UCLA football game

We`re at our first home game and we are loving it. Meg made some delic tailgate food and now we are sitting behind the band at the game. Go Bruins!!

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My First Celebrity Sighting

As I was walking through the bakery aisle at our local grocery store this afternoon, picking up much needed supplies for tomorrow's tailgate such as hot dog buns, I had my first celebrity sighting. For those that know me well, I'm a huge fan of the recently completed television series "Lost". I own the first 5 seasons on DVD (still need the last one, hint hint, for anyone looking to buy me an early Christmas present) and I've probably watched them all at least twice, and the earlier seasons at least three times. I'm even one of the few fans that actually liked the ending (I mean, how else where they going to end it? And besides, C.J. Craig killed someone, how much better does it get?) I digress. So as I'm wandering around the store looking for the hot dog buns, I walk past William Mapother. I think to myself "This guy looks so familiar. Did I go to school with him? No. Did I meet him at Mike's happy hours? No... but I know him from somewhere..." Then all the sudden I was overwhelmed with the urge to run away because I was afraid he was going to kidnap me and stick needles in my belly and hang Charlie in a tree. It was Ethan!!

P.S. - He is kinda scary in real life. He has longer hair now, and when I saw him at the store, the only reason I recognized him is because he was wearing this same, creepy expression on his face!

I didn't approach him or talk to him, though I did spot him again near the broccoli. Poor guy didn't need to be bothered, he was just trying to get his daily dose of Vitamins C and K.

First Day of Class

Yesterday marked my first day back at school, but today I started my first class. As I mentioned yesterday, five of the twelve days we spend on campus during orientation are spent taking a class on leadership. As seems to be usual for business school, we started off class with an ice breaker - 4 lies and a truth. The game basically consists of getting into a group and everyone telling the class a bizarre fact about themselves and one person lying. The game was entertaining and allowed all of us to share embarrassing stories with people we've know for about 30 hours. I broke out my four spleen story, which definitely brought about some weird looks.

Anyways, we finally got going with real class, analyzing some reading we had been assigned the week before. This being UCLA, of course there was the obligatory John Wooden reference which was accompanied by a video on his thoughts on leadership.

The two most interesting exercises involved filling out a Strength Deployment Inventory personality test and solving a "Who Done It?" The SDI test is a positive/negative test that seems to be geared more towards business and management. Regardless, I scored as a blend between Altruistic/Nurturing and Analytical/Autonomizing (with a slight learn towards the analytical side). My "Conflict Sequence" or my expected behavior when facing a conflict indicates that I am the type of person who meets conflict with flexibility, which can sometimes be seen as unpredictability (especially by those who don't know me well). I'd have to say that both are pretty accurate, although I've always thought of myself as more analytical than altruistic.

The "Who Done It?" saw us brake into groups of three and try to determine who killed Robert Guion. After about 50 minutes of reading through the case and discussing it with my team, we settled on Eddie, the handyman. (Yes, I know this means nothing to you). When the entire class got back together and began to discuss the case, we realized that there were multiple versions of the case, each with slightly different information. Turns out the whole thing was not an exercise for our analytical ability, but it was meant to teach us about the importance of diversity when creating teams. Instead of just turning to the people sitting next to you to form your team (all of whom had the same version of the packet), we were supposed to seek out people with different opinions and information. I'm guessing this will not be the last exercise that conveys a meaning different than what appears on the surface. But that's why I'm here, to learn something more about business and to stretch myself.

First Day of School

Today was my first day back in school in more than four years. Luckily, it was just orientation, so no real classes yet. Not much to report about really, mostly it was just administrative stuff and ice breakers (yes, I'm back in middle school and doing ice breakers again). Tomorrow, however, is a different story, as tomorrow we start Leadership Foundations, a 2-unit course about (you guessed it) leadership. It runs over five days during throughout orientation and is suppose to help us transition back into the life of a student, which, as Meg said tonight, means that I have homework and will no longer be any fun at night. Hopefully, I'll be on top of that homework and won't completely ignore my soon to be wife (still weird to say, especially because we still don't know when the wedding will be). I'll try not to bore you with the details of my life as a student in the future, and just provide updates when we do interesting things like trips, happy hours, and beach days. In the meantime, happy new year to all of you who celebrate it this time of year.

