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Published: July 15th 2006
Today was yet another exciting day of class, although slightly better than yesterday. The groups working on the Branding Presentation for the Czech Republic merged, so I was able to work with slightly more competent people. The program itself is kind of a mess--there is definitely a difference between the US education system and the CR education system.
The Charles University students put together two good presentations to familiarize the American students with the Brands CR and USA. This was fine, but we all felt kind of dumb since we had nothing prepared for them. We felt that they had done all of this research on branding the US and we had done absolutely none on the CR. Anyway, when it came time to work on final presentations, the Charles University professor really just wanted us to add a little here and there to the presentation that the CU students had created. The Mizzou students were not OK with this because we did not want to present work that we had contributed so little to in front of representative from Mizzou who are flying in to see these presentations. The CU students were not OK with this because most of the presentation that they had already presented was the work of their professor, who did not like their earlier draft of the presentation and pretty much changed the whole thing himself.
With the help of the professor from the US (who actually is not a professor at MU, he is an alum who occasionally comes in to teach a 1 hour class), we got clearance to go our own way with our presentation, using the previous presentation as ore of a resource. Both the Czech and US students are very happy with the presentations, but the Czech students fear that their professor will make us do his presentation after seeing ours. It's all very dramatic.
Another major difference is that the Czech students are used to a more lenient classroom environment. It is quite typical for them to answer cell phones, check their e-mail, and wander in and out of the room while we are doing class work (even during the presentations earlier this week, the Czech students would take phone calls--usually outside of the room--or talk to each other.) Anyway, when this was happening during presentations today it was driving the Mizzou students crazy because we just wanted to get our work done so we could have a normal Saturday. We did not end up finishing until 3:30 or so, it was pretty much a full day.
After class I went shopping with Dionne and one of the Czech students. (I go shopping a lot but I never buy anything...craziness). We got back to the dorms afterwards and hung out...somehow I ended up dozing off for about a half hour.
We went to dinner after that. All of the American students ended up going and some of the Czech students did two. We had an interesting experience in the restaurant. We ordered "Voda" (water) and I guess the waitress thought we said "Soda" and she was not too happy when we wanted her to take the sodas back. Everything ended up being OK though. Service in Czech restaurants is not particularly good, perhaps because tipping is completely optional and when people do tip they only round their bill up to the nearest 10Kc (about 50 cents).
Anyway, tomorrow will be our first day off. It will be nice to take a break from the branding subject matter for a little while. We are planning to visit the Prague castle in the castle quarter...so we should have a lot of good pictures then! We were also invited to a BBQ that one of the Czech students is having, so that should be fun.
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Grandma Rediger
non-member comment
Time off!!
I'm proud of you for holding your own on the project. It is Sunday here and it is very, very hot! The Cardinals just won 11- 3. That is 7 in a row!! Grandpa and I are going to your house tomorrow night for lodging and transportation to the airport on Tuesday. We are going with 3 other couples to the Napa Valley in California. We will be testing good wine! We'll be back Saturday and spend the night at your house. On Sunday we have a picnic planned at Doug's for my brother Dick and his family. Heather, Heidi and Jon will be there with them. We haven't seen them for a long time. Amber went to church camp today. She will be a counselor for junior and senior high girls. (She is going to have a hot time because the temperature is going to be around 95 all week. Lots of love, Grandma R.