Hump Day

By Wednesday, we'd established a pretty good routine. Like well-oiled machines, we got up in the morning and headed to Spanish for some conversation and tasty beverages. After learning the most essential phrases, aka the ones associated with ordering food, we got to sample Mexican sodas. We had a Coke, some other kind of soft drink, and liquefied jolly rancher flavored fruit juice. And we also learned the word for carrot: zanahoria. Weird, huh?

After a lesson on Business Etiquette taught by Tonya Nations, a pro at the Millsaps Career Center, we headed to lunch at a local favorite called C.S.'s. The best dive bar and burger joint in town, it was easy to see how C.S.'s is a cult favorite for the city and for students. Massive burgers, heart-clogging chili-cheese fries, and sinfully wonderful apple cobbler were instant classics.

One brief food coma later, we strolled to our next class: The Basics of International Trade. Here, we covered exactly what the title implies - the benefits of trading rather than relying only on what you can produce. Comparative advantage was the buzz word for the afternoon, and we learned that even if you rock at everything you do, it still behooves you to specialize in producing one thing and then trading for your other necessities.

Finally, Dr. Grubbs talked to us about the impacts of culture in business. We reviewed Hofstede's cultural dimensions: low vs high power distances, individualism vs collectivity, low vs high uncertainty avoidance, masculinity vs femininity, and long-term vs short-term orientation. It was fascinating to try to understand how these general values can play such a large role in your understanding of people and the cultures from which they derive their beliefs and expectations. Also very important in the business world!

Our fun activity of the evening? The Madison movie theatre. More like a classy indoor mall, the movie theatre had a restaurant, arcade games, a full stadium menu, and of course, movies. We went to see The Hangover - it was hysterically funny. There just aren't any other words to describe it ... so I'll leave it at that.

And then, we returned to watch another movie (a complete 180 from The Hangover) - the Shawshank Redemption. I think we can all safely say we don't plan on going to prison anytime soon after seeing it!