Thursday, July 19, 2007

I'm still here....

I have to write some sort of post because I'm sick of looking at the July 8th post about the vomit comet, which I rode a week later. The Happy Boy had it, the Weed had it, I got it, then Urban Mummy got it. UGH. It was a major annoyance because of all that had to get done...

For Example,

I finished my marketing class last night - major group presentation to my professor and a few industry professionals. We rocked, but I was REALLY pissed off leading up to the end of this project. Throughout the entire 3 1/2 month course, I felt like I was responsible for keeping the rest of the group members meeting and talking, and if it wasn't for one group member who took the bull by the horn, we would never have made it... and we just did.

This project required us to take an existing technology project that was under performing and re-launch it for the company we choose. In our case, we were launching a product for Mac's convenience stores, which required us to learn about the industry, the product and Mac's marketing plan.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and we learned a ton! The problem was in accepting responsibility. Every time we had a class and our group was called to the carpet for not being prepared or for missing a checkpoint, I was the mouthpiece. Every time we had to discuss something in the group, like the 2 members who did not want to talk on their Mic's, or to tell the one group member who did not volunteer to do any work that it was not acceptable, I had to take over that task. I felt like I was on The Apprentice. I wanted to fire them all, except for one... the only female in the group who worked for Mac's and really had a desire to get this done... well.

To make a long story short, we came to the day before the assignment and presentation we due and I realized that the PowerPoint sucked and the assignment was missing very important information, about the product, the customers and the company. Minor, eh?

Nonetheless, I re-wrote the entire presentation today, and handed it off to my teammates 10 minutes before it was due to the professor with the prompting for them to forget it and forward it. One presenter backed out the night before, the other's Mic did not work and the other 2 never confirmed if they would be presenting or not. Grrrr. We just sent out an email telling them what they are doing and they did it ... well.

My blood pressure started to boil when I figured it would be two of us presenting and during the mic check, my router cut out, I lost my Internet and was logged off for 10 minutes. Thank goodness we were presenting last. When I logged back on, I had 7 emails from my group. lol. They were really worried, but we all came together and we got an "A" on the project and I pulled in another "A" in the course.

No time to rest as my Finance exam is due in 2 days. UGH. Crappy course, horrible US textbook, cramped content and worst of all, 50 multiple choice questions and three problems. Sigh.


Update:

Finished and sent the Finance exam 5 minutes before it was due... Answered all the questions, and can now calculate Weighted Average Cost of Capital with my eyes shut. Now that I'm sure I can use everyday. LOL.

Left Saturday for London, Ont. Stayed overnight at the 4-points Sheridan... nice hotel. Nice room, nice amenities (free bottled water). Crappy pool only because it was full of kids. There was a Harley convention there... all the bikers stopped by the Happy Boy to say hi, as he was waving to them... he made friends. He even asked me why one of them had a candle sticking out of his mouth. I told him he was holding it there.

Anyways, we drove Sunday morning to St. Thomas to spend the day out with Thomas the tank-engine. It was hot, sunny, and we had 2 cranky kids, lots of train stuff everywhere and we had fun!

We left before Sir Top En Hatt (or whatever his name is.. that guy that made Happy Boy cry last year), and went to the park to eat, play and run through the water... Then at 3, it was time to head back to TO. We packed the car, tossed in the kids, and by the time I got to the 401, everyone was asleep. LOL. We got home, calmed them down and off to bed. It's not 11pm and I'm going too. No school work tonight.

1 comment:

Laural Dawn said...

I was beginning to wonder what happened to you :)
The Thomas event sounds fun.
Marketing class ... ugh. I have to take some classes soon (but not MBA stuff) and I HATE group work with a passion. I mean, I like it at work, but not in school.