I’ve been watching CNN for the past hour. I had no idea of the amount of devastation that the hurricane created. It’s absolutely unreal.

If I remember correctly the latest insurance estimate is around $25 billion. There are roughly 875,000 people in Mississippi without electricity….not to mention food, water and gas. There are some areas in which the water is 15 feet deep…and because of the two levee breaks (along the river and lake) the water level is continuing to rise. Not only that but there are no concrete plans nor times for when it will stop.

And on top of that…1/4 of US oil production is halted, and a large number of our refineries are not able to function.

I can’t imagine what gas prices are going to do over this coming Labor Day weekend.

Part of me, right now, desperately wants to be home. I know there is next to nothing I could do from Lafayette…but still…ugh. This is a nightmare for the US. It worries me tremendously.

I’m not a religious man. I don’t go to church. I don’t (often) pray.

But right now all my hope is with those poor people suffering back home. Those millions who’ve lost their homes, their possessions, their jobs…and those that have lost their families and loved ones. Their friends. Their dreams…

Take care of yourselves…everyone. Be prepared. Keep on going. Do your best.

-There is an African guy here in my building but I forget which country he is from specifically…one of the more well known ones. He’s really nice, has a sort of Jamaican style accent and instead of saying “Hi, how are you?” he says, “Hi, how are you feeling? How are you feeling today? You feeling alright man?” I really dig it personally…seems much friendlier than the typical greeting. I may pick that one up myself.

-There are two things I’m planning on bringing back with me to the US…different ways to say “cheers” and cheek kissing girls.
I’ve learned how to say cheers in Swedish, Spanish, French and German…I forgot how to say it in Italian though. I’d like to still pick up Russian. It’s just fun to say and when you do say it people from those countries react very well.
As far as the cheek kissing thing goes…its just cool. It’s much better than giving a girl a handshake, and works well for women that you don’t quite hug yet. I’m sure people will freak out at first. I’ll work on ‘em. I will not do the French “kiss a guy on both cheeks” deal though. That’s for pansies.

-Swiss life gives me gas. I’m not quite sure what the deal is but after a meal here, and I’m walking around, I fart a lot. They are neither stinky nor loud…just lots of air passing through. I have no clue why that happens…it just does. So far it hasn’t been much of an issue.

-Swiss weather is beyond strange. We will have days of clouds, fog, rain, and ugh (well…I like that weather honestly) then days of absolute and glorious sunshine. Right now it’s about 75 degrees and sunny as hell….just some small fluffy clouds over the mountain tops. It is so odd how it changes so radically. We’ve gotten a TON of rain recently…but very rarely does it downpour like back home. It’s more of a constant slow drizzle that makes everything wet. I should sit out in the sun!

-I’ve got to start getting more serious about what I am going to do after Les Roches. Honestly I don’t plan on coming back here for my BBA. I’ve experienced Bluche and the place is just too small for my liking. It’s frustrating to have to pay just to leave town and causes a serious drain on the cash situation. I’m probably going to do my BBA in Chicago…probably. Or Cornell. Hmmm…

-The rules, which at first seemed so heinous, then appeared pretty relaxed, are starting to get enforced more and more. I got in mild trouble for leaving clothes on my bed. Although silly, and mildly annoying, I think it’s a good thing. We are at Week 6 of 22. Week 8 will have me giving my oral presentation on my Project (easy), Week 10 will be Mid Terms (should be easy), Week 11 is vacation (I’ve no clue where I’m going yet), and then…uh…more stuff I guess. Time both goes quickly and slowly here. But most other classes have more projects, assignments, tests and the like, so the others are starting to stress a little. I like it.

-Magnus is obsessed with Secret Societies (like the Freemasons or Skull and Bones). We’ve been toying with the idea of creating our own. That could be interesting. I was a (gasp) frat boy after all. My, life is strange…and you can take with or without the comma.

-It is becoming more obvious that classes for the returning students are radically different than they were the years prior. For example, for my Room Divisions Mid Term test the teacher is going to give us a hierarchy tree of Room Divisions employees with several things wrong with it. Our job is to find one thing and write a little essay about it, taking into account cost savings and work load. He has been going through samples of these trees in class showing where things are different, where they are the same, pointing out this and that. One of the students asked him which one was “right”…which one he should memorize and study from, in other words. The teacher sort of laughed and told him that there was no real “right” one, that it is all situation dependent and he’ll have to just use his knowledge. The student, among several others, looked crestfallen. “How do we study for that?” someone asked. The teacher said, “Ladies and Gentlemen…this is not Service or Kitchen…this is Management. Managers have to use their brains.” I like this…a LOT.

