Third year of BSBA and Immanuel Kant

We here in Monaco have been reminded this week that the glorious warm summer is now definitely over, by the sudden outbursts of rain. Dark clouds hang low from the sky, keeping the humidity high and the atmosphere gloomy. Worse still is that university has started and we have lots of work to do this term.

Although credit-wise, I am only taking 12 credits, four courses, one workshop and I am auditing an elective course. But this term, we must write our internship report and start working on our thesis.
Over the summer, I have decided that I want to go into computer orientated careers such as web design/programming so I am auditing the Computer Graphics course and decided to focus my thesis around the e-commerce consumer behavior field.

Today I wanted to share with you about a philosopher in the 18th Century called Immanuel Kant. One of my courses this term is about International Relations and Geopolitics and its really interesting for me because I love history and I've always wanted to learn philosophy. So far we covered Realism and Liberalism and I'm doing a presentation on one of the most influential liberalist thinker, Kant.

I volunteered to present Immanuel Kant thinking it'll be easy because he's the main liberal thinker so there'll be plenty to talk about, but when I did some research I realised that there is SO much to talk about his works that it is really difficult to give a short presentation on such an in depth character. So here is my quick overview on his life and ideology.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born and lived his whole life close to the capital of East Prussia, Konigsberg. He was born during the Age of Enlightenment, in which during the 18th century, intellectuals tried to reform society through reason, advance knowledge through science and opposed the abuse of power by the state and the church.
Kant's contributions were mainly made in four key areas of study: Metaphysics, Epistemology, Ethics and Aesthetics. 

• Metaphysics is "the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space" (Google Dictionary) 
• In which Kant focused on answering the question 'What can we know?'
• Epistemology means "The theory of knowledge, esp. with regard to its methods, validity, and scope."
• He said that knowledge has constraints because of how our minds are limited to the judgements we make through observations and experiences. 
• Regarding to ethics, his most famous quote about an ideology called Categorical Imperative explains his views: “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
• He also made a detailed study of judgement and thus arrived at a conclusion that aesthetics, beauty is only our perception. that the object is not beautiful but we reason it to be beautiful

Overall, his liberal view was that cooperation between people will work if everyone followed the same principles and this will be beneficial to everyone so there will be no more war but "Perpetual Peace". 

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Interesting no?

Monte Carlo International Fireworks Festival

Tonight is the Monte Carlo International Fireworks Festival! This is an annual competition and this year, the French, Czech Republic, Austrian and English teams are competing over four days during the summer. 

Check out the view from outside our apartment!

Grand Prix 2012

I am now exhausted but had a great weekend with family guests and friends!


Friday night, once I got back, my family and I went out for dinner with a guest to a restaurant called Avenue 31.
Saturday morning, we picked up the guests at the Metropole shopping centre because they need passes to cross the bridge over the track to get to our place. Then we had our annual buffet lunch party until around 3pm. In the evening, my family and I went to the newly opened Cipriani restaurant with some of the guests. The food was great! My father took us all for drinks to Zelo's for a drink afterwards, and then I went to the Billionaire's club with my friends.

Sunday, it was the big race! So we had the lunch buffet party again with all the guests.

Here's a video of the top 5 racers from this Sunday taken from our balcony:

1. Mark Weber

2. Nico Rosberg

3. Fernando Alonso

4. Sebastian Vettel

5. Louis Hamilton

After the race, we all went to walk around on the race track and had drinks at the Hotel de Paris. 

Today, we went to the Larvotto Beach and had lunch at La Note Bleue. It was a lot of fun this whole weekend but I've eaten so much I feel so full! Tomorrow will be my salad day!

Home-bound! Grand Prix 2012

I'm back in Monaco today and will be joining the family and guests for dinner at a restaurant, Avenue 31. Monaco is right in the middle of the Grand Prix, so our family is having our annual Grand Prix Buffet Party tomorrow and Sunday to watch the races and feast with about 20-40 guests every year.

But I hear that the weather forecasts say that it will rain this weekend :(
Although it might make things interesting, race-wise, I get back from 30+ degrees celsius of inland US so I wanted to enjoy the sun and the beach of Monaco!

Anyway, I'm sure this weekend will be exciting... as it always is!

I'll upload pictures in the blogs to follow!

California!!

