London- Day 14 & the trip home

Hang em up, we're done!

Julie,

Well believe it or London has come and gone. Two weeks of studying, classes, lots of food, cultural events, late nights, sleeping in a hotel, and getting to know the other students of Duke CCMBA 2010 have come and gone. Now that I sit here and reflect upon the time I spent in London, it boggles my mind that we are done with the first residency and have to move onto distance session 1.

I think this first distance session will definitely be an adjustment to our schedules and my work/life balance, but after doing two weeks with the intensity the program dished out, I think these distance sessions will be very manageable.

Well the last day came and went as kind of a blur. The night before I went to the review session and studied for a bit, but I found myself being so exhausted that I was unable to focus on any of the material. Because of that, I decided to go to bed early and get up early to finish studying. Studying in the morning went pretty good, but I found myself at about 3 hours before the test being ready to just go take it. Not that I knew all the material hands down, but there is only so much material you can comprehend and retain in a 5 day period. It is actually pretty crazy to me that in 5 days we started a course, introduced 10 days worth of material (2 class sessions per day), reviewed that material, and took a midterm. Wow. Anyway, finally lunch and test time came around and everyone was just ready to get it out of the way. We sat down in a huge room and were given 3 hours to answer 7 questions. It was a difficult test as the first question took nearly half the alloted time and was worth less than half the available points. That means at about half way through, I had some serious make up time to do and luckily it all worked out. After 3 hours I turned in my test and knew I hadn't rocked the test, but I felt pretty good all things considered. We will have to wait and see how things turn out with my grade. I felt like the whole class was in the same boat when it came to feeling how difficult the test was (however, the CPAs in the class handled it a lot quicker and easier than the rest of us).

When the test was over, it was time for us to go out and celebrate. My team got together for a little bit to film ourselves answering some questions for a video we have to put together at the end of term 3. After that, I packed some of the stuff in my bags and then we headed to a bar called Prohibition. Below is a video from prohibition of the whole class celebrating together.

While we were at prohibition, I realized I was starving and so were some other guys so we went out to get some food. We wanted pizza and so a group of 5 of us ended up walking around the entire harbor where our hotel was. Someone thought the pizza place was on the other side. During our trek I came across this phone booth--the traditional London phone booth-- so I thought it would be a cool picture to insert. By the time we were done wandering around we ended up right back where we started and we went to the restaurant next door. Lo and behold they had pizza. Fancy that. Unfortunately, the pizza wasn't very good, but since we hadn't eaten in like 6 hours it didn't matter.
When we left dinner, we went next door to find a lot of the class still at prohibition. They were heading over to another "artsy" bar called something like "shunt". We were told it was just over the bridge, so I thought I would just go check it out with everyone and then head back to the hotel. Well "just over the bridge" turned into like a 20-30 minute walk, but it was fun to walk and chat with people from class. It was really interesting to see how you could tell the stress level had lifted off of everyone's shoulders. Here is a short video of our walk, not real exciting, but it kind of shows where we walking along the river.

After our long walk we made it to "Shunt" and it was pretty crazy. It is the old underground area (maybe like some old storage units. It was interesting cause there were all these different rooms that shot in all different directions like a spider web. Even from the regular bar hoppers they said this place was pretty weird. Surprisingly, with the environment I would have expected a lot more "crazy" things to be happening out in the open. There wasn't, probably because at this point the night was still young. I didn't stay there very long and then I headed back to the hotel. When I got back to the hotel, I packed a little and then went to bed. I was sure ready to get that day over with and begin my journey home.

You can't tell as much in this pic, but this is the "shunt"

Here's a picture I look of Tower Bridge on the way home. It was cool to have such a huge landmark right next to our hotel.

Travel Day

I got up at 7am in order to finish packing, eat breakfast, check out, and get going in time for my flight. I decided because it wasn't that bad on the way to the hotel, I would take the tube back to the airport. It definitely kept things exciting. The tube was much busier this time around and I kind of felt like a dork at some points as commuters would cram into the train to try and get to work and here I was taking up a ton of space with my luggage. I could almost feel all the people glaring at me, but luckily my experiences from Russia prepared me for being the proverbial elephant on the train so I handled it alright.

After making a few interchanges, I made it to the airport. I did the self check-in and then I went to check both my bags so I could then go through security and wait for my plane. On the way to London, my big bag had been a couple pounds over so I had rearranged a few things, but with all the new additions I was bringing home I was nervous I would be over. As I approached the counter I handed the lady my ticket and passport and then loaded my big bag on to the scale. The look I received next was as if I had stolen the woman's first born child! She informed me that I was 5 kilos over the limit and having no sense of what a kilo is, I just started unloading my bag and redistributing things to my lighter, though not too light, duffle bag. When all was said and done I was one kilo below the limit I had between my two bags. Whew!

I then made it through security just in time.... to wait for an hour and a half before my flight took off. I burned time by exchanging my money back to dollars, getting on the internet, and wandering the terminal. Finally, it came time to board the flight and we all loaded on. This is when all the "fun" began. First, the crew was behind schedule so by the time we were ready to fly out we were already 30 minutes behind schedule. By this point it had started to rain and apparently for a country that handles massive amounts of rain daily, this was just too much to handle. All the flights got backed up and we ended up finally taking off 2 hours later than scheduled. We made up some of that time in the air, but not enough. Being behind made me anxious the whole flight because I wanted to figure out what would happen with my connecting flight. Of course, I had 10 hours to stew about this so I did finally relax for a while and I think I ended up watching like 4 different movies.

