How I miss hangovers

Friday 2^nd December

I’ve missed that feeling. I’ve been used to it since I was 18, but since I’ve been sober for 2 ½ months, it hit me really hard. The annoying things was that I had a skype call lined up with the parents at 10am, which meant I had to get up and endure the throbbing headache. Not even 2 extra strength headache pills and 2 litres of water could stop it.

Putting on my best poker face and trying to hide the hangover from the parents seemed to work as well, until I turned on the webcam and spoke, in which not even the best liar could hide it. I barely made it through the talk, also wishing my dad a happy 49^th (old git) birthday, before I needed another couple of hours to sleep. Just as I was heading for the bed, my auntie Sue wanted the update too.  Although I was starting to pull round, it still felt like I’d been hit by a train.

After the chat with folks back home, I decided to lay it low for the rest of the day, although I needed to grab a bite before 2pm since that’s when the food court closes, and I still had $148 to spend in 1 week. Apart from the midday food run, nothing else happened, since I was trying to sleep off my embarrassment of not being able to handle the hangovers like I used to.  

The best weekend followed………. I’ll keep this VERY simple, Saturday through to Tuesday, I did practically nothing, since everyone was staying in and revising for their final exams, so no-one was being social.

That’s one crazy birthday

Thursday 1^st December,

We continue our story bang on midnight. Happy birthday to me (hehehe). The joy of living in another country is that you get 32 hours of facebook messages. And boy, my friends did not disappoint, since the first messages occurred at 4pm Wednesday, After 2 hours of talking with my friends and updating them all on my progress, what I’m currently doing, and in a couple of cases “why the hell are you living in California”

I awoke slap bang on 8am, since today was going to be a huge day, not just the fact that I’m 21, but that the blasted Final exam was at 6pm. This meant that my revision was not yet over, but the distractions kept on rolling in. A gym session to get me going, only to do some revision while I’m pedaling away on the cross trainer.

2pm came and the ultimate distraction, the last marketing class, covering everything to be covered in the marketing exam exactly a week today.

This meant I only had 2 hours to refresh my memory from marketing to finance, and boy did that time fly. Before I knew it I was waiting outside the disability office for my exam

FINAL EXAM: FIN 313: 6pm

Don’t get the wrong idea, it was only 30 multiple choice questions so you’re thinking, how could this be a difficult test. It even gets easier because ei was allowed to take it 20 formulas on an A5 sheet. The problem though is that all the questions use at least 2 formulas in each question and the use of 2 calculators to calculate these answers isn’t as easy as it sounds.

The final exam finished at half 7, and I was so relieved that it was over, because I could finally have a  drink. 2 ½ months and I could finally drink. After dropping my stuff off in my room, I met up with a few friends: Amaka, Roxy, Freddy, Dave,  Zack and Becky, who had also finished the same exam as me. In the space of 70 minutes, I downed 4 beers, the equivalent of about 3 ½ pints, which originally would have been enough, but Becky had other plans. She was gonna take me on one hell of a drinking night. Zack decided to tag along, claiming that someone needed to look after me J.

In hindsight, this was a very good idea. To sum up the evening, we drove down to a retail park, where we first stopped off at Applebees, where I had 2 more beers and a Root Beer Schnapps, then we headed over to Buffalo Wild Wings for plenty more beers. By the end of the night, I apparently had 13 beers (about 11 pints and the RBS was the equivalent of 1 beer and a double vodka)

Lucky for me, Becky didn’t drink much and Zack stayed off the sauce completely, and by midnight, we were done. During the drive home, I was apparently singing Pink’s Sober. That’s according to Zack anyway, I can’t really remember much of it. I remember that Zack walked me back to my door and that I somehow got into bed. Also how I wasn’t sick will remain a mystery to me :P

This work aint gonna do itself.

Tuesday 29^th November

The previous weekend was a pure waste, where I did almost nothing, which meant that I needed to crack on with the China project. This project is due in two days and I still had 2 sections to write. This time, I wasn’t gonna let any distractions get in my way.

However, this was a school day, so as always I had classes to attend to. Marketing which gave advice on the previous midterm, and also the result with it. I got an A-, the equivalent of 93%, which just goes to show that staying in your room, shying away from the world to focus on your studies really does pay off. Especially since I got the 3^rd highest grade in the class, which includes 4 marketing seniors. (the vigilant readers will notice that I actually said I got a B+ and 87%, but that only represented the first part, adding the 2^nd part boosted the grade.)

The management class had been finished for 2 weeks now, which gave the group a chance to meet up and focus on what needed to the done for the project. Turns out we don’t have a lot left to do for it, so we should be finished by Wednesday.

The Finance class was a lifeline, since the final exam would be on Thursday, just blooming typical since my birthday was on Thursday. Got through some serious revision, which was desperately needed, before the final.

The rest of the night, I actually did some serious work. My section of the project was complete, which just meant that tomorrow, I’d be meeting up with the group to combine the project for the grade J

Skipping forward……..

