Sofija's blog

The seventh week of this class has come to an end. It is crazy how quickly these seven weeks went by. It also means it’s time to write my last blog post for this class. This has been the first time I had my. In the past, I was never interested in such thing as blogging.

Overall, I think it’s a good thing to have your blog but it is not necessarily something I would do on my own. I am just not a person who enjoys writing. However, I think it can be a useful tool. I am not sure if this completely translates in the professional world, but for example, as an accountant I can build a habit of recording specific transactions twice a week. Just like we had to do for this blog assignment.

It was good to refocus on some topics from my field of study, and do a little extra research. Also, I think it was good to reflect on what happened each week. That means it can be useful not only for professional or academic purposes. Everyone needs some time away from their weekly schedules and routines, and blogging can be used in that purpose as well.

When it comes to this class, I think it is very important for everyone majoring in business/finance. In the past 7 weeks of this class I can say I learned some things that can help me in my further education, and the professional world as well. This was also the last English course I had to take. I have to admit this fact makes me very happy since I am not a native English speaker, and I don’t enjoy writing as much. However, I think all the English courses I have taken so far have helped me significantly improve my English.

I would also like to thank you for your help and tips you have given us throughout this summer course. I found them helpful :). That’s pretty much everything I have to say for this last post. I hope you enjoyed your summertime and I wish you all the best in the upcoming semester!

Sofija Zivaljevic

Another week of July has blown by. This is one of my favorite months in the year because it is usually a very warm month. As mentioned in one of my previous blogs, the country where I am from has very warm summers and mild winters. We also know winters in Fargo are nothing but brutal, so that is one of the reasons I cherish the month of July a little more. So, I have to say I am a little sad July is coming to an end :(.

Speaking of weather, we have experienced so many weather changes in the past six weeks. The perfect example was Friday. Around 8 am after I got done with our strength and conditioning session, it was raining. A few hours later, the temperature reached somewhere near 90 degrees. I will try not to complain because we have experienced some really nice weather as well. And like I said earlier, I enjoy warm and nice weather.

This past week has been busier than usual. From Tuesday to Thursday we had our annual Junior Bison camp. The kids’ age was anywhere from kindergarten to 5th grade. My teammates and I served as coaches. I enjoyed working with the kids and teaching them some basketball fundamentals. It is also nice to remind myself that I was in those kids’ shoes almost 8-10 years ago.

Besides the camp that was from 9-12 am over these three days, we had strength and conditioning sessions, and practices. So I would leave my apartment around 8 am and then I would make it back around 6 pm. Pretty busy, don’t you agree? This was also our last camp of the year. We wanted to spend some quality time with the campers, teach them some basics and hopefully, we will see them in the stands in November.

This next week is not supposed to be as busy since we are done with the camps. Also, we have only two weeks left before we head to our homes for a three-week break. Just like every time I get to go home, I am super excited! I cannot wait to spend some quality time with my family and friends.

That’s all for this week. I can’t believe we have only one post left. I’ll see you next week with my last post!

Sofija

I just wrote “Week 5” as the title of this blog post and I can’t believe we’re about to wrap up the fifth week of this class. It’s crazy how fast the time goes by. A very ordinary week is behind me-workouts, homework, hanging out with my teammates. I haven’t done anything crazy or unusual in these past seven days. Besides maybe one thing, I have had enough time to read through all 100 blog topics (I usually read through 10 and I’m done)!

Out of all 100 topics one that got stuck in my mind was- Letting go. Definitely didn’t expect to find something like this in the list that includes mainly social media/business topics. A very interesting phrase that can be used in many different contexts. This is how I see it.

Every day we face different obstacles, challenges that are on our way of achieving something. When we get hurt by them it is really hard to forget and let them go. By letting things go, and learning from them we are building a strong foundation that will lead to our later success. By not letting things go and living in the past, we are making things much harder for ourselves. That’s at least my point of view 🙂

I’m going to switch topics here.Many sports tournaments were held in the past week. Out of all, Wimbledon was definitely the most important one. Today, Novak Djokovic won the 5th title at Wimbledon and the 16th Grand Slam title. Wow! What an accomplishment.

In today’s final he beat one of the all-time greats, Roger Federer, in 5 sets. Novak is from Serbia, another small country in the Balkans and his whole family comes from Montenegro. Whenever he plays, he pretty much unites the ex-Yugoslavian countries because everyone cheers for Nole! It’s crazy how this guy managed to succeed coming from that small region. He has become one of the best tennis players of all time and also one of the best athletes in the world. Hats off, he is a great example for everyone!

That’s all from me this week. Hope you liked the post! See you next week with the new one.

Sofija

For this week’s post I decided to do an activity you recommended. I am a person that cannot sit in one place for too long. I don’t want to say I’m hyperactive either but it is very hard for me to just sit and do nothing. As an athlete, you are always on the move pretty much all the time.

For example, when we get a day off I usually end up doing some sort of physical activity. For this short break, we got 5 days off and on 4 of them, I went for a 3-mile run. So it is really hard for me to just do nothing 🙂 However, I decided to do this “sit in one place for as long as you can” activity. I was sitting on the chair for probably 15 minutes and a lot of thoughts crossed my mind.

My major takeaway was how we really don’t pay attention to many things that surround us on a daily basis or we just take them for granted. I have a nice little view from my window. Especially when it’s summertime and the grass is green and not covered by snow like for the rest 7 months of the year. The sounds those birds make that you cannot hear when it is -50 over the winter. The trees look beautiful as well. This just made me think how much I love summertime and to enjoy every moment of it because it will not last forever (the winter is coming haha).

This activity ended up being eye opening let’s say. Maybe this is a very simple example with nature, but it is metaphoric as well. There are many things in our daily routine we just take for granted when in reality we shouldn’t. That was definitely my main takeaway.

