Mission Accomplished

The year in review has truly been a great one.

Friday, September 12 marked the momentous occasion otherwise known as commencement.

After one year of hard work, writing many many papers, sitting through ridiculous exams and mind-boggling classes, traveling the world, making friends from around the globe, and experiencing ups and downs...the year has come to a close. It's a bit hard to believe that it is all over.

The friendships we've made and the life experience we've gained will be carried with us for the rest of our lives. While this year has been unforgettable, remaining eternally forged in my memory, the time has come to be forward thinking and for all of us to seek our dreams and destiny wherever life may take us.

Auf Widersehen friends.

Photos:
1 - Me receiving my hard-earned Diploma
2 - Class picture
3 - Hats off!
4 - Me in cap and gown
5 - Me and Frances
6 - The Americans (Drew, Me and Meredith) minus Philip
7 - Dad, me and mom, just graduated
8 - Me and Naz
9 - Mom and I
10 - Me with my Best Electronic Communicator Award i.e. Most Annoying Emailer!! :)
11 - Me and Oli
12 - Some of the Mannheimer ladies

Final Term, Team Project

July 1 - September 5

I worked on my final dissertation project with Maria, a colleague from Warwick Business School. We are working on a project with Deekeling Arndt Advisors (DAA), a communications consulting group on a project at their Berlin office.

The dissertation was based off of our work with DAA and focuses on the logistics industry with a marketing twist. It ended up being about 24,000 words (the most that I have ever written) and was entitled: Forecasting Customer Needs and Prepping the Supply Chain for 2020 and Beyond. Maria and I are now officially expert futurologists - if interested, inquire within! The project was very interesting, but a bit scary as well focusing in on the possibilities of what the future holds. We finished right in time and I jetted to turn it in and to graduate!

Our time in Berlin was short (two months) and we were jam packed with the dissertation. However, we still made some time to see some of the eclectic style that Berlin has to offer. I would recommend this up and coming city to all - its supposed to soon replace London as the hot spot of Europe! Oh but I will indeed miss the local Dolores the California style burrito place at Alexanderplatz, it was so yummy - imagine an amped up Chiptole with a habenero salsa option.


Photos:
1 -3 - the Building
4 - Maria in our office
5 - Maria and I at dinner
6 - Henrick and Maria at a library outing day
7 - Maria and I and the DAA team (Christian, Anja, Tobias)
8 - Maria and I with our finished product

Last week of the Official MBA

Week of June 22

Hurrah, we ended our last week of MBA classes with global information systems! Only the final project now and our MBA program is officially over - the feeling is ever so bittersweet.

Photos:
1 - MBSers Me, Masaru (Japan) and Boris (Germany) hanging with the CBSers Chris (China) and Pall (Iceland)
2 - Pretending to work, class is over! Ahmad (Egypt), Katsu (Japan), Me and Sekou
3 - Me and Nazih (India) trying to be cool
4 - Yes, we are putting off working on the final that we needed to do
5 - Ahmad and Sekou protecting themselves from the rainstorm in the MBA building
6 - Valeta and AK
7 - Me, Marc, Olivia and Tatjana
8 - Me and Izzie
9, 10, & 11 - Celebrating our last days together before we split off for project work
12 - Katsu and I
13 - Frances (Taiwan) and Sasha

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

June 20 - 22

After Ko Samui, we spent another day in Bangkok and on the way back to Germany we made a longer pit stop in Dubai. We arrive very early in the morning in Dubai, and nothing was open!! We walked around a bit, trying to wait it out until we could check into our hotel. We visited lots of the famous buildings (the Burj, etc.) and saw Jumeriah beach.

The most memorable was the shopping experience at the notorious Dubai mall. The mall is something to write about. We didn't go to the mall with the skiing inside, but another one that was amazing for a gal you likes to shop! It was huge - think Mall of America size - with every store you can imagine. I was so excited to see my American brands of the Gap, Banana, etc. The sales were not that good, but the selection of stores was unique. To get out of the mall was an obstacle, as it is in the middle of nowhere. To get there was easy, to leave was the hard part. The taxi line would have taken 4 hours, I have never seen a line so long ---reminded me of a line to get on a roller coaster except shoppers had carts full of their goods!

While our time in Dubai was limited, here are my initial impressions of Dubai:
-Really freaking hot, feels like you cannot breathe
-Large difference between the wealthy and the poor
-Bad public transportation system
-Money makes Dubai go round and opens doors
-I have never seen so many sky scrappers being built at the same time as I have here
-Chaotic
-Multi-cultural, but separated

Photos:
1 and 2 - Early morning views of Dubai
3 - Exploring the closed Souk area
4 - Dubai Creek
5 - Around town
6 - Rules for entering the mall
7 - Dubai Museum ticket, not overly exciting museum about the history of Dubai
8 - My favorite - Fresh mint and lemon drink
9- View from our hotel window. Those are beds on the roof of the building next door.
10 - The closest you can get to the Burj
11 - The Gulf at Jumeriah beach
12 - The Burj Dubai, it will be the world's tallest building when it is finished September 2009
13 - The pier
14 - Friends hanging out and chilling along the Dubai creek

Koh Nangyuan, Thailand

June 17

Koh Nangyuan is about a 15 minute ferry ride from Ko Tao and is made up of three small islands that are connected by a sand dune. There are 3 ferries a day there and back from Ko Tao, and the last one comes back pretty early. After this time boats are not allowed to go back and forth. We decided to go over pretty late and brought the snorkeling stuff. I think we had about an 1.5 hours until the return ferry! This turned out to be the most beautiful beach that I saw in Thailand. The sand or lack there of was really rocky, but the water was a amazing. Really shallow coral. I was just sitting in the shallow and could see all the marine life swimming past me. Florian went out deeper to snorkel around, and accidentally cut up his foot. It was a mini-freak out, as this island is tiny with only one resort and one shop. I was virtually running all over the island to find a first aid kit! Alas, I found something and got him on the boat back safely.


Photos:
1 - Ariel view of Koh Nangyuan
2 - On the ferry ride over
3 - Snorkeling
4 - view of Koh Nangyuan as we left