Footnotes and not much else

Wednesday 26^th October

Now it has been considered that from now on, I will be dialing back on the details. This has come both from reader comments and my own personal opinion. As I write this, I’ve been able to write 3 days, which has taken 4 hours (considering the YouTube distractions.) and to be honest I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up with this all the time. I’m constantly falling behind on updates, and reducing the detail would be in everyone’s best interests.

Putting that aside, a morning gym session -> 1050 cal’s in 65 mins

The rest of the day wasn’t very eventful. I mostly spent the day completing a 1000 word essay on chapter 8 of the Management module, which is the last one of its type, leaving just the big project at the end. Maybe now I’ll get some quality party time after this :P

But not tonight. After the essay, and the daily e-mail updates, I started searching for headphones for my brother, who wants a super pair of headphones for £100 or less. So if you’re selling a brand new set of headphones on eBay, just post below: P

The mad and the mid-term

Tuesday 25th October

Today I just didn’t have the energy to go to the gym, and besides I’d much rather spend time talking to my parents.  That and the fact I still need to prepare for this blasted mid-term.  And just to top everything off, IT’S RAINING!!!!!!!

After barely getting 7 hours sleep, it was 08.30am, and I knew I needed to go to the gym to burn off some of the calories I’d eaten over the weekend. It looks like they’re staying on for the moment. I fully intend to do extra over the coming days to compensate for the lack of exercise I have done (assuming you don’t count breaking your back to move a display cabinet)

Revising for the mid-term was definitely on the agenda, since I’d only done little bits up to this point. Unfortunately I did have one obstacle – Marketing 305. The class wasn’t too bad, I got part of my mid-term grade back. The test was in 2 parts and I managed to get 77% on part 1. I’ll be getting part 2 on Thursday. Now I have 2 ½ hours before the mid-term starts, which were some of the best revising hours I’ve ever had. 

MIDTERM –Finance 313 – 6pm – 8pm

The test consisted of 35 multiple choice questions. Sounds easy enough, but each question required the use of at least one formula with financial information. These equations range from simple cash ratios to specific financial identities.

Even though the test was 2 hours (including extra time) I was done by 7.30pm. By this point I just wanted to hide in my room. However there was a Halloween party. Since my mid-terms are over, I though I may as well have some fun.

The party ran from 8-12pm. To be honest, the Americans really embrace being ‘fashionably late’ since the party didn’t really kick off till about 10pm. Even then, the party was ‘a bit too ghetto’ for my liking (music wise) and ‘way too much grinding’ for sober people

Nevertheless, the party turned out to be quite good, and by 12pm everyone had left. I wasn’t tired so I decided to help with the clean-up operation. By 1am you wouldn’t have guessed we had a party in there.

What I wouldn’t give for this day to just end.

Monday 24th October

‘Insert annoying disco tune here’

06:45am, time to get up and prepare to go back to San Bernardino. It’s a shame, just as I was getting settled and enjoying my time with Christine and Greg, it was time to move back. After freshening up and packing an extra bag, full of

.Clothes unwanted by Greg

.Pair of shoes Christine bought for me at Costco, before we went up to Calabasas.

.cookies brought over by Lizzy

.marble cakes from Stacey and Dave’s ‘almost like a palace’ home

Me and Christine set off up the 605 (not that u’d know where that is) then up to Baldwin Park, where I’d be catching the train to San Bernardino. It took us a while to find the station, because the sat-nav got us lost. Seriously, how can a sat-nav get you lost (hehehe)? While I was on the ride back, I decided to work on the blog. Unfortunately my laptop crashed again, so that put a damper on the day.

After arriving at San Bernardino, I had a 20 minute walk with a wheelie bag and a gym bag in tow through a poor part of the city. Luckily I didn’t have long to wait for the bus to arrive and depart. Only 20 minutes from the bus stop to the University, taking me through a slightly better area.

I’d literally just returned to my flat, when I began a total restore of my computer. This whole process took 6 hours, so to kill the time, I hit the gym for 1000 calories, read over my book 3 times to prepare for the mid-term test coming up tomorrow and walked around the entire campus twice. I also went to the village square for a game-a-thon of pool, table footy and ping pong. If it’s any consolation I won everything bar 1 pool game and 2 sets of ping pong.

By 5pm the computer was nearly fixed, and just needed some updates, which would take another couple of hours. So to occupy me now, I headed back to the village square, where everyone had left, leaving me with the TV and some weird show about some teenage singers on Nickelodeon.

The day that I almost had no computer, but now that it’s fixed I can continue with life. Just as good too, because I’m due to speak to the family tomorrow.

The back breaking Life of Reilly

Sunday 23^rd October

*knock knock* Christine stays at the door and softly shouts

“Morning Phil, erm, sorry to bother you but could you help us get the cabinet out of the trailer, Greg has to return it before 9am”

“….(groan)…Yeah sure...” [It was 08:30]

Throwing on whatever clothes I could find, I did some very quick stretches, almost like the ones I do before I go to the gym in the morning. Bearing in mind the cabinet weighed a ton at 1 in the morning; imagine what it’s like when you’ve just woken up. Well…it weighed the same, just felt heavier from the short sleep and the lack of ‘wake-up time’ nevertheless, we managed to lift it out of the trailer and returned it in time :)

Afterwards I headed back to bed for 2 hours, but of course by this point I was pretty much awake. So I tried to update my blog, but my laptop continued to play up. So basically I just turned it off, and then went down for breakfast. Now we all had our fill of the classic American cooked breakfast me and Greg proceeded to spend what felt like forever dragging in the cabinet and rearranging the furniture.

