Uuuuuuuuuugh

Super fast post- here we go!

So...took Managing International Business Organizations exam: I am pretty sure I passed.

Took Labor Economics exam three hours ago...hope to all goodness that I passed...

now then...

I'm about to go into my Managerial Accounting and Informational Management exam (in 7 minutes), and I think this will be a sad experience...

I studied all I could of the accounting portion yesterday, and I saved the 25% regarding the Informational Management, assuming it was small becuase it was hardly addressed in class, for betweene exams (two hours time-aloted)...turns out it is all complicated and confusing and involving technology (which is my worst enemy...that and orange midgets)...I DONT GET IT!!!

so...in t-minus 4 minutes I will be entering an exam where I have no freakin' idea how to answer 1/4th of the questions...

only hope? get the other 3/4 right...

AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


wow...okay. Here we go...

I may not make it out of this one alive.

(I am such a drama-queen. Golly...)


:)

Slow and Steady Wins the Race?...

Hello. This is Taylor. If found, please return to the U.S. as soon as possible. She was last spotted Friday night wandering the streets reciting Hofstede's five cultural dimensions, as well as what we believe to be a compilation of Economic equations and some Asian language. She is said to be armed and dangerous.

nee, mi familia, nee (I'm so brain-dead, I can't even pick a freakin' language). Slow and steady does not win the race, super freakin' fast and accurate does...which is what I will be doing over the next few days.

So...here is how this is all going down.Turns out after 10 hours of reading (I know, I know, I used to be able to go for 16 without realizing it, but I'm getting old), I couldn't take it anymore. Yet, I have my study-complex switch currently in the "on" position which means that if I am doing anything other than aforementioned studying, I feel awfully guilty. Thus, I have decided to study how I am/will be studying...

Just go with it...

So...Prepare for the recap/future depictions of Taylor's Glorious Brain-Cramming Journey (to hell)!

Aaahhh, thankfully God had decided to not hate me as much as last semester (we had a little fight, he won...as usual. You know, you really just can't argue with the guy, either he makes you feel dumb or you just lose straight out...or he makes you think you won, but really you just sided with him without knowing it...he's super tricky like that...makes me think he's actually a woman...I digress...) and has made the weather beautiful the past few days.

But wait! An apt reader would now comment, "But Taylor, does this not mean that you are tormented by the beauty that is called "nature" beckoning to you beyond the confines of that hellish prison you are chained to (a.k.a. the indoors)?!"

I reply... "Oh young padawan (for all of you not akin to Star Wars, first of all SHAME ON YOU, and second, padawan = young jedi = dumb kid), how much you have to learn. For I am blessed with a patch of concrete that the sun has decided to shine upon from noon until 2 in the afternoon. Thus, I have two hours of sunlight at my disposal..." (Take that, God.)

...yeah, well, the point of that odd little dialogue was to basically say that somehow I have been able to combine studying and sunburns. Yay.

So, pictorial recap/future studying...(I know...you all are so excited to see pictures of all my study material...This blog entry is more about maintaining my sanity than saying anything profound (do I ever? no...thought so.) )

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 6, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 8

What did I do?

Slept. I just was not up for studying...it was as if some barrier was standing between me and my books...I decided not to fight it, mainly because I would have kicked that barrier's butt, but I was feeling nice.

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 5, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 7

What did I do?

Yeah...I was sick that day. Dumb head. Always decides to act up when I really really don't want it to. Seriously. Not cool head, not cool.

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 4, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 6

What did I do?

Sucka. What didn't I do is the question?! (answer: all of accounting, economics and my IB book...heh...) Today I read all of these articles:

Yup, that's right.

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 3, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 5

What did I do?

One word. Dominated. That's right, I read my entire International Business text book, or at least the relevant 387 pages of it. If you ever wanted to know what a defeated text book looks like, this is it:

so...it kinda looks the same as it did before...but trust me, it knew it lost.

By the way, the articles I read the day before, I stacked them up next to my text book...


There are the same height! I believe this realization was followed with me passing out from fear and shock at how absolutely awesome I am.

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 2, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 4

What will I do?

This:



Bring it Economics articles! I'll teach you who controls the...eh...wage curves? Golly, I need to work on my threats to inanimate objects. I am usually so good at that. My apologies family, I have let you down.

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 1, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 3

What will I do?

freak the heck out. HOLY GOODNESS I HAVE AN EXAM IN ONE DAY!!! yes...this is what I will be doing. That and reading all of my lovely, eye-bleeding inducing, Information Management articles. Nothing I have experienced since I have been here is as boring as freakin' articles about how a company should store/share/handle its information...sure, it is relevant and all, but I'd rather eat the dirt out in the garden...hmm...

So, I'll do this:

Countdown: Days until MIBO exam: 0. The end has come, Days until other exams (econ/acct): 2

What will I do?

Rise from my Rapunzelesque chamber, not fall on the ladder, be a zombie for an hour, find my bike, ride to the university, cry, then take my Managing International Business Organizations Exam.

To give you all the feeling that you are beside me at the exam, I have decided to let you all see what I will look like that day:

This is my half fearful, half crazy face...seriously. cover up one half of the face. yeeeah, that's right. You try doing two different faces...IN ONE FACE...I'm too excited about this, aren't I?

I will then return home, and continue studying. This day will be dedicated to my beautiful 690 page accounting book...Why save so many dreadfully awful pages for this day where my brain is already melted from the hellish pages of a previous exam (in an entirely orange building, might I add)? Because Accounting is the spawn of Satan, so it is only fitting.

Countdown: Days until other exams (econ/acct): 1

What will I do?

This day marks the last day I will ever have to study in the Netherlands again. So, to celebrate I will read my 290 page Economics book. yay life.

Countdown: Days until other exams (econ/acct): 0.

Pray I make it out with some sanity intact.

LOVE

18 days until I am home. 35 until I see all of you!

Oh...and if I make it out of this alive, I'm allowed to drink at Grandy's b-day.

Stunted.

Hey there.

Just letting you know there will probably be no updates for about a week, until exams are over.

If you want to imagine what my life is like right now, go outside and watch the grass grow. It is about as exciting.

Love you all.

19 days until I come home, 36 until I see all of your pretty (uhm...or manly?) faces!

Mini Vaycay

Andreas came to visit (German friend I made last year at USC who is now back home in Bamberg, Germany)!!!

I will tell what we did as I take you on a glorious picture journey (preemptive apologies for my inability to pick a tense)...

First, I woke up at some ungodly hour to meet Sebastien at the train station. Hardly anyone was up and about...

-Fish Market, Groningen, on the way to the train station-

We get to the airport to pick Andreas up, and then the three of us hopped on a train (more like stumbled) and were off to Amsterdam!

-Sebastien and Andreas preparing for the treacherous (?) journey ahead!-

MISSION #1: AMSTERDAM (again.)

We get to Amsterdam and commence wandering. We purchase books (yay good literature!). We eat lunch (yum), see a sign for some photography exhibit and decide to try and find it. Half an hour later we are meandering through some, as Sebastien put it, "brain damaging" photos. I was not prepared for the horrifying things that I saw...yikes. All brilliantly composed, yet painful to experience (which I do believe was the point).

After a stumble into the Red Light District (boobies) we continue our aimless mission (?).

More wandering. We appear in front of the Rijksmuseum, where I get to see Rembrandt dominate "The Night Watch" as well as some of my favorite self portraits he painted (when he was 22, and another one of him being all old, quirky and awesome). Also saw Miro poke fun at Dutch painters. It was absolutely lovely.

After this, it was 18:00ish, so we had a drink to collect our brain-damaged/excited-by-art selves in preparation for the next leg of our journey (which was simply finding food and getting our tired bodies back on the train).

-The only picture I took in Amsterdam...woopsies.-

NEXT MISSION: UTRECHT

We arrive with little to no plans. This day mainly consisted of, you guessed it...MORE WANDERING. aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! (it's all good).

Highlights to be mentioned: church, the famous house designed by Rietveld (inadvertently part of the de Stijl movement)...yup. That's about it...Here we go:

-Andreas contemplating life in the courtyard of the church-

-The exterior of the church...these Dutch take their Gothic seriously.-

-The courtyard. I felt like I should be in some Lord of the Rings film.-

-Unusual decoration around the arches of the church...normally, these arches are decorated with angels or saints or other religious icons...what do the Dutch do? Decorate their arches with arches...eh...?-

-Dom tower...it's a tower. Shocking.-

-Inside the church. I have found that Dutch churches really lack a lot of religious adornment when compared to other countries...probably because religion is not so serious here (the church by my house was converted into a dance studio...go Jesus!)-

-Looking up from under a chandelier...who would have guessed you would find awkward modern aspects in a Gothic church.-

-On our way to the Utrecht train station to come home, I noticed that one of the stoplights was a bunny...Everything Dutch is cute (except the weather. The weather is the spawn of the hell beast).-

-Andreas on the ride home...-

-Sebastien and me on the ride home...I fell asleep because I am a party-pooper.-

-For a moment we thought we saw sun...turns out it was just this country continuously toying with my heart.-

Well...that was my mini vaycay. Now time to start studying. One week until exams. 23 days until I am home. 41 days until I see you all at Grandy's B-day extravaganza.

SUPER EXCITED!

Love

Jealously Strikes the Youngest

Okay people. Let's all get something straight here. Jenny has turned 21 today. I do not believe I have felt jealousy this strong in quite awhile. Congrats you fancy-pants "grown-up" lady...Just remember that I was there for your first choco-tini (yay international waters!) ...

That's right...now I'm all alone.
BUT YAY IT'S JENNY'S B-DAY!!!

I will now lie and say I made this cake:

But for realz, if I was home and you were in the same state as me, I would have made you a B-A cake...TOO BAD FOR YOU!!!

:P

Reasons Why the Netherlands is “Special”

1. Small children color with chalk in the street…next to their hop-scotch drawings, and colorful stars is a Heineken beer bottle drawing…yay consumerism!

2. It is still bright outside at 22:30 (10:30 pm)…the sun does not completely set until 23:30 (11:30 pm) or so…I start thinking about going to bed around 3:00…

3. Dutch professors are a myth…like unicorns.

4. The country is covered in clouds for over half the year…yet seasonal-affective disorder appears to be rare.

5. They used to build short shutters on the windows to rooms where the women lived to prove that they were not having male visitors…yet prostitution is legal.

6. Although the country is drenched in rain, rain boots or umbrellas don’t seem to cross their minds…

7. They eat their French fries with mayonnaise.

8. One of the most popular menswear stores is called SissyBoy…

9. On another fashion note, there is a store here called “Inspired by Fashion”…uhm…yes?

10. They decided a swamp land would be the ideal area to build the most popular city in the country.

11. They have foldable bikes...so you can put your mode of transportation inside other modes of transportation…

12. They paint their trashcans.

13. Most houses keep their curtains open during the day, and their huge windows face right out onto the sidewalk (no front yards in the city)…but looking in is considered rude.

14. They like to stick words together and make things unreasonably…unreasonable…example: “randjongerenhangplekkenbeleidsambtenarensalarisbesprekingsafspraken” = the agreements for the negotiations concerning the salary of public servants who decide on the policy for areas where unemployed youth is allowed to hang out.

15. Paraphrase of a pamphlet in the Schipol airport:

Please remember that not all of the women you see in the Red Light District are really women. If something bad happens to you, please find a policeman and explain. Please do not be embarrassed- we have seen it all before. You couldn’t possibly shock us.

Yes...Things are different. Slightly strange, but at least the odd quirks here can make you laugh. The last two (or three?) days of my life have been dedicated to painting. I wake, I paint, I sleep...So far the piece has been done over three times...and now it is just a confused mess...oh well. It has kept me busy, although I should be busy with studying...yuck. Nothing new, nothing fun. I keep having very strange dreams, one absolutely wonderful, one super f'ed up...bah, oh well. This is the last week of classes EVER in this country! YAYAYAYAYAY! So...this is how my life will go:

Face in book. Face in pillow. Repeat.

Fingers crossed no face in cement. We'll see how it goes.

Love you all super duper much, and see you in...46 days!!!

