The Name Game

I have many names Ade (family nickname), Adie (what my little sister and mom call me), Dre (what my friends call me) and of course just plain Adriane. Well this phenomenon has changed in Australia, for some reason Australians always call me Adri, I've never said I was called that or told anyone to call me that but I guess that's the shortening of my name here. Furthermore Adriane is only a man's name in Australia so people always take it upon themselves to call me Adriana, people at work, professors and so of course everyone in my courses call me Adriana..it's like my name's been offically changed..in Australia I'm someone else..this girl they call Adriana.

Koala!!

Here's me and a koala, took this picture forever ago but had to scan into the computer and just got around to it. See those claws..the koala was kneading his claws into my shoulder almost like rubbing it..freaked me out. Also they smell funny..probably from all that eucalyptus they eat..but they are cute as hell, especially the baby ones. They sleep like 18 hours a day, just curled up on tree branches..they yawn and stretch alot..ahh must be the life!

Group Thang

Here's the scenario, last Thursday in class we had to get into groups of 4 for a team negotiation. Then sometime during the week we were to meet with an opposing team to work out the contract for the merger of a hotel chain. Initially when our team met we though the contract points would be relatively easy ones to negotiate and this shouldn't be too hard. WRONG, last night we negotiated for over 2 hours with the other team not only was agreeing to every single point a long, drawn out process but everyone got mad and I mean mad as in not going to do this anymore mad..I never thought it would happen but yep, we couldn't stand the other team and their tactics and their lack of answers and they couldn't stand us..there was shouting..yep shouting over a school project..the prof told us during this unit we'd want to fight someone and I didn't believe her but yep now I do. We had to take time outs from the negotiation so people could calm down and I thought my fav Russian friend who was on the other team was going to kill someone..she yelled at us, gave us a lecture, said we'd ruined the long term relationship with her company..but that's to be expected Russian tempers and all..but what wasn't expected is this the norwegians got mad, our team captain was bright red the whole time and the norwegian on the other team everytime someone talked kept saying I don't want your pie in the sky come back to earth. But guess who got maddest? The Thais there was a Thai guy on our team Palm, we had to stop him from talking several times, was always on the edge of his seat, his vote was to tell the other team to just f--k off, the team leader of the other team was Thai and she was super mad..at one point she wouldn't even talk and refused to agree to anything. Everyone left mad and drained..should be fun on class Thurs, when we have to debrief the negotiation.

Side Note: At my new job my boss had to set me up with a logon for their company intranet, got here this am and there was a message, username yankee password doodle, made me laugh

Soot face

So in an earlier blog, the one about the Chippy I think I mentioned my dutch group member who suggested that we pretend the company we were profiling burned down and we had to re-create their strategy or something, anyways involved in this plan was that we wear black make-up on our faces (fake soot) whilst doing the presentation. So I've taken to calling her soot face. Soot face is an endless source of fascination, she's always asking the most ridiculous questions in class and is always late for everything including as it turns out our presentation for today. The whole thing was pretty much a disaster a 90 minute excruciating disaster I might add. Not only did we have to do the presentation but had to lead group discussion/activity it was physically painful because soot face was leading the group portion and instead of defending our recommendations she was agreeing with people that they were flawed. This is the best soot face story and I'd forgotten it (mostly b/c I didn't know who she was then) until she mentioned it today. Last semester in logistics she was in another group (thank god) and when they did their presentation she forgot to bring the slides..yep no slides and not only that no dry erase marker to write anything on the board..you could tell her group members wanted to kill her and today she laughs and was like everyone was so mad...yep soot face..everyone is always so mad!

People are crazy

Alright so I know I'm in business school and that means that people are gonna be all into school and studying really hard or whatever, but some people are just ridiculous. I've got a 1000-1500 word paper due on Friday in my negotiations class, naturally I haven't really started because a) I'm a procrastinator and b) I have another paper and presentation due on Thurs. so I've had to prioritize. Anyways just now I was in the Masters Lab, which is where all us masters students can hang out and use nice computers in our very own little cubes, nice idea but really when you go up there no one is getting any work done just trading masters gossip and really who'd have thought but there is lots of masters gossip..it's neverending...oh the revelations..I should start posting some gossip on here it's a mini soap opera. So the big gossip up there just now was this Indonesian girl who's forever trying to prove she's smart in negotiation has finished her paper and apparently has 35 references..so the masters lab has been buzzing with the revelation..stupid I know but honestly..how can she fit 35 references into a 1000 word paper?? I'll probably be lucky if I have 5, I'm already feeling inadequate and I haven't yet begun to write the damn thing.

