Hellooooo, NERD BOX!

Resolution: I am never ever letting myself get SO behind on reading for my classes again. EVER.

My environmental studies class meets three times a week, and not counting the optional, but highly "recommended" readings, there are 35-50ish pages of reading assigned for each lecture. That's about 100-150 pages of reading per week.

I stopped reading for class after the first two class sessions because I was too lazy to go on electronic reserves to print out the long articles.

And we didn't discuss the articles in class anyway.

And my printer was running out of ink.

And I forgot where I put the replacement cartridges I bought last quarter.

And "my dog ate my homework syllabus."

Excuse, excuses... but all the mental excuses in the world did not stop time from passing, and before I knew it, it was the end of Week 3, I had not done any of the readings, and the professor was rattling off a list of people, concepts, and OMG SO MANY READINGS that we needed to know for the quiz coming up in TWO DAYS.

15% of my grade... and almost two hundred pages to speed read through = NOT FUN AT ALL.

I spent Wednesday night scrambling to find my ink cartridge and staring, transfixed in horror, at the stream of seemingly never-ending pages that kept shooting out of my printer; I had more reading to do for my seminar and the first draft of my annotated bibliography to write for my writing class due on Thursday, so I essentially did not touch the environmental studies reading (aside from collating and stapling the articles together and then arranging them into a neat, but very formidable, pile on my desk) at all on Wednesday.

After classes on Thursday, I trekked out into the pouring rain to go to my first "fellowship" as a pledge down in Price Center. I ate ice cream (it was the cheap stuff that came in the plastic buckets, but there were almost one hundred mouths to feed, so I don't blame them) and "mingled" with so many people that all the names and faces became a big blur in my mind. I left early, came back to my room, grabbed my pile of articles/books and shacked up in the nerd box.

And stayed in there until 3:45 am.

I ate wasabi peas to stay awake.

(I don't even like wasabi peas; I always pick them out of the rice cracker snack mixes. I have absolutely no idea why I bought an entire bag of WASABI PEAS at Trader Joe's last week, but I paid for them so now I have to eat them.)

Of course, my mental capacity began to diminish some time soon after 1 am, so I did not retain much during the last hour and a half or so of "reading."

All I could recall as I was walking to class the next morning was constantly thinking, "REAGAN KILLED THE ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT AND CREATED THE MESS WE'RE IN TODAY!!" as I read the chapter on government and policy in my book the night before.

I ended up not having enough time to even skim through two or three of the articles; there was a question about one of the readings I didn't get to on the quiz, but AP Gov't knowledge saved the day. (Hopefully.)

Pledge Retreat is next weekend, and the work just won't stop piling up; the final draft of my annotated bibliography and the second draft of my paper proposal are both due in my writing class after retreat, which means I have A LOT of research to do and two more drafts to turn in during class this week. I also have two "short" essays to write for my environmental studies class, an assignment to do for my "political inquiry" class, and the first midterm for my meteorology class to take on the same post-Retreat week.

And in between all that, I'll be going out to events/meetings as a pledge.

Basically, I will be living in the nerd box for the next two weeks, if not for the entire remainder of winter quarter.

A side note:

At info night, I asked someone if pledging was time consuming.

He asked me what my major was.

I told him I was a history major.

He said, "Psh, you'll be fine. I am an EE major and I still did relatively well when I pledged last quarter - I got a 3.5."

I wanted to hit him.

Like hundreds of pages of reading per week is supposed to be... easy or something?

Off With Them Rosy Goggles

Back in high school, three day weekends were what I lived for; I would even take it upon myself to declare "three day weekends" of my own sometimes.

There were never really any particularly exciting plans for the three day weekends for me to look forward to or anticipate, but just having that extra little "break" from school was solace enough for me to risk suspicion from the school (all the badly forged "sick" notes handed over to the grouchy lady with the hot pink lipstick) and my parents (all the unevenly distributed (but quite large nonetheless) number of absences recorded on my report cards) due to all the cutting and what-not.

College, on the other hand, has been so much more "chill" that I finally felt freed from that suffocating feeling of being completely overwhelmed by nothing in particular that always resulted in the sudden urge to plop myself down on the floor and curl up into a ball to cry and cry and cry.

Fall quarter was great; for the first time in a really long time, I felt genuinely content and happy with where I was in life. I loved my classes, did amazingly well in all of them, and was enjoying all the newfound freedom that college life afforded.


I don't know what happened, but everything that I thought was so great about college was completely turned on its head when I came back for the start of Winter quarter after having a pretty awesome (despite the getting so sick near the end that I couldn't hang out with my friends at all) winter break.

