Category: …so says the Spanish proverb. I’m really starting to see the wisdom in this saying.
Even though Semester 1 has been complete for over a week now, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time reflecting on the past 10 weeks. However, now that we’re just days away from starting Semester 2 in Dubai, one theme is starting to become more obvious to me: procrastination. It really shouldn’t be the surprise that it is to me, since this is now the second time (original post) I’m writing about this theme!
Since completing the CCL video, I’ve done everything I can to NOT do the pre-reading for Dubai. Whether it’s rationalizing that my work background is in Economics and Decision Models, figuring that I can spend some time this week at lunch doing the reading, or just partying so hard last night that my whole body aches, I haven’t been putting the proper amount of time with my Semester 2 reading materials. In fact, other than reading the syllabus for each class, I haven’t spent ANY time working. Not good.
This evening, after loafing around the house all day recovering, I finally broke my procrastination streak by starting the Decision Models Excel exercises. The first thing I can say is that it looks like Professor Sun takes the art of spreadsheet modeling very seriously. I did a few exercises, then saw the answer key he provided; while I got the answers right, my spreadsheet design needs some improvement.
The other thing I can say is, the Microsoft ribbon interface sucks. Every time I think Microsoft can’t disappoint me any more than it already has, I see something like this. Stop moving the #@*#! buttons around on me depending on where I am in the spreadsheet! “Context-sensitive” is really just another code-word for ‘chaos’.
I’ve spent my career building Excel spreadsheets, and yet when I use Excel 2007 it’s like I’ve never even used the program before. So besides doing the pre-reading exercises and readings, it looks like I also need to get a book on this new version of Excel. Awesome.
But that’s something I can handle tomorrow, when I do the Pro Forma Excel exercise. Like I said, I’m really starting to see the wisdom in that saying.
Tomorrow really is the busiest day of the week, I have been planning to study for the GMI exam, Do the excel exercises and study the micro economics text tomorrow, perpetually, for the past week. So when that tomorrow does comes, it will be very very busy.
Yesterday’s “Tomorrow” (Today) is actually turning out to be pretty productive. I worked on the Pro Forma exercise at lunch. Don’t have the answers in front of me to check my work, but I think I’ve got most of it right. Probably should’ve done the calculations in the format of a true income statement (vertical), instead of horizontally like I did. Oh well, that’s for later on tonight.
Funny that you make mention of GMI…wasn’t until after I wrote this last night when I had that “oh yeah, GMI” moment. So yeah, something else to go on the ‘tomorrow’ list!