Inappropriate Germans!

My ex-roommate Sebastian (pictured above taking a big whiff of some vodka) has just had his girlfriend come and visit him from Germany. Since we've all been hearing about her for the last few months naturally we were all dying to meet her. So on Sunday night a few of us went to a bar to meet up with them whereupon Sebastian introduced all of us to Natalie, "This is Warrick the officer", he said about Warrick who's a security guard, "this is Adriane the great" he said about yours truly--not sure what I did to deserve that title but I'll take it, and "this is Jann the womaniser" he said about Jann who really is quite the ladies man, but honestly no need to introduce him as such..it was awkward/very funny.

Good Stuff

I just heard the funniest aussie saying..to describe someone with freckles you say.. they look like they've been throwing pebbles down the dunny.

The dunny is the toilet.

Chippy

Carpenters here are called Chippys..odd name I know and I have no idea where it came from but it's not uncommon to ask someone what they do and for them to tell you they're a chippy. Anyways last night I met a Chippy named Simon at this bar that used to be a church called The Rev. On Sundays at the Rev they have a free barbie and cheap beer so it's a great place to spend a couple of hours. So Chippy Simon after introducing himself asked me how old I was, then if I was engaged or married and then when I said no he asked for my number, very to the point this Chippy was, it cracked me up.

Random Bits:
I'm moving on Tuesday! I found a new place not too far from where I live now, got a bigger room and a queen-sized bed so I'm happy about that. My "landlord" is a twentysomething aussie surfer dude who lives in the house and rents out the other rooms for money. Apparently he has no job and just makes home brew beer and surfs, should be interesting. The other roommates are a swedish guy here doing an internship, a brazilian taking english classes and a scotsman who's apparently never home.

New Semester, new wacky group members! In my strategy class I've got this Dutch girl in my group who suggested that we put black makeup on our faces and come into the class on presentation day acting as if the company we are profiling burned down and all information destroyed so then the presentation can re-create their company strategy..honestly I'm NOT going to my strategy class with fake soot on my face!!

The Ekka

It's almost time for the Ekka here which is aussie terms is short for Exhibition, the official name of the event is The Royal Queensland Show, something like the state fair. I remember when we used to go to the fair I used to love to go into all the exhibition halls where they were selling crap and pick up all the free magnets and pens, etc. Here they have something called showbags and apparently there are halls and halls of booths that sell showbags from different places which have goodies inside, for example there's a Britney Spears showbag, containing a wallet, pen, hair scrunchie, etc. for like $10..there are hundreds of showbags available and just so you can make most efficient use of your showbag shopping time they've got them all listed online so you can check out the contents before hand..here's the link..have a look some pretty interesting bags they have available.
http://www.ekka.com.au/(uscgliiysqisupuh05raip55)/pagelink/Default.aspx?pageid=100848

Grades and Such

A few weeks ago I got my grades back for my classes and while I was aware that I did well as in not getting the lowest grade for anything still my GPA meant nothing to me b/c they use a different grading scale here. The highest you can get is a 7.0 and I got a 5.25, so confused I was about the whole thing, anyways today I came across a convertor to the American System and lo and behold my GPA is 3.0, pretty darn good I think, better than I did in undergrad that's for sure.

Also on another note, I noticed today in my negotiations class that people from other countries answer roll call differently..minor difference I know but just something I noticed when I was zoned out and staring into space. When my name's called I always say, "Here", whereas the Europeans always say, "Yes" and most of the asians say, "Present"--I'm guessing the whole present is a result of them being taught formal english or something. So that' s my observation for the day.

HAGgling

I don't like to haggle, it's a hassle and most of the time not worth it..anyhow that's all we do in my negotiations class is haggle about stuff, last week it was the purchase of 3000 oranges and this week we have an hour to negotiate the terms of a book contract with 8 different points..it's gonna be an ordeal...but I"m sure I"ll learn something..isn't that always the way.