Quick announcement from Courtney:

Self Assessments: You guys should find your self assessments in your inboxes this morning. They are coming to you from SurveyMonkey, so check your spam or SaneLater if you don't see them. They are due a week from today so that we can start the review process in July. Thanks!

As most of us probably know by now, last week Amazon acquired Whole Foods for $13.4 billion. This is clearly a monumental deal and shows just how big of a company Amazon is. What I think is even more impressive than this immense buyout, is where Amazon started. Today we know Amazon as the enormous worldwide retailer that sells just about everything under the sun, but back in 1994 when Amazon started they sold one thing: books. Initially Amazon was simply an online book retailer that competed with local book stores. Slowly but surely Amazon started carrying more product lines such as DVDs, electronics, toys, jewelry, and shoes. In 2005 Amazon Prime was first introduced, followed by the Amazon Kindle in 2007. In the last 10 years Amazon has gone from releasing their first Kindle, to now being the king of shipping and owning one of the largest supermarket chains in the world.

What I take away from what Amazon has done is that success does not come overnight. It took 23 years for Amazon to get to where they are today. So go out and work hard, because a small success today could lead to a huge success down the line. Have a great weekend guys!

Two days ago I was able to leave class before noon and wander through the old city of Nürnberg. My goal was the main market square where I planned to buy some flowers to put around my apartment. As I reached the square, I noticed hordes of people in bucket hats, sensible shoes, and Hawaiian shirts with their cell phones in the air, pointed at the church. It was noon and the bells were chiming, as they do every day. 

But I was confused, why was everyone staring? So I moved in the direction of the flower stand, dodged some tourists' videos, and looked at the church. The small figures that decorate the center of the tower were moving! Oh. Got it. Moving things. 

Apparently, in my whole time living in Nürnberg, I had never been to the market at noon before. 

My takeaway:

Explore your surroundings! There may be something super awesome (like old mechanical statues) there that you don't know about!

So..if you haven't noticed, it's a little toasty outside this week. It's crazy how extreme temperatures seem to have a crippling effect on our energy and motivation sometimes. So to beat the heat this week, I looked up some out-of-the-box ways to keep cool. Aside from the obvious "drink more water" there are some pretty interesting ways to battle a seemingly inevitable heat stroke. 

Eat Spicy Food:

Though it seems counterintuitive, spicy food makes you sweat without raising your internal body temperature, and sweating is the body's way of cooling down. This is actually why many desert cultures often have spicy food on the menu frequently.

Eat Small Portions:

Eating large heavy meals rears your digestive system into motion, which creates internal body heat.

Eating smaller more frequent meals will not make your body work as hard and hot to digest the food.    Know Your Body's Quick-Cooling Spots: If all that eating of small spicy foods fails you, try cooling down your body quickly with an ice cube at body's quick-cooling spots. These are spots where the skin is thin and the pulse is close to the skin. By pressing an ice cube to these spots, you can quickly lower the temperature of your blood and overall body. See the diagram for these pulse spots:                                                                                                                                                                         PS: If allllll of that fails, you can do as I do and resort to consuming excessive amounts of ice cream and slushies.