Okay, maybe I'll talk to you.
I figured the world would probably want to know what's going on with my life, but I, an introverted recluse, don't want to talk to you. So here I've created this handy dandy impersonal way of letting you feel like you know what's going on in my life without me actually spending any of my time away from my precious study environment to talk to you. Plus, my throat hurts when I talk too long anyway. Since I've been here two weeks already, there are a few things you may have missed. I shall summarize.
Sunday, September 26th
I moved in. I didn't do a whole lot, since school hadn't actually started yet. It felt like a camp or something to that effect. The dorm life was something really exciting, just because it was new.
Monday, September 27th
It was a little weird. Everybody was still trying to get to know each other. Learn the names and such. It was around this time I started putting names to faces. In the morning, I walked all around campus, trying to get my bearings, or at least get lost. Sadly, neither actually happened. In the afternoon, I started using my bike. I decided that I had one, I might as well use it. And that's when I learned to love biking. Biking is so amazing. Much faster than walking, and it makes you look cool too, as long as you're not fat and slow. In the evening, we had a mandatory meeting that gained less than half the attendance. In a nutshell: don't drink, call 911. The nightly exercises becoming more and more routine.
Tuesday, September 28th
By this time, I've been eating three meals a day at the DC. This is a bit hazardous to my meal plan, so I've been trying to conserve. Anyway, I think I went to Watermelon Music in the afternoon. That place is amazing. They had at least 8 ukuleles. It just made me so happy. I decided I actually need to learn how to play that thing, so I bought a book on it. So awesome. Before that, I went to the music building with Laura and Rich to sign up for auditions (Laura plays sax, clarinet, flute, and sings, while Rich plays the bassoon). I ended up signing up for a chamber music ensemble, details later. I think I went to the Bike Barn and got a nice light hook up. It's sweet.
Wednesday, September 29th
I think sometime in the morning I met Sarah Brinker. Imagine that, she's on my floor. She would be the Sarah of the Sarah and Laura room. Oddly enough, Laura's last name is Brink. Life went pretty smoothly. I got a call from Brandon about meeting possibilities, so around 6 or so, he was done of the ARC. He took me back to his place. It's actually really nice. It reminds me of a snow cabin, where everything is up on the second floor, only a small entryway when you open the door. After meeting at the Greenway's, Brandon took me back to the dorms. I ran into Sarah again later that night, so I made the wise decision of talking to her about Santa Barbara instead of going to bed early the night before classes. When I say wise decision, I mean it. Around midnight, Patrick (a really amazing blues guitarist) decided to make easy mac without adding water. Apparantly he's used to some other kind that doesn't need water, so he didn't think twice. Anyway, the whole building, around 200 kids, had to be evacuated and standing at least 100 feet away from the building. So Sarah decided to call her twin Amy, who lives in one of the adjacent buildings, to let us hang out with her instead of in the cold. That lasted maybe 15 minutes or so, then we went back after the firemen had left, and went directly to bed.
Thursday, September 30th
Classes begin. I started with my Chem lecture at 8 in the morning. Shengshu Huang, the TA, was harder to understand than his name. After about ten minutes of confusion, we gathered our bags and left. It made a great impression on me. At 2:10 I had English. Such an awesome class. The teacher reminds me of Mitch Hedberg in looks, attitude, and openness about drug use. He's absolutely hilarious. The structure of the class reminds me of my AP English class, pretty much entirely Socratic Dialogues. So amazingly great.
Friday, October 1st
Second day of classes. The first day of my Chem/Math grind. Three days a week, I have Chem lecture, then an hour later, Calculus lecture. Fridays are nice though, since that's all I have. In the afternoon, I went with the Brinker twins to set up bank accounts. They were going to Wells Fargo, so I just went along with them. Their dad (a banker) told them to go there, so it seemed like sound advice. Unfortunately, I just didn't like their service. Everything was slow, slow, slow, and agonizing, drawn out process. Luckily, Riddy invited me over to their place for a night of ping pong and Rook. It was really fun. There were about 10 people there, with such strangers as Darin and Maria, Abe, Miguel, Riddy, and a few actual strangers. As the night started winding down, Riddy and I played ping pong until past midnight. We were playing for a good 4-5 hours. I went home and went to sleep.
