QBR results online

Today I saw that the results of QBR (Qualitative methods of business research) are already online! That was quick from the teacher. To my surprise, I got a good grade on the exam and was ranked among the top of the class. For whatever reason, I did not get an A from the exam, even though my rank should justify it. Oh well. I am already happy with the grade so no need to start a war. Especially since there seems to be something a bit off with some of my friends marks compared to their rankings. Let's see whether or not something happens with that.

The funny thing is that when I handed in my paper I thought I did quite a crappy job and just wanted to get it out of my way. Well, no complaints :)

QBR done. Now winter holidays \o/

...it took like few hours to write that shit. Hopefully it is okay.

The last exam of the GSOM semester

I am currently "doing" the last exam of this semester. The topic is Qualitative methods of business research. I must say, that I could not care less about this topic even if I tried. We got an assignment online that we must analyze before handing it in before noon tomorrow. For me, the case is to analyze the approach on how to re-brand tea. An approach is presented in the assignment and I should say whether or not it is a good one or not and why so. Based on literature of course.

Please, kill me now.

The wrestler was a great movie. Check it out!

Grading in GSOM

I got the grade for MIC yesterday. I got 93/100.... and it resulted in to B. A classmate of mine got 98 and still got only a B!

Hahahah, the grading system in GSOM is totally fucked up. I am happy to get rid of it.

I also got the instructions how to make our last exam, Qualitative methods of business research. It is an online exam and the deadline for it is 28th of Dec at noon Russian time. Not that easy peasy it seems, since in the instructions it says that it takes about 4 hours to complete it... And of course they do not support Mac, so I have to find another computer to work that shit on. Luckily, that should not be a problem here at home.

I am so happy to get rid of all this bullshit in few days....

In Finland after EPIC FAIL

I have been in Finland now for a bit more than one day. I arrived to my home town late on the 23rd or early in the 24th, depends how you look at the situation (it was about 1 a.m. on 24th). The trip from Piter was quite interesting one. First we took a gypsy taxi from the dorm to Finnlandskiy vokzal because we had quite a lot of bags with us. The ride was okay, even though it took a bit more than one hour because of the traffic. But no problems on getting in to the train in time.

In the train we had a bit of a MITIM meeting in the restaurant car. There was 8 of us from LUT side of MITIM program. Very cool way to spend the beginning of the trip :)

What was not cool about the ride was that after we left Viborg the trains exhaust fumes got somehow sucked in to the cars for a while... Breathing diesel is not that funny it seems :D

In Vainikkala everything was okay, just a brief passport control and that's it. From there I got a car ride to Lappeenranta where I was supposed to jump in to a train to my home town. Supposed to. Here comes the epic fail part of this story. So I was there sitting in the railway station for like 45 minutes before the train was supposed to leave. It being VR, it got delayed for 15 minutes. When the train arrived to the station I took my bags and walked on the platform for like a bit more than one minute before getting in.

But I didn't get in! Just few seconds before I tried to get to the train the conductor locked the doors.... I guess he/she did not see that I was still on the platform walking. So the train left just in front of my eyes. I was left standing there with 30-40 kilos of baggage's and no way to reach my home during that day by public transport.

Luckily there is family and my cousin who lives in Lappeenranta was nice enough to pick me up and start driving towards my hometown. At the same time my brother and dad came from other direction to meet us halfway. So after some hours in car I reached home. Family really is the best :)

GSOM is "the best business school in Russia"

Yeah, right. Then the level is not that great.... Here is the link to the news.

Leaving St.Pete behind soon

Traditionally, when a time period is coming to an end people tend to reflect what did they learn and experience during that time. That is what I am going to do also during this week regarding my semester here in St.Petersburg.

I will start with the things that I will definitely remember from this semester

• The people. Z, my flatmates, some exchange students as well as Russian students and of course the giggling girls.
• Dormitory, both in good and bad. Hate the kitchen, hate the room, the bed, the Internet, the crappy (and smelly) water coming from pipes. Like the fact that you never know what is going to happen each day.
• Beautiful St.Pete. This truly is a magnificently beautiful city and there is so much to see in here.
• Marshrutkas. The minibuses whose drivers tend to be crazy.
• GSOM. All the open book exams, the crappy administration etc.
• Cheap food and beverages. For a Finn, this really is cheaper place to live in. On top of my head, I'd say that food and drinks in the stores are about 30-40% cheaper than in Finland. Then again, I can't say that much about the quality of those ingredients...
• Baltika 7.
• Moustaches on babushkas.
• My birthday party. The unforgettable presents (26 cans of beer... classy :D) and the overall feeling.
• Limo-ride with MITIM-people on E's birthday.
• Snowball fight and the snow in my pants :D
• The lamp.
• La president hanging out of our window
• Estonian L drinking Pepsi on Coca-Cola factory
• что это? Кто он? Меня зобут Йоона. Как тебя зовут? Пиво.
• My roommate L. Legendary dude.
• P's 5 kilos of pasta.
• Second floor lobby...
• TM presentation by our group.
• Trips to Helsinki and Viborg
• Achtung baby as well as Dumskaya ulitsa
• Shawermas
• The collection of fridge magnets
• Oktober-fest party with T
• Arnold imitations
• That's what she said -jokes

Actually, that list is just a short proportion of memories. It has truly been a cool and memorable experience. Highly recommended!

MIC exam done. Not perfectly happy with my answers, but I guess it should be okay.

Done with Russian studies in Piter

At 12 o'clock today, after coming from the shower I saw an interesting message on my laptop. Shot had written that the exam starts at 12, not at 1 like we assumed. So, I knew that I will be late at least 35-40 minutes which was the case.

Luckily, the teacher is a friendly one and let me in the class so late. I wasn't the only one late, I think 4 out of 6 were not there on time. Again one of the situations where information did not flow freely to all relevant parties at GSOM...