I have no idea if it was me or if it was something else beyond my control, but something changed. And definitely not for the better.

When I got our of the taxi and stepped onto campus again late on Sunday night, it felt like my eyes were finally opened and I was seeing all the harsh realities of my life on campus for the first time ever.

For example, my relationship with my roommates? Sure, we hang out a lot, but upon entering my dorm room for the first time in three weeks, I suddenly realized that it wasn't because we particularly liked each other. The blaring truth was that we spent (a lot) of time together out of pure necessity because none of us have met any other new people here who have stuck around since college started.

Along with my huge luggage, I came in on that Sunday night bearing two (slightly squashed due to the plane ride) cute Daiso boxes of freshly baked cookies as a belated holiday gift for my roommates.

While they both focused their attention on me for about ten seconds to thank me for the treat, once the politeness protocols a gift recipient must adhere to were taken care of, they immediately returned to their previous, individual pursuits (the computer screen for one and the pillow for the other) as if a commercial break had just ended.

Even though that kind of "we're all sitting in the same room, but I'm just going to do my own thing at my desk and pretend that the two of you do not exist" behavior is pretty much a typical ritual for me and my roommates, I never realized how strange and awkward that kind of pseudo-relationship was before returning for the start of the new quarter.

I knew my both of my roommates loved gingerbread cookies and while I despised them (the cookies, not my roommates) with a passion and the smell of molasses made me a little nauseous, I bought all the spices (and other special ingredients in a well-received recipe I found online), whipped out my set of piping tips for the first time in about a year, and spent a few hours baking and meticulously decorating a large batch of gingerbread men for them.

If they appreciated them, I wouldn't have known. Unless of course, I did some serious extrapolation of the emotions present in ten-second cordial thanks they expressed on that night.

Ever since I became conscious of how awkward it was to be in a room with two people whom I have lived with and spent most of my free time with for three months and constantly pretending to ignore their existence, I haven't been able to shake this nagging feeling of loneliness that has clung on to me like lint on a new sticky sheet of a lint roller.

The fact that my roommates have a class together this quarter and often come back to the room chuckling about something before abruptly ending their conversation once they notice my presence is fueling this paranoid suspicion of mine that they are talking about me behind my back, which is not exactly helping the situation.

I can hear it all now:

"God, she's so damn MESSY!"

(Yes, I am the "messy" one and my third of the room looks especially bad compared to the other two sides of the room which are both governed by a strict "everything is returned to its place after use" principle. I don't mind clutter at all and clean desks actually kind of freak me out.)

"She never empties out the recycling bin!"

(Justification: there were only two bins for three people in the room when we moved in and I graciously decided to share mine with my other roommate who didn't have one when the maintenance folks never brought us a third one. I don't mind a semi-full recyling bin and would empty it eventually if it were left to my discretion. Besides, it's next to her desk, not mine.)

And so on, and so on, and so on.

Of course, I haven't actually heard these complaints coming out of my roommates' mouths, but I'm pretty sure they are thinking them.

The roommate situation is a lot more complicated (for many reasons) than I made it out to be, but I did not intend for this to be a post bitching about living situations, so I'll save it for next time.

My point was that the significance of "three day weekends" in my life has changed a lot since starting college. (And it only took 998 long-winded words to kind of make it clear.)

Both of my roommates went home this weekend, so I have had the room to myself for three nights. Aside from the one night I had alone at the end of finals week, I have never been alone in our room before. With all the tension that I have been feeling in the air since the quarter started, I can honestly say that I couldn't have been more glad to have a little space and time to recoup on my own this weekend.

Once my roommates left for the weekend, I felt a rush of uninhibited freedom reminiscent of the way a tween feels when he or she is left alone in the house alone for the first time (Tom Cruise sliding around in his underwear in Risky Business comes to mind, though I did not strip down and do a little dance in my room).

Although I did not manage to catch up on much of my work this weekend and spent a majority of my time overanalyzing a decision I had to make, nearly driving myself crazy thinking about all the "What if..."s, and not making up my mind until the very last minute, a weekend without the roommates was very welcome. I am a little sad that they will be back tomorrow and that the whole routine will start up again, beginning with the massive amounts of work that I have piled up and all the untouched textbooks crying for my attention.

Here are a few things that made me happy this weekend:


Painting my nails with the awesome Sephora "Rosy Glow" shade that I picked up at the mall on Thursday.

While my roommate was testing eyeliners and mascara on her eyes at Sephora that night, I discovered the display of nail polish and went a little crazy with the testers.

I walked out with a new "professional" emery board that kicks the 99 cent one I had out of this universe, a bottle of "Rosy Glow," and a different shade on each finger of my left hand.