Saturday, October 2nd
Some gene must have been formed or something, because I played ping pong for another two hours. Weird.
Sunday, October 3rd
I called the Greenways beforehand, so they came and picked me up at about 7:25. We then went and picked up Darin and Maria, then drove the rest of the way to Chico, making very good time. The meetings were amazing. I'll have to transcribe my notes sometime. They're definitely worthwhile. At lunch, I saw Sarah and her new boyfriend, Peter, which was weird, so I moved on. I saw Miranda and Shari for the first time in California though. They're really nice and not that far away. The second meeting was actually more surprising than the first, seeming how Dick Middleton spoke. After the meeting, I went with Brandon to his home so he could pick up his laundry. We ended up being there for about half an hour, which is by no means a bad thing. I spent most of my time on their antique Steinway and Sons piano. It's by far the most beautiful piano I've ever played. And their house isn't that shabby either. After that, we went to Kermit's for a get together. There were maybe 30 kids there, so it was pretty nice. Afterwards, Brandon and I rode back through the middle of nowhere, into the outskirts, called Davis.
Monday, October 4th
Chem, Math. Then I had my first Chem lab. Three hours stuck in the pit of despair. It's in the basement, so there are no windows. No cell phones get reception. It is seriously the most evil and depressing place ever. Bah.
Tuesday, October 5th
Since my music improv class has yet to be posted, I slept until lunchtime. Life was great. Afterwards, I went to my chamber music audition, which was pretty awkward. I felt out of place with a brass instrument. The instructor didn't really know what to do with me. So he waited until the trombone instructor could listen in as well, since he plays brass. Later on, I worked on my English paper (in response to John Updike's A&P). I already wrote one about the debate earlier too. And then on Thursday I had a presentation due for English. So I made good use of the time given since our English class was cancelled. At night I had math discussion. It's so nice to have a TA that I can actually understand. He seems very knowledgeable too. It's just late at night and you have to be there since he collects the homework.
Wednesday, October 6th
Chem. Math. Being paranoid about Wednesday nights, I left my Wednesdays open from noon on. Pretty relaxing day though. At night, Brandon came and picked me up, the routine.
Thursday, October 7th
Back to the beginning. Shengshu is a little easier to understand when he's not in the lab. Still speaking another language though. The whole day I was dreading my English presentation instead of actually preparing for it. So in the two hours beforehand, I got everything together, made handouts (cost me $3), then prepared myself mentally. When the time came to actually present though, C. Kiefer (the professor, www.christiankiefer.com) kept on interrupting me with half hour tangents on the Cannes Film Festival and the likes. I guess it was just so good he had to give a lecture on it. But afterwards, he asked me for the critical essays I found and highlighted, so I guess he really did like it.
Friday, October 8th
Chem lecture, math lecture. Boring stuff. Then I just goofed around for the rest of the day.
Saturday, October 9th
I wanted to figure out the bike paths, so at about noon, I went down to the Arboretum. That place is really beautiful. It was really windy though, windy enough to make me stop riding. I managed to find myself across the freeway, so then I stopped and went home. I went to the ARC with Tony and Jared to play badminton, which ended up being an awesome sport. Wait, I think that was Friday. Saturday we went back to try and play badminton again, but the courts were full. So we played ping pong for an hour. Then, as I was walking out, I saw Clay in the Fitness Center, and he told me that I need to work out. So he directed me to the rowing maching, where I spent half an hour and rowed 5500 meters. I'm still very sore. Afterwards, I was falling over because I was so tired. And I didn't make it to the DC at all, since the hours are skewed on the weekend. I slept very well.