-I really ought to get a haircut, but I’m being lazy. I’ve got time today to go up to Montana and do it…but I don’t want to wait for the funi, don’t want to pay for the funi, and want to do things like this instead (as well as email, do some reading and work on my resume). I can get my hair cut for 10 CHF by this freaky British woman that comes to campus…but she is freaky and I’m hesitant. Maybe I’ll suck it up and head to Montana tomorrow after Economics. I think I forgot to sign up for Wednesday dinner anyway…damnit.

I was reading about the big storm near New Orleans yesterday…seems pretty intense. I can just imagine the TV coverage that the US is getting right now about it. I’m sure it’s on every channel.

Anyway, I was reading an article about it and noticed this line…

“Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has extra trucks waiting at surrounding distribution centers to haul more canned food, generators, batteries, tarps and Pop Tarts to affected regions, company spokeswoman Sharon Weber said.” (Bloomberg.com)

How odd. How very American.

I can just imagine it now…”Quick, we need to help out these poor suffering people! Make a list…let’s see…canned food, yes…that’s something they will need. Generators, for sure…the power must be out everywhere! Batteries…for when the generators aren’t working! Tarps…lots of tarps…keep them dry! What else… Pop Tarts! They NEED Pop Tarts! We must keep them fat and happy!”

I do admit I’d love a Hostess Cupcake right now.

In my very odd Human Resources class (I’ll babble about the whole HR situation later…once we’ve gotten a little more resolution…)…anyway, in this class we have been focusing a lot on pay in the hotel/restaurant industry lately.

And as my teacher would say, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the outlook is not good.”

Some of the students here…actually, the vast huge majority of them, think that once you graduate from this school there will be hundred thousand dollar job offers banging down your door.

I’ve got friends of mine talking to me about working at Hotel X and Hotel Y and “wow, the GM/CEO/owner gets paid so much!”

But they don’t quite realize that there is some work involved here.

Today in HR we were getting more specific into pay scale. The teacher was talking about some semi-typical starting pay rates for various positions. The class was fairly animated and talkative, and one of the students asked the teacher, “Well, how much will we be making? Surely more than that, no?”

The answer…

“You will probably be making less.”

Silence. I could hear a water faucet running somewhere in the building it was so quiet.

To make a long story short, the students here…they are under the impression that a simple education will gain you tremendous income. As the teacher went on to describe how junior managers have to do all the dirty work, the grunt work, the awful hours, the fairly low pay, before they have demonstrated their abilities and paid their dues…the students had a look of terrible fear in their eyes. Hell, a tear may have fallen somewhere in that class.

A lot of the kids here have the easy life. This school…Ladies and Gentlemen this school is VERY easy. There is very little of it that is truly a challenge…not just for me, but for anyone willing to put in a little effort. And what you gain out of it is the basis for a career…not the career itself.

And that is going to be a bitter pill for some of these people to swallow.

Accounting
As many of you know already, I did accounting for several years before starting this whole culinary/restaurant/hotel gig. Man…looking back on it I did accounting for something like 7 years (off and on). Yow! Time flies I guess.

Anyway, I really enjoy this class. The teacher, Mr. Small, is the head of HOIII and without a doubt knows his stuff. He follows the book more or less, but does a really good job of being linear in his lectures. We start with the basics and move forward…each prior step providing knowledge on how to do the next ones. I can tell that, if choose to, the tests could be very difficult…at least from the standpoint if you mess something up in the beginning your end answer is going to be way off.

Perhaps the biggest reason I dig this class is because I am finally getting some schooling on something I have a lot of experience in. I never took real accounting classes…I learned by observing, practicing and asking questions. It took a lot of experimentation to get to the level I got in the whole financial analysis world…and I’m grateful to getting that much needed knowledge.

Plus, it’s pretty damn easy!

Marketing
There are two huge reasons why I really enjoy this class. One, the teacher is awesome. He’s alive, vibrant, and full of knowledge and really takes charge in the class. He lets enough funny stuff slide to keep us from falling asleep, and isn’t afraid to call stupid students…well…stupid. I absolutely love it.

Secondly, I’m really learning a lot in this class. This is all stuff that I had never studied before, and had no experience in prior. I’ve perhaps learned the most from this one class…and there is a lot more to be gained too.

It isn’t too hard either ;)

Economics
This pretty much falls in line with Accounting, with a combo of Marketing. It’s another strong teacher who doesn’t take crap from students, it’s giving me knowledge in a subject I have prior experience with, and I’m learning a tremendous amount. It’s a bit more challenging than the other two favorites, but that is a good thing…I shouldn’t just walk through this whole thing, ya know what I mean?

Later on I’ll go through my lesser favorites…and then the classes I dislike.

Well this truly sucks. I think there is a lesson contained in here, a positive change in behavior, but it still sucks royally.

I may have lost both my watch and my camera last night.

