Shanghai- Day 7

Julie,

Wow, I was getting ready for bed and I realized I almost forgot to
write my email for the day.

Nothing particularly exciting as today was the gauntlet day. We
essentially had class from 8am to 6:30pm... a VERY long day. It was
pretty funny though because my strategy professor started taking role
in class because the Duke staff asked him to. For the last two
residencies attendance has been dwindling especially the later we get
into the week. Mostly it is because so many of them go out and party
literally ALL NIGHT LONG and then come back and go to class. A couple
of the people sitting around me had only gotten 2 hours of sleep the
night before, one of which was after drinking a lot of alcohol so they
looked in pretty bad shape. But I was impressed with them even showing
up to class, because a lot of other people weren't anywhere near class
all day long. It is kind of funny. We spend over $100,000 for this
exclusive education and then when it comes down to it a lot of them
are treating it like they are back in high school. Crazy!

Today was the last day of the finance class. Overall I think it is
going to be a very useful class and I am really excited that during
the distance portion rather than going over a bunch of new material,
we will be reviewing all the material we have already gone over here
in China. We did the same thing in stats and I really liked it because
I feel like it gives us a chance to really learn and apply the
material we are learning.

Tonight our team got together and had dinner as a group which I
thought was really good because we were able to socialize and learn a
little more about each other and not worry about an assignment we are
or are not doing. Overall I really like my team and feel like I got
put with a great group of people.

Tomorrow is our LAST DAY here Shanghai. The plan is to have class all
morning and afternoon until 4:15pm. Then I am going to head over to
the markets to try and get the last of the things I want to get. Then
I'll come back, pack, sleep, and that will be it for residency #4.
Crazy that there will only be one more international residency after
this.

Also, I have been thinking a lot about our current situation and not knowing where we are going or what is going to work out, but I came across a verse in Mosiah that spoke peace to my heart and let me know we are on the right path.

Mosiah 29:20- But behold, he did deliver them because they did humble themselves before him; and because they cried mightly unto him he did deliver them out of bondage; and thus doth the Lord work with his power in all cases among the children of men, extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him.

Great verse. If we put our trust in him that this will all work out and humble ourselves before him it will all work out the way it is suppose to. We must have faith in that!

Well, love you babe!

Brock
P.S. Attached are some pictures of the view we get to look at everyday
from our classrooms. Its an awesome city to look 

Shanghai- Day 5 and 6

Julie,

There wasn't much to tell from yesterday so sorry for not having an
email for you, but today was a really good day.

First, yesterday Day 5 was mostly all day in the hotel. I really like
both the classes I have this semester especially from a content
standpoint, because I feel like there is a lot of good information I
could be utilizing at work, but I have gotten to the point of
frustration with my finance class. The professor is really nice and
very smart, but his teaching style is extremely dry. So much so that I
found myself completely zoning out during class. Even more so, he has
some CDs that he gave us with presentations of the lectures he gives
in class and they are exactly the same almost verbatim. Because of
that the last two classes I have missed most of the class and watched
the lecture on CD and then come down to class for the end of it. I
REALLY want to get this material down and start implementing it
immediately so I felt like this solution was the most helpful.
Tomorrow is our last finance class so I am still debating on how I
will handle that one.


I think I have mentioned this before, but these two classes have
really made me realize that I need to be utilizing more of my MBA
skills in my current position and as a practice administrator when I
become one. There are a lot of things we could be doing to help
practice better assess new opportunities, cost controls, brand and
market strength, etc. By doing stuff like forecasting, regression
analysis, industry/SWOT analysis, NPV, IRR, and DCF analysis we could
really differentiate ourselves and show some great value in what we
provide. Anyway, those are just thoughts I've had that I wanted to get
written down.