Sunday, October 10th
At about three am, my hand hit my clock, which then fell to the floor and shattered open. Too tired to fix it, I resumed sleeping. I woke up at about 8:45 to get ready for meeting. Did a bunch of stuff, ironed my pants, ate oatmeal. I went outside at 10 to see the Greenway's car awaiting me. Meeting was at the Johnson's in Woodland. It was a nice meeting, pretty big for what I'm used to. Afterwards, Riddy asked if I wanted to go out to lunch, so I happily accepted. We went to Applebee's, not outstanding food, but much better than the DC. I got the fajitas (I made 5) and cleaned my plate. I then went back to the dorm and worked on the Chem lab I put off since a week prior. At 6, I got a call from Rebecca, that she was outside, awaiting my arrival for our planned dinner. Dinner was lovely. There were a few of her friends there, and Matt, who was on his way back to Tahoe. After dinner, we tried making snickerdoodles, but we used old Crisco, so they ended up tasting like oily wax. I wrapped them up and put "free" on them. They didn't last 5 minutes in the dorm.
Monday, October 11
Today has been a normal Monday. Pretty blah, as usual. I kept on nodding off during the lectures since I'm so tired. I ought to go to bed. Then there was the dreaded lab. I finally finished the lab from last week about 10 minutes before I turned it in. The lab was shorter than the previous one since we had everything figured out. But it was still the pit of despair. It felt like being released from prison as I got out of the building. I called Riddy, who was to pick me up and take me to the Fleck's for dinner (Joe Alexander was there... he's doing fine, which was the same I told him you all were doing). Dinner was a very quiet event. Very different from what I'm used to. It felt like Brandon and I were leading the conversation. I usually eat dinner where there are long periods of silence. I did manage to get those little girls to open up though. I just turned to them and asked if they can talk. That seemed to work. They wouldn't shut up. Kept on going on and on about horses and books about horses and Davis science camp and school and enough already. But I was the one who started these monsters; it was my responsibility to make sure they didn't feel dejected and kill themselves. We left pretty early, like around 9:30. I got back and decided that I need to tell you about my life. So here it is. Oh, and I did laundry for the second time today. I love hot laundry.
Sunday, September 26th
I moved in. I didn't do a whole lot, since school hadn't actually started yet. It felt like a camp or something to that effect. The dorm life was something really exciting, just because it was new.
Monday, September 27th
It was a little weird. Everybody was still trying to get to know each other. Learn the names and such. It was around this time I started putting names to faces. In the morning, I walked all around campus, trying to get my bearings, or at least get lost. Sadly, neither actually happened. In the afternoon, I started using my bike. I decided that I had one, I might as well use it. And that's when I learned to love biking. Biking is so amazing. Much faster than walking, and it makes you look cool too, as long as you're not fat and slow. In the evening, we had a mandatory meeting that gained less than half the attendance. In a nutshell: don't drink, call 911. The nightly exercises becoming more and more routine.
Tuesday, September 28th
By this time, I've been eating three meals a day at the DC. This is a bit hazardous to my meal plan, so I've been trying to conserve. Anyway, I think I went to Watermelon Music in the afternoon. That place is amazing. They had at least 8 ukuleles. It just made me so happy. I decided I actually need to learn how to play that thing, so I bought a book on it. So awesome. Before that, I went to the music building with Laura and Rich to sign up for auditions (Laura plays sax, clarinet, flute, and sings, while Rich plays the bassoon). I ended up signing up for a chamber music ensemble, details later. I think I went to the Bike Barn and got a nice light hook up. It's sweet.