A little backtracking - why was I at the mall on a Thursday night?

Well, I was considering pledging for a Greek organization on the encouragement of a friend, and "Installations," where "business casual" attire was required, were on Sunday and I had a closet full of tees, tanks, jeans, and flip flops.

I could not believe my luck at the mall that night because I found the perfect outfit, at an amazing price, at one store:



EXPRESS.

Red line items were an additional 30% off that night, so the ONE wearable sale shirt that I dug out of the bargain bin and the ONE pair of normal-looking dress pants that I found on the racks ended up costing me just a litle over $30.

That's right.

I paid $33.92 for both.

Crazy, huh?

AND the pants and the shirt matched! And fit me almost-perfectly! (The pants were a little too long for me, but it was nothing a pair of heels couldn't have fixed.)

That's what I call crazy shopping.

The next day, I decided to go to the bank to deposit a check. While the teller was doing my transaction, she told me that I was preapproved for a Bank of America rewards credit card and gave a little spiel trying to convince me to accept the offer. I wasn't really interested and was ready to decline, but then she told me the bank was offering me a $3000 credit limit.

$3000 for a girl who just turned 18 two months ago and had no credit history? Even the teller was shocked.

So I signed the little paper she gave me and my card should be on the way soon.

"Be responsible!" she advised as I walked toward the door.

I will!

After my eventful trip to the bank, I crossed the street and headed toward Marshall's in search of some cheap socks because I didn't bring any with me down to San Diego. While I was there, I checked out their huge shoe selection and fell in love with a pair of $25 heels that I wore around the store for about forty-five minutes while looking at socks:


I had bought a pair of heels at the mall the night before, but the moment I saw these shoes, I knew I wanted them a lot more. I walked around the store in the heels over and over again carrying the shoe box with my flip flops inside, trying to decide if I should get them or not.

I stupidly decided not to buy them.

I should have followed my heart. It would have saved me a lot of grief. (Same lesson applies to the bigger decision of whether to rush or not that I fretted about all weekend.)

Once I got back to my room that night, I regretted the decision.

I was back bright and early the next morning to buy them. The other pair will be going back to the mall.


I missed an awesome concert on Wednesday and felt like a bitch for telling my roommate I would meet her there and then never making it (she even got me an autographed poster and an EP from the band I really wanted to see and refused to let me pay her back for it) because I was at the info night for a Greek organization that my friend wanted me to check out with her.

I had no idea that it was going to take so long, but it did and I felt absolutely horrible for bailing on her.

Since I am not gushing about becoming an official pledge and starting the journey of "Going Greek" this weekend, it's obvious that I didn't go through with it. I had a cute outfit that I was dying to have the occasion to wear all ready to go, I had met some really nice people at the info night who seemed genuinely friendly and awesome, but I decided last minute not to rush this quarter.

I think I made the right decision, but I can't help but feel a little guilty for not rushing with my friend, who also did not rush because I decided I wanted to wait to do it.

Honestly, I never imagined myself being a part of anything Greek-related in college, so a lot of my inhibitions and opinions about "Greek life" fed into my hesitations about rushing, even for a not-really-part-of-the-whole-typical-Greek-scene organization. The mental pros/cons list that kept running through my mind since info night was driving me absolutely crazy; I kept staring at my outfit, walking around the room in my awesome shoes, and changing my mind every few minutes about whether I wanted to do it or not.

My conclusion (made about an hour before the Installation ceremony would have taken place) was that I was not ready to make such a big commitment to the organization and that I would reconsider it next Fall.

Or at least that was what I told my very disappointed-sounding friend on the phone after keeping her hanging and subject to my constant mind-changes for the past few days.

Even though I haven't gotten much sleep lately, I don't feel sleepy at all yet and it is past four in the morning. I think these may have had something to do with it:


I could probably live on these awesome Trader Joe's Espresso Chocolates (that I just discovered last week) and a bag of peanut butter filled pretzels. Throw in a handful of Gummy Vitamins and I am set.

I think I definitely want a single next year. But can I afford the $1000ish premium put on personal space?

One Down, Nine to Go

It has only been one week, but I can already tell that winter quarter is going to suck. Unlike my awesome fall quarter classes, my winter classes are pretty uninspiring in comparison and dragging myself to class is already starting to become a pain.

Starting the quarter off sick and completely sapped of energy didn't exactly help either.

The most interesting class of the quarter is probably going to be my environmental studies class, which also happened to be the first class I attended at the start of the quarter. While I was overdosing on Ricola cough drops on the first day of class in an attempt to stop distracting all the people around me with my violent, hacking cough, my mind wandered from the amusing factorid that like my Ricola drops, the professor was from Switzerland, to the sudden, fearful realization that there were NO WINDOWS in the lecture hall!