I'm going to be in Sacramento in California, US for the next 3 weeks and I just arrived Monday. It was the first time for me to take 3 consecutive flights and man, its tiring! I went from Nice -> London -> Los Angeles -> Sacramento. I left my house at 5.30am and I arrived in Sacramento at 6pm (+9h for the time difference) so basically, I was traveling for almost 22 hours!
I flew British Airways the first two flights and then American and I was very glad that all went smoothly. My first flight was a little late, and I only had an hour to change flights, but there was a BA lady waiting as I got off the plane who gave me this bright orange piece of folded paper to show that I was running late and had to be let through the fast track immigration and security lanes. So I was at the next gate in no time.
Then the flight to LA was supposed to take over 11 hours but the wind was blowing in the right direction and we were told that it would only take 10 hours instead. Score! hehe.
So I had a little more time when I arrived in LAX Airport. I'd been told by a couple of people that it was a really annoying and confusing airport because of the lack of signs and the long customs and security checks. Indeed, there was a very long queue for customs and it turns out, despite the French lady in Nice Airport telling me that my luggage would go directly to Sacramento without having to re-check it, the audio annoucement kept repeating, "All luggages must be collect here and re-checked in after security control. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS."
It was a good thing I'd researched how to get to the different terminals for transfer so I knew where I was going.
And look what I found while waiting for my next flight:

It's a vending machine selling cameras, phones and Nintendo DS'!! Wow to America. haha I'd never seen that one before! 

Also while I was waiting, I got a text from my boyfriend that he was going to pick me up at the airport! But I didn't have any make up on and after all that traveling, you can imagine how my skin looked! :s And because the gate was such a far off place, I couldn't find a nearby toilet, so I had to use Photo Booth on my MacBook! I looked so silly trying to put liquid eye liner 2cm away from my computer screen! haha

Then, the airplane! It was the smallest I'd ever seen! It was smaller than some of the tall men and there were only 3 seats per row! 

Well now I am comfortably arrived in Sacramento and enjoying my holiday in the sun! Hope the weather improves in Monaco too!

Last Event of the Year @Stars'N'Bars

Friday was my last event as Student Association 2011-12! I organized a Open Bar Cocktail from 6 to 7pm at the newly re-opened Stars'N'Bars Monte Carlo.

It looked nice and new, looked more high tech with the automated doors and balconies!

We had the area behind the bar reserved for us and a total of 50 students attended the event! :D 

 My friends and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Mozza and then went out to a dance lounge, Zelo's, and then to Monaco's famous club, Jimmyz. It was a super fun night and now that I've spent the weekend resting, it finally feels like holiday! 

 

Off to Sacramento, CA, USA on monday! 

End of the 2nd Year of University!

I can't believe its nearly May already!  This week is the last week of university this school year because IUM only has two terms and I have to go do a three-month internship from June. Which also means that I have final exams! Last week, I had my Italian final exam and this week I have European Union, Marketing, Professional Writing exams. 

For our Entrepreneurship class, the teacher is making us present our business idea to 3 investors (who also came in during the term as guest speakers) and they will grade us by whether they would invest in the idea or not. So we have to be all proper, wear suits and convince the judges but we only get 10 minutes! Scary, no? :s Especially because I get so nervous for presentations, our professor told us to EXPLODE and do as if we were singing on stage (he'd seen me singing at the Christmas Ball)! So the plan is to practice tomorrow with my partner with a couple of RedBulls or a glass of whisky ;) heheh

For the Finance class, we had 3 quizzes throughout the term and the professor had said from the beginning that if we got good grades in those, he would put that average as our Exam grade so that we wouldn't have to take the exam! And well, I managed to get an average of over 100 (with bonus points) so, no finance final! Yayy

When all of this is over, I get a month of HOLIDAYYY!!! xD I am SO looking forward to it because I'm going, for the first time to California, US!! 

I've been to Hawaii, Guam, New York, Miami, and recently Boston, but I've never been to the West Coast and I'm super excited. 

My bf is doing his internship in Sacramento, so I'm going to visit him and drive down to San Francisco and LA! 

Which means.... I can pack all my summer dresses and bikinis! It's been really cold in Monaco this whole month it's crazy! So I just can't wait to lie in the sun and not worry about studying... 

I am coming back for the Grand Prix though! Monaco Grand Prix this year is from the 24th to the 27th of May and I fly back on the 25th. Our apartment is located just above the GP circuit tunnel and from our balcony, we can see the cars flying out of the tunnel. So we have a great lunch buffet party every year and invite our close friends from all over. I can't believe it's already been a year! 

Ooh and April is Birthday month for our family. My father, my grandmother, my sister and my mother were all born in April! (Of course, I'm the out-liar, I was born in January) Anyway, check out the chocolate cake I made for my sister this weekend! It was really good!! nom nom! 

By the way, Stars'N'Bars is re-opening tomorrow! I organized our last university event this Friday 27th there too and we are all super excited to have our favourite American Restaurant Bar back! I hear they now have very cool balconies and a dance floor?! 

http://starsnbars.liferiviera.com/