Wednesday, September 29th
I think sometime in the morning I met Sarah Brinker. Imagine that, she's on my floor. She would be the Sarah of the Sarah and Laura room. Oddly enough, Laura's last name is Brink. Life went pretty smoothly. I got a call from Brandon about meeting possibilities, so around 6 or so, he was done of the ARC. He took me back to his place. It's actually really nice. It reminds me of a snow cabin, where everything is up on the second floor, only a small entryway when you open the door. After meeting at the Greenway's, Brandon took me back to the dorms. I ran into Sarah again later that night, so I made the wise decision of talking to her about Santa Barbara instead of going to bed early the night before classes. When I say wise decision, I mean it. Around midnight, Patrick (a really amazing blues guitarist) decided to make easy mac without adding water. Apparantly he's used to some other kind that doesn't need water, so he didn't think twice. Anyway, the whole building, around 200 kids, had to be evacuated and standing at least 100 feet away from the building. So Sarah decided to call her twin Amy, who lives in one of the adjacent buildings, to let us hang out with her instead of in the cold. That lasted maybe 15 minutes or so, then we went back after the firemen had left, and went directly to bed.
Thursday, September 30th
Classes begin. I started with my Chem lecture at 8 in the morning. Shengshu Huang, the TA, was harder to understand than his name. After about ten minutes of confusion, we gathered our bags and left. It made a great impression on me. At 2:10 I had English. Such an awesome class. The teacher reminds me of Mitch Hedberg in looks, attitude, and openness about drug use. He's absolutely hilarious. The structure of the class reminds me of my AP English class, pretty much entirely Socratic Dialogues. So amazingly great.
Friday, October 1st
Second day of classes. The first day of my Chem/Math grind. Three days a week, I have Chem lecture, then an hour later, Calculus lecture. Fridays are nice though, since that's all I have. In the afternoon, I went with the Brinker twins to set up bank accounts. They were going to Wells Fargo, so I just went along with them. Their dad (a banker) told them to go there, so it seemed like sound advice. Unfortunately, I just didn't like their service. Everything was slow, slow, slow, and agonizing, drawn out process. Luckily, Riddy invited me over to their place for a night of ping pong and Rook. It was really fun. There were about 10 people there, with such strangers as Darin and Maria, Abe, Miguel, Riddy, and a few actual strangers. As the night started winding down, Riddy and I played ping pong until past midnight. We were playing for a good 4-5 hours. I went home and went to sleep.
Saturday, October 2nd
Some gene must have been formed or something, because I played ping pong for another two hours. Weird.
Sunday, October 3rd
I called the Greenways beforehand, so they came and picked me up at about 7:25. We then went and picked up Darin and Maria, then drove the rest of the way to Chico, making very good time. The meetings were amazing. I'll have to transcribe my notes sometime. They're definitely worthwhile. At lunch, I saw Sarah and her new boyfriend, Peter, which was weird, so I moved on. I saw Miranda and Shari for the first time in California though. They're really nice and not that far away. The second meeting was actually more surprising than the first, seeming how Dick Middleton spoke. After the meeting, I went with Brandon to his home so he could pick up his laundry. We ended up being there for about half an hour, which is by no means a bad thing. I spent most of my time on their antique Steinway and Sons piano. It's by far the most beautiful piano I've ever played. And their house isn't that shabby either. After that, we went to Kermit's for a get together. There were maybe 30 kids there, so it was pretty nice. Afterwards, Brandon and I rode back through the middle of nowhere, into the outskirts, called Davis.
Monday, October 4th
Chem, Math. Then I had my first Chem lab. Three hours stuck in the pit of despair. It's in the basement, so there are no windows. No cell phones get reception. It is seriously the most evil and depressing place ever. Bah.
Tuesday, October 5th
Since my music improv class has yet to be posted, I slept until lunchtime. Life was great. Afterwards, I went to my chamber music audition, which was pretty awkward. I felt out of place with a brass instrument. The instructor didn't really know what to do with me. So he waited until the trombone instructor could listen in as well, since he plays brass. Later on, I worked on my English paper (in response to John Updike's A&P). I already wrote one about the debate earlier too. And then on Thursday I had a presentation due for English. So I made good use of the time given since our English class was cancelled. At night I had math discussion. It's so nice to have a TA that I can actually understand. He seems very knowledgeable too. It's just late at night and you have to be there since he collects the homework.