The test itself was multiple choice (phew!), with 40 questions I think. Then there was 4 sentenced that needed to be translated from English to Russian. On top of that an oral exam! I got a bit lucky with the subject, which was food :) "Eta kapusta, pomidoor, luk..." The multiple choice wasn't that big of a success - I think I had something like 10 wrong (I saw my graded paper, the teacher was very quick with them). From the oral part I got 5- and from translation 4+. Overall not that bad I think.

Giggling girls

Okay, this post has been long overdue. Since the beginning of our life here at Karabli we have had the joy of having 5 17-year old Russian girls living across the hall. When we open our door, their door is the first thing we see.

As many teenagers, especially girls, they tend to be giggly. Hence the name giggling girls. Actually I don't know how to describe them, but I'll try. Loud - yes. Giggly - yes. Friendly - yes. Young - yes.

Their speciality has been making blinis that they offer to us also. The coolest thing is that they do blinis shape the first letter of our names - it has not been only once when we have gotten blinis shape like P, P, S, L and J :) Those have been lifesavers sometime in the morning hours when crawling back to the dorm...

Giggling girls - thanks for everything. I can't say I miss you, but I'll definitely remember you :)

Russian test in about 2 hours. Can be interesting with this preparation...

Finnish food

Today while shopping for groceries I got an interesting proposal by phone. Mika called and asked if I want to eat some peasoup and eat some pancakes. So, off I went to enjoy a little bit of Finland in the Russian winter. He also had näkkileipä and hapankorppu (sorry, its quite hard to translate these) and of course Finnish mustard.

Made me remember that we also have some cool food in Finland :)

Booking master

I booked some tickets yesterday for the next couple of weeks. First off, I am going to Finland for Christmas which is not that surprising but definitely a good thing. Somehow a Christmas here at the dormitory would have been quite depressing I think. So yeah, my train leaves on 23rd in the afternoon after my final exam here at GSOM. There is a lot of other MITIM-students in the same train, which is nice.

The other trip that I booked is to Budapest, Hungary! :) I'm going there on 3rd of January and will stay for one week. I am really looking forward to this trip, since I've heard only good things about Budapest and their fooooooooooooooood :) The food is awesome, at least based on the stuff that has been prepared by the Hungarians. And also, it is really fun to have the chance to spend some time with a lovely resident idiot in non-dormitory environment :D

The funny thing is that it took longer to book the traintickets than the airline tickets to Hungary. In the trainticket office, it took something like 10 or 15 minutes from the lady to make the tickets to me and Lauri. She asked do we want to take the morning or evening train, and of course gave us the tickets to wrong one... So we had to ask her to correct those, which took another 10-15 minutes. Also, it is a bit.. ummm.. Russian that in the international ticket office (where they sell tickets to go abroad) the ladies do not speak English or any other foreign language. How on earth can a tourist leave this country if he/she is not able to speak Russian? :D

Camera

My camera was broken some time ago due to accident, hence the lack of too many new pictures. Okay, in any case there is not that many pictures in this blog :D

I finally managed to contact my insurance company about the camera. It took some time to get the estimation of fixing costs, since I am not in Finland myself while the camera is. I gave it to my parents to take it with them when they left St.Petersburg.

Let's see whether or not I will get some remuneration. And when will it happen. Having a camera is quite cool when abroad :)

Exam over, so is the QBR stuff

The Managerial economics exam wasn't as bad as I thought. Actually, it seemed surprisingly easy for me. Other also commented that it wasn't as hard as they had imagined. Well, lets wait for the results to see how I did. At the moment I feel pretty confident I did okay.

Funny situation came few minutes before the time was almost up. One student took her cellphone out of her pocket and started typing something. At first I thought she was using it as a calculator for some simple maths that we had to do (like 5,03 x 3) but apparently it was not the case. She was using it as a dictionary.... To find out what "assemble" means.

Surprising.

Apparently other Russian students also had problems with that word and they did not know what it means. How is this even possible considering that the average Toefl-score for MITIM-students is quite high (something around 100 out of 120 or so).

I bet some of the Russian students will have some problems when we go to LUT, since you are not allowed to even take cellphones to exams and getting caught on cheating is heavily punished. After all, the cultural perceptions are a bit different when it comes to cheating in exams...

After the exam I started working on the individual project of Qualitative methods of business research. Shitty project, but now it is also done. From the moment of having no idea what to write about to the moment when 5 pages (3 was minimum) was written it took about 3 hours. I am a bit surprised I managed to deal with that crap so quickly. After all, I had no motivation at all to write anything....

The next exam is on Friday, it is the final from Russian. I guess I will start preparing for it tomorrow. Today is just for relaxing :)

Preparation for Managerial economics

Tomorrow.. umm, today.. in the morning we have the final exam for Managerial economics. I am so happy to get rid of this course after that exam. Hopefully..

I've been reading the course book today for like 5 or 6 hours, read all the slides one time and also checked some example exercises. I guess I am as ready as I can be.

So far I have 26/40 points (course maximum is 100) which is average number withing the classmates. It seems that the most likely grade will be C in case if I dont over- or underperform drastically (10% get and A, next 25% gets and B etc).

Let's see how it all turns up.

Oh, there is something that Lauri can not do!!

And that is playing the guitar.

Pre-christmas party aka pikkujoulut

Yesterday we had a pre-christmas party here at the dormitory. There were about 30 people partying, which was a good number considering the easiness of preparations, the facilities and so on. Because the party was arranged as potluck, no one had to work their ass off for the party.

Of course Santa, actually two Santas, joined the party with full sacks and left with empty ones. Unfortunately I didn't get the pony I had sooooo hoped for. But still, I am very pleased with the hairyballs throwing game that I got.