This is my attempt at the "1,000" words a picture is suppose to express.

In summary, delays, missed flights, and lost luggage just don't describe

a day of fun.

When we landed in Houston I had about 30 minutes until my connection to Vegas. Not a promising timeline considering I had to wait in line, go through customs, pick up my baggage, take it through border control, re-check my baggage, go back through security and then walk ten minutes to get to the terminal where my gate was. Yeah you guessed it, missed my flight. I actually didn't even get to the point of picking up my luggage before I was out of time. I did make an attempt, however. I RAN from my gate to the customs line, passing many people who probably thought I looked like a big dork (dork sighting #2).

At baggage claim, there was a continental rep there that gave me a ticket for the next Vegas flight which departed about an hour later. From that point I took my time and even found myself some dinner (a horrible dried out sandwich, ok chips, and drink for 13 bucks--ouch!). Finally, it was time to board my last flight, but oh no my journey was far from over. Once we loaded on and got ready, I looked out the window and lo and behold it started to rain, no pour outside. To add insult to injury, it was a thunderstorm and I thought for sure I was doomed to be stuck on the ground for another two hours at least which would cause me to miss my connection to the shuttle. I could feel the frustration building. By this point I had been awake for like 22 hours or something so I decided I would just take a nap. Luckily, even with the storm we slowly made our way out to the tarmac. (sidenote: how is it in Houston we could take off while there was a massive thunderstorm yet in London, where it rains all the time, we were delayed two hours by a light drizzle? Dumbfounding.) I fell asleep as we waited our turn for takeoff and next thing I knew we were in the air. The rest of the flight was uneventful and we thankful landed in Vegas with a half an hour left until the shuttle would leave.

I hurried through the terminal ran down the escalator, caught the train, and ran to the baggage claim area (dork sighting #3). The bags hadn't started coming out yet, so I hurried out to the shuttle, checked in with the driver, paid my money and told him I would be right back with my luggage. This is where more fun began. After watching all the luggage come out, I had gotten my big suitcase, but my duffle bag was missing. We were already at the time of departure for the shuttle so I was running around like a crazy man trying to find the continental lost baggage office (dork sighting #4). I finally got there and talked with the woman at the counter, explained to her what my bag looked like and gave her my baggage claim ticket. She decided she would go look through all the luggage stationed outside the office and surprisingly she didn't find my bag (sidenote: come on, if I lost my bag and was in a hurry, don't you think I would have already looked through all those bags? Hello! Plus it is a Royal blue duffle bag, it didn't exactly blend in with the crowd.) Anyway, I was completely frustrated by this point and I just wanted her to come back to the desk so she could process my claim and let me go get the shuttle (if it hadn't already left me).

Finally, a stroke of good luck occurred... kind of.

The baggage guy came around the corner carrying my bag, WAHOO! However, it some how had "burst open" and now the zipper was busted. At this point I couldn't have cared less as long as my belongings were still in there and it looked like they were. I quickly grabbed the bag and headed for the exit. Thankfully the shuttle and waited and yes I made my final connection for my journey home.

The shuttle was uneventful, I got to my car, loaded up and came home. Whew, what a day of traveling. Definitely nothing to be admired. Well this entry will close my experiences from my first residency with the Duke program. My plan for the next seven weeks of distance classes will be to do a weekly update of how classes are going, my feelings, frustrations, etc. Hopefully as I have learned that I better express myself through this medium of writing, this will give you a better insight to how I am reacting to this whole program.

I love you!!!

Brock

London- Day 12 & 13

Julie,

Well there isn't a whole lot to update by way of new adventures or happenings. On day 12 we had our 4th or five accounting classes first thing in the morning. When that was over, we had lunch and then it was study time for my section. While the other section was in class we pretty much had free time to do whatever we wanted, but considering we have an accounting exam looming and the fact that we are here for school, that time became study time. I studied in my room for a while and then as planned, I took a nap. It was about an hour and the biggest problem to taking a nap was forcing myself to wake up. Even after I got up and was studying again I found I was having a hard time staying awake so I decided it would be better to go down to a common area to study.

That evening we had an accounting review and then more studying after dinner. I spent most of my time in the foyer to the two classrooms where we can see the tower bridge and where they feed us most the time. I think I was in there for about 4 to 5 hours studying accounting the whole time. Surprisingly, the time passed pretty quickly, but while I was in there I realized I hadn't taken any pictures of our "duke campus." The program staff has strategically placed big blown up photos of various landmarks on Duke's campus I guess to give it a Duke feel. Anyway here are some of the displays.

Duke Chapel

Fuqua School

Fuqua School (different angle). Also note the Duke Fuqua logo. That is actually a digital sign of the hotel's noting that we have this area reserved. Placed outside of each room we use are stands with signs on them that state: "Private Event" and then have that same Fuqua logo.

After studying till about 11:45pm, I came back up to my room, talked to you on skype, finished some other stuff, and went to bed around 2am.

My plan for Day 13 to get up early and study was thrown out the window by that point, but it all worked out ok. I got up about 8:30 and then got ready and headed up to the 12th floor where they have conference rooms reserved for us. I worked up there for a few hours until lunch. After lunch we had our LAST residency class over all and our last residency accounting class. The key will now be to incorporate what we learned today with everything else we have been trying to digest and then get all our debits and credits straight before the test starts at 1pm tomorrow afternoon. Really that is all we have left, which is crazy to think. Obviously once we get home we still have our classes and everything, but to think that this first residency is almost over is pretty crazy.

