Merry Xmas

Since last week, when I weak up I always think, something is wrong. No, it´s not beacause the candle in the wind or the weather but because I feel powerless. But there´s really no time for that right now. The show must go on! I´ve to study, then I´ll go abroad on the day after tomorrow and when I return (probably on 2nd) I´ve to study again. Hope to be energized again soon...

Anyway I wish you Merry Christmas (for those who are celebrating). For the others I wish not too boring days. And then have a really good end of the year and a marvellous start into 2007!I will spend new years eve in Slovakia and be back again next year.

Until then, Good night and good luck!

Parlez francais!

The Xmaszeit

When the last Kalender-sheets
flattern through the winterstreets
and the Dezemberwind is blowing
then ist everybody knowing
that it is not allzuweit:
she does come – the Weihnachtszeit.

All the Menschen, Leute, people
flippen out of ihr warm Stueble,
run to Kaufhof, Aldi, Mess,
make Konsum and business.
Kaufen this und jene things
and the Churchturmglocke rings.

Manche holen sich a Taennchen,
when this brennt, they cry "Attention".
Rufen for the Feuerwehr:
"Please come quick to loeschen her!"
Goes the Taennchen of in Rauch,
they are standing on the Schlauch.

In the kitchen of the house
mother makes the Christmasschmaus.
She is working, schufts and bakes
the hit is now her Yoghurtkeks.
And the Opa says als Tester:
"We are killed bis to Silvester".
Then he fills the last Glas wine –
yes, this is the Christmastime!

Day by day does so vergang,
and the Holy night does come.
You can think, you can remember,
this is immer in Dezember.

Then the childrenlein are coming
candle-Wachs is abwaerts running.
Bing of Crosby Christmas sings
while the Towerglocke rings
and the angels look so fine –
well this is the Weihnachtstime.

Baby-eyes are big and rund,
the family feels kerngesund
when unterm Weihnachtsbaum they’re hocking
then nothing can them ever shocking.
They are so happy, are so fine –
this happens in the Christmastime!

The animals all in the house,
the Hund, the Katz, the bird, the mouse,
are turning round the Weihnachtsstress,
enjoy this day as never nie,
well they find Kittekat and Chappi
in the Geschenkkarton von Pappi.

The family begins to sing
and wieder does a Gloeckchen ring.
Zum song vom gruenen Tannenbaum
the Traenen rennen down and down.
Bis our mother ploetzlich flennt:
"The christmas-Gans im Ofen brennt!"
Her nose indeed is very fine.
End of the Weihnachtstime.

Videos of the week

Cool U2-video:

Tactic if you want to watch your preferred tv-program:

Gossip reloaded

Ok, some possible implications. Each implication is derived from the corresponding rule-nr. Should you take it serious? - it´s up to you:

1. Don´t trust anyone! Even the person you´re producing gossip with, could take out a camera and record the evidence for other purposes than just the own memory.
2. Nothing is what it seems. But the better the artwork the more valuable the information. In order to produce valuable information, better be creative.
3. The earlier you produce gossip, the smaller the potential damage - it takes longer until evidence is presented = gossip travels slower = less potential damage. Therefore if you intend to produce gossip, do it straight from the beginning on.
4. Always stand up in plenary and admit that the presented gossip is TRUE. It´ll count as extenuating circumstances.
5. If you realize on the next day that your gossip-partner is not fitting you´re perception, then you have to spread even more gossip about yourself in order to explain yourself.
6. You should help the FBI officers to get a clear picture of the gossip - otherwise someone else might get the credits.
7. Gossip needs all your resources. Although men and women are recording the evidence, they might set different focus and you don´t want to drop out because you only attracted one focus right?
8. Next time have a closer look on the FBI officers. They just want to hide something!
9. You´ll never see the most interesting gossip in plenary, because the victim might be present and per definition he/she is not supposed to see it at the same time you do.
10. Give your best while producing gossip. There are always competitors around who try to produce a better output.

As long as you love me...

Another update about the time when I was in Stuttgart. Today it´s about Alp (Turkish Aiesec-Trainee in my departement at Bosch) on the left and Alex (Brazilian Aiesec-Trainee & my flat-mate) on the right aka. backstreet boys...

The cardinal rules of gossip

During my hunt for a master thesis topic, I stumbled over the book "Rumors and Rumor Control" by Allan J. Kimmel. There he mentiones the ten cardinal rules of gossip. Here they come:

1. Everyone gossips. Even if you´ve just stood around listening, it´s tantamount to gossiping.
2. No one ever asks if the information is true. Everyone assumes that it is.
3. The greater the potential damage, the faster the gossip travels.
4. The more you try to tell people that the gossip is not true, the more they will believe it is.
5. Major decisions have been based on gossip. When the decision turns out to be bad, gossipy rumors arise to explain the bad decision.
6. Of all forms of communication, gossip is the most easily distorted.
7. Men gossip just as much as women, and gossip is filtered through socioeconomic strata by both genders.
8. People gossip to protect their own reputations. When the focus is on someone else, one receives a momentary reprieve.
9. The more demeaning or hurtful the gossip, the longer it takes for the victim to hear about it.
10. Gossip thrives in an atmoshpere of secrecy and competition. It tends to thrive most where there is too much secrecy and where advancement is based on overcompetition.
    

Deutschland - ein Sommermärchen?