Fun night overall :)

Knowledge management exam

We had an exam on knowledge management on today. Well, yesterday... I spent almost the whole Monday on reading the stuff for that - 5 or 6 articles, 8 slide sets etc. Luckily I had read most of the course articles (10 out of 15) during the course so the challenge wasn't too overwhelming.

The exam was pretty much the kind that I expected - few mini-cases and then 10 smaller questions. We had 2,5 hours to write the exam which was quite generous, especially compared to Technology management... Once again it was open book exam.

Which I can not understand.

These open book exams are in GSOM are totally useless for most part, because a lot of the questions are directly from the slides. So when a question is asked, you just check from the right slide set and write down what you can see. Basically, with good index and all the course material you can cope with all these things without that much preparation.

And because of these stupid questions almost everyone will get exactly the same points from these questions. Which is ridiculous and just leads to situation where most of the people has something like 90 points from 100 and missing two points can mean two grades. Not nice at all.

Well, lets see how are the results. We should get them during next week. Lets hope for good grade.

Visit to Viborg

I went for a brief visit to Viborg on Saturday. Kind of a shocking place to visit actually, especially being a Finn. It was my first time in there so I didn't know that well what to expect - I guess I didn't expect anything. But still, it was a bit of a shock.

The thing that was shocking is how beautiful the city could easily be if just some effort would be used. But no. It has been let to rot and crumble which is a shame because it really would have a lot of potential to be awesome city.

But I guess I had to see that. Now I've seen St.Petersburg, Moscow and also Russia - the way those not so glamorous cities are...

Happy independence day Finland! It has been deserved.

Language studies... очен плоха

I attended my first Russian class in more than one month, I believe it has been something like 5 weeks since the last time. Why has it been that long?

Well, there is an interesting answer. The way GSOM has organized the language studies is not optimal at all. We have 4 classes of language per week, 45 minutes each. For almost every group those are during the same day. This means that if you miss the class for whatever reason, it immediately results in quite a long break from your studies. And with this kind of rhythm you are doing your homework only once a week. So one class + one day of homework means you study the language twice a week. Which is way too little in my opinion.

It would be so much better to split the 4 lessons in 2 pieces, one class on Tuesday for example and another on Thursday. With this split, you would have to do homework also twice a week. Which equals to 4 times a week which is so much better than only twice.

Grade from KM report

Today we received the grade for our knowledge management report. 100%! :) Our team rocked. Once again thanks to my lovely teammates :)

Next Tuesday we have the final exam and then this course is done.

Knowledge management presentations

Today we had the knowledge management presentations at the school. Those were the biggest presentations of this semester, so our group was preparing thoroughly. And apparently it worked - we were given the students award of best presentation. Now we have an certificate of that :D Hah. Funny shit. The good thing is that we got extra 10% to our grade because of this award.

Our presentation was about knowledge management processes and challenges of Sberbank, the biggest bank in Russia. Others had somewhat similar topics but their approach was different and of course the target companies were not the same.

I am glad that this course is now almost over, only final exam is left.

The lowest point of the day was the presentation of our honored guests from Ernst & Young. It was by far the most boring presentation of the day, didn't offer that much insights and was overall irrelevant. And also about 25 minutes overtime..... I don't understand why companies send these kind of people doing these kind of presentations to universities - did not improve my image of E&Y as an employer a bit. Seriously. If you don't have suitable persons to send then do not send anyone. Perioid.

Technology management exam

....Was one of the most stressful exams I've ever been in to. Seriously. 60 minutes and 20 questions, many of which required drawing. Mind map, functional process map, process flow, modeling MITIM studies based on queuing theory, Pareto principle illustration... Also I had to calculate for ABC analysis and queuing theory. On top of these there were open numerous open questions, some of which were quite easy and short, some required more effort to answer properly.

Of course, when there is on average only 3 minutes for questions you can not expect too in depth answers. I think I did pretty decent job in the exam and hopefully will get a good mark. At least I managed to answer all the questions (with few minutes to spare) which wasn't the case for all others.

Well, we'll see tomorrow because the teacher promised to send the results around noon.

Preparation for technology management exam

We have an exam on technology management tomorrow morning. So today, I have been mainly focusing on preparing for that. I've read all the slides and made mind maps, also done the practice exercises to the exam with friends and learned the answers.

Since it is an open book exam (you can bring books and laptop with you to the exam) I have been making sure that I know where to quickly find the relevant information during the exam. Since time might be an issue - we have 60 minutes and the exam has 20 exercises! And those are not such small ones either, quite often during the in-class assignments we had to draw mind maps, flowcharts, GANTT charts etc. Those kind of exercises are awaited also in tomorrow exam.

So far I have 37/40 points, maximum number of the course is 100. Not a bad place to go to exam.

Brief visit to Finland

I was in Finland from Friday evening till this morning. We arrived back to St.Pete just after 6 o'clock by bus. The reason for the visit was quite amazing, but on the other hand not that surprising at all - Russian bureaucracy. I didn't have any problems with that (this time), I just decided to help someone who had and went there for the company.

Helsinki was.... Well, boring. I lived there for two years, but now going back there in after just few months absence I could see that it's not a city for me. I was really amazed how dead the city actually was on Saturday night! I mean. There was basically no-one on the move after 7 o'clock. The weather wasn't that bad neither it was that cold.

Yeah, moving abroad after graduation is more and more likely option for me...

But of course there are good things about Finland and Helsinki too. Small, but cool things. Like the amount parks and the ability to drink water straight from the tap :D And almost everything works there without too much problems. Unlike in Russia..

Back at the uni

Today we resumed back to university, which is nice. The day just started with a in-class test of managerial economics, which went okay for me considering the fact that I started preparing for it about 00:30 A.M yesterday :D

At the moment, we don't have any clue when we will have the classes that were cancelled earier this week.