New Stuff

Today we fulfilled our consumer duty and went to Lowe's and Ikea to make three big purchases. First stop, Lowe's Home Improvement store and purchased a grill. It's a small, two burner gas grill that we got on sale as summer is coming to a close. Mike spent the evening putting it together in the hopes that we could fire it up for dinner and have some grilled chicken. Three hours and one frustrated break later, we finally got it out on the patio. There is about 2 feet of space between it and the side of our apartment, just enough to probably get badly burned one day.

Our other purchases from were from Ikea - a large green area carpet and a huge bookcase. Both look great, adding some color to the room and some much needed shelves for the many many books that we have. The bookcase only took me about an hour and a half to put together and decorate. But needless to say, tonight was a frozen pizza dinner night. And now our apartment is really put together and looks goooooood!

Dealing with Traffic

I spent most of Thursday at the DMV officially becoming a California resident again. As many people pointed out, you can make an appointment online with the DMV and reduce some of the wait time. Unfortunately, appointments need to be scheduled at least 2-3 weeks in advance in the LA area, meaning that the week and a half I had before school starts to take care of this annoying little task did not allow me to schedule an appointment in advance. So, after six hours of standing in lines, sitting in chairs and waiting in my car, I got my driver's license and CA plates.

I actually lucked out a little bit by having a great teller once I got to the counter. This women was extremely sarcastic, but knew how to get things done. Because of her, I was actually able to skip ahead in one line and not have to make a return trip for my license plates. Also, because I once had a CA driver's license, I got to take the renewal exam instead of the new driver test. Even though that only saved me from having to answer an additional 18 questions, it made things just a little easier after a long day.

Megan took some pics of me changing the plates. Enjoy.

Brand New Me

Many of the posts that we've made to the blog have in a roundabout way talked about the changes we've gone through over the past 2 months or so. For me it is worth explicitly calling out some of the bigger ones because they are a large part of our journey. When starting out on this adventure, I wanted to take this opportunity to become a better me - not necessarily a "new" me (don't worry, there won't be any Hollywood plastic surgery or anything), but a better version of who I already am. For example, I hate exercising. I find it tedious, unsatisfying, and I can almost always find something else to do with my time. But, since we decided we were moving and starting over, I've decided that I need to be healthier. So I've been running, working out on my Wii Fit, and eating healthier. And I'm already seeing results!

Another thing that has changed is my hair. Naturally, it is straight with a bit of a wave that makes it look messy. In college, I had curly hair for a few years, and I loved it. It was easy to manage, fun and just different enough to feel like it set me apart in some way. So, the week after I left work, I curled my hair, and haven't regretted it for a moment.

Last but certainly not least, I've made a major adjustment to the way that I think about the future. I'm the type of person that feels most comfortable when everything is planned out, organized, and predictable. From the moment that Mike and I decided to move to the Left Coast, I knew that I was going to have to let go of that need to plan and cede some of the control. First, it meant I needed to fully hand over some of the moving and planning responsibilities to Mike, and trust that he would take care of them (so hard to do for a control-freak!). Next, I was going to have to be flexible. For example, we didn't know when our stuff would be delivered until after the movers picked us up, and even then they changed it the day before. So for the whole trip across the country, we were continually making plans as we went. And finally, I had to operate with a certain amount of "unknown." When I first got here, I only knew how to get to a few places (campus, the grocery store, maybe the airport if I really had to.) I could count on one hand the people I knew in the area. I hadn't started looking for a job, yet, either. In short, there have been lots of "mental" challenges along the way, but I think embracing the changes and challenges and jumping in with both feet has been most rewarding. It is actually fun to fly by the seat of your pants, and have faith and confidence that everything will be just fine. Maybe my new laissez faire world-view means I'm already becoming a Californian! ... nah.