A long time ago, on an early december morning, a hick took his bags, packed with some of his belongings and went to the city. When he arrived there, he wasn´t confused, not even disoriented as you might suppose. No, he had been there many times before. But the city wasn´t his final destination. He boarded a vehicle and went in direction of the rising sun. Soon afterwards, around one hour later, he had to lift his heavy bags again, because he wanted to change direction and the vehicle didn´t want to. So, he took his belongings and searched for another transportation which went his planned way. Some time after he settled down, still on his way now in the direction of the region where the Vikings were believed to live, he realized that most people around him were speaking a different language. But as it was only slightly different he was still able to understand it. He lost track of the time but it must have been around 3 hours after he changed direction, when he reached his final destination…

It all happened 365 days ago, the final destination was Stuttgart, and the hick… It was me! I remember, arriving there at the mainstation, being picked-up by two people I just had contact to, through a couple of emails. I still see the dirty, sticky table in the living room of the flat (probably from a party from the evening before) in front of me. And what I still know from my first day is the time I met the first other trainee… I faced some problems to understand him. I realized that he was talking german, but still - it was more like turkish-german ;-) And he tried to talk while he was in his room and I was in the living room. Anyway, we got used to each other as we worked for 9 months in the same company, for 6 months even in the same department and spent many hours apart from work together with the other trainees…

It was really an amazing time in Germany. It was definitely more than a summer fary tale. A pleasure u can´t measure ;-) I had an interesting job. Beside work, there are great memories from my last year - Twin week in Finland with @ Bern, Tampere & Jyväskylä, Easter weekend with 7 friends in Venice, a whole month of party, good mood and excellent weather in June during world cup, a lot of great people I met and many, many other things. 3 months have passed since I returned. But still, I miss some things and I hope to see those people again (hopefully very soon). And when I think back to this time, I always get a smile upon my face…

Thinking

A mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. Words referring to similar concepts and processes include cognition, sentience, consciousness, idea, and imagination. It involves manipulation of information, as when we form concepts, engage in problem solving, reason and make decisions. It is a higher cognitive function and the analysis of thinking processes is part of cognitive psychology.
The basic mechanics of the human mind reflect a process of pattern matching or rather recognition. In a "moment of reflection", new situations and new experiences are judged against recalled ones and judgements are made. In order to make these judgements, the intellect maintains present experience and sorts relevant past experience. It does this while keeping present and past experience distinct and separate. The intellect can mix, match, merge, sift, and sort concepts, perceptions, and experience. This process is called reasoning. (Wikipedia)

Lately I have the impression, that people are experiencing things like me. It goes like that: Someone says something and there´s a spontaneous reaction and afterwards, the topic is changed. But later, probably on their own they start to think about it and the topic keeps coming up and up again. As I mentioned, it happened to me this week - even twice. Once on sunday at do-it and once yesterday at university. Well i´m wondering and thinking about what I could and want to do besides the studies. At the moment, there are two things which could be interesting. And yes, there are rumours around - but only in my head ;-)

topic of the day

can´t get it out of my head

since I woke up today and heard this song on the radio, it´s following me...

Just did-it

Sitting in the train between Göschenen and Arth-Goldau, looking out the window to the ugly grey, rainy sky, I have some time reflecting about the weekend and write down some things. Once again I was in Fiesch, this time for Do-it. But not as a delegate but as a member of the extended organizing committee. I really saw the conference from a totally different perspective. The first two times I was there I joined the sessions and workshop. This time the only one I attended was the closing plenary. I really had no clue about the content of the sessions the delegates where attending. The only information I had, was that this track wants to have a coffee break at this specific time in that location and the amount of delegates…

My sub-team - the logistics - was responsible for these coffee breaks, to set up workshop rooms and clean afterwards. This job really raised my awareness for trash handling. It´s really strange how the delegates threw there stuff away. They put packaging of coffee or sugar into the organic trash when there is a normal trash almost next to it (maybe 2 metres is two far away?), empty recyclable bottles into the normal trash when we had the bag for recyclables just next to it (is 30cm still to far away?) or they left half full bottles and half eaten candy bars just somewhere (not even throwing them away). And it´s really interesting what a mess people can make just with babybel-packaging.

Well, yesterday evening at around 6 o´clock the conference finished officially. My timetable since then:

1800-2000 cleaning workshop rooms and coffee breaks
2000-2200 oc dinner
2200-0100 cleaning the dirty sticky floor of the party room
0100-0200 cleaning the dormitories, some random stuff
0200-0500 sitting together with the oc and just talking about random stuff (eg. our future in @)
0500-0800 sleeping finally
0830-1300 travelling back to St. Gallen
1400-… Back at university for a meeting for our research project

Ok, for those out there who want to do a project soon I have some suggestion for topics:

• The “latte macchiato” case: Process orientation in trash behaviour
  
• The optimal allocation of trash bins
• Consumer behaviour influenced by alcohol
• The differences of organic trash, recyclable and normal trash from the customer perspective

Some awards I´d like to give:

Award for the Inkind, with which you can make the best mess (Nominees: chips, peanuts, party-kiss)
Winner: party-kiss

Award for the funniest thing in the early morning:
Winner: to see the faces of the delegates

Award for the funniest thing in before lunch:
Winner: Sue´s party concept with her “Emmi Gascho”

Award for the funniest thing in the evening:
Winner: Discussion with some OC members about the inhabitants of Bitsch (and some other OC members misunderstanding us)

Award for special delegate:
Winner: Yavor, for the support of the OC with tidying after awards-night and supporting after conference was finished! Thank you!!

Award for the best core OC:
Winner: The OCs of my beloved LC Berne, for the marvellous job they did in the past months!

Award for the best OCP:
Winner: Martin, for his outstanding job!!

Nuit gravement à la santé

Q without A

for two weeks now i´m intensively thinking about my master thesis. i realized that if i want to finish my thesis before a possible exchange term, i should start in february with it. therefore i really should start to get a topic...
but hmmm... what should i write about? what could be interesting? is there a blockbuster topic out there? is there an interesting topic which i could write about in a cooperation with a company? who´s a good prof.? sofar there are only questions here. i´m browsing institute website, websites of other universities, company websites, websites with topics of already written diploma thesis in order to find some answers, to have an input to think about, to get a solution in the end.
maybe i get THE idea tomorrow while taking a shower, maybe in a week at do-it after not sleeping enough? perhaps santa claus tells me a solution or maybe i´ll find it under a christmas tree somewhere?
anyways, it might take some time to come up with a topic and i´ll take my time to choose it. the first step in the right direction i made already: i have now at least 5% more brain capacity to use, because i cut my hair ;-)

Advertising space

While I was surfing around to get ideas for a topic for my master thesis something on a blog catched my attention. well some stuff might be a bit politically incorrect, but still funny...