After class we had a session called "Looking Ahead" that gave us some insights to what Dubai is going to be like and what we can plan for. I just can't believe that we are close enough to the Dubai residency to be talking about it and to think that our new little man will be born by that time.

Now we are done with class and "official" sessions and all that awaits us is a 3 hour accounting exam. WAHOO! ;) Tonight will be a review session followed up by a lot of studying, more studying in the morning and then the test.

Wish me Luck!

Love you all,

Brock

London- Day 10 & 11

Julie,

Well Day 10 and 11 have come and gone. It seems like there is a definitive ebb and flow to the workload and stress load. At times it will seem completely overwhelming and other (much fewer times) it will seem... manageable.

Day 10 wasn't anything spectacular, just another day. We started the morning out with Accounting. I actually really like this class which is a total surprise, but I am having some difficultly in it right now. Part of the problem is how amazingly fast we go through the material. We covered EVERYTHING we covered for an entire semester in my undergrad accounting in one day! What is crazy is we go to class and we have already done the homework and materials for what we will be covering in class that day. Then she teaches the lectures and a few things start to clear up in my mind. After class, I review what we did for that class again and then do a review session which covers that material again. Now that sounds like a lot but it all happens in the span of a few hours and by the end of the review session I am just starting to get the grasp. But by this point it is 8pm and we still have usually like 2 chapters, 15 problems, and 3 cases to review for class the next morning. So again we stay up late, don't get nearly all of it done and go to class the next morning to repeat the cycle. We have two more accounting classes on Tuesday and Wednesday and then from Wednesday night to Thursday night it is a CRAM session till we take the exam Thursday at 1pm. After that we are done with residency and we will put away everything we have been doing until we get home. (The hope is we won't forget everything we've been doing, but I have my doubts).

Although we don't leave the hotel very often we do have a beautiful view of London. Here are a couple pictures of what we look at everyday.

Day 11 started off pretty good since I got more sleep than I had this entire time. I slept 5 1/2 hours which felt really good. In the morning we had a team building class which is cool cause they give us all these tests of our personality and they help us to see how we mesh with others on our teams by our personalities so we can head off problems before they start. After that we had an abbreviated accounting class (it was only two hours as to the normal 3 1/2). After accounting they had scheduled some corporate tours for us to participate in. There were only 60 slots for 120 students to go to two different companies, plus neither company was an industry I was very interested in so I opted to go on the riverboat tour on the Thames River.

It was funny because it was like an executive summary of what people typically come to London to see. I have some pictures and a little bit of video of what the tour was like.

Self Explanatory :)

A battleship that is now a tourist site. It is right

across the way from our hotel.

The round building on the left is the office of the Mayor of London.

The Tower of London Bridge from the other side.

The Tower of London. Part of this history has to do with

this is where people were jailed and then sent to their execution.

One name of note: William Wallace: "The may take our lives, but they will never

take our freedom!"

BIG BEN

House of Parliament

The Eye of London. This is a ferris wheel that rotates really slowly and takes 30 minutes to do a full rotation. There are 32 pods that can fit a ton of people on each one. I think it costs like 20 pounds to ride it and so they figured out that for each rotation it makes over 10,000 pounds! Can you believe that 10,000 pounds every 30 minutes. I need an income like that ;)

This is the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe Theater. I guess they even replicate the way plays were done back in his day and it only costs 5 pounds to go.

Not enough time, but it sounds cool.

Lastly, here is a video of our tour. Notice the school he is talking about, he mentions it is the school at Daniel Radcliffe (Harry Potter) is attending. Crazy how it is right down town.

After our quick tour, we jumped back on the tube and rode back to the hotel. I made a stop to get some gifts for all of my little family (still looking to see if I can find anything for the new guy). I realized I am definitely not a good shopper or decision maker when it comes to getting a present for you. I wanted to get something historical, but not cheesy, etc. Hopefully you'll like it, but worst case it will be a memento of my time away and how much I missed and love you guys!

Lastly, I have walked by the truck pictured below a few times and it has reminded me of all the ice cream we ate in Denmark. I decided to give it a try. It was definitely good, but no match for Denmark's especially since there were no sprinkles.

Tonight we had an accounting review and now it is dinner time and studying. Love you lots!

Love,

Brock

London- Day 9

Julie,

Well today has been a good day, but there was definitely no shortage of worry before it started. Financial Accounting had a lot of worries, myths, and straight up fears about it. There were rumors flyin around about what type of professor she was and how she treated people in class and what she demanded. One funny thing was that yesterday some students ran into in the hall while they were suppose to be in class. She pretty much asked/told them that they shouldn't leave class at all during her class when it starts. This story was passed through the group and I seriously heard 5 different versions of it. The worst of which was pretty sensationalized to the point that it was told she had yelled at them and threatened them when they were innocently going to the bathroom. It was really the complete opposite that they got tired of class so they got up and were walking the halls to stave off sleep and got caught. It was just so funny how the story morphed each time I heard it.

Class went well and although I was nervous, I was really excited to get it started. It is exactly the type of knowledge base and skills I am looking to attain so I can evaluate companies, particularly medical practices.