Being in the windowless room immediately made me feel slightly claustrophobic; I began to pay attention to every other lecture hall I walked into afterwards and noticed that there were no windows in any of them either. Now that the box-like lecture halls have moved over to the conscious side of my mind, I can't shake the trapped feeling that threatens to overwhelm me whenever I walk into one of the rooms and the door closes behind me.

Even though environmental studies is an interesting subject, my professor brings a lot of real-life experience with environmental policy-making to the class, and the assigned readings have been pretty interesting so far, the class itself is pretty intimidating. It is an upper-division class and all the other people in the class look and act like real "adults," so I feel a little out of place. The class is also VERY reading intensive, so I hope I can keep up as the quarter progresses.

My "Political Inquiry" (also known as STATISTICS and RESEARCH METHODOLOGY) class meets in the same lecture hall that my history lecture met in last quarter, and I was completely shocked to see the room so filled to the brim with students that late-comers had to resort to sitting on the floor on the first day of class. Nobody ever came to history lecture last quarter, so the room was rarely ever more than half-filled (aside from the two days when the midterm and final were administered). The professor is very energetic and his slight New York (it sounds Brooklyn) accent reminds me of my AP Gov't teacher from high school. Even though I like the professor, the class itself sucks because the subject is pretty lame.

My TA for the class used to be a math major as an undergraduate and spent a majority of the first section using the example of corn growing to talk about functions and writing weird math symbols on the board that kind of freaked me out.

Even though my earth science book on "The Atmosphere" was ridiculously expensive (and I have yet to open it and read a single page), the class itself seems very straight forward and I am glad it does not have discussion sections. Meteorology is not a subject I am particularly interested in learning about in great detail though, so my mind tends to wander during lecture.

My Muir 50 class on "The Graphic Novel" couldn't be more different than Muir 40 from last quarter; instead of the room with the oval conference table and the cool swivel-y chairs, we're in a cramped room with individual plastic chairs and too-small desks and a chalkboard that does not work. I really liked my Muir 40 instructor, but I am feeling indifferent at best about my Muir 50 instructor.

She was my roommate's instructor last quarter and I feel a little cheated because my roommate either did not warn me about her when I was picking classes because she was jealous of my priority enrollment and awesome Muir 40 TA and wanted to watch me suffer this quarter and laugh at me behind my back or she simply had lower standards than I did. I like to think that it is the former.

I have no idea why this thought never occurred to me when I signed up for the class, but I was completely shocked when I realized, on the second day of class, that a majority of my classmates were the anime and manga-loving Japanophile-type.

When we did "cheesy self-introductions" on the second day of class, we had to include our favorite character from a graphic novel, and I sat in my seat, transfixed in a kind of silent horror as classmate after classmate rattled off names of characters I have never heard of from graphic novel/anime/manga series I have never heard of as a majority of the class chuckled or nodded in apparent agreement at their "awesome taste" in graphic novels/anime/manga series.

As I turned around to face the class to introduce myself, I noticed that a girl sitting in the row behind me was even wearing a t-shirt that announced to the world that she was an "anime freak."

Oh boy.

My favorite character?

I didn't know any, so I picked Snoopy.

When I told my roommates in passing about what happened during my first two days of Muir 50, the one who was a former student of my current TA laughed (in a "I am laughing AT you, not WITH you" way) and muttered something about being glad that she did not choose to take the class on "The Graphic Novel" in a tone that indicated she knew this was going to happen and sought to avoid it by avoiding the class - another reason why I thought the former was more likely than the latter in her TA recommendation. (Bitch!)

It's going to be a long quarter.

Walking On Clouds (Part Two)

November 30th, the "day of doom" for all UC applicants, is approaching quickly, so naturally, I cannot help but think back to the "me" of a year ago and compare that person with the person I have become.

I submitted my UC application on November 29th, and it's mind-blowing to think that 364 days have passed since that fateful day.

So much has changed, and I beam with joy to be able to say wholeheartedly and without the slightest bit of exaggeration that the changes have overwhelmingly been for the better.

College is, without a doubt, ten million times better than high school, so hang in there high school seniors - you're almost there!