Wednesday, October 6th
Chem. Math. Being paranoid about Wednesday nights, I left my Wednesdays open from noon on. Pretty relaxing day though. At night, Brandon came and picked me up, the routine.
Thursday, October 7th
Back to the beginning. Shengshu is a little easier to understand when he's not in the lab. Still speaking another language though. The whole day I was dreading my English presentation instead of actually preparing for it. So in the two hours beforehand, I got everything together, made handouts (cost me $3), then prepared myself mentally. When the time came to actually present though, C. Kiefer (the professor, www.christiankiefer.com) kept on interrupting me with half hour tangents on the Cannes Film Festival and the likes. I guess it was just so good he had to give a lecture on it. But afterwards, he asked me for the critical essays I found and highlighted, so I guess he really did like it.
Friday, October 8th
Chem lecture, math lecture. Boring stuff. Then I just goofed around for the rest of the day.
Saturday, October 9th
I wanted to figure out the bike paths, so at about noon, I went down to the Arboretum. That place is really beautiful. It was really windy though, windy enough to make me stop riding. I managed to find myself across the freeway, so then I stopped and went home. I went to the ARC with Tony and Jared to play badminton, which ended up being an awesome sport. Wait, I think that was Friday. Saturday we went back to try and play badminton again, but the courts were full. So we played ping pong for an hour. Then, as I was walking out, I saw Clay in the Fitness Center, and he told me that I need to work out. So he directed me to the rowing maching, where I spent half an hour and rowed 5500 meters. I'm still very sore. Afterwards, I was falling over because I was so tired. And I didn't make it to the DC at all, since the hours are skewed on the weekend. I slept very well.
Sunday, October 10th
At about three am, my hand hit my clock, which then fell to the floor and shattered open. Too tired to fix it, I resumed sleeping. I woke up at about 8:45 to get ready for meeting. Did a bunch of stuff, ironed my pants, ate oatmeal. I went outside at 10 to see the Greenway's car awaiting me. Meeting was at the Johnson's in Woodland. It was a nice meeting, pretty big for what I'm used to. Afterwards, Riddy asked if I wanted to go out to lunch, so I happily accepted. We went to Applebee's, not outstanding food, but much better than the DC. I got the fajitas (I made 5) and cleaned my plate. I then went back to the dorm and worked on the Chem lab I put off since a week prior. At 6, I got a call from Rebecca, that she was outside, awaiting my arrival for our planned dinner. Dinner was lovely. There were a few of her friends there, and Matt, who was on his way back to Tahoe. After dinner, we tried making snickerdoodles, but we used old Crisco, so they ended up tasting like oily wax. I wrapped them up and put "free" on them. They didn't last 5 minutes in the dorm.
Monday, October 11
Today has been a normal Monday. Pretty blah, as usual. I kept on nodding off during the lectures since I'm so tired. I ought to go to bed. Then there was the dreaded lab. I finally finished the lab from last week about 10 minutes before I turned it in. The lab was shorter than the previous one since we had everything figured out. But it was still the pit of despair. It felt like being released from prison as I got out of the building. I called Riddy, who was to pick me up and take me to the Fleck's for dinner (Joe Alexander was there... he's doing fine, which was the same I told him you all were doing). Dinner was a very quiet event. Very different from what I'm used to. It felt like Brandon and I were leading the conversation. I usually eat dinner where there are long periods of silence. I did manage to get those little girls to open up though. I just turned to them and asked if they can talk. That seemed to work. They wouldn't shut up. Kept on going on and on about horses and books about horses and Davis science camp and school and enough already. But I was the one who started these monsters; it was my responsibility to make sure they didn't feel dejected and kill themselves. We left pretty early, like around 9:30. I got back and decided that I need to tell you about my life. So here it is. Oh, and I did laundry for the second time today. I love hot laundry.
Ah yes, A&P. Did that make you hungry for herring snacks?
Jayna
Only for Kingfish Fancy Herring Snacks in Pure Sour Cream.