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….

The journey of 70 odd miles begins with a single train ride

Friday 21^st October.

Today I’m heading over to see my adopted Auntie and Uncle. But of course, no morning is complete without the morning workout. Hopefully today there would be no more earthquake drills to interrupt me. I managed to crack out another 1000 calories, a small preparation for the weekend ahead. 

Having to pack for the weekend, I wasn’t sure whether to pack for 2 nights or 3. I decided to go for broke and went for 3. That way if I only stayed for 2, I’d have a spare if needed. I had been advised to take down my laptop ‘incase I got bored’. Yeah as if I’d get bored………I’ll take it anyway, maybe I can update the blog at some point. 

My friend Zack offered to drive me down to Riverside, and for those aware of the song, it is the place based on “Riverside M#####F#####”. I stood in line for over 10 minutes where only 2 ticket machines were working and a queue of over 20 people occupied them. The wait resulted in me going to the machine that has just run out of paper for tickets. 

On the train ride down, which took a little over an hour, I managed to see some exquisite scenery. Rolling hills of green and brown, posh and not-so-posh houses and a freight train which (and I kid you not) had at least 120 carriages, which delayed us for about 10 minutes. During this time, I realized I’d forgotten to bring my camera. (EPIC FAIL) 

4:35pm and I reached Santa Ana, where Christine was waiting for me, but she was in a rush to head over to the library before it closed at 5pm. After a 10 minute drive through the village like town of Tucson, we reached the library, where we picked up the audio book she had been waiting for. Just after, one of the funniest things ever happened. I went t’ toilet, and half way through emptying the tank, I hear…

“Oh my, I’m in the wrong toilet”

I turned around, and funnily I saw Christine, who had turned as red as a tomato and ran out just as fast as she could. That turned out to be a quiet drive from the library. Not to worry, we only went down the road 5 minutes to the family home. Christine was there to take some items since her mum had passed away a few months ago. If you’ve ever seen The Walton’s, that’s the sort of house they have, but slightly smaller. 

After ½ hour rummaging for stuff and another ½ hour driving back to the real home, passing Disney World and the LA Angels stadium, we arrived in Whittier. And lo n behold, the sight of my weekend hotel. It definitely puts my parents’ house to shame, and I thought that was big. Let’s kick the tour off, by opening the automatic garage door, which normally would hold 2 cars, but due to the amount of rubbish inside, can’t even hold 1 at the moment. Walking through the garage and the small utility room, comes a HUGE room, an open planned kitchen, dining room and living room, with a 60’ screen. However it has been stressed that I mention this isn’t HD, but who cares, It’s 60’.

Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms, 2 relaxation rooms, 1 for Christine and 1 for Greg and a 5* bathroom. I was put in the guest room, with a new $800 mattress (you can really tell the difference). An hour of unpacking and catching up on American news, waiting for Greg to come home from work and they decided to take me to Disney world. 

Before anyone gets excited, we only went to a restaurant, on the site. It didn’t take long for us to get lost however, and parking, even at half 8 in the evening is a nightmare.  Getting to the restaurant, ESPNzone we encountered an Elvis impersonation band who were absolutely brilliant. Because we spent time watching this, it meant we had to wait ½ hour to be seated. Not to worry, there was an arcade above the restaurant with plenty of games to amuse us.

Me and Greg decided to have a basketball shoot off. You may be aware of the basketball hoops you get in arcades, where you get 40 seconds to score as many points as possible. Until this point my highest score was about 30. Greg went first and delivered a score of 27. This put me under pressure to match or beat my best score. Luckily I managed to pull a 32. Greg smiled and went up again, achieving a 35. There’s no pleasing these Americans, but happily enough, I hit a record 40. We were due to eat in 5 minutes, so we decided to end this once and for all. Me vs. Greg at the same time. And what do you know we had a draw, at 41 each. No way could I beat this. We went again, and true enough, The Americans had their way and beat me 43:40.

Guess you can’t have everything, but we certainly can when it comes to food. In a sports bar, where you have a visual on over 10 different sporting events, (mostly American Football) and plenty of wings to split between the three of us.  Christine got a salad, (well done) Greg got a full rack of BBQ ribs (sensible) and I got the Triple (cheese) Double (burger) Burger with mammoth fries (tasty). I barely managed to finish these, when we decided to call it a night.