One funny thing I realized today. We have had so much class lately, that at our mid-morning break I realized it had been 60 HOURS since the last time I set foot outside! Can you believe that? I decided I needed to break that streak so I went and wandered outside the hotel for a couple minutes before we went back to class.

Another interesting thing happened in ME today. We were talking about networking and the informal and formal networks that exist within A business and that exist within business in general. A lot of the experiences that were shared made me reflect on the comments that have been made throughout this residency and from what I have witnessed on the streets of London. It has to do with drinking. Not just alcohol but coffee as well. Drinking is a big social motivator. A lot of people for business or social will "meet for drinks" or "go for a coffee." What I found really interesting is that in our culture we don't have a substitute for that. We will go out to dinner or lunch, but they do that as well. Drinks and coffee are almost a low-cost alternative to have an excuse to get together. We as none drinking mormons have developed pot luck dinners and family get togethers that center around food, but because of the extra preparation time and inheirant additional cost we don't do it as often or as informally (like asking someone to go for a cup of coffee right after work--doesn't need any preparation or assessment of cost other than making sure you got a couple extra bucks in your wallet.)

Because of the added benefit of something like going for drinks in business, I realize, culturally, there is something we are missing as non-participants. It made me think, wow I could definitely see myself saying, Hey let me buy you a cup of coffee so we can chat even if I was still the same me, but we lived somewhere outside of Utah. But without this program, I might have missed out on those social cues or been able to realize how important that can be. [sidenote: Obviously I'd have some cider or hot chocolate or something else to drink.] Additionally, it is interesting that we can't just use a substitute drink in our culture and make it work. Meaning, I can't go up to someone in St. George and say "you wanna go for drinks" because it implies alcoholic intentions when really it is just a means "I want to foster a business relationship here." Maybe next time I'm in that situation I will say, "Hey you want to go for an orange peel?" :)

Tonight we have a lot to do. We have a case to read and write a report on and then we have to read 3 chapters, 4 cases, and do multiple accounting problems. Things are going well. I just realized while finishing some laundry tonight that it is going to be Sunday again tomorrow. Wow, time has gone fast, yet really slow. It's kinda weird.

I love you!

Brock

London- Day 7 & Day 8

Julie,

Right now it is 5pm and we just finished with classes for the day. We have a break till about 6:30pm before we start the "activities" tonight. The CEO of Rio Tinto is coming to speak to us tonight and we are also going to be doing some networking with Duke Alums that currently live in this area. It should be really interesting. The only unfortunate part is we are all so bogged down with things to do, that this part is almost becoming a burden because it is taking the place of time we could be studying. Hopefully it will be one of those things that once you arrive it turns out to be a great thing and you are so happy you went.

Well to recap yesterday, the main thing is there was nothing particularly exciting, we had A LOT of classes. We were in class from 8am to 5pm with an hour break for lunch. We did, however, finish one of our classes. CCL is one of our multi-term classes and we only do that class during the residencies. We did it this first week because we have financial accounting starting tomorrow so CCL finished yesterday. What was cool about it was for the last class they had us reflect on what we had learned from this location and things we had done so we could prepare to do the same thing at our next location and contrast the two, and then carry that on through the rest of our locations. As people were making comments I started to reflect on what was big for me and some comment by others really keyed me to the idea. I think one of the biggest things I learned or became aware of is who I want to be and what I want to represent. I have been to international locations before, but never by myself. Always I have travelled with family or in the case of my mission I was with people that held my same belief system. Here, however, there is the contrasts that I have pointed out previously about everyone drinking alcohol and coffee, most of them tend to have looser language, and in discussions it just become obvious that they have a different belief system. Those situations I have previously been sheltered from because I have always had someone with me (i.e. my family or my companion). Here I am totally on my own. At first being thrown into that world has made me a little uncomfortable (what do I do if they ask me to drink, what if they offer me a coffee, what if they ask why I don't do those things, etc). As time as progressed, I have realized that each one of them has their own belief system and hold ideals and principles that are dear to them. The goal is not to be a afraid of those differences, but to accept those people on the basis of who they are and not who you want them or think they should become. I've enjoyed being able to reflect and think, you know I want to be known as a person that holds strong to his ideals and doesn't compromise his beliefs. I want to be known as "the honest person" or the "guy that doesn't drink" or whatever else it may be that contrasts me to them. Not because it makes me better through the individual principle but because it helps me to establish who I am.

Anyway, I could go on that for a while, but it has been really cool to reflect on who I am and what I represent.

I also had a career management center meeting with the Duke staff. They helped me to find all the resources for job searching and gave me some really good strategies for doing more than finding available postings and applying for those jobs. The start with the strategy of what do you want to do, who do you want to work for, and where do you want to be. You then create a cross section list and find MBA level positions at those companies and locations and see what is covered in the job description. From the job descriptions find what on your resume matches up and what holes you have, so then you can fill in those holes by doing project work (or internships). After that you cross reference those companies with the Duke Alumni network (and your undergrad alumni) and use those contacts to find out more about the company and to have a point of contact within the company. It then leads to building that relationship and being prepared for things that will come from now, until graduation.

Anyway, as part of that and in preparation I would like to sit and discuss with you regions of interest for us in case we were to move somewhere, where would we want to be. That should be an interesting exercise huh?

Well after the CMC meeting, I went to dinner, read a case, met with my team, and edited the paper we had due until 2am. I could tell I was really tired when I was getting mad at every little problem that would come up with formating the paper or getting it to fit on two pages. I finally just had to tell myself to calm down, I finished the paper and I went straight to bed without doing the other reading because I knew it wouldn't be effective.