Later on today we will rock da house in TM class when every group is going to present the Innov8 game results. Yeah, game.... Which didn't make that much sense. Another thing that does not make sense is the fact that everyone will have to make presentation including pretty much the same things. So, we are going to put emphasis on the way how to present. I bet most of the people will be surprised :D Hahahahah.

Quarantine continues

Just got an email from GSOM persons saying that our quarantine continues until Wednesday. They are hopeful that it is the last day when we have to stay away from the school. I don't actually know who is the party that dictates that we are not allowed to go to university. Something way beyond GSOM.

This whole situation has 2 faces, as usually is the case. On the one hand this rocks, because now we have enough time to finish our projects and prepare for some exams that are upcoming. On the other hand... This has totally destroyed the groove that many of us had. There is no sense of urgency anymore in our studies and that just makes it possible to slack a bit. Or more than just a bit. One bad thing is that, because of these cancellations, we will have the classes later on. Which just means that the tough times are moved somewhere in the future. Not cool. Especially when we will have tests quite soon. And also, some of my friends are coming to visit St.Pete in few weeks, so it sucks if I have to be at university studying my ass off instead of spending time with my friends.

Now I am in quarantine

Okay, so there has been one outbreak of swine flu on our MITIM '11 group. The person has been sick for more than a week and has been in hospital/home quarantine for one week now. Today, the report from doctor indicating that the person is sick was sent to GSOM. As a result, according to Russian legislation, our classes has been officially cancelled for this Saturday and Monday. On Monday, GSOM will see if there is a need to extend the quarantine. According to the ruling, there should be minimum 7 days since of quarantine since the outbreak has been confirmed.

So it could well mean that we will miss all week of school because of that.

It's a bit funny, because we should now also be in quarantine for the weekend here at the dormitory. We should stay in and not go anywhere. But of course, that is not going to happen because it is insane. I mean. The person who has the swine flu has already been in hospital and in quarantine at home for week. So how on earth could we have gotten the decease from that person?

But well, legislation is legislation and I guess we will just have to adapt to the situation. Lets just hope that we can go back to school on Tuesday, because there is not that much left of this semester and any delays in the classes now will just result to more insane end of the semester. As if the current one is not tough enough.

Other MITIM-blogs

Just added links to some other MITIM-blogs that I am aware of. You can find them on the right hand side of the blog. For more rants, I suggest you to read Shots blog. She is the endless fountain of those :D

For Finnish blogs, turn to Pasis and Elisas blogs. Elisa also writes in English.

And I did not miss SZ either...

Mmmkay, this is going to be ugly

Disclaimer: this is going to be a rant. If you are not interested in reading negative post, then don't read it.

Then to the issue itself. I am now sitting in a research seminar. The idea of this would be to think about our thesis's or dissertations. Which are due in about 1.5 years and should be started maybe one year after today. One year. And still we are here in the classroom listening to these presentations about whatever. Okay, that's not that bad. But the thing that this guy is expecting us to write some kind of research proposals soon for our dissertations....

WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT ARE OUR TOPICS YET!

...and its very nearly impossible to know them at this point. So what is the point of doing some research proposals when you know they don't have any value for anyone? I have no idea.

But that's not all. The teacher is expecting us to write a blog about our thesis's, start using Google calendar with all the milestones and as a cherry on the top of all this make a 5 minute YouTube video about our thesis proposal! Hahaha.

Video. About thesis proposal.

How is that going to help me with my thesis? How is that going to make me write or finish the work with better results? How will all that bring extra value for my research?

The thing is: it doesn't. All it does is to help me waste my time doing some stuff that does not make any sense, does not help in any way and does not bring any value to anyone.

I mean. I have already written one master's thesis and I know what the process is like. I know what are the parties that are interested in the research (yourself, university, company), what helps in the process and what does not. And frankly, none of this bs what we are doing now does not matter at all.

Tiredness

You can quite easily see, that this month is not easy for us students of MITIM-programme. Most of us has been quite busy lately which has lead to a situation where good night sleep has been the suffering party. For example yesterday at 1:15 a.m. there was still 7 of my classmates (whos contact information i have) in Skype. I don't even want to estimate the total amount of us who were still awake.

And today, the classes started at 9 (as usual) which basically means waking up after 7 o'clock. Not that much sleep per person...

Tiredness could be easily seen today in the classroom. I was sitting for a while in the first row (yeah, imagine that) next to the wall where I could easily see other peoples faces. Most of them were tired or at least looked tired. Some were almost sleeping, or slept for a while :D

Now I really need to take a nap.

Monday evening activity

After finding that we don't have anything to prepare for tomorrow, I used this opportunity to study some Russian. There was again something like 1.5 week break in language studies for me because of seminars and other obligatory stuff that needed to be done. Of course, we have been really busy otherwise also with the studies....

Also went to the gym, which was good. It always has a positive effect on my mood and energy levels, but since there is so much other things to do, sports have gotten lower priority too often. Trying to pick that up again. (Last time in the gym was on last Thursday, so not bad)

6-1 for the new guy

This morning we had a "guest lecture" in Technology management class. "Guest" because the visiting professor is from LUT, not from GSOM. He is teaching about open innovation, and today he started by going through very well the history of technology management while giving good examples. Few new terms and concepts were also introduced. The cool thing about that guy is that on top of the fact that he seems to really know what he is talking about, he really has EXPERIENCE about those issues. Unlike SZ....

I mean really. That guy was so much more interesting and in so many ways better than the other teacher from this class. The only good thing that is going for SZ is that in her classes it is impossible to sleep. Because you are constantly amazed about what bs she is teaching and what is the word that she has now been looking for 15 minutes. Of course, I didn't have any problems staying awake on today's classes either despite the fact that I slept 5 hours last night... IF the professor is good, you will learn, stay interested and awake.