Situation 1: You´re a divorce laywer and want to attract as many potential customers as possible. How to do? Maybe like this...


Situation 2: How to make sustainable advertisment? Like that...?


Situation 3: The war of the car industry in a little bit different way...


Situation 4: Ever looked at the "wash" etiquette of your clothes? If you do maybe you find this...

even november can be beautiful

earlier this week in front of my window...

University marketing & journalism - or what students really think

First it begins like one of those very emotional car ads, then it has a very short sequence of a very low-budget scary movie and then it switches to the real message in this movie - the attempt to market the marketing. The movie is done by the Institute of Marketing at the University of Berne - where I studied before my bachelor. Therefore I have some insights and the strange part about this youtube sequence for me is the following:

1. first student statement - first part: I decided to study in Berne because of the good reputation
Ok, for me the reputation (related to business studies!) of my former university is neither good nor bad. It´s average. If you ask students from other universities in Switzerland they even might say that there´s a reputation of acquiring a degree with not so much effort.

2. first student statement - second part: It´s a good feeling to know that I study in the capital of Switzerland
How is the education itself and the quality related to the simple fact that the university is in the capital of a country?

3. Why does Prof. Harley Krohmer have to mention that the lecture is based on "this book" and he´s not showing it fully? Well if he doesn´t say which book it is, there´s no value in this sentence. If he mentions the title, everyone realizes that it´s self-marketing because he wrote it on his own. Well he´s not unique in selling his book as an obligatory reading for his own lecture. Many other Profs do this as well...

4. It´s strange that the 2 students talking on camera happen to be working for the institute (or were former employees). The credibility even gets higher when one of them says that Prof. Krohmer and his assitants have a good "access" to the students. What´s the keyword - aaah yeah, self-praise...

5. They put this video on youtube. They wanna do some marketing. The university wants to attract students from abroad as well. So, why do they let the people speak in swiss german?


So far so good. That was the first part. Now something else, I happen to know. There was an "article" on a news show in swiss television (10vor10) about the high salary of top managers. In the second part, they do an interview at University of St. Gallen (where I study now). Sometimes after around 5.30" they say that still it is important for students, that they earn a lot after studying. They ask this lady why she´s studying in St. Gallen. She says because I like it and of course because of the future salary.
So, question: Are statements really what students think? Well in her case I don´t know if it was the truth, but I know the following fact: Reporters from the tv station were wandering around and asking girls, if they were willing to say "I´m studying here because I want to earn much/more afterwards". Well, is this the journalism I´d like to get if I watch news shows? Is it reflecting the truth? For me - No...

Broadcast yourself

Today I had a lecture about “economics and human behaviour”. It was about blogs, communities (like brand communities or hate communities), broadcast yourself like youtube and opinion leaders and their importance for marketing. As I´m interested in this I decided to write some things here...

Some facts provided today in my lecture about decreasing importance mass media (only us market):

- CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox had a historical low audience rate in July 06

- Sales of music albums (incl. digital downloads) were on a 10-year-low in July 06

- Audience rate for radio decreased for antoher 8.5% this year

- Newspaper consumption decreased 2.6% this year

Compared to this consumer generated content is highly increasing. Some facts as well provided in todays lecture:

- 100 Mio. videos are watched on youtube - daily. Growth of 297% (!) in the first half of 2006

- Each day 1.6 Mio. postings in blogs per day = 18.6 postings per sec.

- The social network Myspace has 15 Mio. logins per day and has a growth of 240´000 users per day.

Why am I blogging about this? First of all because I think there´s a huge shift towards an e-life. People are not only using the net-technology to send emails and disconnect afterwards. They´re using it to gather information, to entertain themselves. Instead of meeting face-to-face or calling people, they spend evenings on msn chatting with friends while playing online games, watching movies or surfing on the internet. They spend hours each day in front of their computer and connect to the web. And with online communities, “broadcast yourself” sites and blogs they´re not only consuming, they´re producing content...

Secondly I´m blogging about this, because I´m studying marketing. I think that we have important changes in society here. Those changes affect consumption behaviour, they affect the way of gathering information about products and services and thus they have an influence on what we buy and how we decide what to buy. We might not want to buy an ipod anymore because we visited http://www.smashmyipod.com? Maybe we suddendly dislike Starbucks coffee because we visited http://www.ihatestarbucks.com? Online communities and blogs can have a huge impact on the opinion of each of us. As a future marketer, I´ll be probably dealing with stuff like that.

And thirdly there´s a post about this because I have just an intrinsic, personal interest in this. It will probably affect my future in my field of work, then I´m a member of this new, 2.0 web society and I´m interested in information- and communication-technology which is closely linked to this topic. And maybe I´ll write a thesis about a specific topic in this field. Who knows?

Simus music charts

The following albums I like to hear at the moment:

1. Fort Minor - The rising tied
2. Muse - Black holes & revelations
3. My chemical romance - The black parade

These are the singles I like most currently:

1. Fort Minor - Where´d you go
2. Snow Patrol - Chasing cars
3. Breaking Benjamin - The diary of Jane

The next 3 songs I like to play on guitar:

1. Metallica - Nothing else matters
2. Green Day - Wake me up when september ends
3. Eric Clapton - Tears in heaven

And when a song of those 3 artist is played, I rather switch off radio:

1. Crazy Frog
2. Tokio Hotel
3. Plüsch

From the following collaboration I´d like to hear more:

Tough 1st week in different ways

This week finally my real life as a student started again. After an introductory lecture in customer value and communication management, the whole monday was filled with visiting the different institutes, talking to the professers and getting an image of what each institutes works on mainly.