Day 8 I woke up later than usual (7am instead of 6am) so I could get a little more sleep. I went to class and actually did the reading I was suppose to do the night before during the first part of class. It all worked out ok, but I got to get the hang of this student life thing again.

Classes today have been pretty normal. We finished our other multi term class, GMI, so it was nice to get that burden off our shoulders. We are now down to ME (Managerial Effectiveness) and Financial Accounting. ME is actually a really interesting class and has some very interesting case studies associated with it. Class each day is 3 1/2 hours long, but it actually goes by really fast because we have a lot of discussion. Tomorrow begins Financial Accounting. We are all SCARED! It is suppose to be the hardest class we take the entire program and she is a really hard professor. There are a lot of rumors that go around about how she is really strict and how she cold calls people in class and that the reading is 10 times more than you could ever do, plus assignments, etc. It is already starting to seem overwhelming, so I guess we will do what we have been doing with the rest of these classes. Take them day by day. Next week will be interesting since ME ends on Monday and then we only have Accounting for the rest of the week. That sounds like they are preparing us for A LOT of work.

Here is a quick video of my ME class. I filmed it "covertly" but thought it would be cool to show you a small snippet of what I am really doing everyday.

Today I also ran out of garments. Well I used my last pair to wear today and I was planning on taking my stuff to a laundromat, but apparently there aren't any. My only choices are the hotel's laundry service (ridiculously expensive) or a local service (down right expensive, which is just a shade below ridiculously expensive :). So I took the advice of my teammate Pat and borrowed the laundry detergent he bought a few days ago. Below is the picture of me doing my laundry.

How bout them apples? Makes me feel like I am on my mission again.

(3 Hours later) Tonight we had the networking with alumni and a speech by Tom Albanese, the CEO of Rio Tinto. Both went well and we had a good time. There weren't too many alumni so the ones that were, there were about 10 people surrounding each one so I decided not to force the issue. The speech was really good and there was an engaging Q&A at the end so I was happy to sit and listen to it, but it went 45 minutes longer than schedule and so that made me antsy as well as the fact that I was so tired and had periods where I felt like it would be IMPOSSIBLE for me to stay awake. Alas, I survived and now its on to studying.

I'm glad we got to skype today. Let me know how Dallen's game goes against Springville. So glad that it is football season again!

Love,

Brock

London- Day 5 part 2 & Day 6

Julie,

Another day gone. It is all going so quick. The first two pictures here are examples of the "spreads" they put out for us at meals and in between classes. There is so much food is amazing. I definitely feel treated like a King.

The food table outside our classroom.

Breakfast in the Restaurant in the Hotel.

In my part 2 of Day 5, I just wanted to note that we went out to dinner as a team. We had some things to do and wanted to meet together so we went to a nearby Indian Restaurant called "Mala". The fun and interesting part about our dinner was that Mathew our Indian team member was with us. Because of that we had him order foods he liked and wanted to share with us. It was a lot of fun because we all shared a variety of plates and he ordered a lot of things I would have never considered. We also had a really good time as a team. I think we all mess well and are pretty non-confrontational, but at times I do begin to see strong individual preferences begin to creep up. Duke has been really good about trying to "out" all the internal team problems that develop in a microwave fashion so that things will be resolved and everyone will be on the same page when we move into the distance portion of classes (meaning when we all go to our separate homes).

This is Brett trying to be serious...

Here is my plate of food. It was much better than it looks, actually quite delicious.

Day 6

Today we had two classes in the morning. We started a new class today called Managerial Effectiveness and I already think this is going to be one of my favorite classes. We take case studies and then evaluate how we would address the business problems as the owner/ceo/manager of the company. I was really tired again today during my first class and was worried about this class, but from the very beginning I was totally tuned in and before I knew it class was over.

After lunch our charge this afternoon was to do a culture dash. We picked three locations to visit and interview locals about the meaning of that location to the culture of the area. The first location we picked was really frustrating since our navigator took us to the wrong location so everyone we talked to would give us directions to where it was. We had picked the London Stock Exchange and they had moved it a few years back so people would tell us where the new location was. After wasting about an hour and half, we finally got back on track and found someone in the area that would talk to us.

We then headed over to the House of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. We had some really interesting talks with people on the streets. I am amazed about how well these people know their history down to specific dates. We also visited Westminster Abbey which is the church where most of the royal family is buried and where they crown the new king and queen each time. The only bummer was we were under a time constraint and therefore weren't able to do any tours inside any of these places. I just a few pics of the buildings below.

Big Ben- The House of Parliament

Westminster Abbey- From this view it kind of looks like Duke Chapel :)

A traditional Beefeater. The guards at Buckingham Palace that don't move or talk.

Man I could never do that job.

We had a lot of fun today. A couple of guys we talked to we got 20 minutes of video of them for our project we are doing. What was funny was I actually filmed them covertly because we knew they didn't want us to film them and in the middle of the conversation they asked me if I was filming them and I waved it off and said, "No, just holding it." I was holding the camera in front of me and resting my chin on it with my arms crossed to make it look like I was just using it as a crutch while I listened to them. It must have worked since they kept talking for another 15 minutes.

Tonight I wrote a paper and am EXTREMELY tired, but I still have some reading to do before I go to bed to be ready for class tomorrow morning. Luckily, for one of my classes, tomorrow is our last day of class and then that class goes on hold until we go to Dubai. Whew! Lots to do!

