11.21-11.27 - third month

Where should I start?
Of course with my car! OK, so let's see what happened? I could have carried back my car around 10am Monday, but Allen (a black 28 years old psychologist student BA first year) didn't call me...I was a bit worried, thus I tried to call him, but nobody answered. Finally, around half past 1pm, Allen called and told me that I have to be ready around half past 4pm. I said OK, and asked about the delay. "You know man, we have other customers, and limited contracted sources...We also have to wait." He came at 4:48pm and we went back to the Milford dealer shop. Fine. I gotta tell you, that I made a mistake. Before checking the car and because I trusted that guy, I paid the money, the rest $5000 in check. OK, little paperwork, and I was ready to go. I got the keys, nothing fancy, ooo, Bence here are your keys, or something. Nothing. I forgot to give u this...So, this is the story of getting my first car's ignition key. I went out (at that time it was pitch-dark) and checked the car. I started the engine, sounded good, but the left blinker didn't work and the hood opener was still broken. ALLEN!!! How did mechanics check my car?? Ohh, i don't know man! You have to come back tomorrow morning and they will fix it. I didnt want to go back... I complained but i had to go back Tuesday morning. Fine. Without GPS in the pitch-dark and crazy traffic I drove back without problem to our little apartment complex. Tomorrow morning I was there at 10 and they fixed this 15 minutes problem under 3 hours. Done. On my way back to Whitney Village I realized more problems!!!! Váááá! Maintenance required sign is red, left wiper is not working properly, the DC adapter is out-of-order, so my freshly bought GPS was not working...no spare wheel, and the sound system is blabbing in the tank. Great! I checked everything with Dan, and he calmed me down, dont worry they will fix those too. I hoped so. BUT, that day was mad for me! I went to Hartford still without GPS and picked up my laptop charger that I lost at the conference room. I tried to charge my HP laptop and it just died!:( Oh nooo!!! Wrong car, no laptop, not-working GPS, what else??
I decided to go to North Haven to buy a new laptop. I cannot live without a laptop. That is the sad true. At the Bestbuy (similar to the MediaMarkt) three young black field salesmen tried to sell me a laptop. They tried to screw up. Maybe 3-4 times. After 1,5 hour I got mad, and left the whole shop! Stupid idiots! I stopped at P.C. Charles shop (this is a family-owned electronic store), went to the shop, told the salesguy: "Look, i came from the Bestbuy, I am upset, dont need another stupid salesrep, so please follow my needs and help me with a good laptop." After 5 minutes I bought my new Asus K53E laptop at $638. Since then I am satisfied with this laptop.
Oh, i didnt tell u that my car insurance is $155,32 per month. I need an american driving license to get a better quote.
Wednesday I went back to Milford, tried to fix my car. They recorded my claim and I got a schedule on Monday 7:30. I hope they will fix everything on my car. If not, i will not keep this car...
Around 11am I met with Jeffrey and Xiao at the Milford Plaza. We looked around, I learnt a lot of tricks in retailbusiness:) and we ate a brand-new sushi-restaurant. OMG, more than 50 different kind of food were there! I tasted almost everything. The food was simply perfect for me.:D and my stomach was full!! And I got an invitation for Thanksgiving with Jeffrey's family.
Thursday 2pm. We started to go. Just for any case we ate a slice of pizza and drunk two beers. We had a great time together! I know what is celebrating Thanksgiving! There is no similar event in Hungary. This happening is all about being off and eating a lot (really a lot!) With the older son we tight two fishing flies. There will be a picture about it below. We spoke a lot, ate a lot! That was a perfect Thanksgiving! Really hard to describe that experience! I am thankful to be here and to meet good people!
Friday I went to fish! Andddd, I caught a beautiful brown trout!
Saturday and Sunday I went to fish again, read some school stuff, washed my clothes, etc.
I have just realized today, that the first semester is over! 3 more weeks and done.:)
So here are the pictures:

1 lb trout

 2000 Honda Civic LX 1,6 l

 New battery, special air filter:)

 My first car ever!