On tuesday we visited with a group of 4 students a rather small company which develops tuning and performance items for Saab cars - it´s called Hirsch Performance AG. They presented themselves and we had to ask some questions in order to get a picture about customer orientation and stuff like that. It´s not really a tuning in the sense of Fast and Furious movies or Need for Speed Underground games - or can you imagine a Saab with a blue illumination of the bottom? - but still it seems to be a very interesting business. In the afternoon we had prepare a presentation and present "our company" to the other groups which visited other "companies" like St. Galler Tagblatt, Migros Ostschweiz, Radisson Hotel or Kinderdorf Pestalozzi. These first two days started at 8am and ended around 6pm - more or less interesting but very tiring...

Wednesday was the start of real classes (not in terms of introduction). After a lectrue on research projects and methods I had a 4 hours class on business-to-business marketing. It seems to be an interesting topic. Too bad this lecture is from 4 till 8pm... Thursday then was the first quiet day. I only had a class late in the afternoon (6-8pm). But it´s about competition and faireness which makes it not so easy. It seems that it´s a combination of economics and sociology, which are both not my core competencies ;-)

The end of this rather tough week was the hardest part - the funeral of my grandma who died on monday. I think it´s the best for her this way but still it´s sad to lose someone close. And it made me realize, that there are things like topics of discussion (or even fights) which are really not that important...

The start of Episode II

On Thursday and yesterday I had my start of "Life as a Student - Episode II" (hopefully the follow up is as good as Part I). First there was an introductory afternoon where we got general information about studies here in St. Gallen, then a short campus tour, followed by an introduction into the it-system (which wasn´t very helpful btw) and finally a short info about the library (which wasn´t new for people like me who used the same system at another university in CH). But altough we had fun, because I met a guy with whom I spent 4 years ago very nice 15 weeks hiding in the forrest, shooting around or just waiting for further instruction. He used to study his Bachelor in Basel and now joins HSG like me.

Yesterday was a kick-off event for all master students (not just the newies) with the topic "Social innovation". After a short welcome note from our Dean - which probably tries to implement dramatic pauses after 2 words in order to enhance the importance of his speech - there was a pretty interesting speech from Robert Roth CEO of Job Factory - a company which enables young people internship position to enhance their knowledge because they might face problems with acquiring an apprenticeship position. After a short dialogue session and lunch we decided to leave the event in order to socialise a bit in town...

Ready, set and go

My studies are soon starting again. Here are my next steps:

• going to hooverphonic concert tonight
• leaving bern tomorrow morning
• information event of university in st. gallen tomorrow 2.30 pm
  
• kick-off day for master students on friday from 9.30 am on
  
• recovering from jet-lag on weekend ;-)
• starting with 1st classes and introduction in my masters topic on mon 8 am (isn´t that time a violation of students rights? :)
  

Pimp my room

After a beautiful weekend in Scuol where my cousin married, I travelled on sunday evening directly to St. Gallen. Yesterday evening and today I pimped my room - my new centre of creativity ;-) And tonight I finally got access to our wlan, so everything is set up for the start next week...

I like to move it, move it

It´s been a busy week sofar. After I got home from Fiesch last saturday I started to call people in order to set up visiting dates for free rooms in St. Gallen. I managed to visit 2 flats on monday. Finally on monday evening I had the confirmation of one of them. Means - I have a place to live now!! :))

The day afterwards I went shopping of course, because I needed some furniture for my room. I went to Ikea, Mediamarkt, Shoppyland, Interio and Eschenmoser (no, I didn´t buy everywhere everything!!). Me and my sister (who moves to SG once again) packed our stuff (mostly her stuff of course) into the van we rented. Yesterday then, we drove to St. Gallen, placed my belongings into the cellar of the house where I´ll be living (my room is not yet free) and the went to my sisters place and unpacked her stuff. I can´t believe it - it´s the first flat I saw, which is on ground floor level, but where you have to climb first stairs with 50 steps. And her furniture wasn´t very light... Anyway, no our stuff is where it should be and next week I´m going there once again to set up my room. Do it yourself S.O.S. ;-)

When we were eating lunch yesterday, I got a short message from Nadine, telling me that she´s going to leave tomorrow for her traineeship in London and inviting me to her bye bye party. It´s really funny, she got her position in a company where I applied as well around a year ago. Probably it´s the same traineeship position I applied for but unfortunately didn´t get. So, I know from the job description, that it´s a really exciting position. Nadine, enjoy it and have fun there!! And I wanna know what I missed ;-)

Back from Fiesch

Yesterday in the afternoon I returned from the Berner Feriensportlager in Fiesch. As always it was a great week and as we didn´t sleep that much during the week, I was really tired when I returned - but who wasn´t?!

A week ago the "teachers" started the camp with the journey to Fiesch. After the first meeting with general information we had an apéro and then dinner, followed by a first evening in "our" bar - the bäregrabe;-) On sunday some of the leaders went back to Bern to get the kids there. Me and my co-leader were lucky because someone took our 4 bernese kids and we could stay in Fiesch and spend a relaxing and quiet day there - until the kids arrived.

On monday then our courses started. We had in our "life-saver" course 1 boy from Bern, 3 girls from Bern and 4 girls from Fiesch who were between 13 and 15 years old. We taught them in 8 hours (mo-thu 2 hours) the necessary things they have to know. On friday finally they had the exam - luckily everyone passed ;-) In the afternoon I had to lead twice "Emergency - what to do", once Sauna and once bowling and one afternoon I had off.

But it wasn´t only "teaching" the kids important things. I could do a lot of stuff as well. I went to play unihockey, I did archery twice and played some badminton.

Thursday was a special day. First we had a rescheduling of the afternoon courses because we had a very, very, very important guest who had a short speech: Mr. "Freude herrscht" Adolf Ogi. We had "Vil Fröööd";-) There was another speciality on thursday evening. We (the 2 life-savers plus the 3 divers) organized for our fellow leaders a pool party. We had snacks, some wine, some beer a bit of music - and we enlightened the swimming hall just with 400 candles. It really looked amazing!! Next year I should bring my camera and take pictures for those who don´t believe me!

