Sheltered

Since coming to college, I've come to realize how sheltered of a life I've lived so far. One of my roommates called me a farmer because I wake up early, and I came to realize that he's right. Like, really right. I thought it was the norm for everybody to sleep at 11:00 normally, wake up at 6:00 normally, eat breakfast, then get to the gym or start working on something. Apparently, the norm is to stay up until 2:00, wake up at 10:00, and study late at night. I'm talking about weekends, by the way. I was SO tired after the game yesterday, so I went to sleep at like 10:30. Lame, I know. I woke up at 7:30 and I thought that was it for me, but my roommates were still asleep and I didn't want to wake them up on accident and I have the liberty to just lay in bed, so I went back to lay in bed. I ended up falling asleep again and woke up at 9:15, which gave me around 10 hours of sleep. It felt good. I felt like I lost my whole morning, though.

Today was a chill study day. After breakfast, I went to the gym to do my sprints. I don't really like the machine I used, but I had no other choice since the others were taken... whatever, its not like I don't get enough sustained cardio walking up and down the hills, not to mention up and down six flights of stairs anytime I want to leave my floor. I only get 2 swipes for brunch/dinner on weekends, so I went to Jamba Juice for lunch. It was fun to just sit there in the citrus lounges or whatever they're called and just people watch and text people back home and away at other schools. Afterwards I went to Powell and worked on chemistry homework/psych reading and notes. It's DEAD quiet in there, so it was perfect. The time kind of flew by, and I ended up working in there for upwards of three hours straight. Not bad. It got kind of boring in the middle because there was nobody there, but whatever. Come to think of it, I was surprised by how dead campus was in general. When there's classes, Bruin Walk and basically every place is packed with people. Today, nobody. I kind of liked it, but it felt lonely since it's such a big area. Whatever, it's just the weekends.

Dinner was SOOOO funny. I went down with my friend Hedy (she's so cute!) and we just heard the weirdest shit and had the funniest conversations. I don't want to put it all down because I'm tired and it won't be funny to you since it's an inside joke anyways, but trust me, it was funny as hell. Yeah now I'm tired already... I'm doing laundry for the first time in college though! Yay for that.

My First College Weekend (so far, at least)

First Friday night, yeah! So Kyle, Jessica, and I decided Resfest would be lame, but we would check it out anyways. On our way up to Rendezvous for dinner, we passed Regan, who wanted to watch Eagle Eye at the AMC Theater. We were hungry as hell, especially me since I never eat that late, so we decided to watch it later. Rendezvous was ok, it was pretty much Panda Express with a little less bang. Afterwards, we just wanted to skip Resfest and watch the movie, but Regan said the next showing would be too late, so it was just the three of us. We had time to kill, so we wandered around Westwood for a while. We went into aaahhh's, or however many a's and h's it has, and looked at costumes and stuff. I bought a blue cushion for my ass since this hard chair I'm sitting on is evil. Well not anymore, thank you ass-saving cushion! We were going to hit up Diddy Riese but the line was ridiculously long (as expected) so we went to Pinkberry instead. At first I was like wtf, they only have three frozen yogurt flavors? I'm so used to Yogurt World with its myriad of flavors and toppings, but Pinkberry was very limited in that sense. It was GOOD, though. It actually tasted like yogurt. I got the Original with Cap'n Crunch. Yum.

When we finally got to the theater, after getting slightly lost a few times, we decided to watch Burn After Reading instead. It was funny, and afterwards, my thoughts on it were just wtf. Seriously. Then we came back and Regan wanted an escort home from Hedrick (wtf?) so we did that. Not like she needed it. We were walking around Westwood dodging sleeping hobos on the sidewalk and she was just walking from one residence hall to another. It was a late night.

Anyways, today was a fun-filled adventure full of new experiences, I must say. I woke up expecting to have breakfast at like 8:00 or so since D7 and D8 were leaving for the buses at 9:15, but the dining hall didn't even open until 9:30! Bullshit. Good thing my roommates and I stockpiled fruit in our fridge. When we got down to the buses, I realized I didn't have my bus ticket with me. Fuck. So I sprinted back to Dykstra, up six levels of stairs to my room, and back. Luckily I made it before we even got on the bus. Woohoo. The bus ride was pretty much uneventful, until our bus driver decided to ignore the advice of a traffic director person and signs saying buses can't pass on a certain (mostly private) road. We went up this steep, winding road with a bunch of really expensive houses, almost hitting a car going the opposite way, and with everybody scared we were going to hit something. Eventually the driver killed the engine trying to go around a really sharp curve, so we had to walk the rest of the way. Luckily one of my floormates is from Pasadena and she showed us the way to the Rose Bowl. It was freaking hot.