Wednesday 30^th November

My last day of being 20, and boy was it gonna be a boring one. The first point of order, the gym. Since I forgot yesterday and Monday, AND the fact I couldn’t go since Thanksgiving, meant that I was really out of shape, I only managed 1025 cals in the normal 65 minutes.

Putting that to one side, the project was due to be finished, and nothing was gonna stop me, not even the invite for a midday run down to Ihop, the pancake diner was gonna stop me. The midday run that I did do however was over to the computer lab to meet with the group to wrap this project up once and for all.

By 2pm, we’d put together all the sections and aligned the references. 6 weeks of project work that almost drove me insane, and it finishes with just 4 clicks of the mouse.

It felt like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders, so as always, I treated myself to a footlong sub with ALL the trimmings and then some. I don’t care that this sub alone cost $10.47, because I also have a small void to full, namely the meal plan, which has $160 to be used by 7pm Friday 9^th. That’s roughly $16 a day, A problem since my initial plan was $8.37 a day.

The more urgent issue now though was the upcoming final exam, which in my opinion would be the toughest of the 3 modules. Needless to say the rest of the day would be spent revising like crazy.

The procrastination weekend.

Saturday 26th November... And Sunday 27th November

Since the gym is also closed on the Thanksgiving weekend, i'm gonna be very lazy.

The reality is that this laziness was PURE laziness. I didn't do anything other than sleep and play games online. This is also evident in the fact that the updates to the blog are taking so long to update.

I'd ear-marked this weekend for finishing the China project, but of course, that was put on the back burner as well.

The same applied to most of Monday 28th as well, although i did manage to get a little work done.

My god i'm lazy...

Return of the Brit (full of food)

Friday 25^th November

The experience at Thanksgiving is one that will stay with me forever, and so will this belly by just remembering how much I actually ate over the holiday period. Knowing that I’d be up early today I’d packed a little ‘pick me up’.

You’re probably wondering “A pick me up…He means drugs…”. Yes, but only if u call a concentrated amount of caffeine a drug!!! I had a ‘power shot’ named 5 hour energy, which as the name suggests, wakes you up and provides a 5 hour burst of energy, just what I needed J

Rolling out of bed at half 7, being very courteous to my amazing hosts, Buzz and Kathe, I devoured a cream-cheese bagel, knowing that this would be all I’d eat until I got back to the room, 130 miles away. After saying me goodbyes and thanks to Buzz and Kathe, Greg, Christine and I set off, closely followed by Buzz and Kathe. Their plan was to drive to Bob Hope (Burbank) Airport, where Greg and Christine would drop off the car, then join Buzz and Kathe to drive up past Sacramento. Greg and Chrissy would be taking a slight detour, and dropping me off at Montclair rail station, where I’d be getting a ride to San Bernardino, and then a bus back to Uni.

Sounds simple enough, but guess where the slight problem was.

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Seriously, have a guess…..

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Not in a guessing mood huh.

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The problem occurred on the drive up from San Diego to Montclair, where there had been a fatal crash on the I15, we’d been listening to the traffic channel and for all the time we were listening in, they failed to mention the crash… until we hit the back of the 5 mile tailback. 

Just ‘ruddy typical, but of course each incident didn’t come without it’s humo(u)r, courtesy of Buzz. Putting Buzz on speaker while sitting in a traffic jam is just the same as sitting in a theatre to listen to comedians all night long. He spoke of how it was all a conspiracy to punish us all for some reason or another, I don’t really remember because I was laughing too much.

And to be fair, he was right to call it. When we eventually made it off the interstate, we found a dirt road (by pure luck), that looked over the interstate up until the next junction, and would you believe it, no crash, no wreckage, just 3 cop cars and a couple of vans parked in the middle of the road, just doing nothing. I’m not one to judge, they may have just finished and were packing up or it could have been nothing. We’ll never know.

Needless to say this delayed us for over an hour, which meant I missed my train and had to wait nearly an hour for the next one. I had music and my headphones (which will soon be my brothers, when he pays for them) so I was entertained. Just before I boarded the train, I met Italy, (not the country, a person) a middle aged woman, who ‘claimed’ to be a truck driver, but I could easily tell she ‘worked the streets’. Two reasons, 1. Italy is a very rare first name 2. I’m pretty sure truck drivers don’t go out in their Sunday best.

Despite this, she said she was picking up a cross-country at a depot just south from CSUSB, so I didn’t think twice about sharing a taxi, since the buses weren’t running well. Despite her pleas for me to pay the full fare of $30, we split the fare, with a tip for the driver for dropping me off first.

Home sweet home, I could relax. Or so I thought. My phone had run out of service time and the auto-renewal I tried to set up had been ‘declined’. This is the 2^nd time now, clearly my debit card doesn’t work well over here. After a quick break to unpack my gear, I headed down to the wal-mart to buy another phone card and a couple of snacks for the room.