We learned as well important things from our kids. We learned who´s cool, who they hate. We learned that good, nice things are not "cool" anymore (like in the days we were in school). Today things are "In da house" :=))

Once again nothing new

And another uneventful week has passed. The nice weather was again a good opportunity to do some outdoor sports. Then today I went again to St. Gallen because next week I don´t have time to deal with flat issues. It´s always the same. "Unfortunately we took another person/the room has been given to another person. But good luck with your further search." But I´m still hoping for some good news next week.
I think there might be a market gap for "generator of randomized flat rejection messages". Maybe I should quit studying and open business in this sector;-) Anyway, I got some insider news which creates some hope (although it´s from a cruel origin): Soon the exam results are gonna be published which might lead to an increase of offered rooms...
Now, to the nice part of life. Tomorrow I´m heading to Fiesch (yes to the very nice Feriendorf;-) It´s gonna be Feriensportlager next week. I´m expecting (based on my experience) a great & funny week with a lot of people, a lot of sport and a lot of some thing else;-)

Traineeship map

Lately I had the idea to create "traineeship map". The red dots (unfortunately) don´t show all the places where I´ve been in the the last few months but they show the home countries of the people I met in Stuttgart. There´s only one thing to add:
You can go on a traineeship (only) to Germany and have a cultural experience as well - You can be only 350km far away and live in a different and very international environment.

Sun, fun and...

What a nice feeling. Just sitting outside at home, heated by early september sun, see the blue sky, listening to Jack Johnson and updating my blog at the same time. Feels really like being on holiday. And I started to sleep in again, which I couldn´t do when I was already on holiday but still in Stuttgart. I´m glad I have some spare time to spend until semester starts in October...

Not yet a week has passed since I left Germany and people are already writing me emails about how I do at home, keep me updated about flat issues (I´m glad I don´t have to deal with that anymore) or just talk with me on msn. Isn´t it nice?

The most important thing which I have to deal with at the moment is looking for a room in a flat in St. Gallen. Yesterday I´ve been there already for the third time visited my flats Nr. 8 - 11. I really hope it´ll work out this time - if someone has insider infos about someone looking for a new flatmate there just contact me.

Bittersweet home

Yesterday the day arrived. I had to say goodbye to people working in my department and to my friends in Stuttgart. After living there for 9 months, working on an interesting job with nice people in the company, after having 9 months of spending time and having fun together with a lot of friends it wasn´t easy to go home. Regular employees saying the "S*** you´re leaving", trainees asking "You´re leaving already today?" made me feel that I probably did the right things and did it well. And it showed me once more that it was a great time and Stuttgart felt like home. And I met a lot of nice, funny and interesting people which I will probably see again soon.
Now, almost 24 hours have passed since I arrived back in Bern. It feels somehow not home but familiar. It´s more like being on holiday in a place you´ve been several times before. It will take a bit then it´s gonna be home sweet home for sure...

Confused

Just got home from work - for the last time! In the last two months I really wished today to arrive. Now, the day has come and it feels weird. There was so much to do, I was stressed sometime, I worked a lot - therefore I thought it´s gonna be nice when I finished my traineeship.
But the work I had to do was really interesting, I got used to these workdays and there were so many nice people at my work place which I will leave behind. I made a lot of friends and I don´t know how many of them I will ever see again... At least there´s gonna be a huge goodbye party in a week here in my flat. I really look foward to it. I hope it doesn´t feel too weird afterwards or when I´m sitting in my room back "home" in Switzerland.

Actually, I´m wondering at the moment what/where "home" really is. Is it the place where your parents are? Is it the place where you were born? Is it the place where your friends are? If you have friends in two places - which place would you prefer (maybe one group of your friends is not better than the other but different...)?

Berlin

Last weekend I had another opportunity to travel. I went to Banane. Noo, unfortunately I couldn´t go to jungle for a short trip. Ban.ane is Berlin Adventure weekeNd. Action Never Ends. That´s an AIESEC and IAESTE reception event. I really like to meet the person who came up with this name...

Anyway, after a short trip of only 6 hours we arrived on friday evening in Berlin. And who do we meet there: some iaeste ppl from stuttgart, we just got to know the day before. Germany is like a town sometimes. After dinner started a party which wasn´t that exciting - at least the drinks were for free and i got to know the true history of Buffalo, if you know what i mean ;-)

On saturday was first a bus tour on the "menu" and after we were stopped at Alex because of a Nazi - Anti-Nazi Demonstration we had to wait sometime until we could start our city walk "east berlin". Unfortunately it didn´t turn out that well - just the east side gallery was ok. And finally at 5pm we could visit Reichstag which was great as we could go up on the roof. Afterwards the five of us who were really stuck together the whole weekend as we knew eachother from Tanzschiff, went to have dinner and to strandbar instead of going to aiesec dinner. As the weather was amazing and we were walking around with shorts and flip-flops it was much better than going to university for dinner. In the end of the evening we ended at AIESEC party of course...


On sunday we went to jewish museum but unfortunately we didn´t have soo much time for everything (there would have been a special freud exhibition as well). After saying goodbye to everyone I ended up in another boring train until I got home again to Stuttgart...

In the end

After a week of holiday, last week continued like before I went home. Except that my boss was still on holiday. Reduction of extra hours? I wished... Anyway I survived it and on friday was another goodbye - the one of the British empire ;-). The time has come now, where many of us are leaving the company after half a year or even a bit more. Actually in 1 month almost everyone in our department will have experience of max. 1 month or even less. It´s really strange - I get to know now people who are successors of people who started later than me (I even know their predecessor).

But "those others" are not the only one leaving. My time here is running out as well. My successor arrived today and one of my last tasks is to give him a good introduction (unfortunately it´s not the only task I still have :(

At the moment it´s like in sport competition for me: I already see the finishing line - it´s 7 work days from where I am right now - but I think I have to fight until I cross the line on 25.8....