Much ado about nothing

Thursday 20^th October

Today is a mediocre day, nothing big is happening.  I first went to the gym for the morning workout, however about 10 minutes from the end of the workout; the entire campus took part in an ‘earthquake drill’ where I had to stop pedaling ‘to the metal’ and crouch down next to the machine, losing all my progress in the process. After the drill, I continued for another 10 minutes to get the full workout. As such I believe I only made 950 Cal’s but it’s still a good amount. 

Putting the almost failed gym session to one side, I still have 3 hours before my classes start. therefore, I decided to crack on with one of the assignments due on Tuesday, since I had plans on the weekend. Oh, did I not tell you…I’m planning to spend the weekend with Christine and Greg, my adopted Auntie and Uncle. 

Moving on, Adrian invited me to the commons for a bite to eat. Since at this point I had an hour before my classes started, I saw no reason why not. I managed to get this beef casserole with rice for only $5. As usual, 6 hours of boring classes and 8pm has come. There was an event relating to homesickness, which unfortunately gave me flashbacks to home, Looks like I better get out of there and spend a few hours forgetting these thoughts. 

Things are gonna look up over the weekend, with a sunny spell coming in from the east travelling west over to the Pacific coast. We’re expecting a cool weekend, mainly over Whittier and Orange County. More specifically, things would develop on Cole road, when the British weather system enters and stays for the weekend.

The recouperation

Wednesday 19th October

Today, as planned I would spend almost the whole day recapping the events on the blog.

From Saturday 8th through to Monday 17th October, I reviewed pretty much everything that happened, due to the fact i hadn't updated in a week and a half.

Not a lot else to mention, other that about half way through the update, I moved on to a small assignment for my management class. I had completed most of the assignment on Sunday, which meant i just needed to complete the peer section. I had already completed 3 parts of the assignment, which needed at least 1 other review on my assignment before I can complete it.

Pretty much it really, nothing else to report on the days events.

THE DAY OF HELL

Tuesday 18th October

Today is the biggest day so far. For those of you who have skipped the boring blog updates listed previous, well done. For those of you who have read the blog, I have a mid-term AND a presentation to deliver back to back. This is so serious, i'm not even going to the gym this morning.

The day began at 07:30am, and non-stop revision was in order. Before that, i'd be putting the final touches to the presentation and adding the last minute changes that Nergis sent over. As you can probably guess, I was incredibly tired, but luckily I had been to Wal-mart the night before and stocked up on essentials. Out of this, 3 items are worth mentioning. As part of the presentation includes a game for which we are offering prizes of chips (crisps) and granola bars. But the real kicker was an 8 pack of '5 hour energy', a super caffeine shot, equivalent of a standard Red Bull can in a 2 oz bottle.

08:30am to 10:30am - preparing the rest of the presentation, and getting the prizes in order. instead of simply offering the prizes, I decided to take it one step further. As such, I produced this...

The very observant, will notice that this is just a box with a hole in the top and wrapped in a pillowcase, also with a hole in it. It also says "Group 5 Box of Mystery" because we're group 5 and it's a mystery box. Quite simple really.

After 12pm, and a bite to eat, it was time to start the last bit of revision for my first mid-term exam.

MID-TERM - MARKETING 305 - 1pm

Now I won't be going into detail, incase it infinges any privacy content *blah blah blah*

A total of 46 questions - 35 multiple choice with 5 possible options. and 11 short essay questions. All to be completed within 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Personal opinion - Went fairly well,
Estimated grate - 80% (C+)

I barely had any time to head back to my room, gather the materials for the presentation, when it was time to set off the the next class.

4pm came and the class started. We proceded to spend an hour going through the chapter material and a brief discussion from the end of module project and how much Chinese collaboration I'd need to complete it.

PRESENTATION - MANAGEMENT 405 - 5pm

The presentation kickstarted with my memory stick not being accepted by the computer. A whole 2 minutes went by and finally I got the presentation loaded. Matt went easily through the case study overview, Brissette explained the decisions to be made and Nergis breezed through the conditions and criteria of these decisions. Now we come to my part, which came in 2 parts.

