changing colors

Contrary to what you may think, I am not referring to the transition into bright leaved and colorful autumn. I'm talking about my flip flop tan.

Since arriving in SoCal, I've been wearing my beloved Rainbows basically every day. A few key occasions merited gladiator shoes or running shoes, but other than that it's been Rainbows from day one. Evidence is presented in the prominent tan I now have, making me look like I really am wearing flip flops every day even when they are absent from my feet.

I'm getting more and more used to Irvine, and with this comfort comes love. I love the ARC, I love my hall, I love the Thai lettuce wraps!! I do miss Cupertino and my friends though, and I'm glad I have photos up in my room to look at whenever I'm doing homework or just missing them.

Yesterday I went to the ARC with some people from my hall and climbed the rock-climbing wall! I got all the way up which was both a surprise and an accomplishment that I was very proud of. I'm planning on going back and trying to climb the side with the overhang, hopefully it'll balance out my arm muscles, because yes, my right forearm is still noticeably larger than my left due to my year of scooping ice cream.

bandwagons and things

My first class was today! Humanities Core discussion. A rather small room with 20 students in desks with reclining seats (!!!!!) all pointed towards an updated version of David Clarke. Except his name is Brian Thill and he's a little bit more current and hip than David; he watches Lost and the Office, texts on his Blackberry, and keeps his hair short and trim. Other than that the two are pretty similar: melodious voices that soothe you to sleep (had to keep my eyes from drooping), energetic and super knowledgeable about lit and everything concerned with it, and very genuine, approachable, and pragmatic with a hint of sarcasm.

Towards the end of class, he started taking role. Since the theme of my HumCore class this quarter is "Thinking, Making, Doing," he requested that we share our favorite thinker after he called our name.

After hardly even finshing saying her name, the first girl promptly responds, "Thoreau." And goes into a little schpeel about why Thoreau is the greatest and how he really embraced his philosophical ideals and married practice and preaching and yadayadayada. It was a brilliant, well-thought out answer -- much more so than I had expected from anyone on the first day of school. Which obviously put more pressure on me.

As he goes down the list, the students call out names like Plato, Jane Austen, William Shakespeare...even some obscure philosophers I haven't even heard of. Damn, I think. Everyone is so damn smart. Hell, after that first response I started delving deep into my mind to think of the last time I was really actually, profoundly, impacted by a thinker. Hell, all I came up with was the guy who wrote Fight Club. Seriously, that guy was the man! But I didn't want to be the girl who says "UH, the guy who wrote Fight Club" on the first day of class. I seriously don't even know his name! So I cast that idea aside and resumed my hunt for a remotely interesting thinker.

Luckily for me, AP Lit prepped me well enough to know how to spew some big names out and by the time he reached my name, I had decided to hop on the nerdy bandwagon and say Albert Camus. What a lie, I pretty much hated reading The Stranger until the last three freaking pages. God. After I said that I pretty much hated myself for not going with my gut instinct and saying "that guy who wrote Fight Club." Not as intellectual sounding I guess, but at least it'd be real and honest. So that left with me a pretty sad feeling, but it's something for me to work on and it's definitely nothing a nice walk around Aldrich Park can't fix.

Side note: I LOVE ALDRICH PARK! Such a nice place to cancel out calories from last night's two corndogs, aka heaven in corn dog form.

my first official college post!

As the title of this post explains, this is my first official college post! I am sitting here in the pitch darkness, staring at the bright screen of my laptop and probably ruining my retinas but whatever, blogging is necessary for right now! My roommate, Sarah, is asleep, as I probably should be (considering I got a total of maybe six hours of REM in the past two days) but I can sleep in a little tomorrow and I want to reach out into a world I'm more comfortable in -- because SoCal is not that.

Don't get me wrong, Irvine is definitely nice. My hall is really nice and conveniently located near the dining hall, housing office, student center, and just a short walk to the BEAUTIFUL Aldrich Park. The weather is perfect, people are friendly and nice, and my room is pretty set up and I like it how it is. But it still doesn't feel like home, and I feel like I'm drifting around with no definite anchor. It's hard to be in a place with so many people you don't know, trying to build connections and find that click, but part of me thinks that you really can't force it. It'll come with time, just chill and go with the flow! Oh well, who said life was easy. Just doesn't feel like home yet, and I hope that it'll get there soon though. For the most part I am keeping busy with the crazy welcome week activities and missing my friends like a crazy person. ):

This whole experience has really made me question the type of person I am. I always thought I was the independent, outgoing type but I realized I can be really dependent on others and pretty introverted. That's not the best version of myself at all, and it's definitely not the image I want to project on these first few crucial days. It's just tough cause it's all so new and different I guess...I take a while to get used to things.

Contrary to the general tone of my entry though, I have been having fun. Welcome week is CRAZY and the people I've met and hung out with have been really nice. So far I've pretty much settled in my dorm, bought most of my books, gone shopping, bought a TV!!, explored campus at night (BUNNIES EVERYWHERE!!! Chiang didn't lie.), checked out the freaking AMAZING ARC, and participated in hall competitions. Fun stuff! For the rest of the week I'm looking forward to the pre-show of Eagle Eye, Middle/Mesa Mixer, Iron Man in Aldrich Park, shopping at the District, and the beach trip this Friday! I am even excited for classes. How surreal. I really am enjoying myself though, just wish my good buddies were here to share the fun and sun.

last goodbye

SO I'm in a hotel room in Irvine! It's weird to think that this morning was really the last time I'll ever live in Cupertino. How strange. Also, mornings are SO not my thing so I definitely didn't even realize the full impact of it all until I woke up around 2:00 when my parents and I went to lunch in LA. GO ME!

Anyway, I don't have much to say right now except I am very excited to move in tomorrow at 2ish, and that I miss my friends like freaking crazy and I wish you were all here with me. ): Irvine will be a strange adventure without my best buddies at my side.

I will update later! For now, I need to get my books and some other supplies at Target...then tonight definitely webcamming with my homies.

This was a pretty useless post but I just wanted to alert the internet and all it's users that I am alive and well. More laterr.

wow, life.

Life is not captured in photographs. I just spent the past hour and a half looking through photos and trying to decide which of them were college-wall-worthy. I wanted my favorite photos EVER, ones that still make me smile when I see them. I thought I got a pretty good set of them until I actually looked through my selection again and realized they kind of suck. They're not giving me what I want, but what I realllly want is something I can't bring to college. I want my friends with me, not just 2-D pictures of them on the wall, reminding me of what I'm missing. Here is where I heaved a big sigh and accepted the fact that things are definitely changing.

BIG DAY TOMORROW.

Last note: friends with blogs make me happy! Update often, cause I like you guys. (: