10.24-10.30 - Snow in Oct

I didn't get questions about the HABL program, it is good because it means that everything is clear. I hope that some guys and girls will apply for it.

This week was harder than the previous one, I expected it, but it was harder anyway.

I had to do four essays or tasks. One for case study class about the evaluation of Schindler India entering to the Indian market. Harvard style evaluation essay. Just in 4 pages. Not easy to write about every aspect in a real pragmatical way. It was Tuesday.

Wednesday morning spent with creating figures, charts and tables about some kind of stuff.

Then write a book report about the book so called White People by Gurganus. Did I tell you the procurement story of this book? I don't think so. I searched first at the Arnold Bernhard Library (lib of the uni), then in the QU Bookstore and finally on Amazon.com. Aaand I got it at 5 cents cost! Such a good price for a used book! I want it now! But üröm az örömben, puppy in the happiness, the delivery cost was at least $4,99:D It is crazy, isn't! Who the heck would like to sell a book at 5 cents?

And, of course, the blessed marketing class on Thursday! Actually, I liked this case, named Atlantic Computer; the main concern was how to price a server with its software acceleration tool which provides you 4 times more performance than your main competitor. Four options were: marked-up pricing, price at equal to four competitors' products price, price just the server and give away the software for free or value-in use method. Naturally the value-in-use won.

There was a huge snow storm on the East coast, 8 inches snow fell down in 10 hours. Some pictures about it:

The beginning

After the snow storm (2 million people without power)

Here is my little steak with some healthy broccoli:

:)

10.17-10.23 - second month

My brother told me, how fast was my second month, because it was just 30 days, not 31 as it was in the first month. That is true, but not just because of the numbers of the days. My life in America is accelerating and becomes more smooth.

Yesterday I went to fish again and caught 10 fish, brought back seven basses, cleaned and froze them.

That was a good part of the day, but the morning was terrible:( We went to the DMV (department of motor vehicle) office and tried to take the knowledge test. The office opens at 8am, we arrived at 7:23am and the line was about 15-18 meters (maybe 20m). You cannot imagine how many people get up at Saturday dawn with their family to travel about 1,5 hours to this beautiful place. That is not normal...

Dad, it is a beautiful Saturday morning, what should we do?? Go to Waterbury DMV!! Let's go and screw up our Saturday morning. There is no better place to screw up your Saturday morning:D I would had to take a photo about that ridiculous chaos. You can take the knowledge test until 11am after registration. We got the chance to register at 10:10am. OK, if you start the registration process in Waterbury, you will have to take the knowledge test there, so you have to go back. Without car the situation for me is even harder (it is not ok to ask a favor all the time, i hate it). We have just known there that the Hamden DMV Office is open last week. Fine!! OK, please give my papers back, I am done:) I gotta go to Hamden!! Yihhhaaa! I didn't want to jeopardize unnecessary round to Waterbury again. So, my time at DMV was a crap. Do not talk more about it. I am going to take the knowledge test this Friday in Hamden and buy a car and take the road test. We will see, I have time.

It is a good question where I will work from January. Photronics liked me at the interview, so I could work there as an intern from January but maybe there is a better company for me as Chris said. This is an excellent news!! I will be able to work somewhere from January in such this time in the US! I am very proud of Ildi, she got her job at Travelers (Ildi, I hope that is not problem to write it down:)

We are organizing the Trade Visit with CEENET on 17-18th, November. I like to work on it very much!

The school is going well, this week will be a bit more difficult than the previous one. I took my second english presentation about my favorite city, Budapest. (I know, you could ask why not Tarcal?:)

I want to show you our little apartment.

Our apartment from outside, left from the door

Inner backyard

Living room with almost flat screen TV:)

Full-equipped kitchen

Where is your room Bence?? :D That is going to be in one of the following track:D Are you curious? I wish!

Talk a bit about why you should apply for HABL program. HABL is

- unique

- a huge benefit from studying MBA

- an opportunity to get work experience in the States up to 3 years

- a chance to achieve your 30 seconds for success

- a milestone in your academic carrier

- a place to meet new people

- a source to improve your English

- great because it makes you ready to give back something to your nation!

- a basis from where you can travel

Who is an ideal HABL candidate? Listen carefully Chris on Monday evening!