Both days I have tried to fit in some shopping since but I am
realizing I don't have enough hours in the day. I am trying to figure
out when I am going to be able to go back and finish everything I need
to. One of the funniest/best experiences I have had is
shopping/bargaining with Dave Taylor. The man is a legend. He is a
really aggressive negotiator and calls out the sales people on how
ridiculous their prices are. In the end they are usually ticked that
he has pushed the negotiating so far, but when he comes back the next
day they all remember him. It is pretty funny to watch. He'll get into
it with any of them about pretty much any product.
Today I got winter coats for both of us and I am really excited about
them because they are definitely the best quality I have seen since
I've been here.

Today was also our "corporate tour" day or in my case cultural tour.
We took an hour and a half bus ride out to the city of Zhouzhuang
which is a really cool historical city that has canals running through
all of it (think of Venice, Italy). It was cool to see some of the
older historical chinese buildings. We rode on a gondola boat and
walked the streets. It was a lot of fun and even though I was
apprehensive about taking so much time to get out there and see it, I
was definitely glad I went and saw it.

Attached are a bunch of pictures. Sorry there aren't any comments on
them, but they are mostly shots of the city as we walked around. I am
not looking forward to have to back date all these emails and put them
into the blog, but I want to have them there as an archive--dang
chinese censorship! :)

Well I am off to bed. Love you so much!

Brock

Shanghai- Day 4

Julie,

Well another day is done and I don't feel like I have much to report. I will tell you though that structuring my day similar to how my day starts at home makes a huge difference. I was able to go to the gym again this morning and that really helped with keeping my energy up and kept me having better focus. 

Finance was quite a battle though today. Our professor seems like a really nice guy, but he is VERY dry when he teaches so it makes the class feel like it is twice as long. What is sad is there is some really key material that I think I and many others could derive a lot of information out of, but as I reflect on how the same material was taught to me in my econ classes at BYU, he sure makes it feel and seem a lot more difficult. At first I thought it was just me, but then I noticed some other people who have finance backgrounds making the same comments.

Strategy was awesome. It flew by and I really think I am going to love this class. What is even better is the professor is kind of quirky and so all the quirks come out during class. For example, every time the back door opens and gets left open (which is a lot) he stops what he is teaching to ask someone to go bak and close the door. Then today while he was saying something, someone was rattling a wrapper (they give us mints on our desks in individual wrappers) and he stopped class to ask the person to stop. It is just so funny to watch him because you can tell those things are really getting to him.

Two other really funny things that happened that won't seem as funny to you, but I thought I would write about them just to have a record of it. Throughout the various terms, there are a few consistencies in every class and they deal with particular people. First is Bob. Bob is an American that lives in Russia and in case any of us didn't know that, he is sure to start off every sentence with "Well in Russia... this is how it works or this is how it happens." It became the running joke in London and has continued ever since. He also has a funny way of raising his hand almost like he is calling a waiter over to take his order. The other prevalent person is David. He has apparently decided it is his job to ask at least 30 non subject matter related questions per class. This has gotten to the point where the other section tends to get out of class 30 minutes early because the professors are so use to our section, mainly David, asking so many questions that when the other section doesn't ask any questions they get through the material MUCH faster.

Well in two quick minutes, the professor made comments to both that had the class erupting in laughter (Again, this won't sound funny, especially in writing, but I had to record it). About half way through the class the professor asked a question and then you could see his eyes gravitate toward the back of the room where David sits. He then painstakingly looked around the room only to find that no one else was raising a hand and so he looked back at David and said, "You've already talked a lot today, let's give someone else a chance." Then a minute later he looked over after another question to see Bob giving his typical "come take my order" hand raise and called him on by saying, "you look like you're trying to order a cup of coffee." Bob then went on one of his rants about how "things were" and when he paused you could see the professor had kind of zoned out and then he came back to reality and said, "and so what was your point?" 

Oh man, it was probably the fact that it was just a long running joke, but we were all busting up laughing. 

After class, we had a 2 hour break until the CEO speaker night so I went back to the market to try and get some stuff. Apparently the cops had been through that day so all the good stuff was in hiding and they weren't going to pull it out. So we wandered around for a couple of hours and I ended up not buying ANYTHING! Tomorrow I will have another opportunity and then one on Saturday. 

