Good weekend

This weekend a few of my friends from northern Chicago are coming up to visit. They got tickets for the Notre Dame game and I am not sure what we will do after. But I am excited to see them since it has been over two months since I have been home. When I was thinking about what to write about I realized that this is the longest I have been away from home in my entire life. It feels weird to not be so close to all of my friends and family. Taking this kind of stuff for granted can be easier than I thought. I never thought that I had until I came here. I am having a great time at Purdue, but I am really excited to see at least a small portion of home. On top of that the Bears game will be playing Sunday and the TV will actually be broadcasting it. So Sunday is all about a good old fashioned Bears game with my friends.

Ancient Greek and Asian Cultures

The Asian culture has relied much more on community and networks of people since ancient times. They believed in being a community and creating harmony much more than individuality and liberty. Both of these philosophies have their own benefits and pit falls. In ancient Chinese culture being part of a big social hierarchy was emphasized and people worked together to solve the problems that came up in their world. Since this community worked together, things got done a lot faster and more efficiently. The benefits of this system are a feeling of unity, more thorough and accurate results, and a broader range of experience. On the other end of the spectrum the Greeks who emphasized individuality and personal freedom. They studied separately in order to further advance their curiosities, individual goals, and enhance their unique attributes. The Greeks’ system was beneficial in that any man could do whatever he wanted and the sense of personal agency was everywhere. The Greeks would literally stop wars in order to compete in Olympics. This led to a country of people with a multitude of extremely enhanced talents.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

One of the most important criteria for doing international business is to overcome cultural differences. Cultural differences in engineering and business include wrong interpretation of the language, behavior, working style and difference in the definition of some key questions like what is the company looking for , what is the timeline and the what is the higher or lower areas of concern. In the starting, Austrian, British and German engineers were finding it difficult to adjust with different working style.The same differences were seen when we were taught about Channel's project. British and French engineers had different style of working. When Mark went to Germany there was misinterpretation of behavior. Mark was not comfortable with the way company chauffeur was asking him questions and the company chauffeur was not feeling the way Mark was talking about other things. Sometimes understanding of multiple definitions of respect also can have sour outcomes.Like in Asia respect is related to the seniority of the person in that field.Breakdown of communication, harm to personal feelings etc are some of the outcomes of different definitions of respect.There was different interpretations of the same word, ' Quality product '. According to the Germans want a perfect solution to every problem but according to the Americans needs and demands of the client is more important. For example, the Germans engineers were not able to work and give a final product to the American in the fixed time because they were finding the perfect solution to the problem but American were more curious to send the final products to the market. The Germans were thinking that the American are putting pressure on them and American were not so concerned about the 100% efficient solution. As a result of misunderstandings the project was never completed and the overall loss was over $20 million.

Weekend

I have no pressing matters that need to get done for this weekend, no homework that needs to be finished by Monday, and no other obligations. This weekend looks to be very relaxing and it's strange to be so excited for nothing. I think this weekend I will finally go into Lafayette and buy all the stuff that I still need. I have been here for 6 weeks now and I still do not have a few important things for my dorm room. I have not noticed it too much though because I have been so busy that I have not spent any time in there just hanging out or something, so this weekend will be uncharted water. I will probably sleep until the afternoon on Saturday. The options are endless I can't wait!

Globally Educated Engineer

The miscommunication and eventual break down of a team is one of the worst things that can happen for an engineering company. After reading about the German and American engineering project I see the importance of global competency in a real life scenario. Maybe if these engineers had taken engr103 at Purdue they would know better. Global competency is such a huge part of engineering because no matter where you work you are going to be exposed to other cultures. Life would be much easier if you had already learned about their culture and know how to interact with a certain group of people. The globally educated engineer has head start in that they know how to interact with these cultures so companies want to hire them, as well as being able to work much more efficiently and know how to get things done, getting a literal head start in the workplace. Another benefit would be that you seem a lot less ignorant in the eyes of co-workers, potential employers, and society.

Soccer

In addition to my sand volleyball team I joined a nine on nine intramural soccer league. I was in my room one day when the captain of the team who I had never met before came and asked if I wanted to play. I thought that was nice and I haven’t played soccer in a little while and I figured that it would be fun so I agreed. We practiced on Sunday, which I am still sore from by the way. But our first game was Monday and not only is that my busy day with classes, I also had a sand volleyball game, dinner, a chemistry exam, and then the soccer game at nine. This was one of the busiest days of my life. But after being sore from Sunday, playing sand volleyball, eating too much at dinner and taking a test, I sprinted from Elliot to my dorm to the soccer fields in a short amount of time. After I got there, gasping for air to relieve my cramping, I found out that our game was forfeited because six of our players decided that they did not want to show up. Unbelievable.

