Cleaning House

It is a rare occasion that I do a thorough cleaning of my room, yet alone my closet and under my bed. However, since this is the possibly the last time I will be moving out of my house (my home home, in Anaheim), and because my mom told me to, I've undertaken a cleaning for the ages in my room this past week in preparation for my move. I had put off cleaning my room for the whole summer, not because I was lazy (well, maybe a little bit), but because it meant going through the contents of my closet and deciding what stays and what goes. And by goes, I mean goes in the trash/Goodwill. Ya know.. GOES. And considering my attachment to material objects is higher than a normal human being, this was no easy task. Indeed, my closet had become a refuge for all the stuff that I didn't want to get rid of in previous cleanings but had no real use for, and the Day of Reckoning had finally come. This of course resulted in multiple trips to Memory City, making the task at hand take much longer than it should have. Yet I knew this part was inevitable, and so I began.


Why is it so hard to let go of these nonliving, nonuseful things? I had a lot of time to think about that while cleaning, and essentially, for me at least, I think it's because letting go of those things was like letting go of a younger, simpler part of myself. Once I threw away something, I knew there was no getting it back, and a lot of the stuff in my closet I had held onto for years and years because I just couldn't bear to throw it away at the time. And the time after that and the time after that. I guess when it comes down to it, the act of throwing something away to me seems like a declaration that that object, and the memories and emotions that go with it, just aren't that important anymore. And that's what made cleaning so emotionally difficult - I didn't want to let go of those memories, of those objects that at one time or another represented something so meaningful in my life. It's like I could hear my past self questioning - how could you throw this away?? Didn't this mean something to you?? Perhaps what scared me most is that once thrown away, those memories may eventually be even forgotten given enough time. And in a time when my job, relationships, and future are still so uncertain, I guess holding on to those things meant more than I had realized - it meant holding onto something that was a concrete and real part of who I was.


But alas, in the name of space, a lot of stuff had to go. Toys, cards, elementary school notes, and clothes, among other things. For the first time, I tossed out a piece of Unicamp clothing. Mind you, Unicamp clothing makes up literally about 65% of my wardrobe (sad?), and these sweatpants I threw out had a permanent dirt stain on the back that made it look like a poop explosion had just happened. I never wear them anymore, but they nevertheless still had a sentimental value to them. Another victim was the pillow I had since I was a baby. Again, the pillow was pretty much nonfunctional - it was dirty and had tears everywhere - but it was one of the few remnants I had from when I was a baby. Not much is left from that era now.


Despite the loads and loads of stuff that got thrown away, in the end there were some things that I could just NOT bring myself to throw away, and these things got to stay. A few examples are: some elementary school reports/projects, a handful of Hot Wheels cars (only my favorites got to stay this time :/ ), all my Pokemon cards (I mean, come on), all my Unicamp happy notes and memorabilia, my drawings and comics I made when I was small, and my video games. A lot of people sell their video game stuff, but I honestly just can't part with them for some reason (weird?). Oh, and these stuffed animals:

I call these guys the Survivors; they are all that remain of the zoo I used to have that took up about half my bed space when I was small. They've just made it so far.. I don't think it would be fair to give them up now. :P

Hello Blog.

Usually, when I write a blog, I have something exciting or amusing to write about, but that is not the case tonight. Tonight, I am just bored with nothing to entertain me, and so I am going to ramble on here about who knows what until my boredom is satisfied. So... what to talk about...

Well, one notable thing is that it's about 2am right now. Which means I have given way and fallen into old habits again. It seems like an inevitability that when I don't have to wake up early, my bedtime will drift closer and closer to the rising of the sun. There have only been a few cases in which the sun has actually risen while I was still in my waking state, and I distinctly remember each time because it was a very unpleasant experience. For some reason, it actually bothers me when I stay up so late that the Sun comes out. It's just not natural. These are the times I recall when I was awake when the sun came out:

1. High School Grad Night at the Bowling Alley. This one I didn't really have a choice because it ended at 6am and that's when parents picked everybody up.

2. First year of college studying for a Beethoven final. This was the last final of my finals week, and it was a final amongst relatively harder finals, so I put off my hardcore studying until the end. I remember being worried about the listening portion of the final, where we had to identify pieces of music.

3. Third year of college having a LAN Party. For the n00bs out there, LAN = Local Area Network. A LAN Party is where a bunch of really cool people bring their laptops together in one place and play online games against each other via the local internet connection. Starcraft was our game of choice, and we'd split into two teams and go into separate rooms, so as not to spy on each other. Out of the three times I recall staying up to greet the sun, this one is my favorite. I miss these times.

Well, speaking of the Sun coming out, I should try to get some sleep before I rish adding a fourth time. I think I'll read myself to sleep. :)

Arizona Trip

Well, my family has returned from another successful trip to the great state of Arizona. Why Arizona, you might ask? We like to go to places where it's really hot so we can walk into air-conditioned rooms and it feels really good. But seriously.. it's really hot over there.

