Dubai- Day 2

View pool-side of surrounding Dubai

Julie,

Well boy do I have a story for you today. Wow, well I guess it all started last night when I stayed up till 1am studying and watching the end of the movie Minority Report. I was really tired in the middle of the day yesterday, but while I was studying, I wasn't feeling that tired and considering in London I only got about 4 hours a night, I figured 5 hours would be enough.

I woke up about 4am and double checked the time and then I went back asleep till my alarm went off at 6:30am, so I thought. The next thing I knew, I woke up and thought "what time is it, I can't believe my alarm hasn't gone off yet." I sprung out of bed to check the clock on my TV. Yep, 10:40am! I rubbed my eyes twice and got even closer to the clock as if that would magically make the clock say 7am instead. After realizing yes it was 10:40am, I started to assess what that meant.

Ok, so I have already missed my ENTIRE Economics class, what was after that? Oh yeah the GMI test. What time did that start? Oh great, 10:15am. At this point I went into rush mode. I showered and brushed my teeth, hurried and dressed (throwing on an un-ironed shirt) and rushed out the door.

As the elevator got to the ground floor, I saw a couple of other Duke students who are in my section so I knew they had already finished the exam. They must not have noticed I was missing cause they didn't say anything other than "How's it going?" so I continued on. When I got to the class the professor was outside the classroom collecting exams of a few students who had just finished. I explained to him what happened, he gave me my exam and I went in. At this point there were about 10 people left still taking the exam. All I can say is boy was I glad it was an macro economics test and not a financial accounting test. The test seemed to be rather simple and I actually finished it in only 45 minutes, still leaving me 30 minutes till the end of the allotted time period to take the test. Tragedy averted. At least I hope so. We will see when I get my test back.

I couldn't believe I had overslept and that my alarm didn't (at least to my recollection) go off. The only other time I have done something like that was in my D&C class in college and luckily that test wasn't too difficult either (I think Elise called me on that one and woke me up asking where I was since she and Hailey were in my class--do you remember that?).

The rest of the day has been pretty regular. I had lunch, decision models class, and a guest speaker. The guest speaker was REALLY bad. She read straight from the slides and by about 10 minutes in I just pulled out my Econ homework and did that. I guess in the small blessings out of sleeping in, I was able to miss my Econ class out of all things, so I didn't really miss much and I was able to do the Econ homework without any problems. Now I just have to do the Decision Models homework as well as read a couple of cases for GMI and I should be good.

A few groups of students skipped the speakers and went to the Emirates Mall (the one with the ski slope) or Wild Wadi Waterpark (which is owned by our hotel). I don't know what it is about me but when it came down to it, I just wasn't interested in doing either. I bet I would have had fun going to both, but I just couldn't make a decision either way and I felt more comfortable just staying here and getting some things done. I must just be totally boring or something. I still hope to go to Emirates mall at some point or even the waterpark but I guess I'll have to see. We are going to two other malls for our culture dash later in the week.

I did do a small tour of our hotel today since all I had seen was the classrooms, my room and the restaurant. They have a really nice pool and hot tub area, a nice gym with treadmills and weights, and a steam room in the locker room. Now that the exam is over I hope I will get some time to do a few more things.

Pool Area

View from the Elevator on the 40th (top) floor

Hotel embroidered slippers-- this is the life! :)

Hotel embroidered wrist band-- Oh yeah!

I got a kind of cool video of the glass elevator going down from the 40th floor to the ground. The video is like 40 seconds long-- 1 second per floor, that's pretty fast. Anyway, like before the internet won't let me load the video. I tried for about 30 minutes and then gave up.

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday. Kiss and hug the boys for me.

Love ya,

Brock