Jason Kirychuk's Weblog

Study night before Final For E marketing

kirychuk — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:32:17 +0000

Tonight has been a refresher of the material for emarketing as I have my final tomorrow at 10 am. I feel as though the final will go fairly well. We were told to study the terms in the database glossary, and to review the session slides. I have a good grasp but I’m hoping that the technical stuff involving Java, XML, HTML is not too complicated. I’m thinking it will not be. As well, I still need to add some longer phrases on my ad-words campaign in order to capture the long tail. Basically “less is more” and it is best to target a specific group of audience so they say. I’l work on that tonight and study until ten. At that point Julia will be over for a movie.

VIPE Party Night at the Arena Nova

kirychuk — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 15:45:09 +0000

Last night at the Arena Nova there was a party called VIPE Party Night. Basically it was a giant party with over 4000 people in attendance. This amount of people was possible due to the fact that the Arena Nova is such a big stadium. The majority of the people there were from 16 years of age to 25 years of age. Everyone seemed to be in the party mood due to the good music and the abundance of alcohol. Most of the international students attended the event, and most were drunk out of their minds. Similar to the practice back home in Canada, everyone pre-drinks before attending. Because we all had kegs of Heineken which were given to us for free the other night, we all had easy access to 5 L of beer. We entered the party around 10:30 pm and danced away until around 2 am. Around 2 am some of the students stayed while others went back to the old dorm for the after party. This party was in full swing when I arrived around 2 am. I met up with Julia as well, a girl who is from Syria and is studying at the FH in her first semester. We stayed until around 5 am and then hit the sack. I think I was the first one up at around 4 pm today.

New Course

kirychuk — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:02:22 +0000

Today I had my first class of Materials Management and Logistics this morning at 9:30. It’s a course that is part of the 5th semester and it is actually a course that gives me credit for Operations Management back home at Thompson Rivers University. The course objectives are to give a detailed understanding of materials and logistic management and the ability to understand supply chain management. The course is structured in a way that the final exam is worth 70% while class participation is worth 10% while class work is worth 20%. I think this should be an interesting course.

Swedish Sitinin at the dorms

kirychuk — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:03:39 +0000

Our cultural background at the FH student dorms is very diversified. We have people from all over the world, and as a result there are different cultural traditions. One of the traditions which is shared by Swedish people is called a Sitinin. A Sitinin is basically a large dinner where people drink and socialize and enjoy a dinner together. Since we have two Swedish students, Kimmy and Martin, they insisted on putting this on. The preparation started early in the day as we needed to move the couches and the tv out of the common room to make room for the tables and chairs. As well, certain people were asked to bring their tables down to form the seating area. The tables were covered with cloth and the plates were arranged it looked very good. At around 8:00 pm everyone began sitting and started drinking wine. The Swedes had ample amounts of red wine available which made for an interesting night. The sitting arrangement was not done in a random manor. On the contrast, each guy had a girl to each side of him. The girl on the right was to be the date for the night. My date was a Polish girl named Ella. So we drank and socialized for an hour or so and then the food was served. We had potatoes which were covered in a special sauce, as well as meat. It was nice to have a home cooked meal again. After the dinner we put some music on and partied all night. The night went great except one of the exchanged students, my roommate from Finland, got a bit too drunk and tried to tip the drink expensor. Unfortunately, his hand was caught at the bottom causing it to be crushed. Luckily nothing was broken; he only required stiches. Other then that it was a great night.

Wednesday Night in Vienna

kirychuk — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 10:52:33 +0000

So Wednesday night after my investments class I got a ride to the train station from Christoph. I bought my train ticket, which was only 4 Euros with my Vorteil card, and took the train to Meidling. From there I took the U6 then the U3 to Stephanplatz. The reason I ventured off to Vienna was to meet up with a friend of mine, Katie, who is studying in Vienna for one year. It was great to meet up with someone from Kamloops. This meeting had been planned prior to us crossing over the Atlantic Ocean. Our first plan was to get some liquor in us. She knew of a really cheap place for drinks called Bricks so we just walked there. The drink special was 1.40 Euro shots of Tequilla, which is very very cheap. After having about 8 shots each, which may sound alot but the shot glasses are a bit smaller here then back home, we started heading for Flex. However, after talking to some people we were directed to another club called Moulin Rouge. The reason for this is that there was a erasmus party there. Erasmus means exchange student in Europe. So we checked that out but it wasn’t too busy but it had good potential. We decided to come back in a couple of hours and check out Flex first. Flex is located in Karlsplatz, which is an area that is known for its widespread drug use. However, the club was supposed to be great so we checked it out anyways. I was a bit disappointed with the club. We went on the wrong night because the music selection was alternative. We only stayed for one drink then went back to the previous club. We stayed there for the rest of the night. At around 4 am she headed back home and I took the train back to Wiener Neustadt.