The game was fun. You should know that I'm not a big sports person, but I was cheering my head off and getting all into it. It was really fun! No, we didn't win, but whatever. The score was much closer than last week, and much much closer than last last week. It's an improvement. It was freaking hot though, so I had to give in and pay $3.50 for bottled water because the line for the drinking fountain was ridiculous.

The bus ride home was kind of horrendous. The seats were all filled so I had to stand and hold onto one of those rope things hanging from the rails. I was afraid I was going to fall anyways, but I didn't, so yeah. Halfway along the route, the bus driver turned off the a/c for some stupid reason and it was so stuffy in there. Oh yeah, randomly some stupid lady on the freeway came to a complete stop, got out of her car, grabbed her purse from her trunk, then started up again, all right in front of us. What the hell. Who does that, much less on the freeway? It wasn't even bumper to bumper traffic or anything.

Sooo then we got back, I took a shower, then had dinner, which brings me here. Gosh that was a great dinner. I was starving since for breakfast I only had two apples and a banana, and my lunch was (a very expensive) bbq and rice bowl at the Rose Bowl... that was like 6 hours prior, too. I'm going to bed early tonight for sure, I'm already super tired now. I could probably fall asleep right now, but I don't want to be a loser and I should get in some reading or something so I can call this day at least somewhat productive. On second thought, fuck that. I have all of tomorrow to read. And do laundry.

City Lights

I live on the very eastern end of my hall. Right outside my door is a window that gives way to campus and the city itself. I just went out there for a bit, looking at the city lights, and then it hit me: I'm home.

Asian Lesbians

Bruin Bash was totally cool. The first 2/3 of the concert were kind of meh though. I've never heard of the Cool Kids so needless to say I was like whatever. Estelle was better, but nobody knew any of her songs other than American Boy. We went down to the floor before Hellogoodbye went on even though Jessica didn't have a yellow wristband and I took mine off. Thank you, nice security guard! Hellogoodbye was great. A few technical difficulties, but who cares? Standing near the speakers took away my hearing a bit but it's all good. We went right after the concert to Ackerman to watch Eagle Eye, but they were sold out already, and had been for an hour. The movie didn't even start for another hour! That's crazy. So afterwards I just went back to my room and chilled for a while.

What happened yesterday? It was pretty chill, new student welcome which was boring, and new student bbq. Oh afterwards we had a Dykstra Hall meeting, which was fun. Then a floor meeting, also fun. I missed the Heroes premiere, but whatevs. I hung out with my floor, so it's all good! I just checked and I can watch it online anyways. I'll probably do that this morning before I hit the gym. I was never really a cheering kind of person outside of band, but since I got here, I scream my head off everytime we start cheering. Yay school spirit.

I've had some small panic attacks when I think "Oh shit this campus is so huge, where do I fit in?" and "Wow these people are really dissimilar from me... like we have nothing in common at all." But then I remember that of course that's going to happen, but that won't stop me from getting to know them. Plus, there's a bunch of clubs I'm interested and they're certain to have people like me. Lots of people like me, actually haha.

The food here is bomb. It's so easy to eat healthy, too. I love it! I don't have to worry about cooking healthy for myself since my family doesn't eat healthy, I can just walk up and get my lovely stir-fry and tofu salad. OMG they have tofu here. Tofu like fills my life with sunshine when I stick i in my salads. Oh and my roommates and I agreed to always take back a piece of fruit so we can stockpile in our fridge. Speaking of roommates, mine are basically awesome. They're really friendly, diverse, not crazy from what I've seen so far, and really considerate. None of this walk in at 3 in the morning and blast music shit. None of this "I'm going to sit at my desk with the door closed" nonsense either. I think it's going to be a great year!

College

Here I am at UCLA, tired like a monkey but still blogging because I want to document my first official day living in college.

