Jason's Daily Notes

Started the third week of classes in Spring 2 today.
Woke up early - 7:45. Made eggs for breakfast. Uploaded pictures to facebook. Suddenly it was 11am.
I walked to class, conscious that I'd been hogging the car from Christoph, especially since he was really annoyed that I took the car last Thursday. Anyway, walking to campus wasn't that bad all - it only took about 20 minutes!
Gave Gustavo his backpack back. Gave Mikael his jacket back. Gave Abhishek his plug/converter back.
There's so much I don't remember from the party on Saturday. But people keep saying they had fun. That's a good thing, right? Two glass panes on our house's doors were broken - I don't know how. But I for one didn't feel the need to be violent, I don't think.
Lunch at the Fox Center - Indian samosa combo. Not bad, but I'd like more spices please.
Had a behavioral lab appointment this afternoon. It was actually a group thing. Got paid $3.
Rushed through printing out some info for our Emerging Markets team meeting this evening, then rushed through revising our Social Entrepreneurship paper. It looks good, and it's not even due til Thursday!
Entrepreneurial Finance class today was a lecture about "Real Options" - since we weren't discussing a case as a class, I had a harder time than normal paying attention. Even though I was sitting close to the center of the classroom.
Team meeting with Henrik and Irene. We're going to write our term paper on Jollibee. Yay!

I've been hooked on playing Scramble on my phone lately. It's more exciting than draw something, faster than Family Feud, and not as mentally draining as sudoku. (Imagine what the Jason of a year ago would say about my phone obsession now!)

Blink-182 is playing in London in June! I wanna go. I want someone to go with me.
The LA Times website is not letting me access any more than 10 articles a month now. :/ and soon the NYT will do the same. Where will I get my news from?

Ok, gotta read my case for tomorrow...

Spring Term 1 came and went really fast, as I might have expected.

Friday, March 2
Flew out from NC. The flight was very bumpy to Nashville, as we flew through severe thunderstorms. The "fasten seat belt" sign was on for the entire 1-hour flight, so not even the flight attendants got up. Nashville airport was nice, or at least the bathroom was; in the 45 minutes that I was there, I spent most of it re-charging my iPhone and iPod. The flight to LA was nice; I got a middle seat (luckily I wasn't the poor guy who had to take the seat next to an obese woman whose fat was flowing over the seat handles). My only entertainment option was to watch The Help on my laptop (it was the only movie I had), which was a good movie, but the noise of the plane made it hard to keep up with the dialogue. A few hours later we were descending into LA!

This was it. After 10 months away, I'd soon be home! The plane descended above the sprawling metropolis, and I pointed out places out the window to the woman sitting next to me (who was continuing onward to Sacramento). I gleefully walked off the plane and headed down to baggage claim to meet my mom, who was waiting for me. As we left LAX, it felt immediately weird to be home. This time, what was most weird was the cars. There were so many cars, everywhere! It was complete chaos. In North Carolina, you would never see as many cars in one place as I saw (and this was at 3pm on the 105 freeway - imagine the 405)!

I settled in to home and soon I was contacted by lots of friends who wanted to catch up immediately! I proposed that we go to the Bucket, and there I met a bunch of friends! It was great to see everyone, and almost overwhelming because none of them had any idea how much I had simply been through (and conversely, I had almost no idea what they were up). So I got a brief update on each of my friend's lives. Then, the waitress informed us that they were out of burgers! WHAT?! F this place, so we just went to Roscoe's in Pasadena. There, it was really crowded (restaurants simply don't get that crowded in North Carolina, and restaurants wouldn't have that much space to begin with in London). So we split up amongst two tables. More catching up - everyone was now working or making real progress with their degree. It was good to hear of everyone being so active. Fernand was driving!

The evening progressed from there to Lucky Baldwin's on East Colorado. We gathered around outside and played octopus into the evening. Then, after that, some people (Matt) went home while we headed to North Hollywood to meet Kevin, whose work friends were out at No Bar. The others should have joined, but some got sick and others simply went home. No worries, though. I met Todd and Patrick, some friends of Ang's. We stayed out til close to closing time, then finally, exhausted, I arrived home.

It's cold outside.
The coldest I've experienced so far this winter. The winds are howling, too.

So life at Duke has been busy. Or maybe that's just life as a fully independent, responsible adult? Either way, I hardly have the idle time that I want. I really like to just waste my time not doing anything, thinking, meditating, drawing, creating, etc. But I have to just rush from one task to another, mostly schoolwork and class-related meetings, but also shopping, cleaning the house, or meeting up socially on the weekends. I guess I feel like I've relinquished a great deal of control over my own life, which is what bothers me more than anything.