Only one thing that you have to decide early: can you leave Hungary for three years?

Short guideline:

1. Realize

2. Decide

3. Apply

4. Come

C u!

10.10 - 10.16 - Farm, BBQ

It was another great week! I got some feedback from certain persons about my grammatical mistakes. Thank you! But give me more!

Let's start with the weekdays. I had some really good classes. On Wednesday I made a presentation about my favorite city. What do you think my favorite city is? Budapest. It was easier to talk about this than about Tarcal. I told the others that I want to be the last one! There was not enough time to present my ppt on that class, so I am going to do this on the next time.

I had an internship interview at Photronics. Nobody thought that it is a job interview. There were Chris, Evi, Ildi and me and the CFO, the Head of HR and the Head of the Legal Department, CFO decided to make everybody a short 20 minutes interview with every of us. I liked those interviews! The management was so friendly. If you want to understand what they are doing, please visit these sites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomask and http://www.photronics.com. Back to the interview, we will see!

Thursday I took my first american-english presentation on the marketing class! We talked about the target market and product mix of Target corporation (www.target.com). That is the second largest retailer behind Wallmart. My groupmate is an HR manager there. I lost my english presentation virginity here:)

Friday Evi invited Dan to a hungarian dinner. Me and Ildi bougth the ingredients and started to cook the Hortobagyi Palacsinta. Dan and Evi came to the dinner and we spent some pleasant hours together with the delicious Hortobagyi.

And Saturday!! One of my american classmate invited me and a Chinese girl to his farm in CT. Yesterday was incredible!! I tried to drive a 700 cubic centimeter quad, drive a GMC truck, shoot with M-16 and shotgun and make BBQ.

Here are some photos and movies:

(First time driving a truck)

(First time on a quad)

(First american BBQ - hmm)

(just illustration)

(just illustration)

:)

10.02-10.09 - Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Ithaka

To talk about this week is so difficult. So many things happened with me.

Where should I start it? On the last weekend two dear girls from the MCC visited our two dear HABL girls, so called Cili and Szilvi! Of course, we had to go to party! After writi

ng the last blog track, I went to the local liquor store, which is the official place of the alcohol beverages. I bought two bottles of wine. The vodka is cheaper than at home, the beer is the same price, but the wine is a bit expensive. You can buy here 1,5 liter Vodka, which is absolutely normal size:)

So we started to drink at Szasza's place. Then 9:20 pm, we left Whitney Village. Our transporter was Michael, who is second generation Italian immigrant and our classmate. He has an Infinity, a white sport luxury car. Not shit!

OK, we partied there until 12pm and we started to come back home. The BAR (our place) was ok, but nothing fancy and so cool, just like the places on the Nagymező Street. The mood was excellent, it was a very great time in New Haven with the Hungarian girls!

During the weekdays, nothing special happened, I learnt a lot, wrote 3 case studies.

But I waited Friday so much, because we went a big trip with Andras!

Just a few numbers:

3 days

2080 km

145 liter fuel (benzin)

26 spent hours in the car

Places what we've seen in order: Saratoga (NY) -Buffalo (NY) -Niagara (Canada)-Toronto (CA) -Buffalo (NY) -Finger Lakes (NY) -Ithaca(NY) (Cornel University) -Watkins Glen (NY)

Hungarians who we've met: Balázs, Viktor, Tamás, Máté and Noémi (and Lajos

bácsi, 82 years old, Hungarian '56 emigrant)

The weather was amazing, no clouds on the sky at all! The biggest attraction

was the Niagara Falls (nájagara fólsz). But we ate at DUFF's Diner, that makes the best and most famous buffalo chicken wings, President Obama ate there too! I terminated 10 wings and there were really delicious!

In the US, if you want to see a famous battle field, you have to travel by car

on the built road across the field! Interesting:D That was what we did at Saratoga. You may learn about this famous battle, at that place was the turn point of the revolution war.

Nigara is Niagara! Canada is a cool country, much calmer than the States! I liked Toronto, huge but livable city, with skyscrapers and harbor like at Tihany. I like the Canadian flag, and countryside too.

The two State Park were also breathtaking! With many falls and canyons. Cool! The landscape was unimaginable with many-many different colors on the hillsides.