While I liked my high school's unique environment, respected and admired most of the teachers, and enjoyed most of the classes I took, the "high school experience" itself was pretty hellish for me. For four years, I felt extremely unbalanced as a person, and the slightest bit of pressure or stress would send me on yet another emotional roller coaster ride, each more intense than the last, but all ending the same way - with me curled up in a corner somewhere crying my eyes out for one inarticulate reason or another. Eating disorders, manic cycles of depression, and crippling anxiety attacks all added up to a few very difficult teenage years. It wasn't my high school that I despised per se; I was just in the wrong environment at the wrong time and the combined pressures of the competitive academics and my own teenage-angst proved simply to be too much to handle.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

Looking back at all the mistakes that the high school "me" made and all the traps I inadvertently fell for has definitely made me a smarter and more self-aware person today.

"College," and the new start that came with it, was my light at the end of a very dark tunnel, and I am glad to say that the source of light has not disappointed.



(Can you guess who is singing that?)

Getting the opportunity to pursue subjects that I am truly passionate about is one of the reasons why I am so much happier in college. I love all of the classes I am taking this quarter, and all the extra effort I put into them shows; I have aced every assignment and every exam for every class so far. When you love what you're studying, studying is no longer a chore.

Advice #1: Don't major in "science" or "engineering" just because your parents say you should or simply because you are aiming for that high-paying job after graduation. Do it only if you are truly passionate about those subjects and have enough self-motivation to push yourself through the tough four (or most likely, more) years of schooling. Your prospects won't be good if you end up failing your introductory chemistry class and you are a pharmaceutical chemistry major.

Majoring in "science" doesn't guarantee you a high-salaried job and a wonderful life after college either; Did you know Ms. Keyak majored in biology when she was in college? That's right.

Advice #2: College should be a time of self-exploration, so be adventurous, take classes in subjects you may never have studied before, find something you like and are good at and stick with it!

I've never taken an art history class before, but I took a chance with the class this quarter, and it turned out to be my favorite class, by far. You'll never know unless you give it a try, and what time is better for trying things out than while in college?

Advice #3: Don't choose a college simply for its prestige. Seriously research the college choices you have and weigh the benefits and costs carefully before making your final decision.

Deciding to come to UCSD was a no-brainer for me. Chancellor's Scholarship? Priority Enrollment? Getting accepted into Muir College, located just five minutes from the beach? Sunny southern California weather? What was there to hesitate about?

While I realize that most people's decisions may not be as clear-cut and simple as mine was, it is still important not to judge universities solely on their prestige; the number of opportunities available and the campus environment are also two very significant factors that can make or break your college experience.

***

I am enjoying all of my classes, getting better grades, eating more healthily, sleeping more, and am just feeling more balanced in general since starting college. Of course, things haven't been perfect, but I wouldn't be too upset if where I am now is as good as it will ever get.

Things are going great, and hopefully they stay that way.

Priority Enrollment Rocks

When you to go a big, public university like mine (or any other UC campus), one of the biggest headaches you have to deal with is course enrollment; there are never enough spots in the most desirable courses at the most desirable times.

My high school touted its unique "modular" schedule and the freedom and responsibility of students to determine their own class schedules (teachers, classes, and times) at the beginning of each semester in "the Arena" as college preparatory measures, but the one and only truly "college preparatory" insight I gained from my experiences in high school was that any kind of priority enrollment was a very, very good thing.

Keeping that in mind, choosing UCSD, who offered me priority enrollment as one of the perks of the Chancellor's Scholarship, over all the other colleges last March was a no brainer.

Enrollment for Winter Quarter began on Wednesday, and the most stressful part of the registration process for me was having to take the extra step of contacting the political science department for clearance before enrolling in the freshman seminar I was interested in taking because I would have sophomore standing by the end of this quarter. After taking the five minutes to look up the department email address and to compose a message, I had clearance to enroll in the seminar less than twenty-four hours later.

No muss, no fuss - just how I like it!

EVNR 130: Environmental Issues - Social Sciences
POLI 30: Political Inquiry (A fancy way of saying "STATISTICS," ugh)
SIO 20: The Atmosphere
MCWP 50: Critical Writing - The Graphic Novel
POLI 87: Becoming Evil (Freshman Seminar)

With due dates for papers, midterms, and finals always "just around the corner" in the fast-paced quarter system, any removal of unnecessary stress is always more than welcome.

There are more important things to worry about in life, and learning to let go of the smaller things that could easily become overwhelming in the heat of the moment definitely helps me maintain a more balanced perspective on things!

My point? Priority enrollment is awesome, and definitely something high school seniors should keep in mind when making up their minds about which university to attend; what good is a university with extremely highly regarded faculty members and top programs if you have trouble getting into those classes in the first place? Of course, I am not saying the quality of a school's programs should be disregarded, but sometimes the differences between undergraduate programs at prestigious universities and some equally as good, but perhaps less well-known colleges are negligible. Finding a good balance is always key, and noteworthy advantages like priority enrollment could easily shift the scales in your favor.