E Marketing Assignments

kirychuk — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 16:47:54 +0000

So at the moment I have two projects on the go for my E marketing class. I have only a few days left to construct an Ebay add but I’m having difficulties because Ebay has suspended my account. No, I’m not a fraudster. I believe that the issue is correlated with my mailing address being different from my current address. This problem is widespread throughout the class. As of yesterday only 9 students had a product listed on Ebay. Another project that I’m working on is an adwords campaign. Basically adwords is a way of advertising for a product. One is able to purchase certain keywords on Google, and by doing good search engine optimization one can influence a webpage rank. Basically, I chose certain keywords such as snow, snowboard, snow jacket and so on. When a user types in those words it is possible that my add will be displayed. It is a neat assignment. However, the only issue is that I will not be able to make my campaign live so it will be impossible to really understand how effective I was. However, I may use this idea in the future for advertising.

October 1st: The day nothing gets done

kirychuk — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:52:32 +0000

October 1st is the running joke around here at the dorm. For starters, the common room, internet, and fitness facility were to all be up and running by this date. I mean, technically these services were to be ready on our day of arrival but we settled for October 1st. However, I think October 1st was moved forward a few weeks because it is only now that things are actually being done. We FINALLY have some sort of fitness and common room, which is much appreciated because it is too difficult to throw parties in the dorm rooms without anything being damaged. However, I think some expansion on these rooms could be used. Up to yesterday the common room was basically a room with 4 walls, a ceiling and a floor, not to mention maybe 6 chairs. I think having a couple of couches and maybe a tv would be quite nice. Maybe that will be in on October 1st. But, admis the satire it is quite nice to finally have the internet. However, for a while when something needs to be done I will reply “On October 1st”

Midweek Banter

kirychuk — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 19:46:57 +0000

So this week has been fairly tame as far as tame goes being an international student. I purchased a gym membership at this awesome gym just passed the Cinneplexx called Club Top and Fit. The gym is very good it has a large aerobic area as well as many weights and machines for doing a workout. As well, the gym has squash and tennis courts which will be much appreciated once the weather gets too cold to be outside. Even though the gym is fairly close to the dorm, it would still be too far to reach by foot, and taking the bus is a major pain in the ass here in wiener neustadt. For this reason I bought a bike at a local bike shop for 90 Euros. It’s a decent bike, a bit older but all I really need is for it to ride. The only issue is that the seat post remains locked at the highest position, but I might be able to fix that later. So now that I have wheels maybe I’l get to see a bit more of the city.

The Party at the old dorms last night

kirychuk — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:36:03 +0000

Last night was a blast! There was a party in the old dorms for a fellow student at the FH. It was held in one of the common rooms on the 2nd floor. Most of the international students attended, as well as many regular students. We partied until the wee hours of the night, and I must say i’m feeling it. Yes, it was a great idea to consume all those beers last night but now i’m paying for it. I’m desperately hungover and it’s 2:33 pm right now. I have hw to do yet I’m still sitting in this chair trying to download Season 2 Episode 1 of Lost. Well I guess this constitutes homework because I am supposed to blog 3 times a week for my E marketing class. Howver, I should probably try and do some reading for E marketing, as well as do some investments homework and multinational Finance homework. Tonight we are going to Vienna for a big party at the Passage, and then Sunday I am supposed to be going hiking but I might cancel out of that.

Internet

kirychuk — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:27:59 +0000

So we finally got the internet in our rooms yesterday after much anticipation the whole semester. We recieved a modem and some basic plugins at 3pm and then ran to the rooms to set up the connection. For some, the process went well; they were able to connect to the internet very easily. However, for others who were operating windows vista, they had to go through a different process but eventually most people were able to connect. Having the internet is something everyone wanted from the start, and now it will make things alot easier. For one, I will be able to post more blogs now that I dont’ have to rely on the university for the net. Yes, Yesterday was a good day!