Some leftover from Thanksgiving: turkey, ham, kale, stuffed zucchini, sweet potato, mashed potato (this is not the whole palette)

Beavers on the Clark Pond

:)

11.14-11.20 - My car

Sorry about the late post. But i gotta tell you so much stuff happened during the last week...
Start with Monday. Actually I dont remember what happenned on Monday:D (When you read this post, please take into account that I wrote it after one of my worst day:() What I know is the Wednesday. I remember crystal clear from hour to hour what happened. Ahh, i remember, because of the Thrusday Trade Visit I had to make my school work in advance, especially the marketing. But this pushed advance the other tasks:) Plus one more ingredient to understand the whole picture. (If you read the previous post, i told you that thanks for God the ethics class was cancelled:) I didnt write that case at all. So for this week I had two business ethics cases to get done. Great! One was about the Accuform, The ethical leadership and its challenge in the era of globalisation, that was easy. I finished this in 2,5 hours:D But the other case, called Drug testing in Nigeria (A)... oh, leave me alone. So back to the chronology. I wrote the accuform case at Tuesday night. And Wednesday started at 5:30. I wrote the first task for Business Communication. Good. Then started to write the Nigeria case. At 11am Lisa cancelled her class because of the lack of computer support:) I went to Chris, where we (Ildi, Chris and me) worked until 4:15. We came back and I have to finish the business case. At one moment I almost gave up to go to the class. But I finished the paper at 6pm. So I decided, I will not miss from this class (my brother thinks again i am wrong with this phrase for sure). I took the course, it was soo boring, because i didnt read anything and was unprepared, but i won my battle!
After the class we went to a little, delicious, genuine italian restaurant as usually we do. I ate Pasta a'la Vodka. Every time i miss some alcohol, that is the real disadvantage to be here:D It was so good! After this we went home and i started to write the third paper, marketing! At midnight it killed/terminated me:D I had to sleep. But i always do my homework, so i got up at 3am and finished that paper until 5:40am and sent to the professor. (I could imagine his face, when he realized the sending time... stupid hungarian:)
After it i took a shower, got ready to go to Hartford.

We started to go at 6:15. Arrived at 7:00, i had to meet with the hungarian delegation at Hilton at around 7:30-7:45. I walked around the downtown. It was pretty impressive how a real american city wakes up. Everybody run around some steamy coffee or tee. Pigeons are eating on the side of the streets. The sun is rising up. The sky is in rainbow colors from dark blue to pink. Maybe i imagined this, but i was amaized. I saw that scence somewhere from high...Great experience. I went back to the Hilton. First time in my life in the Hilton. Uhmm, nothing special, beautiful and fancy, but not that inaccessble i imagined. Nothing is that until you know it. (I hope it makes sense in english, if not, please correct me!) With my old serbian-hungarian friend Giora we welcomed the delegation. Most of the hungarians thought i guess i was an elevator boy:D We walked back together to the UKS, where i ate a solid breakfast for sure. And the cross-border trade affair/show/conference started. I was pretty excited about it, but everything went smoothly. I was so happy when Jeffrey arrived and was able to come! That day was so exhausting, bot worthy! I met a lot of good hungarian business man! We spent  a really funny/serious/valuable time together! Thanks for them! I came home around 1:30.
Friday, second day started again at 7am at the Hotel. There was breakfast again, business panel, lunch, Mark Twain house visiting, closing ceremony, then Sauska wine tasting at the Marriott Hotel. An then the closing dinner! Everything was above my expectations!! I hope everybody was satisfied with the event! I woudl like to say special thanks for Chris, without him this whole event didnt want to come together, he did so much superhuman effort to organize it. Thanks for Ildi to give me some rides back and forth and to help Chris when I didnt have time to do so. Every Habeler took part in the event! It was really good to see how something can work:) I came back to sleep around mindnight, i dont remember:D Not because of the alcohol unfortunately:D But because of the tiredness.