Sure love you babe!

Brock

P.S. Here is a video I took while walking around at Westminster Abbey. Nothing spectacular, but thought I'd throw it in anyway. If you have to go to the blog to view it the blog address is dukemba2010.blogspot.com

London- Day 4 & Day 5

Julie,

Well in previous posts I have been picture lite and so here is the onslaught. Day 4 had two key landmarks for the program. First, was that it was actually Day 1 of classes and two we got to get out the hotel and do something else for a change.

I had stayed up till 1 a.m. getting everything done the night before so when my alarm rang at 6 a.m. I was still very tired. I was able to get up, get ready, and go to breakfast. Wow! What a spread. If there is anything that is to be a constant from these trips, I am sure it is food. There is food at every corner. I took a picture of a couple of the spreads they have put out for us and I will include that in a later post.

Class started at 8am and went well. Nothing great to report. It was pretty much like a syllabus day in undergrad. I did get a little tired as the class continued, but I ended up being ok. The structure is a two hour class followed by a 15 minute break, followed by another 2 hour class. I REALLY wish they would throw a 5 minute break in the middle of each of those and I am seriously considering putting together a petition.

After the second class, we were rushed out into the foyer, grabbed our sack lunches, ran to our rooms to change, and jumped on a double decker bus. That's right a DOUBLE DECKER! Not only that but it was chartered so it had Duke University on the front and back of it. The seats were NOT very comfortable, but it was fun to ride the double decker to the activity.

Here is our bus. Pretty snazzy eh?

Here is a view from the top floor inside.

After about an hour and a half ride to what I can assume was "outer" London we arrived at the place for our outdoor activity. We took our teams of 6 that were have been assigned and were put together with another team of six. So we as team 9 combined with team 10. We were given different color bandanas all with the "Duke Fuqua School of Business" logo all over them. Below is a picture of all the groups. Look closely and you can see the different bandana colors.

Here's us getting ready to go into a man-made cave for one of our activities. The goal was to get our 6 person team through the cave (lots of small crawl spaces with most of the time spent on our hands and knees and bellies) with only one light at the front, while another 6 person team had to make it through the opposite direction. Man it was a lot of fun!

Here are a few pictures of the rock climbing activity. This one didn't have much team aspect to it other than having the climber and belayer, but I was able to show off my skillz. Yeah that right, skillz with a "z". :)

Lastly, here is the raft we built. This is the other team we built it with as they did their race. During our race we got blocked off by a team that didn't know how to steer and we were in last place, but we made a quick turn at the buoy and sped into second place. Had we been able to get a clean start we would have killed! Anyway, we put this raft together with rope, logs, and barrels. Amazingly enough it floated!

This was our last activity so then we jumped on the bus and road back to the hotel. We got back about 8:15pm. We went straight to dinner, still wet from the rafting race, but too lazy to change. After that we had some time to do a little homework and then at 10:30pm we met as a team to finish our case paper for our GMI course. That took much longer than we anticipated and we didn't finish until 12:30am. By the time I got back to my room and finished stuff up, it was a 1:30am bed time. Strike one!

My alarm for Day 5 (Tuesday) went off again at 6 am and if you are doing the math that means only 4 1/2 hours of sleep. My body was made to only take 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Strike two.

I forced myself awake and got ready and headed to class. I had breakfast and the whole time I felt like my body was still not awake. That made a bad combination for the first class. I went through waves of trying to keep myself up and not being seen by the professor (especially since each one of us has name tents in front of us and we wear lanyards with our names on it. You can't hide who you are.

By the end of the first class I was ready to call it a day, but we had just a 15 minute break and then another 2 hour class. Again, I was struggling through the waves of extreme exhaustion and mild awareness. When that class finished, I was actually finally feeling awake for the first time so I went to lunch expecting to be "over the hump." That definitely wasn't the case. We had a third class right after lunch and it was the same story.

When class finally ended, I found myself pleading with the professor to "just end it already" and I hurried pretty fast up to my room. I laid down on my bed and then strike three... I was out! I had about a 30 minute nap, which was wonderful and will help sustain me for the rest of the day. Hopefully tonight I will get to bed early and change this vicious cycle.

At 4pm, Devin and Mare came by since they are in London on vacation. We met and talked and then I showed them around the hotel and all the amenities Duke has to offer while we are here. We had a good chat and they seemed ready to get back to the states after three weeks of touring Europe.

Now we are "free" the rest of the day. We are meeting as a team tonight to do a few more projects and I am trying to get some pre-reading done for Financial Accounting which begins on Saturday. That is the class everyone is currently dreading. We'll have to see how it goes.

Depending on what takes place tonight and what I do for dinner I may or may not have an update on Day 5- part 2 tomorrow. Probably not, since it will probably be just meeting with my team, a quick bit, and more homework.

I will say that I am loving this. It is overwhelming, I am so busy, and I can't believe I got myself into this, but then everyone once in a while (like right now) I take a step back and realize, I am an MBA student at Duke University and I get the excitement chills all over again. It has already been an amazing ride and I know it will continue to be more of the same.

