Days 17 - 20

6-24-13 + 6-25-13

            My first all-nighter. I decided to combine these two days into one journal entry since it really is just one long day. I spent the morning of day one in class and then began revising our S.E.E. model in order to turn in a final copy at 6 pm today. We ended up working on these corrections all afternoon of day one, all night in between the two days, and then all day after class today until we had to turn it in. I think the only other time I was this exhausted was during my stint at the Air Force Academy two years ago. I never thought I would be comparing the rigor of Entrepreneurship and Empowerment South Africa to the United States military training. I am happy with our S.E.E. model that we submitted today but I know our work is not over. We have another S.E.E. model due on Thursday and our potential deliverables are due on Thursday as well. This week is shaping up to be one of the toughest weeks of my life thus far. Fortunately, we’ve begun planning our activities for the weekend and they will surely be incredible. On Friday we are going to Stellenbosch for the wine tour on which we will be visiting three wineries. I hope to bring back some wine for the rest of the trip and to bring home as well. On Saturday I hope to relax in the morning before going to a rugby game that night of the Cape Town Stormers vs. another South African team. Apparently the rugby culture here is similar to ice hockey in the U.S. The fans are crazy and so are the players. And finally, on Sunday we are going shark diving with great whites! So happy we were finally able to organize a trip to see some killer sharks. Can’t wait for this week to be over!

6-26-13

            I cannot wait for this week to be over. I don't think I have ever worked so hard for a week in my entire life and its really getting to me. My body is tired and my mind is more tired. I just wish I could catch up on sleep just for a little bit. This weekend I hope to be doing plenty, In addition to all the fun outings planned. I really believe that these S.E.E. Models will be great tools when we begin handling the deliverables during the second half of this trip, but unfortunately, they are diminishing my dedication to the clients, which is a problem. I am here to help them and I do, but it is getting hard when I am stuck in a room all day working on evaluation papers. I just hope that once this week is over ill still have some energy left to work for three more weeks.

            Fortunately, yesterday we got some interesting news from Luvuyo. On Tuesday he is planning to make a presentation to a company known as Cadiz. This company funds business owners attempting to franchise their business using current employees as the initial franchisees. He asked us if we could create a presentation for him, which almost seems like busy work, but in this case, we were all very excited to have this opportunity. He also said that he would bring two of us to the presentation on Tuesday and that we would have to decide who will be going. I assumed we will pull straws or something but I really hoped that I could go because that would be a sight to see. Today we developed a draft for this presentation and revealed it to Luvuyo and he was very impressed. We also made six pieces of paper and only two of these have check marks on them. I picked one and so did one of my teammates, Catherine. I must say I am so excited to go see real business in the works because this is what I came to learn about. While I have learned a ton about business in the past three weeks, I have not seen much business in its working form. It should be eye opening to see really people with real problems working hard to fix them and better their lives.

6-27-13

            WE ARE FINALLY DONE WITH THE S.E.E. MODELS! It is such a good feeling to finally let loose for a bit after working so hard this week. Now, I have no idea how we did on our models but we will find out Monday and go from there. The team with the best model gets a helicopter ride of Cape Town and the Cape of Good Hope, which would be an awesome experience, especially since I’ve never been in a helicopter. I plan on going to sleep early tonight and enjoying this three-day weekend ahead: wine tour tomorrow, rugby game Saturday, and shark diving on Sunday. All I know is that I feel great right now and this weekend could not come at a better time. I’ve worked my butt off and I only do I feel that it has paid off some. I doubt I will feel this way again until the end of the program so I am trying to cherish it as much as possible. I feel like I know such a great deal about my client’s businesses after conducting a thorough evaluation of their practices. I believe this will end me in the coming weeks when we have to provide tangible deliverables to our clients in order to help them grow. This is happiness.