I am going to switch topics here, but what a dominant performance at this year’s World Cup by the U.S. women’s soccer team. Absolutely a great performance by them, I enjoyed watching their games. As someone who comes from Europe where women’s soccer is not very popular and where people say it is for the men only, I can say they are very wrong! These girls have demonstrated they can play at an extremely high level.

These were my main take-aways from this week. I will see you next week with the new post!

Sofija

Exciting news, Fourth of July is approaching! It reminded me of how these past 12 months just flew by. Anyways, I will be spending this year’s holiday in Fargo. As an athlete, I have to be in Fargo pretty much the whole summer because of team workouts and lifts. This week, we will get done on Tuesday afternoon and since I haven’t planed a potential trip to elsewhere, I will be staying in Fargo. Not as nearly exciting as maybe going to Los Angeles or San Diego, but it is what it is. I will be watching the Fargo fireworks instead!

Since some of my friends and teammates will be staying in Fargo over the break I might as well spend some quality time with them. One of them has a beautiful cabin on the lake that we have visited earlier in the month. She mentioned we might go again next week and that’s very exciting. I love spending time in nature as much as possible. Here is a little insight:

As you may not know, in my country we don’t celebrate this holiday. We have two other important dates when it comes to our independence. The first one is on the 13th of July. It goes all the way back to July 13th, 1876 when we first became an independent country. The second one is on 23rd of May. This goes back to May 23rd, 2006 when we split with Serbia and became an independent country again.

Let’s change the topic for a little and talk about accounting. Earlier in the week, I opened the CPA journal online in order to stay updated with the news in the field I am interested in. This online journal provides the latest news and updates, and I find it useful to read every once in a while. Something that I am excited about the most after reading the most recent article-FASB allows simpler options for reporting intangible assets!

To sum up this week’s post- I will be spending the upcoming holiday in Fargo and I might as well go to a friend’s cabin for a couple of days. Back home we don’t celebrate this holiday but we have some other significant dates. Also, I found out some exciting news when it comes FASB and reporting. That’s all for this week.

See you next week with the new post!

Sofija

Last year I had to take two online classes over the summer- Math 103 and Bio 110. I decided to bring up both of these classes because I had completely different experiences with each one of them. I usually like online classes, especially the fact I can work on the assignments from my bed and not having to go to class. However, there are some things that I don’t like such as having to go through the material on my own without having someone to previously explain. For these two classes, I didn’t have any other choice but to take them online.

As mentioned in the previous blog post, I am a big numbers person. I simply enjoy dealing with them and I also memorize them very well. For the fact, when I was younger I used to remember all of my primary school friends’ phone numbers. Sounds a little crazy, isn’t it? Let’s get back to my Math 103 online class. As someone who really likes numbers and who never had any issues with math classes in the past, I expected this class to go smoothly. It didn’t go as expected. That was also the first time I enrolled in the online math class. Turns out to be a big difference.

I was not as organized as I used to be in my in-class math classes. When you’re in class, the professor goes through examples and they show you how they are done. If you have questions, you go up to them and ask. For my online class, I wasn’t disciplined enough to do all the examples on my own and I didn’t organize myself to do a few things every day. Then, the assignments would add up and I wasn’t able to them all at once correctly. At the end, I ended up with a B in that class. Not saying that was bad, but for someone who has always had success in math classes this came as a little disappointment.

On the contrary, Bio 110 went very good. Since I am not a native English speaker and this class included some writing, I knew this class might be a little more challenging for me. Unlike with my math class, I organized myself better and started working ahead on my assignments. The teacher also gave us some detailed information about what she expected of us for each assignment. That was of big help for me and something that I really liked.

To sum up, based on my experience so far online classes can be very convenient if your approach is good right from the beginning. If I had a chance to retake my Math 103 I would definitely do some things differently. Since then, I have learned my lesson and I have had more success with the rest of my online classes.

That is all from me for this entry. I hope I managed to show you my main strength and weaknesses as an online student. See you next week with a new post!

Sofija

My name is Sofija Zivaljevic. I am a 21-year-old student-athlete at North Dakota State University. I come from Montenegro, a small country in southeastern Europe. I grew up in a family of 5, two siblings and of course my parents. Since you probably don’t know anything about my country, I am going to give you some details. It is located in the Balkans and used to be part of Yugoslavia which fell apart back in the 90s.

As you can see in this picture, it’s next to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and so on. After Yugoslavia fell apart, we formed a new country with Serbia, and it was called Serbia and Montenegro until we became an independent country in 2006.

Even though it’s very small, Montenegro is very beautiful. It has some great landscapes, beaches, and mountains. Many tourists come and visit Montenegro over the year because of its wild beauty. Another plus for tourists, everything is cheap in our country. If your budget is not very big come to Montenegro! You won’t regret it.

I’m majoring in finance with a minor in accounting. Before a year ago I wasn’t quite sure what my major should be. I was enrolled as a public relations major, but I always knew the numbers were my biggest passion. After taking Accounting 1 I knew I wanted to pursue a professional career in something related to numbers. Later on, I changed my major to Finance with a minor in accounting. I enjoy working with numbers and that’s something I’ll focus on in the future.

 That’s not all about me. As mentioned earlier, I also play basketball. Currently, I play for North Dakota State women’s basketball team I also play for Montenegro’s National Team. I started playing basketball when I was 11 at the local club. I spent there 7 years before moving to the States and Iowa State University. I stayed there for a year and a half before transferring to North Dakota State. Basketball is something I love doing the most. I have always dreamt of playing professional basketball and I hope to fulfill that dream after getting my degree here at NDSU.

That’s all for this week! See you next week with the new post.

Sofija.