Anyway, that doesn't mean that I'm miserable - I'm really enjoying my time here. I just wish I could take time to reflect on what happens each day. I think all the experiences I have will soon fade away into a sea of ambiguous memory.

For the last few days I've been sick. In fact, all 4 of us living in the house have been sick. It came on last weekend, super bowl weekend, most likely from Alex G., who was on antibiotics but went out to the "Edward 40-hands" party and the after party at our house. I drugged myself up to get to school on Thursday, suffering mainly from a sore throat, and on Friday I was feeling even worse. (As I was napping, my housemates got together and cleaned the whole house - oops.)Yesterday I was slightly better, but thoroughly exhausted. Luckily I was able to sleep.

Last night I went out, to celebrate Sebastian's birthday. This was after a night of spaghetti bolognese, prepared by Jonny, and a contentious (as always) game of Monopoly. I didn't really prepare to go out, so I wasn't feeling to energetic when we got to the Tavern.

Today I finally submitted the systems essay to LSE.
Today I donated blood.
Today I started and finished a 5-page paper.
Today I sold a car and bought a car.

Mondays...

I've been in Durham for nearly 3 weeks now.

I don't have a weekend tradition here yet. In London I'd go to Brick Lane or explore somewhere on foot. In LA I'd go for a drive, whether to the beach, around the city, or just to any new neighborhood.

So I read that a great way to be awesome, positive, and successful is to keep a diary of the great things you do each day. At least 3 a day will keep your mind positive and help you build better things tomorrow. So here I go...

1. I drove Stefano to campus. But I needed to go also. Don't know if it really counts.
2. I made nachos for my housemates. But they already had food to eat (and so did I technically). So it shouldn't count.
3. I put two mutual friends in touch since they would soon be living in the same city. Ok, that's pretty good.

Overall, I was kind of a selfish spoiled brat today. In my defense, it was really cold and I still don't feel entirely comfortable driving my new car.

Today I showed my new housemate, Stefano, around campus, getting his ID and some other important things done. But we couldn't start until the afternoon, as we had to stay in the house for the cable guy to come (he didn't). Along the way, we ran into 19 of our classmates just around campus (and in the At&t store).

I got a tetanus shot. Now my upper left arm is sore. I was supposed to keep moving my arm to minimise the pain.

And finally, my IPHONE arrived today! I spent the evening in my room, configuring the phone and creating custom ringtones :) Now to bed, I have pre-assignments and an essay to write tomorrow!

GREETINGS FROM NORTH CAROLINA!

If you didn't know, I'm doing my exchange semester at Duke University! I'll be going back to London in May. But I'll see most of you in the next few months, either visiting on the east coast, or when I'm back in LA this March. The house we live in is very nice and spacious, so you're all more than welcome over!

I just wanted to let y'all know how my first few days have been back in the USA - busy but great!

I arrived Monday night, and my flight was pretty easy for 9 hours (there were 3 classmates on the same flight with me so we kept each other from getting bored). It took over an hour for them all to pass through immigration, then we took a taxi to Durham. It's a small city, and there are trees everywhere. Everything is so far apart, there are no corner markets or cafés. Everything closes at 9PM! The buses only run once an hour. So when I saw this, I realized that I NEED to get a car.

My other housemates (Christoph from Germany, and Jonny from New Zealand) arrived that night and we walked 1 mile to eat real American BBQ! Delicious!

The next 2 days, we spent all of our time renting a car, buying things for the house, and trying to find a good car. We did so much shopping (partly because Jonny had won a case competition and had lots of money to blow), and we got some good deals (a used TV for $18), and I got my car! A 1999 Ford Explorer, it only cost $1500. The car is named Wendy (for being bright red), or Dora (the Explorer)... haven't decided yet.

So North Carolina, Durham specifically, is nothing like LA or London. It's more rural than anything, I constantly feel like I'm driving around a forest. There are no sidewalks. Some areas are ghetto like Oakland, others have really huge houses. Things are not as cheap as I remember, and Hardees is horrible compared to Carls Jr.

But wow everyone is really friendly, I'm not used to that! Lots of churches too, and plenty of places serving biscuits... I'm definitely in the South. I've had to explain a lot of things about the US to my housemates, like all of the driving rules and when you'd leave a tip, etc.

On Thursday I had my orientation with the other international students. It was nice, and the business school at Duke is extremely new and gorgeous - how exciting! There are about 25-30 exchange students, from all over the world (Thailand, Finland, New Zealand, Chile, France, Germany, South Africa...) and they're all very smart business people. The director of our program is really friendly and she'll actually join us at parties!

Speaking of which, my housemates and I are having our first party tonight! Only 3 days after moving in (you know that's how I roll). Anyway, it's going to be legen... wait for it...