Jason's Daily Notes

Work as usual. I was introduced to the busy world of handling customer refunds. At the end of the day, I made my first sale! The last call of the day is always a good one!

Then, I got home to meet Mike's sister Amy and her boyfriend Alex. They are really fun and energetic. Just like Mike!

I also found that my LSE results had come online. I was nervous to check, but I did, and they were good! That means yes, I GOT A MASTERS DEGREE! Awesome! I posted it on Facebook and got more likes than any other status :)

The four of us all went out to Maria's good bye drinks in Shoreditch at Ninetyeigjt bar/lounge. It was a cool place! And sad to say bye!

Work was work as usual.

After work, I joined Swag for a wine tasting by London Bridge. In our usual style, we were both late (he was coming from Essex and I got roped into one final sales call). First, i stopped to scarf down a kebab. The wine tasting was nice; even though we didn't know much. We just tried as many as we could. I like Malbec and Sauvignon Blanc.

The mix of all the wine only really hit me after I left around 9pm. Mike helped me measure my head and soon I passed out completely.

Last night I got home from work at 6:55pm; it took exactly 1 hour, which included walking from the office to Kensal Green station. Mike and I made a dinner of fish sticks and pasta, with sides of frozen veggies and fries. Apparently I annoyed him with my early morning phone calls 😬.

I went to Martin's leaving party in Brockley by myself since Mike didn't want to travel so far. I was a little confused about which train to take from London Bridge, but I figured it out and it was very quick! The get-together was in the basement of a big house filled with chill, alternative/artsy/hippie types. Martina's friend was Tom; there was also Simon who was older and smoked from a pipe, Sinead who was pretty chill in an I-don't-give-a-shit way, Rebecca playing the accordion, and Craig (?) who jammed on the sax and had a snarky comeback for everything. They played some music as we chilled. Martin then gave an extended "speech" listing his favorite moments in the house. I barely met them, but even I was getting sentimental!

I returned home around 11:30, chatted with Mike briefly, and got to bed. I had to wake up at 7am again to make more phone calls to Asia. I took a small nap before forcing myself out if the house by 9:25. Mel told me about her date with Chris last night. I multitasks in the shower; it felt good in a productive way.

I got an email from Germany showing that they have received some results. Oh. My. God!!! What am I going to do? I want to just let this sink in. What a crazy, heart-fluttering feeling!

It was around 10:30 when I arrived at work.

I was rudely awoken by my 6:58am alarm. I stumbled downstairs, made some tea (which I had with Pop Tarts since I left my groceries at work!), and began to make sales calls to NZ, Australia, Japan and China. Mike left early - he had a breakfast seminar to attend at 8am. Kayleen was feeling really sick, and she was not hoing to work, so Mel bought her some stuff from the store.

It was around 09:20 when I left the house. The tube was not as crowded at that hour; I arrived at work at 10:15. It was Ecehan's birthday. I bought a box of Indian sweets from Sainsbury's; it was also Diwali! Tom got a cake for everyone to celebrate Ecehan's birthday. Our office is so small, but we're a gezelig bunch who don't mind sharing 😊

I forgot the charger for my laptop at home. D'oh! Why am I so forgetful?! I worry that it gives a bad impression to my colleagues. Anyway, I shared the cable with Tom. He then asked me one of the best questions I had been asked in a while: "What is required for a company to sponsor work visas?" 😃 I am giddy with excitement just thinking about the implications of it!

I was sugar crashing in the afternoon, so I went for a cigarette break without the cigarette 😉. There's a nice path along the canal to walk along. It reminds me of my daily walks around Century City!

I followed up with Thomas, the German investigator. He followed up with his leads, and apparently he has delivered some results for me (I'm waiting until I get home to open the email)!

Tonight is Martin's last night in London. They are having a bonfire; I'm excited to go!

It was a relaxing weekend. I made a point not to make any plans. After some indecision, Mike, Kayleen and I had dinner at MEATmarket in Covent Garden. It was a really good burger. I was trying not to be negative. We took the 59 back home from the LSE bus stop. I lay down, put on an episode of Game of Thrones, but fell asleep halfway through it.

I woke up at 7am, not too tired. I got ready and was soon off to work at 08:05. I arrived at 09:10. It was my first 8-hour day. I was busy following up with sales calls and leads all day. For lunch, Jaspreet drove us to a chip shop near Notting Hill. I got a large kebab. It was showering rain. We stopped by Sainsbury's. We ate in office 207 so as not to make the main office smell bad. I danced Gangnam Style, which did not please Noelle. She doesn't like free hugs either; why are we even talking to each other?!

I got bad news from Amazon. I didn't expect anything, so it isn't weighing me down so much.

More work; I spoke with a guy in Virginia for nearly half an hour. I was at the office until 6:20pm. I grabbed a frosted bun as I left. I forgot my bag of groceries at the office. D'oh!

It's remembrance day. This means 2 minutes of silence at 11am. I was just laying in bed, slowly waking up, at that time, so it was easy for me to remain silent :)

I was lazy all day. I downloaded some new games on my iPhone (including Road Trip and Simpsons Tapped Out), atched an episode of Game of Thrones, and Mike bothered me to come with him to the aquarium. Frankly I wasn't interested. I was supposed to do some laundry, but Mel kept the washing machine occupied all afternoon.

Mike and Kayleen ended up going to the Aquarium themselves, meeting Ludo there. Annika was too busy to join. I tried to coordinate a trip to go ice skating with Asia and Amanda, but it was too expensive and just wouldn't work.

Swag came by in the early evening to pick up the last of his luggage. It's getting close to his final day in the UK. How sad!