I woke up at 6:00 for like no reason. I think it might have been because of the rising sun, but I went to sleep around midnight because I went to Rite-Aid to buy more hangers with Regan. That's strange for my strong circadian rhythm which usually guarantees 7.5 hours. Oh well, I was all chipper. Brushed teeth, said goodbye to the roomie who was off to perform at the football game, then went down and had breakfast alone since Jessica was working. I'm going to start working soon too, hopefully with some common shifts with her. I'll have to get the forms tomorrow... Anyways, I'm really happy with the healthy options of the dining hall. It's strange the effect food can have on your mood in the morning. When I got up, I was actually a little groggy and I had a mini panic attack because I didn't know anybody outside my 4ish MC friends and there are SO many people here, you know? I got kind of depressed. But after breakfast, I felt much better and started saying hi to everybody I ran into. I'm really forcing myself out of my shell, and I think I'm doing a good job. I've met so many new people, and I forget their names after like 15 seconds haha. I was never bad with names, but this is a lot.

After breakfast, I finished setting up my room. Mainly I set up and calibrated my new printer. I was going to set up the TV and Wii, but the power chord isnt' long enough to reach the outlet. Darn. I'll buy a small one so I can start using it and inviting people to play in my room. After that I went to check out the John Wooden Center, which is the largest gym on campus. It was really nice! Three levels. Basketball courts, racquetball courts, free weights, machines, cardio equipment, you name it, it's there. Then I came back and took a shower for the first time. That was interesting. There are small shower stalls with hooks on them, but I was afraid to put my clothes on it because I thought the water from the showerhead would get it wet. I ended up putting my towel over my clothes and hanging it all from the top of the stall. It worked, but I think I'll just buy a bath robe to make things easier for myself. Then it was time for lunch, which I also ate alone because Jessica was busy and Regan went to the football game. I'm glad I decided not to go to the football game today (I had nobody really to go with and I didn't want to latch onto Regan) because we lost pretty badly. After lunch, I took a short nap then met up with Jessica and Kyle outside Covell Commons. There was a football game viewing party so we watched the game there... left early though because it sucked haha. I've never really been into sports. That's the gay stereotype showing itself haha. Sooo after that we decided to see if anybody new moved in our floors. We went to my floor and my nextdoor neighbor, Alex, told me how some creepy socialist guy was handing out pamphlets and newspapers about socialism and how he thought it was funny. We walked down the hall and saw him preying on some poor girls who were just nodding absently at whatever the creepy socialist guy said. Then we went to Jessica's room and chilled there before going to Kyle's room. Guess who was there... the socialist guy! He was talking the ears off of one of Kyle's roommate's friends. Freaky. Then we just chilled there before meeting up with Vasko (sp?) to check out his room in Sproul, the newly renovated hall. It's so nice compared to ours. Whatever though, Dykstra is undisputedly the most social hall. Then dinner... then the soccer game! We got invited to watch by some of my floormates who are on the soccer team. We won! Good game, too. I actually got into it, which is kind of rare for me. Then Regan was hungry so we walked to In-n-Out in Westwood and hung out for a while. Now here I am.

Sorry that wasn't really descriptive towards the end, but I'm really tired and I just wanted to get everything down. The combination of working out, walking everywhere, and never taking the elevator (I'm on the 8th floor!) has really tired me out. That's good though, hopefully it'll get me out of this retarded fitness plateau. Alright I'm out... Night!

In 27 hours...

I'll be moving in! I'm so excited. I have 98% of my stuff packed and ready to go.

I had my last lesson on Monday. Thankfully Mrs. Woo wasn't drugged out of her mind like last week. That was really scary and made me pity her. I hate pitying people, because I know I hate to be pitied. I told her how I was just thinking about how vividly I remember my first lesson with her. I remember printing out the directions from MapQuest, having my dad drive me over, then never taking the original route to her house because we found a better one. I remember asking about tone quality, and her showing me these weird extended techniques that actually worked. She cried. Haha.

I said goodbye to my closest friends still in high school today, but I didn't get emotional at all, like I knew I wouldn't. It takes a lot to make me emotional about departures and stuff, because in reality you only miss somebody in theory. In actuality, your life is so busy that you quickly forget that somebody isn't around, which is completely natural. Anyways, leaving the Mt. Carmel parking lot for the last time didn't bring back any real sentiments either, like you would except out of a Hollywood movie or something. High school was great, don't get it twisted, but in light of what's about to happen.. You get the picture.