Next week in numbers

Wow, this has been quite intense day overall. But really happy that I/we were able to finish 2 projects today and made some good progress on the third. But.... Here comes some numbers about next week:

6 - the amount of days when we have classes (Mon-Sat)

7 - amount of hours I will spend at school every day in the classes (overall 42 hours)

2 - the number of classes that I know will be total waste of time before hand (Methods of business research & Research seminar)

5 - the average amount of sleep in hours I will get per night

1 - presentation

2 (okay, for the second time) - already agreed group meetings during next week

0 - relaxed days

This is how we roll now. Quite busy days, especially considering that we also need to work on at least 2 different projects and also very probably prepare for some classes by reading cases and articles beforehand.

Makes it even more stupid that we didn't study that much during September. Nice planning A....

Group work, group work, group work

Woke up at 9 0'clock today, started working on Technology management group work 15 minutes later. Finished around noon, ate something little, started working on Corporate social responsibility presentation. Finished around 4 o'clock, took a little break (prepared for meeting..), had a Skype session with few group members related to Knowledge management project. Really pleased with the progress we made on that. Finalized the model we created, prepared document, sent to all group members. It was already more than 7 pm.

Like WTF?

Took a girly 15 min shower. Realized that I haven't eaten anything proper whole day, made a quick dinnerish kind of food. Ate.

Really braindead.

Actually totally braindead.

Went out to walk in the foggy weather with a good friend. Came back after 2.5 hours. Now feeling good.

Being busy or something

It's been many days since the last update. Ooops. Well, a lot of stuff has happened and somehow updating the blog hasn't been on top of the list of priorities. Quick recap of the past days:

- Lots of classes and tests. Classes on management of intellectual capital (MIC) and managerial economics (ME). In-class tests for the both subjects. For MIC the test was actually(!) mid-term and its weight on the overall grade is 30%. Not a small test then. I think it went pretty well for me, somehow it just felt too easy. In ME we had second quiz in the class, not a great success for me. I think I scored only 2/5. :/

- Group work project work for almost class that we have.

- Birthday party on Thursday. One of the most memorable bday parties I've ever had! I share the bday with a fellow student, Hungarian David, so we had a combined party arranged by the Hungarian posse. Lots of cool people, lots of beer (Thanks guys for the present: 26 cans of beer! :) All of them had one character in and they said "Dear Joona, happy birthday!" which equals to 26 characters :)), good company, freaking delicious Hungarian food. Whats not to like. Also, the pink tissues and kinder egg with a pink car inside were so cool :D

- On Friday we had MITIM research seminar where there were representatives from few large multinational companies (Intel, Nokia, Microsoft, Sato, ULS group, Human search) telling about current business climate and challenges as well as future trends especially in IT and technology management. Afterwards there was a cocktail reception with the same people and some of our professors, during which we got the chance to really get insights from the business representatives which was cool. Overall really cool event (and offered an opportunity to suit up :D)

- Today we had presentation skills seminar. Quite a waste of time in a way, even though it is good to think about this kind of stuff time to time. 7 hours was waaaayy too long time for this kind of event.

- Also, today we had a blackout. A colleague of mine was stuck in the elevator for 3 hours in the dark....

So, many things have happened. Next week is going to be even crazier! I don't have the energy to go through it now, maybe I'll post update tomorrow. But lets just say as a teaser, that we have again school from Monday to Friday....

Oh the future managers

Today we had a pretty okay snowfall here in St.Pete. Of course, one of the exchange students thought that this would be a perfect opportunity to have some kind of snowball-fight :) Because most of us live in 2 different dormitories, it was quite easy to get some kind of rivalry on and get people excited about this. The battlefield was the nearby hotel Park Inn where we met for a little "playful" match. Unfortunately only a few persons arrived from S dormitory (because they are chickens) so we had to split the teams differently. Nevertheless, the fight was so much fun and everyone got their share of snow and smiles. :) Definitely worth being wet from toes to the top of my head.

Highly recommended :)

Un-be-lie-vable

This is the first time I am blogging from the class (if I remember correctly). This Quantitative methods of business research course is such a piece of crap! On top of the fact that the teachers level of English is sub par (worse than students') she is now also trying to make us do work for her company. For free. She is now asking volunteers to be her assistants. Ahahha.

Been there, seen a portion of it.

Today early in the morning we came back from Moscow. We spent few really cool days in there and managed to see some of the things that Moscow is famous for like Duma, the red square etc. It was so lucky that we had the chance to stay at a real Russian home in there (courtesy of A) and that we had locals as our guides in there. Thank you all guys!

I am not going in to lenght what all we did there. Let's just say that it is definitely a place worth visiting and I am planning to go there again.

When we came out of the train this morning (5 o'clock...) and took a taxi back to the dormitory I really felt like I came back home.

Going to Moscow

I am leaving this evening from St.Pete to Moscow. Taking a night train with a couple of other students. Few of them are from Moscow, so we will have some locals in there which is cool. They were also kind enough to accommodate our group to their apartments. The trip is going to be quite a short one, we are coming back here early on Monday morning. But, still better to go there even for a few days than not go at all.

Some russki-style to my life

I have been here in St.Pete now for more than 2 months. During that time I haven't had my hair cut even once, although the need for a haircut have been there for about one month. Well, today I succeeded in getting a haircut. Nothing new (but maybe a little bit of mullet :D), but I am quite relieved to have gotten this one over with. The problem has been that there are not that many hairdressers in here that speak english. And it is quite retarded to ask someone to come to be our translator for your haircut... So today I went with a translator to a place nearby our university, where they actually did speak english (this time, last time no one did speak...).

It feels cool not to look like a homeless person anymore.