We continued with a small role play, in which I played the narrator, explaining how decisions to change mono/polychronic cultures and different cultural contexts. However from there, it all went downhill. Although i managed to get through the presentation, I froze up at the beginning of my speech and it threw me off the whole thing.

I could see my grade slipping away, but it was time for the game, the game of Jeopardy we had created, with the prize handouts. I knew I had to do brilliant in this or I would be penalised even more.
I'd seen a couple of actual Jeopardy, so i knew how to actually host the game.

"Hello I'm Alex Trebek and this is Jeopardeeeeeee"

I pulled out one of my best acting performances, even stringing in a couple of jokes and the inevitable "We'll be right back after these messages"

The game went down an absolute treat, everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, even the professor, who sent the group an e-mail the day after. A very good effort, although this is a quote from that e-mail focusing on my contribution

"Phil – great volume and enthusiasm, very dynamic, has wealth of knowledge, needs to be to the point, confusing at times – as sentences were broken and not well articulated, stuttering, speaks really fast – should slow down. Made up for presentation, with superb game."

The mixed review, was spot on. The presentation was not my best case, but i don't think it was a disaster. 

After this, i had another class, which doesn't need explaining. After finishing at 7.45pm, I just wanted to collapse on my bed (after eating of course) However I had literally just walked into my room, when I was invited to a 'happy hour'. Of course I could really use a stiff one, but of course, I have 6 weeks and 2 days before I can drink legally. It was however an awareness event of the dangers of alcohol and the drinks were just slushies and pomegranate juice. 

11pm, and I headed back to my room, because 1. I was tired and 2. there was a peer review I had to complete about the group, due in an hour. 

Juts finishing in time, I finally managed to go to bed jut after 12pm (an early night in contrast to my previous nights)

"And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day"

4 days of irrelevant rubbish. But lemme tell you anyway

This update is almost not worth mentioning, but i may as well write it. I don't blame you if you don't read it, it'll be very boring and i don't think i can put much humo(u)r into it

Friday 14th October

Gym - 65 mins - 1000 cals

I decided to try the commons again, and see what else they had to offer. Turns out they have a burger stand that's a lot healthier and cheaper too. A cheeseburger, fries and drink is only $6.49 compared to about $7.49 in the food court. Whilst eating alone, a friend i met in the welcome week invited me over to his table. I then proceeded to talk for an hour about the UK, while a small crowd of about 15 people gathered round, just to hear my accent.

The rest of the day was effectively wasted. I spent about 6 hours on the computer and got about 1 hours worth of research into my second presentation. the rest was wasted on YouTube and TV. There was some respite when I was invited for another Pizza trip. only 4 of us this time, sharing 2 12' pizzas, for $10.80 (£7). Heading back, there had been another fire alarm, and it was proved to be the same person 3 times in a row. Although this fact hasn't been confirmed, I believe they have been kicked out of the building and now live with a friend 10 minutes down the road.

Saturday 15th October

Gym - 65 mins - 1000 cals

Today, I'm not proud to say this, but in the space of the day, all I did was spend 1 hour revising for the Marketing mid-term on Tuesday, and also an hour on the presentation, also due on Tuesday. I have dubbed this Tuesday, THE FIRST DAY OF HELL.

The only other thing worth mentioning was that it was also laundry day. Two loads of washing and drying, another $2.75 spent and more time sorting the drawers. :(

Sunday 16th October

Gym - 90 mins - 1400 cals (yea that right, I went all out with this one :) )

Today I have focused on the upcoming DAY OF HELL, by working 4 hours on the presentation, mainly working on the recommended decision. This presentation however is slightly different. This presentation required us to extract 20 minutes of presentation from: and get this... 1 page. While other groups get 3 or 4 pages, we get a 1 page script between two people, one from the US, and one from Puerto Rico. from this, we have to extract practically every single piece of information and compare no less than 12 different technical terms to each situation.