Tonight was the reception/CEO night that is like the nice dinner evening. It actually turned out to be a disappointment. The CEO speaker was from American Standard and he did a great job, but the dinner was so so and there wasn't the nice setup like they've had at other residencies.

Well tomorrow is another full day of classes and then hopefully some time visiting the markets again.

Love ya,

Brock

Shanghai-Day 3

Julie,

Well today was a boring day by way of reporting. We spent all day in the hotel so I don't have any cool pictures to show you. I do want to take a picture of the awesome balcony and view we have from our classroom area, but today was overcast and rainy so I am going to wait till it clears up to take that picture.

Today our schedule was class in the morning, then a speaker, lunch, another class, break, Career Alumni panel, Dinner, and homework. 

One change up that I started today was I tried to emulate my normal schedule at home, so rather than getting up later, I got up at 5:45am and went to the gym. I tried to craft my own crossfit workout and it definitely wasn't as intense as crossfit, but it is difficult to set something up when you have to transition between weights or machines because there were a TON of people in there so anytime I would leave a weight someone would take it. It is actually a fairly nice gym and it sure made the day go a lot better having gone to the gym in the morning-- I was much more alert. It also helped me regulate my eating better. I still ate some of the goodies they put out for us, but I moderated myself better than I had the day before when I didn't work out. 

Classes felt REALLY long today. Most of the time I found myself zoning out and it just felt like the clock would crawl by. I started trying to figure out ways to be productive and during the speaker I ended up reading my case study for strategy just to keep myself engaged. I think I already said this in another letter, but I am really excited for this strategy class. I am hoping to be able to apply the principles from that class right away because I feel like they are going to be very pertinent to what we are doing with medical practice administration.

Another thing I thought was useful today was a comment made by one of the alumni at the alumni career panel. He was talking about how to use your MBA after you graduate and how you should really take to heart that the paper part of the degree does you no good, but that you really need to focus on actually USING the skills you get from the degree. I guess that really just hit me because I don't feel like I did that very well coming out of undergrad. I feel like I have really strong skills that I could have been utilizing before that i haven't been like regression analysis and forecasting or these strategy skills I am gaining. I feel like a lot of the modeling stuff that I learn, it would be easy to just forget about and let fall by the wayside because the job i have doesn't utilize that type of thing right now, but his comment just made me realize that what I need to do is take those more difficult skills that take a lot of effort to retain and implement them in my current job (desired job) so that i bring a new dynamic to the position (and I retain those skills that make my MBA valuable).

All day I was debating with myself whether or not to go to the career panel thing. I had been to the one in London and it was NOT HELPFUL so I had planned never to attend another one. But I guess the Duke staff realized none of us wanted to go to it because they made it a requirement to go to this one if we wanted to be eligible to attend the job fair in September on Duke's campus. My debate all day was that I knew it wasn't going to be helpful and I hope that I don't have to worry about the job fair in September because I will already have a job by then, but then I would tell myself it I did want to go to the job fair I would regret not going tonight, so I finally signed up and went.  As I predicted WASTE OF TIME. I did like the line I mentioned above, but other than that it just wasn't helpful. They were suppose to have mock interviews with the alumni panel after the panel part but a bunch of the panel didn't show so there ended up being like 15 students to one panel person (when it was suppose to be 5). At that point, I figured I had paid my dues and I left. 

Tonight I have just had dinner and done some homework and then it is off to bed.

That's about it for today!

Love ya,

Brock

Shanghai- Day 2

Julie,

Ok so because I can’t post on the blog, I am going to try doing the letter in word to see if I can post the pictures throughout the letter like I would on the blog.

Today was a busy and crazy day and boy are my legs tired after how much walking we did.

The morning started out with our first day of classes of Strategy and Finance. Strategy seems like it is going to be a really good class. I hope I get out of it what I think I will because I think it can be very useful with everything we are doing in practice administration. Finance will be a good overview course, but I am afraid it is probably going to be a pretty dry class based on the first day.