Australian Self-Belief

In spite of huge economic crises 2 years ago and even after facing a Huge natural calamity 9 months ago , Australia has come a long way and stood strong in the international economy . Australian are confident about their present state as a country in the present world scenario . They are confident about their abilities and a strong hope of a bright future. Their unemployment is at 5.9% and economic growth is 5%. This transformation is because of Booming economies like China, Korea and India and their demands for Australian's resources. Australia is able to create jobs in the worst scenarios that the world economy has faced . With their self-believes they were able to create jobs by opening new industries and a lot of new research opportunities . Australia has creates 36 new research institutes. In the last Quarter , Queensland recorded the strongest growth in any state . And it is not some type of a fluke or one time thing . This is a generational and re structural change that will change and improve national economy for a long time. Queensland have modernized culturally , economically and socially in 10 years and was able to catchup with what other states have covered in the last 30-40 years. Now the only challenge left in the decade to come is that they should be able to capitalize on the present situation , create highly educated and skilled workers to meet world expectations . Australia has a lot of wealth in their land and they are planning to use their wealth to come up in the field of education ,energy, gas, biofuels and renewable sources. If Australia is able to meet these expectations then it can become a big difference between the economical depression expected to come in Asian countries.

URl :http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/challenge-of-our-times-harnessing-the-resources-boom/story-e6frg9if-1226140353839

Tony Abbot's northern foodbowl

I read the article titled, “Tony Abbott’s plan for the northern foodbowl.” This column is all about agricultural production and how it can be enhanced. They are predicting that they can double Australia’s production in a few decades. It is predicted to jump from 60 million to 120 million people fed from their agricultural farms. This can be obtained by implementing the river dam system that has been repeatedly proposed. It is a way of harnessing the river and its energy. They can use the dams to fuel irrigation systems that can turn millions of “hectares” into drastically improved agricultural fields that can support many new opportunities for growth in their agricultural markets. This helps out many other nations, because it provides a lot of countries with a supply of food that they had not had before. Australia’s proposed agricultural production would supply many different Asian countries with much more food than they have ever before.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbotts-plan-for-northern-foodbowl/story-fn59niix-1226139412448

MYER - making big investment in new website

The Australian retailer "MYER" is making a big investment in their website, totally revamping it in its entirety. They are investing a whoppin' $9 million on their new website, which only generates about $5 million per year presently.

This really touches on the point of 'connected-ness' that the modern world offers that was a big discussion piece as we investigated the idea a 'homogeneous global culture'. Not only are we more in contact with each other and those of differing cultures, backgrounds and ideas, but we are more connected with businesses and we see that today's business models reflect that with such things as investing $9 million in improving a website. And, this is done because people are likely to spend $35 billion more a year on this website in making it that much more attractive and easier to use. Why go out shopping when you have an international marketplace just a click away?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/companies/myers-9m-bet-on-website-build-it-and-customers-will-come/story-fn91v9q3-1226138251804

Chunnel Project

I think that both the French and British engineering culture have good qualities. But they can also be bad. The French always have to have a plan before they start working. This is good because it ensures that everything will be organized and everyone will be on the same page. Having the plan can help them avoid major issues. However, issues always arise and you won't always have the option to sit and make a plan, sometimes actions need to be instantaneous. Now the British are opposite, they tend to just go with it and think on the spot. This can be good because if a problem does arise, they are able to think on their feet and get right to fixing it. But, it can also be bad because without a plan, it is easy to overlook little details, like what happened with the Chunnel. When they were building the Chunnel, the French side of the tunnel was able to withstand different conditions, however the British side was not. The water caused a major issue for the British, but luckily, since they were able to play with their strengths and find a solution right away, without much planning time. This showed where their lack of planning set them back, but it also displays how their engineering culture has the advantage when it comes to needing a quick fix.

Hydrogen

Finally i decided on ' Hydrogen as Future fuel ' as my topic for my four English papers for this semester. On this one topic i have to write a personal narrative , literature review , interview and argumentative essay. I am currently working on personal narrative . In this I have to write what i know about the topic without referring to any source of information. There were two reasons behind choosing this topic. Firstly , I should tell you that i want move into the field of energy studies after graduating as a chemical engineer. So, I personally want to know about hydrogen as a future fuel and how it can help or effect us in the future. Secondly, it is the least talked about source of energy when we talk about future sources of energy or renewable sources of energy. By working on this topic i want to put bring this topic into limelight at least in my class .

For my first dart I just took few definitions from web just to give some concrete introduction . I didn't want to consult any book for my personal narrative because i feel, if i consult any book then i won't be left with any new matter for my further papers. Currently i know very few things about my topic but i think as the semester progresses , i will be able to learn new and amazing facts about hydrogen. And i also hope that at the end of semester i will be able to answer many questions in my mind right now and i also hope that i will able to big some information to my fellow students.