Flat in Lappeenranta

I also got an apartment from Lappeenranta for the spring semester during this weekend. I will move to my dear friends apartment while he goes on exchange to Italy. The place should be mine from the beginning of February till the end of May. This is not confirmed by LOAS just yet, but I don't think there is too much problems with that.

This arrangement suits my needs perfectly :) Thihihi.

Visa and passport

Yup, I have forgotten to tell that I did get my visa and passport back last Friday. I guess I could have gotten them a bit earlier, but since I am not planning to go to Finland any time soon there was no rush for me to get them. One place where I am going though is Moscow. I'll be leaving Piter on Friday and will come back here early on Monday morning.

Halloween

Yesterday I was in Halloween party for a first time. I went there as a corporate asshole (Halloween suit-up!). A bit lame costume, but hey, Halloween is quite lame happening to me :D The first part of the evening was spent at one of the exchange students apartment nearby our dorm before we headed to center. When we got there, I didn't actually feel like going clubbing so instead chose a more peaceful option of just going to this chilling bar with a friend before coming back to dormitory. Another fun evening in here.

Note to myself: If needing a costume for next Halloween or whenever go as an emo-kid (great idea from "Rudfia" :)), a doctor (for the nurses :D) or then just keep suiting-up (because that is cool ).

Today in schedule: Russian studies and reading a couple of articles for tomorrows class.

This is how we roll

Yesterday was one of those days when you know that you have done something good in your life. The kind of day when you realise how much good people you know. The kind of day what you will look back years from now and think "wow, that was a great day" with a smile on your face.

One of my dear classmates had a birthday yesterday, so we arranged a surprise for her: we had booked a limo. Not just a limo, but it was a cool purple one :) (Unfortunately I don't have a picture of it now, but I will definitely upload when I get one) So, after school many of us, something like 14 persons went to the limo which was waiting nearby the school. Few others "had to do group work" with the birthday girl for a while so that we can get in to the car and get everything ready. Then, they made an excuse of some kind to go somewhere else and brought the bd-girl to the limo. The expression on her face... well, happy :)

We drove around in St.Pete for about 3 hours before jumping off and went to eat to this place called Liverpool. While cruising the birthday girl got congratulated in 10 or 11 different languages :D Tells something about the group in which we rolled. With a great group of people we had so much fun in the limo as well as in the restaurant/pub. Later on we went to this club called Mod with a smaller group which also was quite fun. Overall, a night to remember, definitely!

In Liverpool I ate the best burger I've ever eaten! I guess this quote is pretty close to the feeling I got when I sunk my teeth in that delicious piece of cuisine:

That first bite-oh, what heaven that first bite is. The bun, like a sesame freckled breast of an angel, resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below, flavors mingling in a seductive pas de deux. And then… a pickle! The most playful little pickle! Then a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce and a-a patty of ground beef so exquisite, swirling in your mouth, breaking apart, and combining again in a fugue of sweets and savor so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread. This is God, speaking to us in food.

- Marshall Erikssen, from the tv-show "How I met your mother"

Sunday studying

After really fun few days it was time to get back to business today. At least on some level. So, today I was studying some Russian, writing report for Corporate social responsibility class and also finished my part on the first part of Knowledge management group work (midterm report). Not that big things but I am still quite pleased that I have been able to do some studying today. Tomorrow is going to be quite an intense day, school from 9 am to 6 pm. After that, the usual homework stuff and working on group projects.

I feel I have to study a lot for Russian class since I have not studied that much during the last few weeks. Other courses have gotten priority over Russian classes, but I will definitely put more effort on learning the language on next few weeks.

Actually, yesterday I tried to get my very first black taxi by myself. I managed to stop something like 10 cars and asked how much does it cost to go from Nevskiy to Marinskiy theater were I was supposed to meet some friends. Well, the attempts failed miserably in a way - I was prepared to pay 100 rubles for the trip because I knew it wasn't that far away. The cheapest price I heard was 200 rubles... Of course they noticed that I am not Russian so probably the drivers were just trying to get some easy money. Hah. As if I would pay them. Since I knew where I was heading, I just walked to meet my friends. The trip took only something like 15 minutes by foot. Quite a boring story actually :D But yeah, now I can say that I've tried getting a "taxi" also. Lets hope that soon I am actually able to ride in one to correct place :)

Management of intellectual capital

Again a new course started: Management of intellectual capital. The first lessons were really interesting and the teacher seems to know his business. Also, he seems to be able to get the attention of students and involve them heavily in the classroom. His style is a bit similar to the one that our Technology management teacher has, but the difference is that this guy seems to make sense. Also, he is definitely nearly as confusing has the TM teacher. But lets see how the next few lessons are like before giving a final verdict. One thing is for sure though - he expects us to read a lot of articles for the classes, something like 3-4 for each class. Combined to the work (and readload) of other classes it seems that we really need to study hard and the days will be long.

Lots of reading

Since I skipped the last part of the qualitative research course today I went to the library to read some articles for Knowledge management course. We actually have pretty much to read for the classes every week. On todays agenda was 3 articles and one case for tomorrow. I really like this class and the readings! They are really interesting for the most part and the text is understandable. Also, I think that I can use this information after graduation. Which is nice.

Business research

Again a new course started, this time the course is called Qualitative methods of business research. The class is as interesting as it sounds... The teacher wasn't able to catch my attention during the classes today and the whole class seemed to be more or less non-sense. Well, maybe not nonsense, but the time was used on things that didn't require that much attention. So, when we had the break in the middle of the 3 hour session, I did the same as a lot of other students - left the classroom without any intention to return there after the break.

My problem with this kind of courses is that I don't understand what is the added value for me. I am pretty sure, that I wont learn how to execute proper qualitative research in this class, at least not in business environment. Also, the course doesn't seem to be targeted for doing scientific research - the kind that you might need when doing your thesis. Se where does it fit in the big picture? I don't know.