After classes in the morning, we got out for lunch and the culture dash. Lunch was box lunches which are usually pretty sketching by way of what we actually end up getting. Today was no different and we got some weird sandwich and some fruit and a weird pastry or two. It all ended up tasting ok, but nothing great.

After I ate my lunch in my room and checked my email, we went to the bottom floor and met as a team at 1pm to head out on our culture dash. Since Kyle is from this area, we decided the best thing to do would be to follow him around to do our video and interviews. The main thing I wanted to get accomplished though was to find the knock off market.

We started out by heading to the Shanghai historical museum that told us all about what Shanghai was, is, and is planning to be.  It was cool to see and a great place to start. I definitely am not a museum person though. I like to see what they have, but I usually don’t spend more than 2 or 3 minutes in an area before I am ready to move on.

View of the entrance area of the Museum

After the museum, Kyle took us to what is known as the Bund. It is a street of 200 year old buildings where the financial district use to be. It was a cool site to see, but we sure did A LOT of walking to get there. From our hotel we took a walking street (shopping area). I could not believe how many people there were. It is crazy to think where on earth did all these people come from and where do they sleep at night. It was fun to walk through the streets of Shanghai and observe the people. I missed that because it wasn’t something we could really do in India. After all our touring and picture taking we got down to what we really wanted to do—go see all the knock off markets.

Me on the walking street in Shanghai

The Bund

This is a shot across the river to Pudong.

By this point I was already exhausted but I was excited to see what is available. After spending an hour there I figured out two things. 1. I wasn’t ready to buy anything because 2. They have EVERYTHING there.  As part of our culture dash we decided to interview one of the ladies who ran one of the shops. She spoke pretty good English and was fun to talk to. Even after filming our interview with her, the first thing she said when we were done is “are you going to buy a tie?” Because she was such a good sport in helping us film our interview I decided to buy a couple ties right there. As we were finishing up, I started asking her some questions and come to find out her name is Julie or the name she uses for her business with Americans and she has a little boy that will be 3 years old this summer? Funny huh? Well they had all sorts of things from clothes to shoes to bags to watches to DVDs to games to whatever else you can imagine. I figured I better come back to the hotel and figure out what I really wanted so I didn’t end up buying a bunch of stuff just because it was there and available.

Notice the Disney Cars cars and the Thomas the train series. The bag is one that my teammate James got for his wife that I guess was really close to the real one

She had sent him a picture of.

Well that was it for today. After all that walking I just came back to my room and relaxed and now it is 9pm and I am fighting to stay awake.

Looking back over this post, I thought it was going to be a lot more exciting that it is, sorry.

Hopefully tomorrow will have some more exciting things going on.

Love ya so much,

Brock

Shanghai- Day 1

Julie,


Ok so Lesson number 1 in Shanghai, they block A LOT of sites on the
internet! Facebook, all blogspot blogs, and many other normal everyday
sites aren't allowed by the Chinese government so that means I won't
be able to post my letter to the blog this time. Would you please
forward my emails on to my family and let them know why I won't be
posting on the blog. Hopefully I will then be able to go back and post
them based on the emails I create.

Today was quite an adventure and a good thing it was because I am SO
TIRED! Jet Lag is really kicking in and I am struggling to stay awake
to finish what I need to finish before my classes start tomorrow.
Hopefully one good night's rest will kick it and not make the next
couple of days so torturous. :)

To recap, the trip here went well. I flew to Seattle and then through
Tokyo and into Shanghai. Both layovers were fairly short and my seats
on all my flights were pretty good considering I was in coach (I was
reminded about how inferior coach is by those classmates that have
status with certain airlines and raved about how great first class).
When we arrived in Shanghai, I was amazed at the efficiency and
cleanliness of the airport. I got through customs really easily and at
baggage claim I got both my bags within 4 or 5 bags of one another.
This amazed me since I usually get my big black bag first and then I
have to wait what seems like years for my blue duffle bag to come
truckin around.

On our flight from Tokyo to Shanghai, there was a group of 7 of us
(Duke students) so we all caught cabs together to the hotel. It was
about an hour ride and so after we checked in and finally got to our
rooms it was past midnight. After talking to you on Skype, I unpacked
my bags and went straight to bed.

