Another day at school :P

So we're here at BI today as well, working on the first part of our final in International Marketing. I feel that I know enough of case 1 to be able to at least raise my hand a few times during the discussion tomorrrow, so Im not being over serious today. Today I also met my new speaking partner for the first time, her name is Vivian and she is actually from Shanghai - so it's great that I get to talk to her :) The point is that I should learn mandarin and she should learn norwegian, but today we mostly just got to know eachother and we talked in english. It was so nice to do something that's not studying for a change, hehe. I plan on staying here for a while today and work on consumer behaviour as well, but I don't feel as if I should do that while my group in International Marketing is still here, so Im taking it easy now while we discuss the case for tomorrow. I should probably be more nervous about the first day of the final, but it's not our group presenting tomorrow so I think it will actually be allright :) Trying to be a little positive about a final for a change.

BI - my new home? :P

So today we met up at 9, determined to study the case that is up for discussion this thursday - we're going to discuss it further tomorrow - then there's the two finals.. and this weekend I am considering to come here as well to finish up my case in consumer behaviour.. I even returned to school yesterday after I finished the english final, feel as if I spend more time at school than at home lately. I guess that's just the way it has to be when I got all this work to do, still kind of sad hehe. Now I am working on my site controller test for Tusenfryd, not schoolwork but as half of my group left already I think it's allright.. and I have to mail the test to Tusenfryd by tomorrow so I really need to get it done as well. Im really tired of constantly sitting at school working on something and I look forward to being done with International Marketing, I think that is the most challenging final this semester most likely. Now I am trying to make my mind work by listening to classical music, or well close to classical music anyhow - there is this really great composer from Turin called Ludovico Einaudi, his work is classical but also kind of similar to several movie soundtracks. This is one of the plays I like the best - Divenire (to become), really helps me focus and relax :)

Facing my fear

So today was the day I have been worrying about for about a month now - the english oral final exam. I woke up way too early, feeling extremely nervous about the presentation. I really hate talking in front of people, even if I know it will most likely be a vital part of my work after I graduate. I went over the presentation for myself a few times, but mostly I just complained about how nervous I was to whoever would listen on facebook and msn. I went to school a little early, to print out my Preparation sheets for the examinators and have some time to find the right room. I still got there kind of early, but as it turned out the student before me had been a no-show, so they wanted me to go in and do my presentation right away if I was ok with it. I told them it was fine, and more waiting would probably just make me nervous anyhow. During the actual presentation I was terribly nervous, Im sure I didn't even say everything I wanted to - but at least I managed to force myself to make eye-contact with the examinators.
For the discussion part, I felt it went really really badly because they asked me about an article I didn't really study that well and I also got a case I didn't really remember that much about. When I got out of there I felt as if it hadn't gone all that well and I was prepared for maybe a D or a C with some luck. One of the examinators came out to give me my grade, and I felt more nervous than ever.. but then the most amazing thing happened, the nice lady said "excelent work, we gave you an A". Apparently I had seemed rather nervous during the presentation, but the discussion was really good! Im still in shock, hard for me to belive it actually went this well and Im thinking I must have heard it wrong or something, but I guess I didn't.. I actually aced the final I was the most worried about! This gives me faith in my ability to talk in front of people, and makes me really really happy! It's even better to do well on something you don't think your good at than something you already know your good at. So now Im really happy and reliefed, allthough I want to see the grade in writing to make 100% sure it's actually real.
No time to relax though, I also got a case for consumer behaviour today that is due next monday, and there's 2 of the 4 seminars in International Marketing this week as well to worry about.. but hey this was a GREAT start of the finals and I will use it to motivate myself to work even harder on the next ones. To sum it all up:
Niko: 1 - Stupid nerves: 0!

H&M me

So this is it - this is how I want to look this summer :P
Picked out the clothes myself on H&M's homepage. Saw that JJ had tried the whole "trying the clothes on someone else" feature out, so I wanted to have a look as well. Honesly Im not sure if I like it or not, this is a model - it's not me. Still it's nice to see how different clothes can work together I guess, really want the dress now at least - if I do allright on my first few finals I will go buy it on the next student loan, haha :)
Then it is only a matter of growing 5 cm and loosing a few kilos. No time for the gym in the middle of finals though, or well sometimes I just go do other stuff instead, like trying out this feature on H&M's website or blog about it after, but to actually go work out takes longer.
Today I have simply been the worst student ever, hardly even looked at my presentation or the curriculum.. all I did so far was listen to some audio lectures online =/ I will still be fine though, as I promised myself to not go to sleep untill Im positive I will talk for about 7 mins during the presentation part of the final and I know all the key parts of the curriculum for the discussion part.

Nervous!

So tomorrow is my first final - english oral. I have read or at least discussed more or less the entire curriculum and im very ready for the part of the final where I am supposed to discuss it. What I am more worried about is the other part - I have to do a power point presentation, and I am kind of nervous about it. It's silly, because the presentation is on an elective subject, and I have more or less finished it already. The only thing left is to finalize what I want to say on each slide, have the general idea but it needs to be 7 minutes sharp, so I guess a set script might be a good idea. My plan all along was to not have too much to do today, thats why I have already gone over the curriculum and I have most of the presentation ready - I will probably end up repeating the presentation to myself over and over and over and over again all day though, now that I have the curriculum covered. I don't think it's healthy that I am this nervous already, but in 24 hours from now, I am in a classroom somewhere discussing negotiation techniques with the teachers! There's also a good thing about that though, in 25 hours I am done with one of my finals! :)

My name is Nikoline, and Im a caffeine addict

To those of you that thought I had finally quit cola - I failed again. To those of you that didn't know, I have been more or less addicted to cola for the last 6 years. I have managed to quit in periods, but always with cofee or tea as a substitute, if I don't have any caffeine I am likely to get a terrible headache, and become both tired and angry for no reason at all.
Tried to quit several times, but it's no good.. eventually I always crack. It can be the agony of flying for 15 hours and then arrive in Japan to hear the guy at the airport saying "Good morning miss". It can be grabbing a cofee with my friends. Once it was simply enough to walk past the cola in the store on a bad day.. my point is, it is very possible to be addicted to caffeine! A lot of people tell me my addiction is all in my head, and that might very well be true, but my the pain in the back of my head is very real, and it is almost certain it will be there if I don't have any cola/tea/cofee in my system. Once I managed to quit all 3 for about a week, had headaches for the first 5 days of that week. I feel a little frustrated at the moment, as today was one of those days I didn't drink any cofee in the morning right away.. I got a pretty bad headache, took a painkiller and it didn't help.. then I had some cofee and voila - the superstudent is back. Now is not the time to quit though I guess, in the middle of all the finals and everything, but I would really like to solve this problem some day =/

Alone?

So I did it, I actually managed to get up on time and got to the library when it opened. When I got there it was like a ghost town though - me and the washing guy.. and that was it. I thought I had to get there early to get a spot, but I forgot that most people don't really have finals in april, so I was more or less all alone the first hour or so, haha. At first it felt like a waste to go there so early, only to find that I would have gotten a spot no matter what. When I think about it now it was actually smart anyhow, as I had promised to have dinner with my family this evening to celebrate dads birthday. This way I still got 8 hours of studying, and read about 100 pages - Im proud of me! Dinner with the family was awesome and Ludvig talked me into watching movies with him this evening rather than study even more before going to sleep, I do have my first final monday, but considering I studied 8 hours already and 9 hours yesterday as well I guess it's fine :) Going back to study more tomorrow as well - the plan is to get there when it opens and leave when it closes :)