So tomorrow is the very last day I'll have to endure the annoyance of my parents. Honestly, they never have a clue what's going on. It's taken my mom several weeks to get a computer loan from the bank for my new Macbook. She applied several weeks ago, and then I got a call saying she didn't do it right so we have to do it again. It's been a few more weeks and now she wants to go tomorrow morning. She can't seem to get off her cell phone, either. It's always work, work work with her. She's married to her work. I understand that she's working to get money to support me and all that, but that gets lame after a very short while. What's the point of it if she never spends time with me? My parents barely know me, and they've never made an effort to get to know me. That's a shame, because they basically lost their chance. Oh well. If I'm ever a parent, at least I know how not to parent.

That just brought up some weird thoughts. Will I ever be a parent? Who knows. That answer depends on a lot of things that I can't predict right now. I don't doubt that I'll have that option down the road, but I can't say right now whether or not I'd take it or leave it. Hmm. Very deep.

I can't, can't, can't, can't, can't wait to start meeting new people. I love new things and experiences! There are some things I've deprived myself of these past few years, and that's totally understandable, but I feel like I'm about to have a new sense of freedom that goes above what freshmen usually feel, if you get what I mean.

Ah, well. Goodbye, San Diego, I'll miss you... but only in the way I described above hahaha.

Last Stretch

I have five days left in San Diego. That means I just have to pull through three more then I'm basically free. I figure Thursday will be a giant prep day and Friday, of course, is when I leave. I'm sooo excited! It's so surreal, just to think that in less than week I'll be meeting my roommates and floormates, going to concerts and dances and whatnot at Bruin Bash, meeting all sorts of new people, and starting school again. I already did started reviewing for my chemistry class out of boredom, and possible necessity. It has been over a year since I finished chem, and math as well. It's a good thing I started, too. I think it will be very beneficial... I still need to get my course reader. I hope I can get up to LA early enough so that I'll have ample time to sit in traffic, hit up the course reader place, then move in. Speaking of chem, I just found that there's an honors option for the class I'm taking, Chem 14A. I just got an e-mail from UCLA about so, so of course I had to jump on... but that meant nixing my seminar on animal thought. That's ok, I only took that seminar because I wanted honors credit, so it's the same. I would've done both, had they not been scheduled for almost exactly the same time. Oh well.

I think I might end up being alone the first day or so when I move in, in my room at least. The first roommate's already moved in since he's doing band camp (if I remember the schedule correctly, he just finished for the day!) so he'll be out until after I move in, I assume. Same with the next day, I think. The third roommate is moving in on Sunday... but that's fine, I'll have time to get to know my floormates. Soooo excited to meet all of them!

You know what?

I'm tired of this. I'm tired of holding myself to unrealistic standards. I knew they were unrealistic from the beginning and when combined with my overcompensatory personality... yeah that's not working out so well. I'm glad with the progress I've made, and I think it's pretty damn remarkable. I know my disgruntled attitude to partly due to today's loneliness, boredom, and cloudiness, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter. Tomorrow's a new day, and I'm going to start it out not restricting myself, not punishing myself for past mistakes. I've overcome quite a few obstacles in my short life, so who's to say I can't handle this one? You'll see.

Two Blinks

I forgot to blog about something weird that happened to me two mornings ago. I was washing some dishes, and I had the smallest of blackouts. It was really weird. It lasted about twice the length of a blink of an eye. I know it wasn't just a blink or something wrong with my eyes, because the microwave was on and I could hear the hum of the microwave go lower in pitch during the blackout and then return to normal. Very strange. I'm not concerned, but I'm just curious about what it was and why it happened.