Saturday!!! One of my best day here! I bought my car! Dan called me in the morning regarding the car searching. I was a little bit undercoordinated, but I prepared myself soon and we looked after some potential cars. The third car was located in Milford, CT. 2000 Honda Civic 1,6l LX Sedan 5 speed manual transmission with mileage of 141,000. It was love at first sight! The only problem was the price. It was $6000 sticker on the windshield. No problem we will bargain. We made a perfect deal. Here on the top of the base price you have to pay 6,32% sales tax (VAT, ÁFA)(the highest in the US!) + 125$ registration fee, 399$ conveyence fee. The final base price went down to $4476 and I came out the door with $5300. Good! Then I invited Dan for a late lunch, we went to the Side Street. Pretty good place, american (quinnipiac) students love it! How would they love the Szimpla, Kuplung, Talléros, etc. places? Here the entertainment is so simple and at the same time professional. We could learn a lot how to serve people!
Sunday. Big lesson: how to bind a car insurance policy without your actual driving license. I dont write down the process, but easy. (If you are a reader and know me, you can imagine it is true or not. I will not red-pencil it!) For your information: american insurance companies prefer a american driving license. They cannot track your international driving license. Good for you, because if they cancel your american license, you still can drive legally:) Bad for you, because you have to pay premium for this gap...

Pictures are coming as the second part of my car's story!!!!

:)

11.07-11.13 - Hunting, Casino

This week started on Monday, what a surprise!:)

Ildi gave me a ride to Middletown to take part in a business luncheon. We spent a real effective meeting together. (I am still not used to the american style business luncheon.) The two hours session was about finalizing the details of the Trade Visit, organised by CEENET. It will be next Thursday and Friday (17th and 18th November, Hartford). The last Friday would have been the deadline to give the final version of the booklet, but Monday I got a lot of feedback how to improve a little bit the booklet => result: We extended it from 12 pages to 16 pages. After the meeting I started to make the changes and send around the members to double check. (I was really excited about it, this is a huge deal for me to make it sure that everything is going to be fine with the booklet) Anyway, I finished it and Tuesday I sent to the printer and we got it on Friday afternoon. Good quality printing, super price, customer is the king, these are the power of TYCO Printing:) (A little free ad for them.)

Tuesday was case study class day! We wrote the case, I printed it and handled over to the professor. One week after our presentation 80% of the presenting group's slides were poor. I got to tell you that in general the american students do not spend a lot of time to make interactive or interesting slides. No, bullet points, paragraphs, boring templates are almost every time. So if dear reader you are a Hungarian student, do not give up spending a lot of energy making PPT-s, it is worth! Believe me!

I was behind even to start writing the case study for Business Ethics. While I am making this post, I am confused about it. I haven't started now yet:) The reason is; Professor Adobor sent us an email cancelling the Wednesday night class!! I was so glad, when I got it! Yeah! During the whole day I helped Chris to work.

Wednesday night was time to hang out in the Wallingford Applebee's. That is another fast food chain, but with a little bit better food. We share a $20 offer with Andras and ate fried onion rings for appetizer and grilled riblets for me and steak for Andras. I was full after my meal, it was so delicious! Do you know that refilling your ordered beverage is free?? It is unbelievable in Hungary, isn't?:D

Thursday was marketing day, for sure! (In the USA, when you write anything you do not use ! (exclamation mark) almost at all!!!!!!! For me it is a big matter because I use it all the time!!!!!:D:D

So, back to the marketing class. The last case was a big challenge for me. The brief issue was how Centra (eLearning service provider company) should use its distribution channel to maximize its market share and revenue and minimize costs between field sales reps and telesales reps. But, somehow I solved it. It will not be above 85% I would bet...

Friday was the burden between fun and work. I got up at 6 to start making a foamboard for Szechenyi Chair, went to the office at 11 and left it at 5:16. And weekend time!

Jeffrey and Alley invited me to hunt for this weekend. They arrived to pick me up Friday 7 pm and then picked up Xiao (one of our chinese classmate).

Here is the schedule from Friday 7 pm. until Sunday 11am.

