St. Petersburg- Day 2

Julie,

Well sometimes it comes early and sometimes it comes late, but it ALWAYS COMES! That is the marathon day. I really hate days like today, but it sure got us back into the swing of things. Today we actually were given some "study time" in the morning so class didn't start until 11am and while most of my classmates used that time (and the first class) to sleep in after staying out all night, I was able to sleep in a little bit, workout, go to breakfast, and get some reading done for class.

The first class we had was GMI, which is the macro economics class we have been taking every term since we started. Thankfully this is the last term. We finished up talking about a few topics over 3 hours and now we never have GMI again. I am very grateful for that. That class was actually split in half with lunch right in the middle, so it was nice to get a little break half way through.

After lunch and the second half of GMI, we had our first class of managerial accounting. This is probably going to be one of the most useful classes I am taking, but 3:30pm to 6:30pm is a bad time. Right about the 4pm mark, I was fighting HARD to stay awake and I couldn't shake it until the half way mark at 5pm. Needless to say that was one of the longest hours of my life as I fought and fought to keep my eyes open. At 5pm he gave us a 15 minute break and that helped wake me up enough that I was ok the rest of the way. I'm looking forward to this class the rest of the way, but I hope I can gear myself up for it.

Oh here is a funny side note, so we have been having quite a few internet issues since we got here and the hotel staff couldn't figure out what was going on. Since we had arrived, we have crashed their server twice and they weren't sure why. Come to find out, even though they have 400 rooms and are a 5 star hotel, they only had 50 licenses for people to sign on to the server. When we arrived we typically have 118 people all trying to get on the server at the same time since we all get out of class the same time and have the same schedules. SO, supposedly tomorrow morning they will have the problem fixed. Let's hope...

Well after class was over they gave us 30 minutes to have dinner and then go to a career management class on interviewing. I ended up going to the main session at the first where we are given certain information on how to interview and then they decided to break out into smaller groups and practice. Based on how well that went in Shanghai (not well at all if you didn't guess), I decided my limited time was best used elsewhere so I left. Now it is 8pm so it will be nice to have a couple of hours to get some homework done and get to bed at a decent hour since we will be starting class early again tomorrow.

This residency has been very interesting, because I can tell I am pretty worn down at this point. I find myself being even more isolated. I still enjoy talking to my classmates and being apart of the group, but I don't mind splitting off from the group and getting things done on my schedule and timetable. I am very relieved that this will be the last international residency. I am not cut out for constant travel and although a lot of my classmates love it and travel 2 to 3 times this much for work, I could never do that. 5 international trips in 11 months has definitely worn me down. I feel like we have half way into this residency and then I look at the calendar and realize this is day 2.... wow!

Well sorry no pictures, but there wasn't much to show today. Tomorrow we will spend all day in the hotel as well so I will try to get you some pictures of the classroom and where we eat, etc.

Thanks for all your love and support.

Love,

Brock