College Life 2.0

G’day everyone!


What’s up? Wherever you may be, I really hope you’re enjoying summertime, and making the most of it! Believe it or not, it’s freaking 2 degrees outside here in Perth tonight! Since it has a huge window and no heating, my room is probably around 11 degrees. I’m in my sleeping bag AND wearing a hoodie as I’m writing this! I’m still trying to figure out how this all fits into the whole Australian Dream concept! :P

Fortunately, it’s warm during the day and things are good otherwise. I just finished up my second week of Uni, and it gave me a good taste of what a “typical” week will be like for the next year and a half of my life. It was fast-paced, a bit hectic times, and certainly not boring. While it has only been a couple weeks since school started, I’m already get a distinct feeling that my College Life at UWA is gonna be quite different from the original, much-praised, UBC College Life .

I don’t think I need to go into great lengths explaining what the College Life 1.0 was all about... You’ve heard the stories, you’ve seen the pictures (or better yet, you were there living it with me!)... Yes it was epic. Looking back, it feels like those were carefree days and it was all pretty simple. Go to a few classes, hit the gym for a bit, have a few beers with the Wolfpack, and see where the night takes us. Maybe some wolf-style hollering (“AWW AWWWWUUH” ) and if things got a bit wild, some wrestling at the church and perhaps even a lil’ dumpster flipping action on the way home! Hahah. Those were the days. If you want to know more about College Life 1.0., take a listen at Asher Roth’s instant-classic track I love College (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYx7YG0RsFY). Whilst what he sings about may not ALL be true, it definitely gives a great idea of what it was like!

Nope... as good as those days were, this time around it’s going to be a bit different. Both for the better, and for the worse.

How can I describe it... Well for one, this time I’m really trying to kick ass at school. I did well at UBC, but like my dad pointed out to me before I left, good is not always enough. It’s about being the best that you can be. So now I’m actually trying to do all the small things that make the difference between a good and kick-ass grade. I even try to look clean-cut when I go to school. No more going to class in my sweatpants with a 5 day beard. If I want to be top of my class, I figure I gotta look the part. Furthermore, beyond getting good grades, I actually am interested in learning all this stuff. The way I see it, the next year and a half of my life represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can gain the knowledge and the tools that will serve as the foundation to, hopefully, a successful career down the road. I think I’d have to be a fool not to do everything in my power to seize this opportunity to the fullest.

Secondly, not only am I trying to do well and be committed to school, but it is actually much more challenging this time around. I guess it’s not supposed to be easy to become a Master of Marketing right? The projects are larger in span and all the classes require me to do work every week, unlike undergrad where you could basically crack the textbook open a mere 2 days before the exam and still figure it all out with the help of one of these:

Thirdly, since I have a “real” job on the side, I need to be sharp for that. By the way, I should tell you that I have already had a promotion of sorts. My boss realized that by having me doing Administrative stuff, he wouldn't be fully using the ressources I can provide. As a result, I have now become the French Market Representative (I actually need to choose my title for my business cards... If you have suggestions please share them with me). Basically this means that I’m responsible to maintain and develop our customer base in the francophone markets of France, Switzerland, and eventually Québec. The best part is, I’m going to be travelling to Bordeaux, France, in October to attend a tradeshow there. And it seems like Im might also be going to Germany at the end of November, and possibly the USA in December. Great opportunities, but like I said, gotta stay sharp. I'm really grateful that this is happening and definitely plan on making the most of it!

Finally, with all the great stuff that Australia has to offer, I want to be in top shape during the days as to be able to explore and see as much as possible. Spending days being hungover seems like such a waste with all this cool stuff waiting outside. This means living a relatively healthy lifestyle with less partying , more exercising, and more power foods (I’ll write a post about those soon).

To give you a concrete example of what the College Life 2.0 lifestyle might actually look like, I invite you to take at how my nights unfolded over the last week (the daytime was basically a mix of work, school, and gym).

Monday night

Did "The Terminator" workout, and came home pretty destroyed. Ate some dinner, then settled down in my room for a solid reading session. No Facebook, no messing around, just 3 hours of good ol’ reading for my ethics class. Fortunately, the material was quite interesting. It discussed the responsibility that Business Schools have in teaching ethics to their students, as they are the business leaders of tomorrow. Historically, the schools’ curriculum had been built around the concept of maximizing shareholder value (maximizing share price and profits), no matter what it took. But with all that’s happened in the business world recently (Enron, Worldcom, Great Financial Crisis, etc), the B-Schools’ focus is on training responsible leaders who will look to maximize profits, while also taking into consideration the impact that their decisions will have on the environment, the community, and society as whole. Great stuff to read about and it was definitely good source of reflection over the rest of the week.

Tuesday night

Went to my Buyer behaviour class from 5pm to 8pm (after a full day of work). Came home, made some dinner, and got settled for another solid reading session. This time, the reading was for my Marketing and Society class. Here's the book we're reading for this class:

Definitely a more lively read than a textbook!