In other news, today was really fun! I hung out in Mira Mesa with Ria Mae and Martha. First we chilled at Tapioca Heaven and just let our fattiness out. We shared one order of popcorn chicken and three orders of cream cheese wontons between us. Whattt haha. Then we walked, yes walked, across the street because Ria wanted halo halo and Martha wanted to try pho. Pho? Yes, pho. We went to the pho place and it smelled weird. Their symbol was just the Laughing Cow with the cheese earrings taken off hahaha. Then we just talked for a long time in Cristy's. Good times. I like just talking with people. No pressure, just talking about whatever. I'm a little wary because I'll have to limit my personality when I talk to new people in college... I don't want to scare anybody away. Actually no, I don't think I'll do that. What's the point? Being fake and then showing your personality later is stupid. I'll just be me from the get-go. Jessica was right to not like the "Oh, hi! What's your major?" bullcrap at orientation. It was nice because it got everybody out of their shells (well, most people) but it really is fake.

What else happened today? Not much, I just did some more HIIT (that's high intensity interval training) at Mesa Verde after I got back. It really is fun. So here's how I do: warm up at a moderate pace for 4, maybe 5 minutes. Sprint like somebody's trying to kill you for 30 seconds. Jog/walk for 30 seconds. Sprint again like that guy trying to kill you was just taking a breather and is chasing you again, for 30 seconds. Jog/walk for 30 seconds. You get it. After 6 minutes of the sprint/jog routine, cool down for 4, maybe 5 minutes. That's it. A total of 16 minutes max gives you greater benefits than 45 minutes on a treadmill/elliptical at a moderate pace. How do I know? I did the whole treadmill/elliptical thing for months. It stopped working. Earlier this summer, I bought size 30 jeans and said "Ok, before you leave for college, you must be able to fit into these comfortably." Two weeks ago, I started HIIT. Those jeans fit now! Alright now I feel like one of those people who try to motivate lazy people to get up and do stuff. They bugged me so I'll stop haha.

Ummmm... yeah. 8 days. I think my moving situation will work out fine. One of my roommates will be at band camp during the time I'm assigned to move in, so I won't have to worry about 4 people crammed into that tiny room moving stuff around, or my parents embarrassing me in front of my new roommate. The other roommate will move in a couple of days later than me, so I know I won't be stuck with the worst bed and the worst bunk. I will get one of those though, since I'm not going to be a total jerk and leave him with the worst things haha. I either want the bottom bunk or the elevated single bed with the desk below. Yeah, that sounds good.

You know, whenever I get reminiscent about San Diego, and look back at everything that's happened to me here, I don't get sad. I was thinking today that it might be the last time I'll ever go to Tapioca Heaven and Lucky Seafood and Cristy's Bakery, but I wasn't sad. Anyways, I'm sure they'll have better boba and better frozen yogurt in Westwood... plus, even if they don't, there's always Diddy Riese! I'm definitely looking forward to going back there. K I think I'm done.

P.S. I found the softest UCLA throw at Wal-Mart the other day. It was $5. Score.

10 Days

I can officially do the rocketship countdown to blastoff now.

I'm SO bored during the day. You know how bored? I review for chem. In the morning. It is useful though, since I haven't been in a chemistry class in basically a whole year. I'm a bit rusty. What's the chemical formula for rust? I think it's FeO. Ferrous oxide? Let's check wikipedia... Well I got the elements correct, but not the ratio haha. Oh well whatevs. I think I'll end up reading the first sections and probably doing the first sets of homework problems for that class before I even move in. That's good, since homework doesn't even count for anything. You'd think all college courses would be like that, but homework was a big part of the grade when I took chem at Miramar, so yeah... I like chem, but not as much as bio.

Alright. 10 days. Let's see what good I can accomplish in that time.

In less serious news...

I found a single blonde hair on my arm today. It was twice as long as the others, and you all should know the hair on my arms is very, very short. You can barely even see it at all. This hair was seriously blonde, though. It was really weird so I pulled it out haha.

Control

I'm in control of my life, and I'm not going to be influenced from stupid, superficial, catty things I see in ads and all that. I've done some less than reputable things in the past week, but I'm making up for it. I'm proud to say I'm holding myself accountable from here on out, and that I won't let myself escape the consequences of my actions. It's one thing to make a mistake, but I now realize how I handled it just made things worse... but I'm all even now, so I won't worry about that. What's past is past, and the future is looking bright. Maybe I'll explain in more detail later, but for now just know that I overcame something that, if I let it, could possibly ruin my life, or even end it.

Don't worry about me, though, I've got things under control again.

:]

(No, it has nothing to do with drugs or alcohol or stupid things like that...)