Weeks 2-4 Recap!

Dang, it's been a while since I last remembered to write in this. About 3 weeks in fact. It's been a pretty busy and exciting 3 weeks, I must say. Here are some highlights:

1. I finished my first crossword in the Daily Bruin! Granted, this took me 4 years to do, but it finally happened. It's been a little mini-goal of mine ever since my first year. Who knows how much paper I've wasted from all those Daily Bruins I got only to do the crossword.. I don't even wanna think about it haha. Some people like the Sudoku as an alternative to the crossword, but to me it's just too easy.. there's no challenge. You can't just stare at the crossword for a long time and eventually figure out the answer like in Sudoku.. either you know it or you don't, and if you don't you have to wait until the next day to try anew. Maybe it's just easier for me cause I'm a South Campus major and I like math, which may also be the reason why it took me 4 years to finish a crossword. Anyways, this crossword came down to a final letter that I didn't know.. the horizontal clue was "to put the kibosh on," and i had n_x for the word. the vertical clue was "with, to Fritz" and I had m_t, and since I don't know any German there was no way I was gonna get the word from that clue. Now, I have a very strict moral code when it comes to doing crosswords - no outside help whatsoever, otherwise it doesn't count. That means no asking other people, no looking up stuff online, etc. I knew that the missing letter had to be a vowel otherwise the words wouldn't make sense, so I had to choose.. take a guess and have a 1 in 5 chance of getting it right, or breaking my moral code in a desperate attempt to finish a crossword before I graduate. Well, I chose the former, and luckily it paid off. Turns out "mit" is the German word for "with". Will I ever do another Daily Bruin crossword now? I'm not sure. This might be a good time to retire from the DB crossword, going out on top. Then again, if I stop doing the crossword, what else am I going to do in class?

2. Ok so I've done more in the past few weeks than finish a crossword, I promise. I also took the CBEST, and I was able to confirm the rumors for myself that the CBEST does not really require any prior studying. I swear this was one of the questions: 5.2 < ? < 5.8
Which answer can go in the "?"
a. 4.9
b. 5.4
c. 5.9
d. 6.2

The writing still took me a while though, because I had to think of who to write my essay on - the one about a friend who has influenced my life/changed my perspective. I ended up choosing my very good friend - Jenn Min - because I believe she has changed my perspective, so it made it easy to write about.

3. I had my Unicamp retreat! I always forget how fun/magical Unicamp retreats are until I experience another one, and this one was no exception. It's so nice to see the whole session come together, and you really do feel closer to everyone afterwards, even if you didn't really talk to them. I really like my session this year :)

Well, those are the big things that have happened in the past few weeks. Some random minor things:
- I played a guy on the racquetball challenge court at the gym and got my butt kicked. the difference in skill level was HUGE! hahaha
- i dropped my Gaming Ming class, so I'm only taking 2 classes now. The class wasn't as cool as I thought it was going to be. And I'm lazy :P
- I really like my Black Hole and Other Cosmic Catastrophies Class. Learning about the universe is fun :)

First Week!

I've now been back at UCLA for one whole week - my first week of my last quarter! And it may have possibly been my most active week of my time here. I was feeling very spontaneous when I arrived last Sunday, since it was the beginning of my last quarter and all, and so my roommate Effie and I decided to go for a little run around the perimeter. This was neglecting the fact that I hadn't really run in a year or so. I ended up having to walk about halfway through on account of my being unable to breathe, and my legs were sore for days. But it was a good start to the week! I want to be more active this quarter, so exercise is good.

The next day I played racquetball, and then on Tuesday and Wednesday we had our first weekday Mentorship event of the quarter - Technology Day! My whole starting a blog actually started with my idea to have the mentors and mentees make a blog together; that's how I found this site and all.

Thursday I had Unicamp meeting + iceblocking + watching Slumdog Millionaire starting at 1am. It's a really good movie, but I wouldn't recommend starting it so late. Friday night I went to a Dodger's game for a Unicamp social.

Although all those days were really fun, Saturday was definitely my favorite day of the week. We had our Saturday Mentorship event, Arts Day, at Holmby Park. I was super stressing about this day working out, especially finding a location, but it ended up turning out awesome. The performers were amazing, all the stations had something new and exciting for the kids to try out, and everyone seemed to have a great time. I ended up running the sculpture rotation, and despite the fact that I haven't touched clay since 2nd grade, it ended up being fun. In the evening, I went with some Mship people to have a bonfire at the beach. All the pits were taken, so we had to dig our own, which turned out to be some shady business. A patrol guy eventually came, called us firebugs and said something about not having enough tickets, then left. I got to roast hot dogs and I had smores for the first time in a long time. It was a gooood day :)

And then comes Sunday, and I realize that I'm still enrolled in classes and that there's a good possibility I have homework due next week. So obviously, I spent most of the day working on an official Mentorship blog to share with everyone. But ok, I should really be attending to my studies now..