By 4pm, I had enough of the presentation and decided to continue on my revision of the upcoming mid-term. This didn't last long, before an invite to the village square for a movie night, watching Space Jam, a truly brilliant movie :)

Monday 17th October

Gym - 65 mins - 1000 cals

Now that the DAY OF HELL is only 24 hours away, today I really needed to crack on with everything. A lot of revision for the upcoming test and the finalisation of the presentation. Unfortunately, this didn't go according to plan. While eventually I managed to complete the presentation, through countless e-mails (the grand total was 61 [no joke]) this took almost all day, which left little time to revise for the test. I'll just leave it at that,

A 4 day update...sorry if it was very boring. but thankfully I'm almost up to date. I should hopefully finish up by tomorrow or Friday

See you all soon...

Presentation kickstart

Thursday 13th October

Today is the official start of my mid-terms, with a presentation on Arla foods and the cartoon crisis at 4pm. However no day is complete without a gym session. Today i managed to break the 1000 calorie barrier in 65 minutes. 

I'll admit for my first proper test in the US, i was fairly nervous, especially because i haven't delivered many before. now i'd be delivering 2 in the space of 5 days.I'm sure i'll do just fine. And what would be the best way to prepare for the presentation than stuffing your face with food. However, Adrian my flatmate was heading to the commons for a bite to eat. The commons are seperate to the student union food court because they offer more home-cooked and slightly healthier meals.

Since at this point I had an hour and a bit to kill before my first class, i decided to check it out. the actual choice varies day by day, but today they had a turkey escallop in breadcrumbs, on a bed of rice and steamed veg, for only $5, which i got and was thoroughly satisfied with it. It's just a shame they're only open 11 - 3 Mon to Fri.

First class came and went very quickly. which leads on to International management and time for my first test. Today, 4 groups would be presenting, starting with yours truly (darn). We started with Matt covering an overview of the case study, explaining the situation and setting the scene. Brissette followed by explaining what decisions needed to be made by both parties in the argument. Nergis (of Germany) followed up with the conditions of the decisions that needed to be discussed and certain criteria that each decision needed to fulfill.

The preverbial baton was then passed to me to finish off. My role was to discuss the recommended decisions that each party needed to make and what impacts this would have on the business, the economies and the global image. I won't discuss the details of my presentation to avoid your inevitable confusion, but I will mention that out of the 4 groups that presented, i was only 1 of 2 people who used no prompt. This was quite obvious however, as it wasn't the strongest presentation I have delivered.

On the Sunday after the presentation, we received an e-mail from our professor who gave us all brief feedback. This is quoted from that e-mail 

"Phil – Excellent categorization of decisions into primary, secondary, and tertiary; addressed the audience and didn’t read off notecards which is a plus. Did a good job in expanding on key points. Great at breaking down the analysis; explained clearly the basis of the decisions; was a little nervous and stuttered"

Pretty re-assuring feedback, which I hope will be continued in the second presentation, due on Tuesday.

Luckily, the class afterwards only lasted 90 minutes rather than 2 hours, which gave me time to complete the peer review of my presentation colleagues and speak about their contribution to both the plan and the presenting before it's due time of 11:59pm

3/4 of an hour later and my work was completed. Time to relax in from of the TV just like most other Americans (except in this case, my TV was my laptop and the lack of adverts was compensated by the fluctuations in internet connection.) I'd been experiencing these since Monday night and they did warn us about it, so I can't complain.

Breaking out is hard to do

Tuesday 11th October

 .....and a little bit more research before i went to bed.

 

Today's gym session was different. Instead of using gatorade to fuel my mediocre performance, i just used water. The result, an extra 40 calories burned in the hour and an improvement of 200 calories from not using energy drinks.

After barely making it out of the shower, it was time to Skype home for the regular update and deliver the news that pretty much nothing had changed.It's still re-assuring to see familiar faces every once in a while.

Time to put everything to one side and continue with my classes. Marketing, International management and Business finance. 6 hours of near boredom. Having said that, Marketing and Business finance covered what was required in the upcoming mid-terms and International Marketing gave us time to prepare for the upcoming presentations and to begin with the final project, which i'll discuss at a later date.