Think about it...

A song I like a lot:

Don't tell me that you are ready to change.
Don't tell me that from now it won't be the same.
It doesn't matter, 'cause at the end of the day,
it isn't what you say, it's what you do!

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

Don't tell me you'll make things better for us.
Don't tell me that you're some one I can trust.
It doesn't mean a thing to me because,
it isn't what you say, it's what you do!

Your actions will speak louder than you!

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

So show me that you really figured it out.
And show me everything that you are about.
But if you can't then just shut your mouth!..

'cause I don't care what you say or what you do,
You can't take back what you've put me through.
Your actions will speak louder than you!..

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

What you say will be forgotten someday.
What you do will be remembered.
Empty promises all fade away.
What you keep will last forever.

What you keep will last forever.

What you keep will last forever.

Forever...

"Don´t tell me" by Hoobastank

Finally a break

After 5 months without real holiday I finally had a week off last week. I went back to Bern because my sister returned form USA lately, to celebrate my dads birthday, to meet some friends. And of course I went to Bern to watch the aare-fireworks for 1. august. Afterwards on thursday I went to St. Gallen to look for a room in a flat. I visited 5 different flats and hope I´ll find something soon.

On friday I left home already as I went to Tanzschiff on Bodensee. Originally we planned just to go as party delegates but then we decided to take part in IPS workshop. I´m really glad of this decision because I actually for the first time liked the workshop (and especially the participants) more than the party itself. The simple reason is that we were all trainees and the workshop was more like discussions, connecting with people and of course having a lot of fun in different environments (Weinfest, coffee bar in Konstanz or workshop room).
But during this workshop was a really strange situation: we had a session together with XPS - the ones who want to be trainees and go abroad. When they were asked what they´re proud of about Germany everyone was silent. It was strange because the WS was more for XPS people but the ones who were talking were facis and trainees from IPS workshop. After some time we found out, that some of them just can be proud of things they achieved on their own and not of things others achieved centuries ago. So we asked them what they like about Germany, what they would present abroad or what they would tell someone abroad who might be interested in going to Germany for a traineeship. Someones answer: That´s in central europe and your really fast abroad... Someone who was asked how she would explain where her hometown is located replied: It´s close to Netherlands...
Is that really what you want to hear if your interested in Germany? Why do Germans come up mostly with negative points if they´re asked "What are typical german characteristics"? Did those guys just not think about such stuff before or are typical german characteristics really just negative and they can´t be proud of them/like them?

Anyway, Nicole and Heidi thanks for being great Facis. And Ludmila, Keiko, Gonca, Shadi and Mikhail it was really nice to meet you guys and have fun together! You really made my weekend!

Recent developments

It´s been hell of a week last week. First of all I was really stuck in work. Our bosses had this meeting for half of the week. Usually you should be able to enjoy the time while they´re out of office. But unfortunately for me was the opposite. I had to finish stuff for my boss´ presentation on friday - of course it was last minute work...

Secondly I participated with a team on our PT cup, a soccer tournament for our Power Tool Division. And guess what - as we were a truly international team with german, turkish, brazilian, english and swiss players we won the cup. Noo, time for loosers cause we are the champions....! ;-)

And third and most important: My near future is now set. I finally got the confirmation. I´ll change university for my master studies. On wednesday I got finally approved for the Master in Marketing, Services and Communication in St. Gallen. Which means I will head towards east for a really interesting master programm - but I already miss my bernese fellows!! And one thing to make clear: If my character will change, it´ll be to the good. I mean I think I did pretty well during the last half a year here in Germany. So it should be possible as well in St. Gallen!

General situation

In times like these
In times like those
What will be will be
And so it goes
And it always goes on and on...
On and on it goes

And there has always been laughing, crying, birth, and dying
Boys and girls with hearts that take and give and break
And heal and grow and recreate and raise and nurture
But then hurt from time to time like these
And times like those
And what will be will be
And so it goes

And there will always be stop and go and fast and slow
Action, Reaction, sticks and stones and broken bones
Those for peace and those for war
And god bless these ones, not those ones
But these ones made times like these
And times like those
What will be will be
And so it goes
And it always goes on and on...
On and on it goes

But somehow I know it won't be the same
Somehow I know it will never be the same.

times like these by jack johnson

Just floating

"I´m not dead just floating"! It´s been a really busy week. First at work, I felt like entering a "supermassive black hole" and my boss was throwing things at me which i tried to catch and do something nice out of it. Well, sofar I think I did pretty well and from wednesday on it shouldn´t be so tough anymore as the whole dept. is out for a meeting for the rest of the week (except the interns of course).

Then on friday, one of our AIESEC trainees had birthday and we partied first at their place and then went to coyote ugly bar. But as good as it was - it was a sad moment as well. It was Caro´s Bye Bye Party. After working and having fun together for 6 month it´s always hard to say goodbye. BUT - Caro, don´t keep your promise about not getting abroad anymore, because you hate this "saying goodbye stuff"!! And you won´t get rid of us so easily - we´ll visit you! ;-)

On Saturday we had to relax of course, that´s why we went to swimming pool for the whole afternoon. In the evening then we went to the Lichterfest on Killesberg Park. It was pretty nice, although 7.50€ entrance fee is still too much! Yesterday it was just a regular day to hang around and do nothing. Now, it´s again monday and we´re stuck in work again... But at least three of us who´re finishing end of august/beginning of september know our successors. And all of them will start on august 15th. It´s gonna be fun tough...

Last Worldcup Weekend - Photo Blog Part II - Finale

Last Worldcup Weekend - Photo Blog Part I

Stuttgart ist viel schöner als Berlin

Tonight, it´s gonna be the last world cup game here in Stuttgart. And we´re expecting a huge party. Germany is playing against Portugal; 70ooo ppl are expected on Fan Fest (the public viewing place) - but i think it will be a bit less because the weather is not so excellent anymore like the weeks before. Let´s see what the evening and the night will bring!