Friday night - eating Popeye's fried chicken with french fries, talking next to the fireplace and going to bed

Saturday - hunting, then breakfast then casino then hunting then talking around a big outdoor camp fire then watching movie and going to bed

Sunday - breakfast and coming back to the normal life

Some epic moments:

Saturday morning 5:10 I got up after less than four hours sleeping, got dressed and we went out to at 5:30. 6:00 Jeffrey got a call from Roger. Roger is one of his neighbor and an avid hunter! I mean seriously avid. He shot a 2,5 years old 7 points deer with a bow!!!! He shot more than 120 deer in his life. He is a deer hunting pro, told me the entire anatomy of a deer. Where you can shoot, where not, why not, what is happening of you do this or this, how to make a stand, how to carry a deer, what they eat, how they die, everything. He told the story of shooting that deer in 15 minutes. He is an immersive artist! If he talks to you, you cannot to listen! Incredible! We didn't shoot anything.

Casino. Mohegan Sun. Indian territory under Indian regulation and authority. That is a giant gambling place, not just a casino but a complex entertainment center. Casino, bars, restaurants, strip show, theater, hotel, spa, shops at one place. That was my first time in a casino ever! People have gaming addiction, gambling is not a fun for them, that is a serious stressful competition. The place is perfectly designed, everything is built by purpose how to trick gamblers and motivate them to spend more time and loose more money. I said there, OK guys, lets go to loose:) I didn't play but I want to try it. Peter, you have to teach me to gamble for sure! If you play there, alcohol will be free. One rule: you have to be older than 21.

I got a challenge at Big BUBBA's BBQ from a huge pork and beef burger, accepted it and terminated it! It was tough to win but I ate it wholly. You will see the fight below.

We did a lot of shit together and it was exquisite!

Here are some pictures:

Our stand and Roger is explaining what happened

Me with a 7 point deer buck (beautiful animal)

Mohegan Sun Casino

Casino inside

Sign at Michael Jordan's Steak House

Alley and Xiao

Let's fight

First bite

Gone!

Deer on the farm

:)

10.31-11.06 - Sages Ravine

Before I show you some good pictures, I summarize my classes.

After we spent 25 hours to make our presentation to the case study class, our group met at 21:10 Monday for 15 minutes to double check everything before the Big Day. Of course, it took 2 hours:) According to this we enjoyed to fine-tune our slideshow:)

Tuesday night: showtime! BUT, the projector didn't work. OMG! Shit happens sometimes, but why always with us? No problem, we can present without powerpoint...I almost convinced the professor that we postpone our presentation one week because it is not fair compare to other groups who can use PPT. But an enthusiastic IT guy set up the system somehow... It was not perfect because the projector showed our ppt on the second screen and we saw the first screen. So the projected picture was our actual screen. I hope you can imagine. It was still sucks, but we managed it and took our presentation. Jeffrey introduced the group and then I described the skeleton of the presentation Alex, Alley and Jeffrey presented the core stuff and I finished it with the action plan and summarized the ppt. It was great job we got 100% score. We were so happy, especially me:D

Wednesday was a bit worse. For business ethics we had to analyse the ethical issues of IKEA India. If it continues, we are going to be business ethics experts:D We learn there how we can recognize the ethical problem in any case and aspect of our life. Yeah! Can you imagine how many pages we should handle in for this class?? I got to tell you: 8x4 ps. case studies + 1x5 ps. book report + 1x10 ps. Team Student-Developed Case Study of Ethical Situations in the Work Place + 1x10 ps. My ethical leader style = 57 pages:D

The peak of the week was the M-Day. On marketing class I did 88% on online quiz and got 86% for my second case study. This result is quiet OK, I am happy with this.

I almost have a schedule to the next semester, it will be like this:

- Financial Analysis/Decision Making (Monday night)

- Managing People and Organization (Tuesday afternoon)

- Transportation Management (Wednesday night)

- Managing Marketing Channels (Thursday night)

I went to shop Friday and bought my winter boots and my jacket. I had to sleep with my new shoes because I liked it so much:D Then Andras and me went to hike on the Appalachian Trail, we visited Sages Ravine. Saturday night we celebrated Szasza's birthday. Today I went to fish because the weather was so nice. I am very proud because I caught a quiet big bass with my newly bought Rapala wobbler.

Here are the photos!

Sages Ravine (Appalachian Trail)

My new boots!

The man who can walk on the water...

Beautiful bass with Rapala F03-TR

:)