Hectic Week

After the mess up with the schedule of classes, I managed to make the schedule work for me. After a few emails and a meeting with the business coordinator, N, she allowed me to skip the Customer Service classes so I could go to my work placement at Blue Illusion. She emailed me all the lessons and I'll just have to come in for the test.

So starting last week, I did work experience at Tresur Knitting Factory, helping to steam knit garments, cut out patterns on knits, cut out samples for colour cards and basically do the repetitive but time consuming tasks. It was also the first time I saw the massive knitting machines. It was so different from the tiny Singer knitting machines we used in school. The old Greek ladies were fun to be around. They just talk and work at the same time. No dilly-dallying. They come in between 7.30 to 8.00 am and leave at 4 - 4.30  pm, have a 10 minute snack in the morning and about 30 minutes of lunch. Not that they were being told so, they just work, break, work. It was great just observing and trying (yes, trying) to help.

Today was my last day there and M, my lecturer, treated me to lunch. And I got myself a knit shirt as a memento. =)

And while that was being happening, I had to visit the dentist (and will have to go again tomorrow), review for a test, visit one of the potential offices and buy trims for millinery.

Excursion

After that test on International Purchasing, we went to this place.

It was educational as everything we learned in theory, we heard it being practiced in reality.

And I'm going there for work placement next month. =)

Presentation

Last Tuesday, we had to present our Store Competitor and Buying Plan to the class. After considering the massive task of identifying classification of ranges, fabric content per garment per classification and price per garment per range, I decided to concentrate on a more manageable store - I picked Calvin Klein Underwear. It was a wise decision I later found out.

R thought she would also have a more manageable store. Unfortunately, she picked MIMCO, an accessories store without thinking that the accessories classification was wide: Kinds of Accessories - Bags, jewelry, hair accessories, wallets, etc. Subdivisions under each classification: Bags (Shoulder bags, hand bags, totes, clutch, etc), Fabric content for each, etc. Some of my classmates were at near breaking point. Add crashing programs and lost spreadsheets and there were tears all around.

But we did (most of us did) finish on time and were able to present on time. Best of all, I found out that I had the best presentation (yey) and my lecturer asked for copies of my powerpoint presentation to give to some of my classmates as a basis of making presentations. Then, I regretted not putting my name on my power point presentation. Oh well.  Next time.

Yesterday, we got our marks back and I got 99%. One point was taken off because I didn't have a uniform format in my spreadsheet. =( Lesson learned. Take time to format everything. =)

My Pari-sisal hat

And here is my hat.

Finished it at the end of yesterday.

There was a lot of unpicking done but I'm glad I finished it. 

This made me stop and think...

At the Salvation Army store, on one of my random walks.

At first I thought it was a pile of stuffed toys... very life like stuffed toys (reminded me of that news story where a guy got spooked by what he thought was a siberian tiger sleeping beside his car but turned out to be a toy tiger). But in this instance, it was not a pile of stuffed toys but a pile of mink. Yes, mink. Those small, cute animals noted for their fur.

While I like the feel of fur, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable wearing fur still with head and paws attached.