And good thing is: german fans got their humour back: they´re singing Stuttgart ist viel schöner als Berlin which is absolutely true of course ;-)

Grazie mille amici d´Italia

Finalmente! What I really hoped for a long time, happened yesterday! Germany lost and can´t be World champion 2006. Don´t get me wrong. I didn´t hope this for the german team, because they surprised me as well (eg. against Sweden) and I liked their offensive way of playing football. But I really hoped this for many germans and their behaviour of overestimating their team and a bit a losing sense of reality. The whole euphoria about german team seemed to be like a bubble from a chewing gum. From a point 0 the bubble was inflated with a lot of hot air and then - yesterday - it burst.

After winning the game against Poland - luckily they scored in 91st minute - one sentence stuck in my head with a bad impression: "So sehen Siege aus, shalalalala". Today I said this sentence as well. And their it was again - the urgent need for some germans to tear others in to pieces instead of just being proud of what they reached. "At least we were better than Switzerland". My answer was, that it doesn´t matter if you lose in Round of 16 or if you´re third - as long as your not in the final. They couldn´t agree with this. But I think you won´t be remembered easily if you didn´t reach the final (although your performance should be apperciated more).

A little test:

1990 - Andy Brehme scored with penalty, Germany won 1-0 against Argentina. Who was third and fourth?

1994 - Roberto Baggio sent the last penalty towards the clouds. Brazil won against Italy 3-2 after penalties. Who was third and fourth?

1998 - Zinedine Zidane scored twice during the final. France won 3-0 against Brazil. Who was third and fourth?

2002 - Ronaldo scored twice in the final. Brazil won 2-0 against Germany. Who was third and fourth?

I could just easily remember who was third and fourth in 2002. For the other mentioned world cups I really had to think hard or consult internet. For those who don´t know either:

1990 - 3rd Italy; 4th England (2-1)
1994 - 3rd Sweden; 4th Bulgaria (4-0)
1998 - 3rd Croatia; 4th Netherlands (2-1)
2002 - 3rd Turkey; 4th South Korea (3-2)

German behaviour - ok or wrong?

Time for a new (real) update. The last three weeks were really packed with work (especially last week) and watching football games. Now, there´s sort of emptiness as we don´t have a party tonight and no game. How´s it gonna feel after this whole thing is over? I think it will never be the same again (at least not for the next two years).

Last week when I was on Schlossplatz watching the games Switzerland - Ukraine and Italy - Ukraine there were some strange moments (no not because of Ukraine). I´m not sure if it´s just me with a dislike against some german behaviour? But I was really upset, when the majority of fans in the stadium during swiss game started to cheer for Lukas Podolski or sing "Ohne Holland fahren wir nach Berlin".

Same happened when Italy was playing and some Germans started to sing "Steht auf wenn ihr Deutsche seid" (on Schlossplatz). When I commented that those people didn´t realize that it´s Italy against Ukraine, a german friend snapped back that they can´t just forget that they won (against Argentina) and they have to celebrate. OK, that´s true, but then you don´t have to go to a place where they´re showing another game and people are there to watch THIS game. You can celebrate everywhere else. For me the behaviour in those two situation is just a lack of respect for the playing teams!

most discussed topic

The most discussed topic at the moment in Germany (at least until friday):

See you in 2008!!

After a really awesome group stage, Switzerland lost yesterday unfortunately against Ukraine. But I´m still proud of them. Because: It´s the first team going home without getting a goal (at least in regualer and additional time). So, see you at Euro2008 (hopefully live in Bern - It´s gonna be another Heimspiel;-)
And the party is going on for sure. Next friday Stuttgart will be again like this (Picture: last Saturday before Germany-Sweden)


And maybe if Germany is winning, we can enjoy another beer-shower (like our english friends offered us after Beckhams Goal last Saturday:

Fever!

There are lot of slogan´s going along with Worldcup.

"A time to make friends" - yes definitely. Yesterday I went to watch the game in a restaurant because I was at Dies Academicus in Hohenheim before and after the game. There I met a guy who´s german and swiss (native swiss but never lived there). It was really cool to talk with him and enjoy the game.

"It´s your Heimspiel" - True as well. Schlossplatz is always really crowded when Germany is playing or during and after games in Stuttgart. I´m glad I can experience this tonight and tomorrow once again (maybe this time I won´t forget to bring my camera)

"Football´s coming home" - 25.6.06 the best day in the year and there´s England-Ecuador here! It´s gonna be my biggest birthday party! I invited around 70´000 english fans. Let´s see what´s gonna happen:)

"It´s swiss o´clock" - no further comments needed!!

La copa de la vida

Finally, after waiting a really long time, the World Cup 2006 here in Germany started. I went with some friends from work to the public viewing zone on Schlossplatz to watch the game Germany - Costa Rica. It was a cool experience as the whole square was really packed.


Nevertheless it was a bit strange, as I couldn´t understand how so many people can be soo quiet. They were celebrating for 10 sec. after each goal and then quiet again. Anyway I´m already excited about the first Swiss game next tuesday...

The world - a village?

I wanna turn this whole thing upside down... I really wanted to do this today at work. As probably everyone from my dept. was out of office, almost everyone tried to bother me with phone calls, questions and stuff for projects which aren´t mine and where I don´t have a clue. And then I had to finish work for another trainee because she couldn´t manage to finish it before she went to holiday. And some is still waiting...
Anyway, enough complaint. What really was strange today (or suprising) is the following: After having a beer with two friends from work (one is aiesec trainee as well) we went to the other aiesecer flat to cook some dinner. In front of their flat we met a guy waiting. Immediately, I thought that I know him from somewhere. My friend introduced me to him and told me that he´s a new flat mate for a while. After talking like for three minutes I remembered why I know him.
Last year my sister was doing a traineeship in Mannheim. When I went to visit her last July, I met some of the Aiesecers there. And one trainee from Austria, who was actually working in the same company like my sister, is now the new guy in town and he´s doing an internship for HP here in Stuttgart. How small the world is...