Oh and a small side note. Our third class was going over all these personality tests we did before we started the program and funny enough I found out through the test a lot of the things I have learned about myself since being here (e.g. I am an introvert and I communicate better through writing than words). I'm sure you've seen that too as my letters are much more detail oriented than my face time on skype is. We've got an interesting dynamic of people on our team and we are learning to become a cohesive group as the days progress. We still have a lot of challenges ahead of us and it will be interesting to see how each one of us reacts to those as they come. By the way, my team members are Brett Kahn (L.A.), Kerry White (Fort Worth, TX), Hao Liang (D.C.), Pat Schultz (Raleigh, NC), and Mathew Abraham (Bangledesh, India). They are a great group and will be a key to me getting the experience and know how I expect to get from my MBA.

Love you babe!

Brock

London- Day 3

Julie,

Well as would be assumed my posts are going to be shorter as time goes on for two reasons, one I have less to write about and two, I have less time to write.

Today I set my alarm for 6am so I could get some reading done before I headed to breakfast (everyday between 7 and 8 am) and then headed to more orientation classes. Well my alarm went off and next thing I knew I was waking up at 7:45am. My initial reaction was to jump out of bed and hurry and get ready so I could catch breakfast, but then I quickly realized that they unashamedly feed us every hour and so I wasn't worried. I got ready and made it in time for class. Boy was I glad that didn't happen tomorrow (and still pray it doesn't) since my first official class starts tomorrow at 8am sharp and they have warned us about being late. I don't want to be THAT guy.

I've quickly discovered one of my favorite things about London and it isn't anything cultural (as I have been hulled up in the hotel most of my days so far). It is a little drink pictured below.

I remember Michelle talking about this drink (Schweppes Original Lemonade) and searching for it in Denmark, but as I remember we couldn't find it (or we did and I don't remember). Anyway, I have had A LOT of these little bottles already as this is my go to substitute for everybody else's coffee breaks in between sessions.

Classes were short today and just took us to lunch. We reviewed the grading scale, honor code, and optional concentrations like finance, marketing, and health sector management. We also had the career management center speak to us and it was cool to see all the resources they have to help you get to where you want to be. What is crazy is I need to get started NOW in order to be on pace to having a job I want by the end of the program. Right now that seems so far away, but I am sure it is going to fly.

After lunch, we met our professor (Jim Anton) for our Global Markets and Institutions (GMI) class. He did a quick introduction and then sent us out on the town to find a small basket of goods (Coke, toothbrush, chocolate, taxi ride, coffee, t-shirt, and currency exchange). This only took us about 20 minutes. The goal is to do this at every residency and then be able to compare the differences in the different regions of the world.

After this we were released for the day so I came back to my room and did some studying. I caught up on a case study we were doing based on the country of Botswana. Then at 5:30pm, my team met together in a conference room and we put together an outline of our 2 page paper we have to submit early Tuesday morning.

When we finished three of us (Brett Kahn (pronounced can), Hao Liang (pronounced how), and I went running through the streets of London. It was a good run and actually a lot of fun since we weaved back and forth through all these streets and had to dodge people left and right.

We got back and both Brett and I just wanted to go pick up some food and bring it back to the hotel. We thought we'd head to subway cause I knew where it was (just straight up the street) but when we got there it was closed. We had seen a Burger King just down the road so we headed there and ended up getting a chicken sandwich and fries. This is where things took a weird turn. We pretty much backtracked from where we had come, but somewhere we turned down a wrong street. When we got down to where we thought we were close, we thought all we had to do was turn left and we would hit the bridge that is right next to the hotel. Ten minutes later we asked a lady who didn't seem to pleased about the idea of two guys approaching her in the particular neighborhood we were in with it getting dark. I think once she realized we were just lost Americans she loosened up and pointed us back to where we had come from. We back tracked and then found the street where we had turned. When then walked like another 10 or 15 blocks till we got back to the bridge and then the hotel. It was so weird because we both thought we were for sure on the right side of the bridge and had to turn left to get back to it when we were actually pretty far to the left of the bridge and should have turned right to get back.

Our walk lasted about an hour and then I came back to my room. I did my finishing part to our team assignment and some other work and now it is 12:30am. Dang, need to get a better schedule. I'll be up at six. Luckily we are only sitting in class till lunch and then we are doing an outdoor team building activity.

Love you both!

Brock

London- Day 2

Julie,

Wow Day 2 has been a whirlwind of information and things. I got up at 8 a.m., got ready and headed down to breakfast. As I headed to the elevator I found myself getting nervous about running into someone before I actually got to breakfast. Another nuance that made me realize some of my introvert intendancies. I realized that of course this would not be that big of a deal and brushed it off.

Breakfast was good. For sure they will have us well fed at all times of the day for everything we do. I think we took 3 or 4 breaks during sessions and each time they had food and drinks outside the room that we could grab as we chatted with each other.

When I entered for breakfast I found myself almost subconsciously wondering where I would sit, who I would talk to, what it would be like. Hum, sound like a kid going to the first day of school huh?

After breakfast, we headed into orientation. They had a huge conference room set up with rows of tables and each spot had our name tents set up (in alphabetical order). This is when we got our first "gift". Next to a pad of paper and pen with a Duke emblem on them was a mini basketball with the Duke logo on it! My first thought was that Mase would love to add it to his collection.

Orientation was nothing to write about it, but good enough. It essentially prepared us to take on the load of school and work and gave us the vision of what type of program we are a part of and what this program is geared to become. I realized during this time that I can't believe I am at this point in my life. WOW! I am really going to MBA school? At Duke? Haven't I dreamed and prepared for this for a long time? I just realized I better relish this opportunity cause once we get going it will be over before we know it.