After the classes, me and 4 others had a walk down to the pizza shop 15 minutes down the road. A large pizza, probably about 12 or 13 inch in diamater for $5.40. It didn't last long, we only got 2 slices each. So we all decided to get another :)

Heading back to my room, in our small living room were 8 Canadians and Germans. Looks like Adrian was having one of his lil' party's again. No way was I gonna get to sleep anytime soon. Next thing i know, it's 2am and i've seen almost a full series of The Big Bang Theory. A sad realisation, which would only be built upon later on.

Wednesday 12th October

Gym - 65 mins - 950 Cal

Nothing but preperation for the presentation due tomorrow. Meeting up with the group to combine all our notes. We arranged to meet up at 1.30pm and combine our findings to produce the powerpoint that would kick-start my mid-term season. After a hour of two colecting the information from the previous research, I caught a quick bite to eat before meeting up in the computer lab.

Nearly 2 hours of discussions, production and the odd semiotic joke (things that mean different things in different countries) we completed our presentation, and returned to our quarters. For the next 7 hours i just stayed in my room, watching tv and topping up on myknowledge of equity and time-value of money equations

More details will be revealed soon...

Preperation begins.......

Monday 10th October

Waking up, today i don't feel as stiff, as i prepare for another gym session - 60 minutes - 850 calories. Not really big news so we'll leave it at that,

Now coming up is the start of 'mid-term season' where all the tests and presentations are held. For me, this means 2 mid-terms and 2 presentations in the 2 week period.

The first of these is a presentation on a case study, discussing the recommended decisions and the internal/external factors to be considered. My case study was to be held with 3 other people, which formed group 5.
Nergis - close friend of Adrian, my german flatmate
Brissette - a young mum working full time at the university and studying part time
Matthew (Matt) - an all-american lad in his final quarter.

We all met up and discussed the project. The presentation was due on Thursday so we all took our own parts and agreed to meet on Wednesday to put it all together.

The case study was based on Arla Foods, a dairy producer based in Sweden/Denmark and how they suffered tremendously when cartoons published in Denmark offended Muslim communities.My part was to actually recommend the decisions that Arla Foods could take to restore relations between itself and the Arab countries.

This inevitably let to Lots of research.....

Repurcussions of American Food

Sunday 9th October

OWWWWW.

Just as I predicted, i was as stiff as a brick (again with the dirty jokes, tut tut). Nevertheless I was determined to make my new exercise regime work. I had decided if i could make an hour each day, i'd probably stay the same size (238 lb or 17stone) [yes i am what people would call "A fat bugger"]

After filling my water bottle from the 1 gallon bottle of Gatorade, I set off to complete another hour of exercise, and surprisingly i managed to match my previous performance.

This hard work was very short lived. By now it was 12pm, and instead of getting a granola bar, I went to get some food. In the student union food court, only 1 outlet is open on Saturday and Sunday. Saturdays, its the turn of the WOW wingery, a mix between KFC without the 11 herbs and spice & a spanish eatery (burrito, quesadilla and wraps). This is a great place and its very tasty. However, on Sunday's its Denny's, something i will be avoiding from now on.

This is for 1 reason and 1 reason alone. I got a double cheeseburger and fries. 2000 calories. That's practically my entire calorie intake for the day. Needless to say i only ate 2 packets of chips (crisps) for the rest or the day. In future i'll be getting takeaways which i'm sure would be healthier or cook the pizzas that have been in my freezer for 2 weeks now :)


As tempted as I was to go back to the gym and work out for another hour, i just didn't have the energy (even though i just took in 2000 calories) Instead, i spent an hour in the pool, (after letting my food settle),  probably burning a fair few calories, but not half as much as if i had gone to the gym.

By now i needed to relax, so after 2 hours in front of the screen, catching up on some good old American TV, I was invited to a movie night, which turned out to be "The Laramie Project" about a group of actors who visited a town called Laramie, Wyoming, where a brutal homophobic murder took place in 1998.

Afterwards, after everyone had been 'shocked' we departed for the safety of our rooms. which wouldn't last long. Just after midnight, some idiot had burnt their food AGAIN and caused a fire alarm. This was gonna be a long night.....