Jason's Daily Notes

It's Thursday night and I'm trying to cram my way through reading a case for tomorrow morning ASAP, while my flatmates are already drinking and ready to head out to Selcuk's birthday celebration. I'm also doing laundry, and I have to pack, because we leave for the Smoky Mountains tomorrow! Whew!

My life revolves around reading cases now. I have to read a case or two cases for each class meeting, and at 5 meetings that results in around 8 cases per week. It's draining, because I'm expected to analyze each case in depth right away, and every one is so unique that it simply challenges me. It's draining my energy.

The weather has become colder. I hope it's still pleasant when we're in the Smoky Mountains this weekend.

Today, for my Social Entrepreneurship class, we had the "Impact Investing Exercise." I was part of a social VC and my classmates pitched their business plans to me and my team. It was interesting and fun. Insightful, too. Between that class and my Entrepreneurial Finance class, I'm learning a lot about how startups obtain funding.

Speaking of obtaining funding, my housemate Jonny is currently in the process of trying to obtain additional capital for his own company, Nomos, in New Zealand. He calculated that his company should be worth $4-5 million. How insane is that?! As much as he annoys me, I can't help but feel jealous of his accomplishment. I wish I was lucky enough to be passionate about an idea to scale it up. Everyone is expecting me (or any MBA) to succeed BIG. So I can't just start a company, I have to scale that company up and sell it for multi-millions of dollars within 3-7 years. Pressure, eh?

I've been sort of detoxing all week, after much a massive hangover on Sunday. I'm 80% vegetarian (I had chicken from Chipotle yesterday).

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!