CSR, thesis stuff and World bank

Well, I haven't updated my blog for a while it seems. School life has been quite normal. On Thursday we had this research seminar for our thesis's where every MITIM-student had to present their topic for their thesis. Which was basically total waste of time, because basically no one knows at the moment what is their topic, do they write it as an assignment to some company etc. But well... I guess this has something to do with the Russian educational system and the fact that all master students are expected to start their thesis process in the beginning on master program. Luckily, it doesn't have that much weight on anything - just something that needs to be done. My topic was "Internalization challenges and strategies for SME IT-company". The idea would be to first identify the challenges for expansion to foreign markets and then create a strategy with the company on how to execute the expansion. Quite an interesting topic I think, but it requires whether or not I would be able to find a partner company or companies. Let's see.

I spend a couple of days with my parents here in St.Pete. They came here on Thursday and left on Sunday. It was nice to see them, it had been almost two months since the last meeting.

Today we had our second lecture on Corporate social responsibility (CSR). It's quite an interesting topic, but for whatever reason I've had really big problems on concentrating on those classes. We learned about ethical decision making. Also, all the students made a quick 10 minute test to determine our levels of ethics. It seems that I am "ethically challenged" :D Oh well.

After CSR lecture was a quest lecture from World Bank. It was quite interesting overall. Basically, they presented the idea of 3 D's (Distance, Division and Density) that explain to extent the economic growth. The idea is that these big clusters (usually in big cities) help the developing countries to grow and gain some international stature in the business world. Mobility of the workforce and removing artificial barriers are in key role in here. The speaker demonstrated many examples so it was easy to understand what she meant. It just made it more clear that world is really coming more and more urban and that people living in rural areas likely have to relocate if they want to be part of the growth and get the benefits from it. Which kind of makes the Finnish areal development seem futile.. And to be honest, it pretty much is fighting against the windmills - I don't like the way it is going, but sometimes you just have to accept the facts and adapt.

Knowledge management

Today we had the second class of Knowledge management as a theory and practice -course. Last week we had an introduction to knowledge management - what it is etc. Today, we learned about knowledge creation, knowledge sharing and the barriers for those activities. Being a knowledge management major from previous studies, there was not that much new information for me. Nevertheless, it was ok to revise the things. The only thing was that we had 6 hours of classes today. It was definitely too much! Anyway, I like the subject and enjoy the classes for most part.

I don't understand how I have been able to study in intensive (6-9 hours straight) classes before. Maybe I haven't :)

Wow, almost done

Today we had the second to last class of Technology management that SZ "teaches". It is quite a relief for us, because those classes have been quite exhausting. Usually, we have a test every class. 4-6 exercises, 15-20 minutes to complete it. Usually we have had to draw few pictures like fishbone diagram (Ishikawa), mind map (out of some poem....) etc. Also the classes are more or less like the TV show wheel of fortune where we have to gues what word/term the teacher is thinking. Seriously, we spend something like 15 minutes every class trying to guess the word. Hence the nickname "The Riddler" to our teacher...

Hopefully the lectures tought by the Finnish professor from LUT are better. From what I know about his research and interests they will be so much more interesting. Fingers crossed. At least I am quite sure he wont be showing us UML, XML, SQL and that kind of stuff in his classes....

Sports update

Today I bought a gym membership from a nearby fitness center for 3 months. The membership wasn't cheap, 7740 rubles (~172 euros), but I guess it is still better to so some sports than do nothing. I have been feeling a bit sluggish lately, hopefully exercising will help me to get my energy levels higher.

Random pictures

Crossing the road Russian style: running.

Petrovskiy stadium, the home of Zenit St.Petersburg

View from the balcony.
Our dormitory.
Peterhof.

Apostilles, nostrification and a huge mess.

Hah, why I am not surprised? Last week we had to pay 10000 rubles for nostrification of our documents to Master's office at the university. This week, quite many of my co-students have gotten some part of that money back so I went to get my money too. But there was a problem, of course. The lady in the office first said that I haven't given her all the necessary apostilles during the previous weeks. Which I of course did. After a few minutes of discussion and "no you didn't - yes I did"-play she checked her bookcase and voila, there they were. Because of my "missing" apostilles she was not able to deliver my documents for nostrification process which just makes it longer for me.

Also, my apostilles are not good enough they say. The apostilles I gave her are originals and they include copies of my diplomas, which were notarized by Finnish lawyers. So really legal stuff. Many of my student colleagues have exactly the same kind of copies and they are okay. This situation does not make any sense, but let's see how this develops in the future. Oh, and the 10000 rubles I paid for the nostrification is not enough for them because my diploma + supplements have so many pages... Kjeh. I also had to give them my original diplomas earlier, just like all the rest of foreign MITIM students. I wonder whether I will even get my diplomas back and if so, when I will get them. I bet in the year 2011.

Интернет работает в oбщежитие!!!!

For you who does not understand basic Russian: Internet now works also at the dormitory! Finally, it took only about 6 weeks. The problems were:

• No connection in Shevchenko dormitory. Okay, I lived there only for 3 days so not that bad.
• After moving to Karabli, my computer was still registered to Shevchenko. I went to the office and informed them that we had moved. They changed our address to Karabli.
• In Karabli, my computer was registered to wrong room so it didn't work on my room. Also, it didn't work on the room where it was supposed to work either (reason below)
• The socket in the wall where the cable is connected was broken. We had to wait for a couple of weeks until someone came to fix that.
• After changing the socket, everything was okay for my roommates, but not for me. The reason was, that when they first took my MAC-address in the office during the first week in St.Pete they took the wrong one. That address was for WLAN and not for cable which resulted that I could not use my computer.
• Yesterday I went to the office once again (I guess it was something like 4th time in that office, I've also been in other offices at least 2 times each). I showed them my MAC-address, they changed it and now it works at the dormitory.