Hard work over, we all settled down to watch Greg’s team, the San Diego Chargers, at Halftime, they were winning, but by fulltime, they’d lost, bad times. Nevertheless we watched more TV, before the evening meal. For this we’d be joined by Lizzy, a colleague of Christine’s. We talked for a few hours, while enjoying shrimp scampi pasta and salad, followed by a lemon cooler cake.

Before long, it was 11pm, Lizzy had left (probably had enough of the British humour) and we all had to be up early in the morning, so we’ll leave it there.

Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous

Saturday 22^nd October

Best 8 hours of sleep I ever had. At least that what I wanted to say, but it had to be interrupted by the garage door opening, which I happened to be sleeping above. The reason for the 8am wakeup call – Greg left to get a trailer to attach to the back of his pick-up truck. And why would he be getting a trailer? Today would be part fun and part removal man. 

After drifting off for another hour or so, I awoke to the smell of breakfast. By this time it was almost 10am, so I decided to freshen up, and make my acquaintance with a new day. I was to be greeted with the smell of an All-American breakfast, including Pancakes with golden syrup, French toast, scrambled & fried eggs and Cinnamon-infused eggy bread. Christine said grace and we all tucked in. Yum Yum Yum

Now we were all fueled up, it was time to crack on with the morning/afternoon activities. ½ hour down the road, back at the family home, we lifted some more boxes, mainly crystal figures and bowls. The kicker was a cabinet that doubles up as a serving table. Between me and Greg, we easily put it into the trailer. All was good and we headed back home, ready to watch an afternoon of Football (American).

After getting about 3 hours of Football fun, Christine and Greg announced that we would be spending the evening at their friends, and to prepare for a long trip. Long trip was definitely the word to use; despite only being about 50 miles away, it took a little over 2 hours to reach our destination. It didn’t matter, we had our audio book and the Redneck radio to keep us amused.

But I can assure you, the wait was very much worth it. We had arrived in Calabasas, the more civilized (and frankly, a lot better) version of Beverly Hills. The scenery… sublime, the houses… amazing and the security… annoying. A small Cul De Sac, restricted by an electric gate, which required voice activation by talking into a stone gargoyle. The security guard (who may be based anywhere) clearly wasn’t paying attention to us, until Christine got out of the car to shout into the gargoyle. And sure enough, it worked, the gate opened up to reveal a row of 10 beautiful houses.

We pulled up outside the first house. Christine’s best friend, Stacey, greeted us, where we were able to look around their home (of only a month) and my oh my what a place. I thought Christine and Greg’s house was posh, but this…I just can’t explain just how awesome this place is. High end furnishing, a huge sofa, complete with 100’+ HD screen, and a kitchen even Gordon Ramsey would be envious of.

And that’s just the inside; the outside was just as impressive. An almost natural looking pool, a lounge area, complete with a 40’ Ultra-High definition & surround sound like no other. It was here that I met my first millionaire, Stacey’s husband, Dave, who has a senior position at Ticketmaster. He invited 3 members of his team, Amy, James and Ricky, who would be joining me, Dave and Greg to watch even more football in the outdoor lounge. Later on, another of Stacey and Christine’s friends: Audrey came along to help out with the upcoming feast.

While the 6 of us were enjoying the football, we were treated to some appetizers, starting out with freshly fried tortilla chips and fresh guacamole, then some ciabatta slices with tomato & basil topping. After some pleasing results, we were called inside for a feast of steaks, jacket potatoes and salad. Plenty of discussion about work at Ticketmaster and the British (Myself and Ricky – from London, moved over 4 years ago) took us all up to about 11pm.

Now that we all had our fill of Steaks, talk about the British, and some gorgeous marble cupcakes, Audrey, Amy, James and Ricky had left, leaving 5 of us. Me and Christine (who had drunk quite a lot at this point) volunteered to do the washing up. It seemed the least I could do to repay the generous hospitality, that and the fact the dishwasher wasn’t working properly. By 12.15am, we had cleaned everything and we had 1 more port of call before we headed home, (and no it’s not the bathroom,)

The initial plan was to do this before we went to Stacey and Dave’s home, but we were enjoying ourselves too much. All 5 of us, travelled down the road to Stacey’s old home, to pick up a china cabinet. Now I’m glad we brought the trailer along. This thing was HUGE, and weighed a ton. The only consolation was that it was in 2 parts. It took me, Greg and Dave about ½ hour to put both parts into the trailer.

By this point it was 1.15am, we were all tired and we had another hour of driving to do. Luckily at this point, the roads weren’t as busy, but for that time of night, they were still pretty busy.  Unfortunately for Greg, who was driving, he missed the turning for the freeway down to the house. Luckily, there was another turning we could take a few miles down the road. We weren’t sure which one (well, C&G knew, I had no clue whatsoever) so we scoured the glove compartment for the sat-nav which led us safely home.

It hit 02:25am when we got home and we all agreed we needed to sleep, which is exactly what we did. Little did I know this wouldn’t really last….