Yesterday, after school, I decided it was going to be a night of serious partying. That’s the norm for a Friday and/or Saturday night regardless if you are in Bluche or San Francisco. At least…sorta.

It was another typical party night here…lots of initial drinking at one of the dorm buildings, then off to San’nick for additional drinking…then catching a cab up to Montana for even more drinking. That is par for the course.

So that’s what I did. Without going into all the gory details the last place I recall having both things was at Absolute (I mentioned the place before). I was hanging out with Karl drinking a bottle of vodka he had bought (for a painful amount of money…club prices folks…at least 7 times too much). I was taking random pictures of people in the club. I had taken off my watch because I was dancing a lot too.

I must have left them both there. I tried not to think about it all day today but through some events it became obvious that they are both gone.

This makes me tremendously sad.

The camera…although neither the best nor the fanciest…was my camera. It was a major part of my communication with home and a blast to play with.

The watch…ugh, this is even worse to me. It was a high school graduation present from my grandparents, and something I rarely ever wore until I came here. But since I was wearing slacks, tie, blazer, etc every day for school I started wearing it…got used to it…and would wear it every day.

Both these things have a lot of sentimental value to me and this is a heartbreaker.

The people that own Absolute also own San’nick. Absolute will be closed tomorrow but San’nick will be open (I believe) so I’ll try talking to them about this. Hopefully some considerate employee found them both and is holding them there for me. Sadly I’m not that hopeful though.

So I mentioned a lesson…and here it is…

I was up until 4:30 am yesterday partying. I spent a foolish amount of money, I lost both my camera and my watch, and…honestly…I didn’t have that great a time. Sure it was fun…but not very rewarding. Today was pretty much a waste because I was just so tired.

Maybe I’m overreacting a bit here…but I really don’t want to be a hardcore partier again. I did that once before the first time I was in college

Note: There is a fight outside right now…how fitting

Anyway, the first time I was in college I partied like a maniac. It was pretty similar to this in fact. And I suffered tremendously because of that. Yes…I had many fun times but it hurt me.

And now here I am again…in that same sort of atmosphere. And last night was just a taste of the crap that comes from this sort of thing.

Look…this isn’t a new experience for me (in a lot of ways). This is something I’ve been through before. I know this world and this lifestyle. It’s just not me anymore.

I think the 5 am party nights are behind me now. Beers with friends is still an important thing…cutting loose on occasion is necessary. But night after night of the same old song and dance…I just don’t need that in my life anymore.

God I hate growing up.

Today I met the biggest lying fool of all time. And his name is Phillip.

Phillip is a German (I’m pretty sure) that has lived some time in Canada (I think) and also went to college for one semester in the US (according to him).

Enough with the (disclaimers)…this guy is frighteningly full of crap.

I had run into him once before when I was going through a major hamburger crisis. I was saying that I wanted an American hamburger…he asked me where I was from…and told me that I wasn’t really American.

I was a bit confused by this. For some odd reason he feels that Californians are not Americans. Mmm…OK. Sure. Right. Moving on…

He came by today and I instantly started to dislike him. I had my flag hanging outside and it had started to rain so I pulled it in. He started telling me how Americans hate him. Me being me…told him that there are lots of Americans and I’d be surprised that we all hate him; I don’t remember discussing this with my neighbors. He didn’t quite get it and told me about how the FBI has been tailing him, and forced him to leave the country.

The story is that he was at some Bush rally with a communist flag…was branded a terrorist…and the FBI made him leave the country. Sure. Right. Moving on…

So I decided to pull an old trick…ignore. I just let him babble in the background while I did something else. I was playing a game on the computer and he started talking about cars. Of course I had to give him a bit more attention…after all that is one of my favorite subjects.

He told me of a friend of his, a lawyer, that has a Porsche with 4 nitrous ports. I could see 1 port…main intake track. Perhaps 2, one for each bank of cylinders. Even 6, one for each cylinder. But 4 don’t quite make sense. Conceivable sure…normal no. Whatever.

Then he told me that this lawyer friend gets $5 million US (he emphasized this point) a month from his dad. Oh, but there is more! This lawyer is a consultant for the Mafia and charged $1.5 million US (again…that was important to him to have me know it was US)…he charges $1.5 million US PER HOUR.

Sure. Right. Moving on…

Some other Phillip gems…
-“Americans are easy to kill.” You see, he was in the German army and learned that in the army. I’m not quite sure how many Americans he killed…but it must have been a ton of us ‘cause we are…after all…easy to kill.
-The military, his countries military, had his girlfriend killed in Afghanistan in order to get him to…I think…stay in the army. It was all a plot you see. They needed to make him mad. But he found out! Oh! Wow!