Story Time

So…I heard this story from a friend…

It goes like this…

“I had an Economics assignment due on Thursday, worth 30% of my grade. This assignment consisted of working with an excel document, doing a few regression analyses, a whole lot of calculations, and five essays…being the excellent and amazing student that I am, I completed the assignment on time…

“As I was turning this assignment in, I noticed a sticky-note on my professor’s door, written in a foreign language, but obviously it was saying “Be back Monday”. I arrived home; proceed with my nightly activities of studying, consuming random food-like things, and reading until I fell into a restless sleep.

“The next morning I awoke feeling…odd, as if something was amiss in my life. Granted, this usually means that my life is normal, yet this feeling was strange…I had the sense of being, dare I say it, an underachiever. I sat up in bed, refusing to accept this horrifying realization and decided it was only a dream (or a dreadful nightmare!) that had led me to feel this god-awful emotion. Thus, I crawled from my lofty dreamland tower and prepared for the day.

“As the day progressed, this feeling was spreading through me and growing like a parasite. I could not shake it off, so I decided to look into it. I pulled out all my schedules and scanned through everything to see if I had missed some sort of deadline or if I was behind on my work, but of course, being the OCD-ish study freak that I am, nothing was out of place.

“An hour later this feeling was hitting its climax and I was getting rather grumpy. What the heck was it? Then it hit me- I turned in the un-edited version of my Economics assignment. *screams of horror from the crowd*…The un-edited version completely left out 30% of the assignment. The creepy-crawly feeling inside me exploded and I started to panic. It was 17:30 (5:30 pm), what was I going to do?! I frantically sent the corrected version of the excel document to my professor, explaining my mistake and blatant dumbness. Then I realized something super sucky and absolutely wonderful- my professor was out of town. He would not have collected the papers from his box yet…but it was Friday, past closing hours. Great. There was no way that I was going to make it to the library, print out the correct version, bike to the university, get into the already locked building and switch out the papers…or was there?…

“Hysterical biking, printing, and more biking (this time panicked) ensued. I was going to figure this out. There has yet to be a locked building I can’t find my way into (heh…)!

“I arrived at the Economics building and the automatic doors opened before me like the gates of Heaven. This was going to work! It was going to be okay! I rushed through the lobby to the doors leading to the elevator…locked. NOOOO!!! I turned around, and went the other direction, but all the doors were locked. I couldn’t find a way in! I began thinking that maybe there was a first time for everything, maybe I was going to fail my assignment.

“As I was running around the building I heard people chattering, glasses clinking and the faint beckoning of a violin…what was this? An elegant soiree? That means the building is open…somewhere…but how to get in? I saw people rushing in and out of one of the side doors, obviously the crew working the party. Without hesitation, I went straight in the side door. Once inside, I was surrounded by crew members fumbling around preparing food and beverages. A man with the nametag “Willem” approached me, and asked me what I was doing there (in ENGLISH! HOW FREAKIN’ LUCKY?!!), and I simply told him “Oh, I’m here to help.” He nodded, turned and walked away (uhm…suggestion to catering company- get better managers?). I then realized that I had stopped breathing and was sweating like a crazy woman (sexy, eh?). I found the door leading to the elevators, got in, pushed “7” and waited for them to close…ding…ding…ding…stop. 4? I don’t want 4. I want 7. What the…the doors open, and two crew members get on, and ask something to me in Dutch. I say “sorry…what?” and the guy asks again “Why are you going up?” and I tell him “Willem asked me to get something.” This answer seemed to satisfy them, and the rest of the ride ensued in silence.

“Once on the 7th floor, I ran to my professor’s mail box, dug out my own copy, replaced it with the new copy and shoved everything back into his box. I took the stairs down, and left as quickly as possible.”

Yeah, that friend was lucky, huh? Well, if I had had an adventure as intense as hers, then I would say this:

-I’m super dumb. I risked a lot just replacing an assignment. But, after replacing it I did feel quite relieved. Yet it feels like cheating in a way, even though I printed the wrong version of the paper…So, I guess I learned how far I will go for just a little bit better of a grade.

I’ll try to keep my life interesting for you guys, or, when in doubt, tell a friend’s story…

LOVE X 1000 : 54 days!