Every hour or so they would give us a break where we were encouraged to interact with other class members and they created a passport activity where we had random questions (e.g. find someone who took 15 hours or more to travel here) and we had to find someone who fit the profile or could answer the question. It was a fun way to facilitate interacting with one another, but it was interesting the dynamic it caused. There were those that took it as a task and acted as such. They got just enough information to fulfill the requirement and they moved on. Others just had fun with it and would chat a lot longer.

We learned one bit of information during orientation that caused me to get really nervous really fast. They introduced the structure of the cold call. The idea is that when you come to class you are randomly selected to come up to the front of the class and get the class started based on the information and research you have done prior to class. Uh yeah, that wouldn't make anyone beg to not be called on? First thoughts... uh I need to get back to my room and prepare more for class and PLEASE don't call on me. :)

Lunch came and they asked us to meet our teams and get to know each other a little bit. We ate lunch together and I was really impressed with the team we got. I think we are going to be a really cohesive group and I look forward to working with them.

After more orientation we headed back to our rooms for half an hour. The reception and dinner with the dean of our program began at 5:30pm. This was an interesting bit of social education for me. We were given nearly an hour or even more to chat and have drinks and appetizers. I was able to stand and chat and have appetizers while others had a few drinks and some started to get a little buzzed. After my observance of happy hour here in London and how prominent it was, this was another interesting point. Our socializing was based around alcohol. This was a regular social interaction for most students (even most of them had already been out for drinks the night before and were going out for drinks tonight). It is the most positive thing I've experienced involving alcohol. Nothing else brings these people together like it does. It is the caveat by which people are able to create a social situation where they are able to get to know each other better and create friendship. Maybe that is why we cling to family and social interactions like sunday dinners and holiday meals that we can create a similar social gathering. Drinks make it easy for them because it is the basis and takes minimal preparation and allows them to interact. What other substance could create that kind of socializing situation? This all was just an interesting byproduct of my thoughts while chatting with everyone.

Dinner was really good and we had a good interaction and then the dean spoke. Overall it was a really good day and a good preparation of what is to come in the two weeks and many months ahead, but wow when they say here we go, we really go!

Love you,

Brock

The Beginning- London Day 1

Julie,

Well I'm coming to a close on Day 1 or I guess I should say Day 0 since we really don't start till tomorrow morning. I won't bore you with the travel details, I'll just go as far as to say that it was uneventful. The flight from Houston was long, but it didn't feel that bad because each seat had its own screen so you could choose your own movies, tv shows, play games, or listen to music. Needless to say I didn't get as much studying done as I hoped, but the time passed a lot faster than I thought.

While on the plane I watched the movie 17 again. Surprisingly, I really liked the movie. You know now that I'm on my second trip in two weeks I am learning a bit about myself. I definitely get nostalgic when I travel-- absence makes my heart grow fonder. The theme of the movie was that the guy (Matthew Perry, Zac Efron) really loved his wife when they got married and still did 20 years later, but had just allowed himself to forget. He relearns that and was all the better for it. That is probably a reason why I like movies so much because even though its entertaining I feel like I can get a lot of thought out of simple movies like that one. During the movie, I started reflecting on how we met and our whole dating experience. WOW! You and I were meant to fall in love and now look at us--one amazing son and another on the way. Boy, I love you!!!!

I arrived in London at 9:30am which was 2:30am Utah time. I only slept about an hour total so I knew I was going to be pretty tired. I jumped on the underground and it took a little over an hour to get to my hotel's stop. It was fun riding on there, it reminded me of Russia. I got to my hotel room and unpacked a few things and relaxed a little bit. I can't believe I am going to be staying in this room for two weeks. That seems like a really long time.

Here's the view from my window. Not too shabby.

Sitting here I have been able to reflect a bit on myself and how things are changing as we enter this new phase in life. I think I am somewhat of an introvert. For me it was easier to come to my room and relax and do a few things, than to venture out and find other classmates and introduce myself. I even found that I was avoiding leaving my room cause I didn't want to run into anyone by chance, I just wanted that to come tomorrow. I still am evaluating why I am that way, but it is one thing I hope to change (or at least improve) as I go through this experience.

I did end up going out on the streets for an hour or so to find some food and here are some of my first impressions of London:

• There are double decker buses EVERYWHERE. It is not just the tourist buses, but their regular city buses are mostly double decker buses. I think its pretty cool.
• I TOTALLY forgot that they drive on the left side of the road here. It didn't even register until I was walking down the left side of the street and a bus pulled up to the curb and open its door and people started loading on. It was crazy. I've seen cars with the steering wheel on the other side, but it was fun to see the cars driving on the left side of the road. Needless to say it is probably good that I didn't rent a car. That would have been a dangerous situation for everyone else on the road!
• I learned the true meaning of Happy Hour. There are bars and cafes that line all the streets and during Happy Hour people (especially a lot of men in business suits) stand at tables and drink and chat. It is quite the ritual. I am sure it something they look forward to everyday or maybe it is a Friday "ring in the weekend" type thing. Anyway, I walked about 10 blocks and was surprised to see how many people there were at each place I passed.
• Lastly, I had some chips that were flavored BBQ Rib. I figured they would be like BBQ chips. Not the case. Not bad, but not good. I'll be interested to see what other differences come along as I am here longer.

Well those are my musings for the first day in London before I actually get started in my program. Tomorrow things get going. Wish me luck!

Love,

Brock