after watching a movie. But why am I here? Why do I do this? I could be at Openair St.Gallen listening to Kaiser Chiefs right now. I could be partying on a boat on lake constance at tanzschiff. And I could be in Bern together with many ppl partying at mc transition party. But I´m here, because I set my priorities. Because I have exams on wednesday and on thursday and my priority is to pepare myself as good as possible in order to be satisfied with myself after exams and to know that i did the best i could. My priority is in this very moment my grades, my studies, my future!
But why am I writing this? Yesterday we had the presentation of our term project at university. When presentations were over and after commenting on our presentations he asked us, why almost no one showed up last wednesday at barbeque for marketing master students which has been organised by the university for US. Well we told him that for some ppl it had been communicated too late and it was too close to exams next week. And what was his reaction? He got pissed off, told us that it´s something for us and there is apparently something wrong if THEY had to organise this. And that´s it´s about setting PRIORITIES!! Yeah right, priorities! So, what should be priority then one week before exams? Going on bbq or doing once something for studies? Am I setting priorities now wrong? Should I party all the time instead of focusing of what seems important to me in at the moment? Should I get wasted instead of believing in me and my experience i got in my past 7 terms at 2 universities?
I´m not really sure what annoys me most at the moment? Studying for exam? University itself? Or the fact that I´m not at the openair, transition party or tanzschiff?
A friend just wrote me lately, why I want to quit uni asap - it´s such a cozy life the life of a student. And I have to say: No! I´m getting fed up more and more. And that´s why I would set my priorities the same way I did sofar. And I will do it in august as well as for the whole next year! But only in order to finish asap without sacrificing the time afterwards...

Look - it´s a phone

Is it the beinning of a new era in mobile phone industry or only a storm before the calm? Fact is, Apple is introducing today the new iPhone in the US market, AT&T the exclusive carrier refused their employees to go on holiday and temporarily hired additionally 2000 employees. Not many people have seen it sofar and even less could test it. But still, there are people queuing since the beginning of the week.

Experts are skeptical about the product. The camera is apparently not the best. There´s no connection to UMTS networks and the costs are relatively high (500-600$). And Apple denied AT&T to sell it with discount prices although customers have to buy a 2-year contract of the phone operator. Apple´s target amount of sold pieces till end of 2008: 10 Mio. Nokia sells this amount every 10 days...
Still, it might not be a superior product but Apple has enourmous competencies and knowledge in Marketing. And as the trend in Marketing is not anymore on a product or even brand perspective, but on a community perspective it could still be a successful product for Apple. Simply, because Apple products have at least since iPod a high social value. From my perspective, mobile phones are a highly publicly consumed good which supports the idea of a status symbol and symbolization of consumption. Or as our profs call it: the link is more important than the thing... in europe by the end of the year

Open Season - The exam period

I´m preparing once again for the hunt. But once again I´m not the chaser, I´m the hunted! Soon professors start to shoot questions at me and I better be prepared.
Preparation means again being busy. Finishing our practice project and prepare for the final presentation in 1.5 weeks. Learning stuff about Communication management about communities, about brands. And about media and communication management in order to prepare for my exams in two weeks. At the same time proofreading my sisters master thesis and while doing that wondering what the "öffentliche hand" actually looks like and where she´s hiding (cause I never saw one in reality)...
Thus, I´m pretty well occupied. Won´t use the term stress because I´m writing a paper about work-related stress as well at the moment and know now a bit better what it is. Therefore I´m not stress, I only get pushed to my performance peek.

What keeps me happy at the moment?
While studying I enjoy listen to music on my ipod (connected to my stereo which makes the sound quality better). Keeps my mood up! I even started to do a song-diary last weekend, where I select one song per day. They can be stuck in my head, can catch my mood, a part of the lyrics which can be linked to an event of the day. Sofar there are the following songs:

Boten Anna by BassHunter for Sat 16.6.07
Forever by Papa Roach for Sun 17.6.07
Don´t tell me by Hoobastank on Mon 18.6.07
Running up that hill by Placebo on Tue 19.6.07
Raining again by Moby for Wed 20.6.07
In Between by Linkin Park for today, Thu 21.6.07

Apart from the music the fact, that I´ve been selected for NST Alumni for the upcoming term keeps me still happy as well. And of course making fun of people who were a bit too thirsty at unifest... :)

Swiss culture

When I was preparing my „swiss-culture“ mini-session for the world-cafe at xps I found a very interesting book called "When culture collide - managing successfully across cultures" written by the british linguist Richard D. Lewis. In one part of his book he describes different cultures. About Switzerland he writes among other things the following stuff:

“In terms of cultural collisions, Switzerland is a prime candidate for polarisation among its inhabitants, since its citizens speak four languages belonging to four diverse cultural groups, which, during the course of history, have not displayed any particular affection for each other.”

“Switzerland is the most mountainous country in Europe, with the result that most of its people live in deep and often isolated valleys. They are suspicious of persons who live in other valleys…"

“Some may argue that there is no such thing as a Swiss - one writer described them as a collection of sedated Germans, over-fussy French and starched Italians, all square like their national flag.”

“Time is not seen as money, in the American sense, but as an important tool in organising your daily life and society. Swiss don´t rush you, but they don´t waste time either. Their accurate sense of timing enables them to predict and forecast events better than most nationalities."

“The Swiss are good at making you feel that you get what you pay for. If you try to bargain with them too hard, they stiffen as if you have made a shady proposal. They are straightforward negotiators who honestly try hard to see matters from an opponent´s point of view. One cannot call them inconsiderate – they are quick to make helpful suggestions when it does not hit their pocket.”

“The Swiss are rather heavy drinkers (ninth in the world) and inveterate smokers (sixth). They also are third in drug offences, although this figure may be artificially high due to the efficiency of the national police administration.”

“You don´t have to be exciting to make a Swiss like you; they are looking for solidity and reliability in the people they deal with. You should show that you are in good control of your emotions, private life and financial arrangements.”

Swiss Values
Polite, clean, tidy, punctual, cautious, worrying, over-serious, dull, hardworking, proper, law-abiding, god-fearing, honest, frugal, saving, environmentally sensitive, family oriented, disciplined, pragmatic, perfectionist, obsessed by security, neutral, keen on training and preparation, suspicious of all foreigners and anxious to control

Visiting your hometown

Have you ever visited your own city? I mean the city you would call hometown? I actually did it on saturday, when I was showing a friend around. It was somehow a strange feeling. We arrived with the train from St.Gallen and I showed her the old town, the Bärengraben, Rosengarten, Mattequartier and via Kirchenfeld we went back to the city centre. She took pictures all the time, I was carrying my sports bag and we were talking in "proper" german together. It somehow made me feel like a tourist too. On the other hand I understood of course what people were talking. I knew how the city lives, how the patterns of bernese people are, how they behave. Together it was a quite strange experience... And maybe because I´m not living in Bern anymore, that´s what I´m becoming slowly, step by step: A stranger in my own home??