Home - sweet home

I´m sitting here, in my wonderful room, it´s just another rainy thursday afternoon - well actually it´s already evening. Yesterday after work I went once again to lcm. While the newies were doing there computer stuff, I had a really nice discussion with the first person I got to know in Stuttgart back in december, the bosch responsible @ aiesec, my buddy or however you like to call her - thx Susanne! It´s always funny to be around you;-)
This morning then, I had to wake up reeeeally early. 5.15 - it was not only for me to early. At 0630 we left Leinfelden by car in direction Solothurn. After we passed Zürich, we went to drink a coffee. That´s where another strange situation happened: I had to be interpreter. Translating from swiss german to german and to english at the same time as I was travelling with my boss, who´s spanish and another colleague from china. And the waitress didn´t get it that she should try to speak swiss german with a little bit german accent...;-)
Anyway, we arrived at Scintilla sometime after 10 o´clock and from 1030 on we had a really long meeting (of course with lunch break) until 1700. On one hand it was really interesting to see, what kind of challenges and problems different departments can face while working togehter, although they´re in the same company. But on the other hand it was a bit annoying because it was far too long. And the topic is to be continued...
At least my way home wasn´t that long. As I can take off friday I can spend a long weekend until monday at home in Bern!

Goodbye and Celebration

The time had come to... say goodbye to my beloved Elodie - the french girl who worked with me now for almost half a year :( Yesterday, we went with some other Bosch trainees a last time to dinner in a nice italian place and afterwards to have a drink (had a nice beach beauty;-) I´m really glad that she´ll come back in two weeks already...!
But today was again celebration time: Two of my best friends here in Stuttgart are celebrating their birthday! As there is another friend which had birthday on sunday we went to celebrate today although it´s just a tuesday. They´ll make a big party in our flat next friday - but "unfortunately" I´m not here...
Why not? - That´s sort of good news as well. I´ll travel with my boss and a asian guy from purchase dept. on thursday to a meeting - which happens to be at Scintilla in Solothurn. And as my boss offered me to take off friday I can spend another weekend at home, which of course is really nice as well. But it´s still sort of a good thing, that I´ll be missing the guys here.

Btw: some people were discussing about reverse cultural shocks, when you live abroad and come back. Well, I´m not living in a culture that far apart from mine and I wasn´t that long abroad, but last time I went home (beginning of may after 3 monthes not being there) I noticed something in the train when we crossed the border. It was the language and the very strong stressing of CH and Ks in swiss german that hit me. I could somehow understand why some germans like to joke about swiss german.
But still, there´s a truth in a statement a german friend did (she remembered about two things you shouldn´t do with Swiss pepole): 1. Don´t try to explain democracy to a Swiss; 2. Don´t try to imitate Swiss German.

The weekend is over :(

My long weekend is almost over - yet I´m once again more tired than before. In the beginning it was very relaxing. On thursday and friday I was just hanging around at home and kept practicing my new hobby: playing guitar. But then the root of evil started: There was an AIESEC conference here in Stuttgart (Leonberg) and we trainees were there as party delegates just for the two parties on friday and saturday evening. The parties were really cool, thats why I went to bed early (in the morning). Came home on sat at 0530 and today at 0600. As my biological clock mode is set on "work" I already woke up at 12 o´ clock... :(

Today in the afternoon I met a friend from Switzerland. She went to Prague for the weekend and stopped by in Stuttgart on her way back. Was very nice to just relax, drink a coffe, chat a bit and enjoy the sun although it was a bit windy. After she took the train to CH-land I headed back home and slept for an hour. But as I´m still tired, I think for once I should go to bed early...

A day of meeting...

... drives you definitely crazy. It was even more bullshit than I expected. And I rose several times - but not because of the bingo (then I would have to be standing the whole day) but because of leaving the room to organise several things. Anyway I survived it and tomorrow will be a quiet day hopefully (if there´s nothing waiting in my inbox). And then, it´s already weeeeeeekend, yeah.

Sentence of the day: "You can screw everywhere, you can screw around a corner..." (of course the work with a screwdriver is meant;-)

Here I am - once again

Alright, another monday evening. Today was a lot of work again. Even more than last week ;-) Yes, I have a cool job. It´s interesting, diverse and with a lot of cool people. Too bad one of our best friends had her last day today and we´ll leave Germany in about one week :( But, good thing is - we convinced her to come back on 13th of June. Yes she´s French and we´re gonna watch the game on Schlossplatz as we´re one of those unlucky people who´re living in Stuttgart, who´re French and Swiss and who didn´t get Tix...
Anyway life´s great here. My parents visited me this weekend, next weekend will be long because I can take of friday and there´s AIESEC conference coming up on friday and saturday in Stuttgart. Soooo, we´re party-delegates and we gonna rock tha block as usual.
For those who haven´t heard: Yes originally I planned to finish my traineeship last monday. But as the job is great, world cup is coming up, and I have a lot of friends here, I extended my contract until end of august.
Tomorrow´s gonna be EBM - European Business Meeting, which I´ll join. Maybe I´m gonna play bullshit bingo. I´m sure I can win (because I prepared the presentation ;-))
Until the next post: Good night and good luck

Working like a dog

Today was pretty hard. Unfortunately I decided to go to work a bit earlier than usual. Still, compared to other people it was late:-) Anyway, I felt tired already back then. In the morning I was working on project matrix - a tool to track our projects. I tried to put an overview of the current situation into a presentation. As it´s a lot of data, it´s a difficult task.
After lunch I learned, that my boss is gonna be out of office for the next three days. So we had to finish the preparation for market research today. I was working on it during the whole afternoon. After 9 hours of work and finally finishing the presentation for this research I could leave work:)

Welcome

After my previous blog-host restricted the usage, I decided to open a new blog here. Welcome and Enjoy!