The best part was finding my "China Survival Kit" in my suitcase. You
are so amazing to go through all that trouble to do little things like
that for me and I LOVE IT every time. I especially loved the gum (I
was kicking myself for not bringing any) and the AWESOME family
picture of the three of you. I have it propped up on my desk so I can
look over at it whenever I want. I love you so much babe!

View 1 of my room

My bathroom

View 2 of my room

This morning my alarm went off at 7am and I got dressed and went to
breakfast and then headed to our first class. It was our CCL class
which is not an intense class and we didn't have to have any
preparation for. Also, because of the team activities we had in the
afternoon they told us to show up in our casual clothes which was
really nice not to have to iron my shirt this morning.

After CCL we organized into our new teams for "new team orientation."
We also sat with our old teams and reviewed what we did well and
didn't do well. I thought that discussion was very helpful and
insightful. For me particularly I found that I am even more of an
introvert than I knew and sometimes that comes across to my team as me
being disengaged or mad. So because I know that now, I just need to be
better at communicating that to people in my team so they realize it
is more because I am thinking and pondering.

I'm excited for my new team. I think we will have some kinks to work
through since by our personality tests that we did for Duke, none of
us are aggressive crack the whip type people. It will be interesting
to see how we develop as a team over the next week and then into our
distance period.

After lunch, we boarded buses to do our team building "cooking"
activity. Our job was first to go to the market and buy some of the
items we would need to cook. The market was really cool and in some
ways reminded me of shopping in the street markets on my mission. We
left all the buying to our Chinese teammate, Kyle, so all of this part
was fairly easy for us. Come to find out he bought the wrong type of
"spring onions" and the wrong cut of cantonese barbequed pork which is
just ironically funny since he lives here in Shanghai so we figured it
would be a piece of cake for him.

The vegetable market from the entrance

Kyle and the rest of the team bartering for vegetables.

This was really cool. Kyle explained to us that this was

a new business (a hair salon) that had just opened and all the flowers

were the owners friends wishing him luck with the new business. It

certainly is an eye catcher and I am sure it doesn't hurt in the

recruitment of new customers.

After shopping we got back on our bus and headed to the cooking
school. At the school, we first had a professional chef walk us
through how to make the dish we would be making and it was our job to
follow the instructions and the duplicate it and then he would judge
our dishes.

For the most part our team did pretty good. Again, no one really took
the lead aggressively so we ended up leading by committee which could
end up being a common theme for our team if we don't work on it. I was
in charge of frying the chicken (we made lemon chicken and fried rice)
and we did pretty well. Our critique said that our chicken was a
little overfried (too dark) which was true, but I blame it on not
being familiar with the stove as opposed to not knowing how to cook
it. :)

Check out our cool hats and aprons.

This is the master chef doing his demonstration.

More of the same.

Yasmin on my team cutting up the chicken while James

behind her works on the pork (for the friend rice).

In the middle of our assignment, I was in the middle of frying the
chicken with my team's help, when all the sudden there was a huge pop
and explosion behind us. I immediately felt burningin on the back of
my neck and arms. The team behind us had trapped some water below
their oil so when it heated up, it expanded and exploded the oil all
over us. So now I am down one shirt, but plus 1 on things I won't
forget from this trip. The very last picture shows what my shirt looks
like now.

After our little "distraction" we were able to put that all aside and
finish our dish. All in all I think it looked pretty good. We didn't
get the greatest rating from the Master Chef, but that's ok.

Our finished dishes

Me and my lemon chicken

When our cooking challenge ended, we came back to the hotel, had
dinner, had orientation, did a small team assignment for class
tomorrow and now here I am ready for bed.

Tomorrow should be another very interesting day as the morning is
slated for classes and then we have the culture dash in the afternoon.

It was great to talk to you today and I love you very much!

Love,

Brock

This shirt has seen it final day, it went out with a

bang! (Ha, I couldn't resist!)