I joined them to get some dinner. I got on the wrong bus (I thought the 3 would go there directly, but no, I needed the 159). They were waiting for me at the bus stop! We were indecisive about what to eat (Kayleen doesn't like fish; we had already had Thai food), so we wandered around for a while before getting burgers at Covent Garden at Meat Market. The burger was great (a little salty), and the vibe was just like an American burger joint/diner! I really enjoyed it, even though it was somewhat pricey.

Back home, and we slept. The work week demands that we wake up early.

Well last night ended up weirdly. Mike and I went to Maria's for Yohanna's surprise party. I brought the air mattress. We arrived just at 9:45, so I thought we might be late. Swag was there. Maria's parents, her brother, and his girlfriend were also there. I saw a couple familiar faces from the picnic I went to a couple months ago: Anna (from South Africa?!) and Julia (from Latvia). We had some drinks, and waited. We met Tessa, a girl from Taiwan who would be moving in to the house when Maria leaves in 9 days (?!). I can't believe Maria's about to leave for South Africa.

It was close to 11pm when Yohanna arrived with Peter. We were all quiet in the kitchen and burst into a rowdy "Happy Birthday" when she opened the door. The look on her face was priceless! I love surprising people!

About an hour later I get a call from Amanda's phone - it was Asia. Apparently Amanda was very drunk and she had no idea where to take her, so she said that she would come to me. Ok, no problem. I went out to meet them half an hour later. Amanda was loud and stumbling but funny (and didn't seem to be in any danger or anything). I took them to the party because Asia really had to pee. But suddenly, Amanda (after continuing to be loud) knocked over the shelf (twice) and Peter suddenly became very inhospitable and insisted that we leave the party! Somewhat understandable, but still, wtf?! I made sure to use the toilet one last time before leaving.

We took a couple night buses back to Brixton. Asia insisted that they stay at our place. Mike was only like 10 minutes behind us on a different night bus. Amanda suddenly left, to meet a guy friend who had called her back (we had accidentally given him a missed call). Asia slept over, starting in my bed and then switching into Mike's bed (so that she would win a bet)!

I was up by 11:30, and I played a bit of Jetpack Joyride (the game that Mike had been addicted to). I cooked eggs for Asia and Mike, and I woke them up around 12:30. We ended up sitting in the dining room for several hours, playing guitar and card games while nursing our hangovers (although, thanks to the magic Tesco powder, I didn't have much of one. Finally, around 3pm, we headed out (first stopping by the corner pharmacy to top up our gas card. I went to ask around for a place to unlock Amol's iPhone; Brixton didn't provide such a place.

We took the tube to London Bridge, Asia continued onwards to Camden. Craving a pumpkin pie, I bought a hot chocolate from Starbucks. Mike got a haircut. We walked around some more, before deciding to go to Brick Lane to check out more phone unlocking stores. I was about to get on the tube, when Mike suggested we walk a little further, and just then, there was a store that unlocked phones! (How is Mike so intuitively smart?!) There, I spoke with the guy and he said he could unlock the iPhone remotely; he just had to check that the it would work on this network. Mike bought some of his special perfume "one million."

Mike took me to dinner at The Miller, a pub near London Bridge. Getting there was pretty funny; we were so tired and comfortable sitting on the District Line train that we forgot to get up at our stop (Monument)! So we had to go one stop further (Mansion House) and double back. I was really tired at this point. But dinner was good - spicy noodles, yum.

Tired, we headed back, taking the tube from Borough since we had just missed the 133 bus. We were feeling lucky, so we decided to buy lottery tickets at a shop near Kennington Church, except that my ticket wasn't recognized by the machine. So I "won" £1. (Could be worse.) I got home, laid down, and before I knew it, I was asleep at 8pm.

I woke up around midnight, saw that Mike was still downstairs watching Tokyo Drift, and I spent some time on the computer, uploading photos and downloading apps for my phone. I also made lazy cheese on toast and a quesadilla. I returned to sleep around 4:30am.

I awoke at 7:30 am, showered, and made a cup of tea. My phone rang at 08:16 sharp and I began my telephone interview with Jon from Amazon. It went alright; I don't feel that I'll move forward, though. I did not come across as passionate about the job opportunity, and Jon did not seem enthusiastic to talk to me at all. He was persistent in asking me certain questions, so I think I wasn't answering the questions to his satisfaction.

I said bye to Charly, who was still waking up, Mel, who had just gotten out of the shower, and Mike, who had just woken up. I went to work slightly later than usual, anticipating staying late because of a 4:00 conference call.

I got to work, and Simone asked to speak with me. He basically told me that I was doing so well that they wanted to shift my hours to full-time starting on Monday. It was great to hear, although I will be sadly losing a couple hours of free time each day. Also at work, I learned that they celebrate pizza day every Friday! Jaspreet ordered 6 pizzas for the office. Awesome! We then went to Sainsbury's and I got some chocolates (cookies and cream Lindt - yum!). I got a box for Yohanna as a gift. It was Madhu's last day - he's leaving for India to start a school there with a friend of his. He's also going skydiving on Sunday. How cool! Too bad I only got to know him now.

I was chasing down sales leads all afternoon, and making phone calls (and making a list of all calls I made during the week). I was at work until 5 pm, an hour later than I had planned.

Charly and Mike were waiting for me at home. It sucks that it takes so long to get to and from work each day! But so far I don't mind (probably because I haven't been working full time; I'm sure I'll be less tolerant of the commute by the end of next week).

I got a message from Rico (one of my exchange mates at Duke), who is in London for the week. He leaves tomorrow, so I need to meet him tonight; the thing is that I also have to go to Maria's tonight for the surprise party (and I need to bring an air mattress with me too)! I will have to coordinate both somehow.