First Day of Classees

I've been walking so much! I walked to the gym early this morning and it was already packed at 7:30am... got chased off the threadmill after 30 minutes. Walked back, missed the shuttle bus... so I decided to walk all the way to school... from 26th Street all the way to 4th Street, another 30 minutes. I think I'm getting used to the weather though. I'm still cold, but I can actually bear the wind blowing against my face even without something to cover my head.

Well, I can't say I had a great start to school. I forgot it was a Tuesday, so I walked into the classroom for my Monday class... only discovered I was at the wrong place 15 minutes later, quickly excused myself and dashed up to find the right class. I was late, so I was pretty lost without any notes.

Anyway, I just finished my New Product Development Class. The professor is from Singapore, what a coincidencce. He asked us to guess where his accent was from and well, it was clearly Singaporean. Classes here are really so different... in fact, it felt pretty intimidating. We had to do 15 minute introductions... and every single person seem to either own a company, have a new product, be doing an intership, working at some company... and I mean, everyone. I think having jobs and attachments are probably the normal thing over here. This girl was saying she was a model, and has worked with Vogue and all the other fashion magazines... the prof asked her how many times she watched The Devil Wears Prada and her reply was, 'twice. And that's basically my job...it sux.' Wow. Most people are taking the class because they have their own companies, have new product ideas, already have products etcetcetc. Scary.

It never occurred to me that studying here could be that different. It's not just about understanding... but all the examples given in class are American ones, so the prof was mentioning all kinds of brands I've never heard off or know very little about. Or, he'll mention products that are going out here, which are still rather in back home, and vice versa. So I'm like... lost, nothing to say. I think I'll get used to it though. The class looks rather interesting.

I'm actually in the computer lab now... came here to print my notes for free. It's amazing, everyone at Stern can print their notes for free!

And I've got to run off now to call Estelle (no reception here) so that we can meet for dinner! More about classes soon.