By this time, it was 5pm, and unlucky for me, the campus was closed, meaning I couldn’t get any food on site. Not to worry, Chrissy had packed the leftover bread rolls form my bread basket, and I’d picked up some cheese at Wal-mart. Cheese sarnie’s, here I come…

Nom, nom, nom.

…

Nom nom.

What a lovely snack. The rest of the day I felt like doing nothing. It doesn’t matter, I have all weekend for that last piece of coursework….

Upcoming updates

Hello all, just a quick note to say that normal service will be resumed over the weekend.

As most of you know i've turned 21 today, but instead of celebrating, I have a final exam at 6pm, which means i wonlt be doing too much celebrating, since the campus pub closes at 9pm.

On a side note, my academics are progressing. As I speak, my colleague in my mamagement class is submitting our China paper that has eaten SO MUCH of my time lately.

I thank you for your patience, updates will be here soon.

Giving Thanks at Thanksgiving - Part 2

Thursday 24th November

"Happy Thanksgiving everyone”……”Happy Thanks(cough)”

I’m trying out my American accent and its getting nowhere. Not to worry, people will still enjoy my British accent (yay).

The plan for today would be that we meet up at John and Jane’s house for thanksgiving at 1pm. But c’mon people, it’s the holidays, we don’t have time limits. After waking up at 10am, and getting ready I made my way to the kitchen, where a delicious smell was originating. Greeting my hosts Buzz and Kathe, alongside Greg and Chrissy. By this point the swelling on Greg’s eye had subsided, he had taken an anti-histamine to calm it, but though it’d be better to head to the pharmacy to see if anything else could be done. ………Forget all that, I’m starving (bad choice of words at a holiday which promotes gluttony), by which point Kathe had cut a slice of a breakfast pudding. I can’t remember the actual name but OMG, that was a taste of heaven, so creamy and chewy at the same time.

Now that the hunger has been suppressed by the heavenly foods, the morning can begin, While Buzz took Greg to the pharmacy, me and Chrissy wanted to settle a dispute we had in the car last night. Greg is under the impression that Oceanside, a place not far from San Diego is very dangerous, but Chrissy says otherwise and that it would be a great place to retire (Although frankly the neighbourhood around Poway, where Buzz and Kathe live is more than suitable.)

I searched online to compare crime statistics, and it turns out that apart from rape and car theft, Oceanside is below the national average on all types of crime. Chrissy was delighted by this, but since I found this site, we decided to dig deeper. I checked out San Bernardino, but now I wish I hadn’t. It is significantly above the national average in ALL areas. I hope this just relates to the main part of San Bernardino and doesn’t travel north to the campus.

I was then asked to try out Compton, which turns out to be the North London of California. It was bad, VERY bad. In all areas apart from theft and car theft it beat San Bernardino. I was definitely relieved to hear that there’s somewhere worse than my place J

1pm came and we were still sat around gossiping, it wasn’t until about half 2 when we made our move. Definitely no rush on this one, we only went 3 miles down the road, to an even grander house. Seriously, this makes my house back in the UK look like a shed. An infinity pool, huge dining/ living areas and a driveway even the celebrities would be jealous of. Just thinking about it makes me wonder why the hell I didn’t take any pictures.

For the next few hours I would play babysitter for the young girls, the same girls who put on the show for us all last night. From what I can remember, I spent the majority before the thanksgiving buffet playing ‘Trouble’ with Liz, the youngest. Trouble is just the American version of Frustration, only pocket sized. During the same time, Grace, Liz’s older sister was constantly asking me about the UK and how I’d say things in my British accent. I knew people would find my accent intriguing, but kids take this to a whole new level, not that I have a problem.

Babysitting aside,  6pm came and the food was ready. A barrage of food to choose from, from Turkey and Prime rib, to home-made stuffing and cranberry sauce, not forgetting my bread basket of course. Literally an orgasm in the mouth (not to be confused with oral for those with dirty minds), but the fun isn’t over yet. After time discussing my situation, we had dessert, which included pumpkin brownie cake, pumpkin pie (fairly big on their pumpkin in the US) and of course, my favourite, APPLE PIE.

Having had enough food to last me at least 2 days, the night concluded with plenty of card games, including 4 player canasta with Chrissy, Greg and Megan. This then became the cause of much discomfort in the form of accused cheating. We agreed that there would be no team-talk between either team. This was quickly ignored by the girls, so the boys thought we’d do the same. Christine laid a 5 down, which we could use. I briefly reminded Greg that a 5 had been laid where he then understood that we could use this. In the spirit of things, this gave us the advantage in that game, which Christine wasn’t pleased about. Despite her relentless challenges, the action stood and the boys won by over 1000 points, a considerable deal in Canasta.

During our last game, Shanghai Rum, the topic of conversation came back to mocking my accent, which somehow led us to watching a clip of an American comedian, who seems to have a fondness for taking the mick out of New Orleans. It reached 11pm and since we needed to set off early, we headed home, an early night for a early morning