All of us know those types of people that lie in order to impress others. Some are subtle, some are blatant. Some are so painfully and obviously blatant that they become a joke.

Phillip is the King.

I am seriously questioning the Les Roches application process.

I stole these pictures from www.nasioc.com which stole them from www.4chan.org

I had an assignment…my only assignment…for my International Relations class. The assignment was to research a world event and write 1000 words on the subject, with references. However it was supposed to be about a world event that your home country is not involved in.

That took a while to find. I come from a…involved…country.

But beyond that, he wanted us to write is with our own “spin” on it…from your home countries point of view.

Now that was very easy to do.

The question I’ve been having in my mind recently is how much I look at my fellow students with an older point of view versus an American point of view. I admit that’s a pretty black and white way of thinking about things. Our perceptions are a blend of a variety of different things…not only our age and home land, but our personal experiences, our personalities, our socio-economic station (woot, look at me!), etc.

So we all have different perceptions on things, regardless of how similar we may seem.

And I have perceived this.

A lot of my fellow students…

A lot of my fellow students are utter and complete morons.

Yeah…that’s harsh. I’ll be the first to admit it. Perhaps that is the “elitist American” (that I’ve heard SO much about) coming through. Perhaps that’s my “look people, I’ve lived a lot of life already…much more than you have…so shut the **** up.” Perhaps (and actually) it’s just Neil.

I was in accounting class today. Most of the students fear this class like the devil is involved somehow. I’ve gone off about that before. Anyway…this girl was sitting next to me…one that I’ve had issue with for quite a while. The whole lecture she sat there drawing pictures of cartoon characters. Towards the end of class the teacher hands out a practice problem for us to do which uses all the different accounting methods we learned about in class.

Instantly her hand shoots up… “I don’t understand! I don’t get it! Help me!”

So of course the teacher stops…pulls her aside, and re-teaches her everything she missed while doodling like a 12 year old.

That folks…is utter and complete crap.

Look sweetheart…if you want to succeed in life you’ve got to actually work. You’ve got to try. You’ve got to, above all, fail.

I was really disappointed in my teacher’s behavior. If she can’t figure out that she needs to pay attention in class, she shouldn’t get this stuff handed to her on a silver platter.

Survival of the fittest…does that make me an American? Does that make me more mature? Does that make me (pardon) an asshole?

I think it makes me successful.

Magnus agrees. We were just sitting outside our place shooting the breeze while these kids up above us were blasting the same 5 songs over and over…yelling at people walking down the street and generally making asses out of themselves. There are some other extremely stupid things that they do in the rooms behind locked doors that will get them into even more serious trouble…but I won’t get into that.

Magnus…my pal…told me that they were “useless”. He said something like “those guys aren’t going to have a life worth living. They will always be used”.

I explained the meaning of the word “tool” to him. He laughed.

I don’t mean to sound bitter here. I don’t want to sound harsh. But there are some things I am very disappointed with in regards to Les Roches.

And it’s pretty much the students.

With this Project completed I suddenly have a ton of free time. Not only are my evenings and weekends going to be free of concern, but…up to this point…we had 4 periods a week (2 back to back on Tuesday, 2 back to back on Thursday) dedicated to working on the Project. Now those times are set aside for students to give their presentations before the teachers. That means, for the next 2 and a half weeks…I’ve got 4 free periods and very light weekend work.

Which results in the most wonderful of fabulous days…Tuesday.

Tuesday starts at 8 am with Room Divisions Management. It is followed by another session of Room Divisions Management which ends at 9:45.

Then…

Nothing.

Nada.

Freedom.

If Switzerland wasn’t so damn expensive I’d dedicate that day to exploring. But the cost of getting out of town, the cost of eating out, the cost of doing things is a bit horrendous. I’m sure that I can figure out some cheap things to do…but damn, it kinda sucks.

To get up to Crans-Montana it costs 6.20 CHF round trip. Down to Sierre it’s 18.40. That’s just transportation costs.

But now that I’ve got my hiking boots and cold weather gear I could do some hiking. I talked to one native and he told me that there are kilometers of hiking trails around here. I will have to dedicate a couple Tuesdays to that for sure.

Of course I could dedicate those days to doing work. But I will be honest here. School is easy. There isn’t one class where I’ve had to do extra studying for. I shouldn’t get too cocky here though…I will be doing some additional reading and studying.

Speaking of that…I’ve got quite a crew of people that are looking for additional help with Accounting and Economics…some even with Marketing. I’m tempted to charge ‘em for it. But…well…I’m concerned about that. I’m worried that I wouldn’t do that great a job explaining…that I’d confuse ‘em more. I think I’ll try a couple simple study/tutor sessions and see how it goes.

Who knows…maybe my study sessions could pay for my Tuesday Ramblings.

Now that’s a thought…