My Life in LA: I survived my first week of class!

I survived my first week of classes! My weekend has started J I can get very used to only having class on Monday and Tuesday! All the classrooms here are painted bright colors and some even have bright-colored carpet. So much better than the drab Wartburg walls.

Yesterday I had class from 8:30-3. Not terrible at all. My first class is called Retail Environment. It’s essentially a class dealing with various retail channels, both domestically and globally. Throughout the 10 weeks we will be doing in-depth research about a specific channel. My second class yesterday was Brand Management Strategies. It’s very consumer behavior based—stuff I absolutely love!! The main project for that class is a group project where we create our own brand and compare it to major competitors in that field analyzing how we’re going to be successful. It sounds super fun!

Today I had my other two classes. My first one was Merchandise Math. It took the teacher literally an hour to finally get started, and when we did it was literally all rounding. Like 3^rd grade math rounding…whole numbers, percents, and dollars. But I have a feeling it’s going to get really hard really fast. The teacher said “math is like learning to ride a bike.” Uhmmm I don’t think Eric and I agree on this one!! ;-) My other class today was Concepts in Trend Forecasting. It’s much more interesting than it sounds! Our major project is to compile information and decipher if it’s a trend or a norm and to kind of analyze it. It sounds fun, but very time-consuming.

I am a working woman!! I will be working at the Gap at the Grove—a suuuper nice outdoor mall. This Gap is one of the four largest in the world and has a special experimental program called Project LA. I don’t know many details, but I know it’s a way more laid-back store because of it. The store is also HUGE! It has literally every Gap department ever created…but under one roof. There are around 200 employees there. I’m excited!! I go for orientation on Thursday.

I got called out on being from the Midwest because of my accent so many times this week, it’s not funny!! Crazy thing is, I don’t hear an accent from people here. I also got told I wasn’t from here because I’m “too nice” and “smile a lot.” Not quite sure how to take that one!

A few things I learned this week/weekend:

· It’s possible to become a “local” at a LA bar. The girls I was with Saturday night are frequent customers, and we got the owner’s number and vice versa plus a free round. We didn’t’ complain!
· They make us have a special card to do laundry. Like I need one more thing to keep track of!! I’d much rather walk down the hall with my quarters!
· Yay for having a Keurig again! I was literally dying without a coffee maker! They have “complimentary coffee until 11” in the lobby of our building, but half the time it’s not even out and when it is, it’s gone. Not good!!
· Grocery shopping is a total different experience when you actually have to walk home with the bags. No more waiting to go once a month and loading my car up!!