I could try to describe the book’s concept, but Bill Gates (who probably knows a whole lot more about the subject) has already done that so I will simply quote him. From the backcover of the book: “C.K. Prahalad argues that companies must revolutionize how they do business in developing countries if both sides of that economic equation are to propser. Drawing on a wealth of case studies, his compelling new book offers an intriguing blueprint for how to fight poverty with profitability.” Another fascinating read, which built on a few concepts from Monday’s reading. Helped push my reflections to new heights.


All right so...So far, 2 big nights of reading... and it’s only the second week of the semester! What the hell? We’re definitely far from the days of taking the plastic cover off the textbooks after a month.

Wednesday night

After spending the day at school, I went to the office for a quick 2 hour work session. Afterwards, my boss, Wayne, took me and another new employee, Jordan, to a wine-tasting session nearby. I had never been to one before, so I didn’t really know what to expect... But I had a feeling it’d be cool. And it was.

The session took place in a fancy winestore near the Uni, and the sampling was for 5 white wines from a French wineyard. The organizer gave us a little course on how each wine was produced, what region it was from, and the characteristics that we should denote. There were bottles of each wine available for purchase on the spot, with the price tag ranging from 50$ to 150$. It was a bit of an odd environment to be in at first... Full of high-society people 2 to 3 times my age, and I didn’t know anyone except for my boss and colleague. Not really knowing what to do with myself, I just sorta hung out while drinking wine from the $150 bottle. :)

I eventually spotted 2 guys my age and realized that one of them was Macca, one of my new buddies from class. He’s doing his Master of Marketing right now but he did his undegrad in Wine Making, so he knew tons about wine. It was awesome to talk about it with him and he helped me understand better why is exactly this glass of wine I wa  holding was worth like 20$. He also knew the owner of the winestore so we got permission to go down and have a look at the wine cellar, which supposedly is one of the best in Perth. There must have been a thousand bottles down there and they were priced anywhere between 100$ and 2000$. It was really cool to see and I was extra careful not to get rowdy and break something!!

Not-Rowdy Phil enjoying some premium wine in the middle of a world-class wine cellar

After the wine-tasting, my boss took us out to a very nice italian restaurant. We drank some of his newly purchased wine while eating Barrimundi, which is said to be one of the finest fishes in Australia. Grilled to perfection, it was a superb culinary experience.

All in all, a memorable night, full of class and high-society living! Pretty far from the College Life 1.0, right?

Thursday night

While its' good to evolve, some things about the original College Life were just so damn good that they just couldn’t be totally eradicated. That’s why that night, my Irish buddies Sam & Robbie and I got on a party bus leaving the UWA campus and heading over to special 80’s party at a "secret" location.

Things got pretty wild, pretty quickly. All of a sudden, I was on a party bus, dressed up like a 80’s rockstar, drinking copious amounts of goon, straight from the bag. Now you may ask, what is this goon you’re talking about? Well my friends, it’s an Aussie specialty... A 4L bag of white wine sold at every liquor store for around of 10$. And it’s surprisingly good! So here I was on this bus, people I had just met were handing me their goon bags, everybody rocking out to classic 80’s song, dressed in their ridiculous costumes. It was hilarious, super fun, and totally ridiculous at once. Hard to see how things could have been any more different at that point than they were only 24 hours earlier!

We ended up going to a club called Electric Blue and it was truly a fun night... There’s just something about costume parties that makes them legend... wait for it.. dary!!!

Having a good time at the club with my new friend, Emily from Denmark ;)

Overall, this was pretty much a vintage College Life night (minus the wrestling and the dumpster flipping) and it felt great to just let loose and have a good time without worrying about anything.

Friday night

Went to a special guest speaker at the Business School. Sue Johnson, the CEO of a large company here in Perth ,was there to discuss the importance of worklife balance, and the art of harmoniously integrating all the different spheres of our lives. It’s a topic of great importance to me so I was excited to hear what she had to say about. The points that stuck with me were:

• You need to be plan well and have the discipline to follow the plan.
• You need to use the resources around you.
• You can’t expect to be perfect in all of your undertakings.
• If you’re well organised, there’s no reason to be stressed out.

Afterwards, I went out for Japanese food with my buddy Thomas from UBC who’s here with his girlfriend Hayley. It’s awesome that they are here as I really like them, and we have great fun together, like when the 3 of us went to NYC for New Years a few years ago. After dinner we went back to my house, built a bonfire in the backyard, and sat around the fire sharing some old stories and a good laugh. Perfect way to close out a week and finish out a day which, admittedly, was hampered by a mild goon hangover!


As you can see, College Life 2.0 promises to be different from 1.0, but very special in its own way. At first, I called it 2.0 because it is the second iteration, but come to think of it, it might actually stand as an upgrade for CL1.0. What do you guys think?

I reckon it will be crucial that I apply some of these worklife balance principles if I am to maximize the Aussie Dream on all fronts, without spreading myself to thin and ending up doing poorly in everything.

As a start, I will leave you guys for now and get ready to hit the books once again! I hope you enjoyed this second post and please keep the good comments and feedback coming, I really appreciate it.

Until next time! Cheers!

Phil