Basically everything was went wrong with this Internet-thing: the addresses, the physical equipment and incompetence. Well, now it works at least *knocks on wood*. There is still one problem what we have to address - there is 3 persons in our room and only one place for cable (logical, huh?). So today, after school we have to go and buy a router so we can all be online at the same time. Hopefully.

Russian language studies

I am starting to sound like Shot, but I don't like the way Russian language (and other language) studies are organized here in GSOM. I have no complaints about the level of teacher, who I think is good. My problem is with the fact that we have classes only once a week. 4 lessons in a row, which means 3 actual hours with a 15 minute break in the middle. Is there a person in this school that can cope with that? I don't think so.

It's not that hard to concentrate on learning stuff about economics or organizational behaviour for 4 lessons in a row, but languages are a different case in my opinion. Grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, etc.. It takes time to ingest all that information. Like today, all of the students were already loaded with new information by the break and the second part of the class was quite painful for us. Luckily our teacher notices these things and won't push as that far during the second half.

Actually it is pretty cool how long we have come during one month from level 0. Now we can(?) describe our friends,family and surroundings, the weather, ask for directions etc. Maybe in a couple of months time we are actually able to have some discussions in Russian :) At the moment it's still pretty much impossible, aside asking typical 'how are you' and so on.

Hooray for hot water

Good news, we have hot water again at the dormitory. No more cold showers in the morning. At least for now....

Managerial economics

Today we had the first lectures of Managerial economics. The first surprise came when we entered the room - the professor is really, really young. Very likely 27 or so. I was a bit sceptical about her, but quickly I realized that I was prejudiced for no good reason. She really seems to know what she is teaching us. Okay, that was only the first lesson but still I was quite pleased with her. Her teaching style was pretty "normal" which is okay and she used a lot of chalkboard to draw some pictures, which made it easier to understand the concepts that she had put on the slides. Let's see how this course developes in the upcoming lectures.

Quote of the day from Professional skills seminar

....when talking about face control in organizations, the teacher said:

How many ugly persons you see here at GSOM?

Living in the dormitory is so COOL

The winter is coming and you can feel it. Wind is getting colder, trees are starting to drop the leafs, it's getting dark earlier and earlier. For the last few days you have been able to feel the upcoming winter also in the dormitory. We have been without hot water now for about 48 hours straight. Okay, it's not the end of the world but still it would be quite nice to be able to take a good shower every now and then. Also, doing the dishes is a bit more easier when you don't have to freeze your hands.

To add to this situation, we window in our room seems to be leaking air. It has been quite cold in the past few mornings which really doesn't make it easier to leave your bed. And the Internet is still not working for Lauri or me in our room (4.5 weeks without a Internet in your own room, could you manage?). Seriously. I bet the next thing we are going to lose is the electricity. Stone age, here we come!

Cookies.

I dont feel like writing too much at the moment, but here is some updates. This week I have been

• playing this stupid EIS Simulator Game for Technology management class. Its useless, pointless and it has nothing to do with technology management. The idea of the simulator is to manage change in an organization and plaaplaaplaa. I dont recommend the software.
  
• Eating sushi. Again. During the last 10 days I have been eating sushi like 4 times.
  
• running out of a bar because of some kind of teargas or something. Quite an unexpected way to leave a party...
  
• Watching live football at Petrovskiy stadium. Zenit vs CSKA Moscow, 2-0. Pictures will follow later on.
• at a housewarming party.
• without an internet in the dormitory. Which is not a suprise at all...
  

Well that was unexpected but definitely fun

Yesterday I came back to the dormitory at 10 pm planning to rest a bit and also study some Russian. My plans quickly evaporated because of really unexpected event. My flatmates and I heard a knock from our door which we of course answered. On the other side of the door there was about 8-9 Russian students asking if they could come to our apartment to have a little party. That's not anything unusual actually, but the next part is - we didn't even know them. At all. So there they were standing on the other side of the door with wine, vodka, borsch, blinis and other traditional Russian dishes. Being the social gentlemen that we are, we of course invited them in and had a really fun evening.

The thing is that this kind of stuff doesn't happen anywhere else. Seriously. How often have you been in a similar situation or heard from your friends same kind of story? I bet never. This country continues to amaze me like Finnish "humor" amazes all other nationalities. Even hungry hungarians.

Sixth flatmate

Yesterday marked another chapter in our life at Karabliy. We got another flatmate to our spacious and lovely apartment. The coolest thing about the newcomer is that it has 6 legs and is a tough guy overall. Yup, we saw a cockroach in our kitchen.

Okay, it has to be admitted that it is not the cleanest kitchen in the world but still meeting a cockroach is a bit... abnormal for a Finn. Of course we can do something about the situation, but the "funny" thing is about cockroaches is to my understanding, that it doesn't matter that much whether or not your place is clean because if your neighbourgs live in a dump the cockroaches can still appear.

Some might consider this cheap

Living here in St.Pete is so much cheaper than in Finland. Here is a couple of examples of prices.

- One trip by metro costs 20 rubles (about 44 cents), by bus 18 rubles and my marshutka (minibus) 22-26 rubles.

- Pack of cigarettes costs about 27-45 rubles, depending on the label.

- 1 kilo of potatoes costs about 10 rubles in the nearby store

- 2 litres of Pepsi is about 50 rubles (1,11 euros)

- 1 can half a litre can of Baltika 7 (popular beer) is about 25 rubles (55 cents)

- Prices of one bottle of Vodka varies from 60 rubles upwards. You can get a decent bottle (0.7l) for 200 rubles (4,44 euros)

- 1 kilo of bananas = 29 rubles

And the list goes on. I'm not complaining!