We also visited one of the Ivy League University, the Cornel University in Ithaca. I have never ever seen a university like this! Huge, wonderful, big, cool, old, great, clever, famous, and many other good indicative that I could say!

Our new Hungarian friend were so pleasant company. They are so modest,

clever, informed and motivated persons. It was a great time spent together!

This trip, weekend was a great and unforgettable experience!

Some pictures:

At(On) Saratoga Monument:)

At DUFF's

Nigara Falls - Maid of the Mist

Toronto with the CN Tower - Canada

After a truck went through on Tamás's sunglass (Viktor on the photo)

Finger Lakes area - Rascally:)

:D

09.24-10.01 - First spot in English

As I promised on last Saturday I am going to write my blog in English:)

There will be some mistakes, but the goal is to practice the writing in english! Anyway, you know my promise, because during the last week the volume of the visitors on the blog was decreased to a marginal level, but today the number of the visitors was 32, so you are waiting for a new track:D Which is pretty cool!
I went to the gym with Ildi at the first time on Saturday. There were some OK girls, they were spinning on the bikes. I tried a roombike for 65 minutes and chose the interval (or something like that) level. I hit the level 16 sometimes, the level 8 was above the average:) I did it without my water-bottle, because I thought I don't need that, I am tough. Of course I was, after 30 minutes I felt that I was going to faint:D I did not know where I was! Finally Ildi saved me and brought my bottle, because I asked her. So, I surprised this first challenge in the gym. During the last minute I rode with 30 mph, which is pretty fast after taking 24 miles. Then I tried some pushing exercises, sit ups and other kind of dumbbells. I counted and burnt 850 calories! I was really satisfied with my performance. (I felt the result of the gym for the upcoming five days, stuck in every muscle:D) I have to describe the shape of the american guys in the gym, they make exercises just for their upper body, they are usually shorter than me but wider, they have bumped biceps and shoulders but their legs are so thin:D You can image them as a little "bear- cheese" (mackósajt) or a little upside down triangle. It is funny to see them.

On Monday I had my first 6 hours long interview at the Travelers, that is a Fortune 500 company, 6000 people work in one big building-complex in its headquarter. It is located in Hartford that is 40 minutes from Hamden by car. Dan (a cool guy who learnt at Quinnipiac four years ago since then works at Travelers as an actuary with English mayor background) took us to the Travelers with Ildi. We had separately 5 interviews with five persons (three of them were executives) during the next 6 hours from 9:30 Even during the lunch I was interviewed. At the end I was totally exhausted, but happy because I have done this long torture:D They were curious about my background, my motivation, how to work with people, how to handle the conflicts, weaknesses and strengths, how familiar I am with the Excel, PowerPoint, etc. I had to build a car insurance model, explain what I would tell the investors on the annual meeting, etc. The executive of the Research and Development group asked me about the Excel in the most professional way. OK, Bence, here is a paper and a pen, would you please write the XYZ function in Excel in a syntactical way. Well, :D no:D If you give me a laptop, I'll be able to do everything, but on a paper I won't. To brief this experience into one word, it was so challenging.

We are waiting for the decision, but I am aware that this would not be the best Bence-style job:D If so, I would work there for a half year gladly!

The second trade visit meeting happened on Wednesday. I enjoyed that, met with new peers and I got some new tasks. (And of course, there were some dunkin donuts:D I ate three!) I learn a lot from these meetings, how to lead a meeting in american-style, how to inspire and involve people to the problem solving process, which is cool!

I have really good american team-mates on the case study class. One of them was a wall street broker for 10 years, and know he is seeking for new challenges. He is a really good guy! I am glad to changed my previous group.

We have to learn a lot in every class, to write new and new essays, to read many-many pages from day to day. The MarketingDay (in the following text it refers as MD) was not so good:) and I said this politely . I counted back the minutes. But I survived, and the weekend was coming on Thursday. Yesterday was so shiny and warm day, so I went out for fishing. During 4 hours I didn't catch anything! Nothing!! But I enjoyed the nature so much!

Today is about cooking and preparing for the next week and of course, that is the skype day (SD).

I am waiting for the next weekend because we are going to the Nigara Falls! Yepp!!!

Next track will be coming with nice pixs! Hopefully! Wish good weather for us! Take care at home! To be continued! (Write comments!)