Christmas Tree in RockefellerCenter. December 2009
Some more amusing stuff about New York city from our holiday trip.
When I say “amusing”, you need to keep in mind that it is amusing from a “countryman’s” perspective of a suburban Washington, DC dweller. So these are the “amusing” things in New York for me. The NY city residents just take it as a matter of fact, of course.
- I took my laptop with me in expectation that I would be able to check out some stuff when I need it on the internet. We stopped at the Starbucks shop and I fired up my computer to get a location of some store we wanted to stop by. I was utterly bedazzled to find out that there is no free wi-fi access in New York city Starbucks. That was a shock. In DC area Starbucks shops have wi-fi free for all. Not that I ever used it, but I saw the signage and people using it every time I get into Starbucks around here.
- I enjoyed walking down the streets which were not wide enough for both the vehicles and pedestrians, so that pedestrians had continuously to overflow on the road from the sidewalk.
- I heard more foreign speech than English while walking down the streets of New York. And those foreign languages were not all Spanish!
- The New York city Central Park Zoo is not much to boast about. It’s very small, and adult admission is $10. The Zoo in DC is at least ten times bigger and it’s free! The most disappointing thing is that they don’t even have most of the animals prominentlly featured in Madagaskar/2 movies. The only characters that could be related to that cartoon movie are penguins and lemurs. But no lions, hyppos, giraffes or zebras for that sake.
- Getting out of the city on a holiday weekend is a lot of fun (not). It took us two hours fifty minutes to go 2.5 miles from the parking lot to Lincoln tunnel. That was really an eye opener to spend all this time in traffic with average speed of about one mile per hour.
- I really liked the Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center. It was gorgeous, marvelous eye candy. I also liked the crowdiness of the Rockefeller Center plaza. It was energizing. Here are some pictures of the Christmas tree and Rockefeller plaza for those of you who did not make it to it. All pictures are taken with my new smartphone Nokia E71x, I’m loving it.
Crowd at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. Yuletide 2009
Christmas Tree in Rockefeller Center-2. December 2009
On Sunday we had a day trip to New York. The main goal was to get the feel for New York during the holidays. While getting this experience we visited the Central Park Zoo and the Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Center. Time in between was just gettting back and forth between the two destinations with stops at some stores.
There were a few notable things I would comment on.
- New Jersey full service gas stations law. I used New Jersey gas stations at least a couple times before. First time I was intrigued by the fact that I could not pump my own gas as I always do anywhere else. I was wondering why it was a law in the past, but never went to the trouble of researching it more. This time, probably this is the mindset being forged by my part-time MBA program, I had some explanation of my own and I was determined to check out if it had anything in common with reality.
First for my explanation. I thought that New Jersey either had an unproportionately high ratio of high-school drop-outs or unprecedently conscious law makers who were concerned about the fate of high school drop-outs, so this law was the way to deal with this social and economic issue by providing thousands or may be tens of thousands jobs to these people.
I did some research on internet and digged out a few interesting facts. My assumptions were not directly confirmed by those findings. Nevertheless, here are the facts:
- The law to ban self-service gas stations in New Jersey was made in 1949. Rationale for it was that it was safer to allocate a trained person to do it (today the attendants have to log 8 hours of training before being qualified to do that job). I don’t remember having any formal training before I pumped gas for the first time in my car
- Today the full-service gas stations have become a part of Jersey “identity”. Many Jersyites have become so used to having their gas pumped by an attendant that they feel that removing this law will deprive them from their inherent rights and identity. They also have pity for the rest of the country where people still have to do this “dirty job” themselves and yet pay higher prices for self-service gas.
- New Jersey does indeed have some of the lowest gas prices in the nation. It hardly has anything to do with full service gas dispension, but rather with the low gas taxes imposed by the state.
- Given all the surrounding circumstances, the issue of full-service gas station is highly sensitive and very explosive political and economical matter in the state. The latest attempt to remove this law by the state governor in 2006 was a huge fiasco and disgrace for him.
- Tipping the gas station attendant is optional. Most Jersyites have never done it, nor have they ever seen any of their acquantainces or neighbors do it. (Since I was not aware of this until now I did tip gas station attendents every time I had my tank filled in New Jersey)
- Oregon is the only other state in the nation who makes a company to New Jersey by enforcing full-service gas stations law.
So I admit, I was wrong to tie the issue so narrowly to the high school drop-outs. I was close to evaluating New Jersey law makers as very “conscious”, as they did defeat the governor in his attempt to remove the law, and they did upheld the New Jersey “pride” by keeping the outdated law. If not for any other reason than keeping the privilege to have their own tanks filled without leaving the comfort of their vehicles. It did have a trickle down beneficial effect on all other “concerned” citizens of the state. Oh, as additional side effect it did save jobs for some 1-2% of the state population, majority of whom are the voters. But isn’t this how politics work anyways?
As for me, I did appreciate paying a lower price for gas, even though it was a very minimal difference after adding a tip.
Now that the fall term is formally over, I can draw the line for my first term in part-time MBA program at George Washington University School of Business (GWSB). It has been rather interesting learning experience.
I had some classes that really grabbed my interest, such as Microeconomics, Decision Making. There was a subject that made me shiver all the time, namely Financial Accounting. Business Ethics was OK, with some brighter spots when I learned interesting background facts of the stories that made national headlines in the very recent past.
I had some great instructors, some good ones and one I would not want to take another class with. I learned the importance of asking around in advance about other classmates’ experiences with other professors in other classes, so I could at least try to avoid the bad learning experiences. It is not always easy or even possible, but well worth trying.
It has been very time-demanding and time-consuming endevour. The last three weeks, after the short Thanksgiving recess, have been especially intense for me. Mostly because I had two quantitative classes at the same time, and quants have always been a challenging domain for me. So preparation for the finals and the demands of the starting holiday season have collided into a very stressful mixture.
During the term, and actually from the time of starting preparation for the MBA, I have been keeping my log of expenses related to this process. To give future part-time MBA students idea about financial and other demands of part-time MBA program I am going to give a peek into my personal statistics related to part-time MBA program. Of course, it would have to be adjusted for every personal circumstances, but overall it will give you a representative snapshot of resources and efforts involved into getting the MBA degree part-time.
So here is my rundown of the results for the first MBA program term:
Academics
- Completed total of 5 classes, 1.5 credits each
- Accrued total of 7.5 credits towards my 52.5 credits required for graduation
- Maintained 3.06 GPA
Financials
Direct costs:
- Tuition and fees – $9,071
- Purchase of textbooks – $428
- Tuition covered by scholarship -$3,624
- Costs covered by accrued student’s loan – $5,500
- Direct costs paid out of pocket – $375
Incidentals and other indirect costs:
- Parking – $155
- Gas – $111
- Laptop & software – $970
- Total incidentals paid out of pocket – $1,236
Time & effort
- Required reading – over 1500 pages
- Time in class – 85 hours
- Commute time – 38 hours
- Time spend on preparartion for classes and exams – well over 200 hours, but no exact data, as I eventually lost track of it
As they say in legal disclaimers: “every effort has been made to provide accurate account of bla-bla-bla… Your results may differ due to many variables … bla-bla-bla”.
And of course, I wish Merry Christmas to everyone who cares.