Our first stop was Scottsdale, Arizona, where we stayed at the Doubletree Resort. Our 2 day stay there included the usual mall run, poolside antics, and movie watching. We also had some fine dining at the Blue Moose. Brian (my brother) and I were also able to locate the fitness center, where we played racquetball and I attempted/failed at lifting weights. It was in the 100s outside, so it felt really good when you walked into the hotel room, which we did numerous times.

From Scottsdale, we headed to our cabin in the woods in Prescott. It wasn't as hot here and so it didn't feel as good when you walked into a building, but we still did a lot of exciting things here. Some highlights include:

1. Visiting Montezuma Castle and Montezuma Well. Montezuma Castle looks like this:

And the Well looks like this:

Both were really cool to places to see. I think some tourists were literally expecting a castle when they visited Montezuma Castle and I think they were a bit disappointed.. but I thought this was more interesting anyways. I mean, they built their home in a wall!

2. Playing volleyball at the local rec center with strangers. Every Monday and Wednesday is open volleyball in the mornings, so we went and checked out the competition. Turns out some people take their weekly open to the public volleyball very seriously. There was a guy there that had a strong resemblance to the guy with the glasses in Dodgeball, the one that knew all the rules and stuff. Upon arriving, he quickly approached us and indicated that his court was not for beginners, to which I scoffed at for assuming I was a beginner and played on that court anyways. I may have been on the shallow end of the skill pool there, but after a couple games of warming up I was doing a bit better.

3. Stargazing. The night sky in Arizona, especially in Prescott, is SO dark and clear that you can see the stars REALLY well. You can even see the disc of the Milky Way, which is awesome to see. I used the Google Sky app on my Droid phone to find constellations and stars in the sky, including Aquarius (my constellation!). The last night we were there was the night of a meteor shower, so I got to see lots of shooting stars as well. :)

4. Watching a group of Cloggers at the Square. Clogging is the dancing where you make lots of noises with your feet, and the Square is one of those American parks where senior citizens tend to gather and you can find square dancing or something going on most nights.

5. Fearing the cicadas. This is a cicada:

They are HUGE seasonal bugs, and it turns out they were in season when we got there. They are really big, and really loud. Anyways, one night at the Square, it was getting dark and what I thought were bats flying above us actually turned out to be some of the cicadas that had been screeching earlier. They began to descend lower and lower until finally one of them flew staight into a littly boy's head. You could actually hear the impact of that thing hit him. The littly boy then proceeded to pick up the cicada with his hand, examine it, and place it under his shirt, to which I did this: o_O. I guess that's what little boys do? Maybe there was a time when I was young that I would have done that too, but now you couldn't pay me to do that..

6. We also saw Lynx Lake, a nearby body of water in Prescott.
And there you have it folks, another trip to Arizona. Special thanks to Mom for actually finding stuff to do in Prescott besides the mall. Also thanks to my new Droid phone for making the car rides a lot less boring.

W.A.L.L.

I recently got back from my WALL (Wilderness Adventures in Leadership and Learning) experience in Unicamp. Ever since I joined Unicamp, being a WALL advisor has always been something I've wanted to do, and this year I was lucky enough to have had the opportunity to do so. Was it everything I expected/hoped it would be? Well.. yes and no. It was definitely a good overall experience, just different from what I had anticipated.

We did our best to contact all of our kids beforehand to make sure they were prepared for the hike, and lo and behold, the 2 kids we weren't able to get a hold of apparently they had no idea they were going on a 26 mile hike... -__- And so the problems started there and continued throughout the week, with the bad attitudes and complaining being constant. Unfortunately, we didn't get to do any of our night programming on the hike, because we usually arrived at the campsite so late that all we had time to do was cook dinner and set up the tents and bear hang. This was one of the parts I was most disappointed about... I feel like it would have been a different experience had we been able to do some of the more serious night programming.. But alas, it was what it was.

Somehow, we all made it to the summit of Mt. San Gorgonio on Summit Day, with time to spare! Granted, my Co and I did wake up at 4 in the morning to ensure we had ample time to reach said summit.. But it was definitely worth it. I just wish our water filter hadn't broken earlier in the hike, because I had to hike farther back to get more water when we ran out. >_<

Anyways, I just hope our group of campers took something away from this hike. We tried to emphasize how they were role models for the rest of camp.. hopefully this message got through to some of them and they were able to take some of the things they learned on the hike back down with them to the city. If anything, they were able to spend a week in nature (whether they liked it or not), away from the city and everything else. I think that in itself makes it a good week, regardless of anything else. It was nice to just be in nature for that big hike and enjoy the stars at night.

When I returned to the campsite from the hike, everyone was telling me how tan I got, and when I finally looked in a mirror a day later.. they were right. But then when I took a shower when I got back home, turns out my "tan" was just a lot of dirt accumulating over the past week. o_O My skin is also starting to peel from some of the sunburns I apparently got. Physical ailments aside, it was a very interesting week, and I hope to stay in contact with some of my campers to see how they're doing back at home.

Big 5. Shoe life.

Ah summer vacation... how I love you for the free time and relaxation you give me. I'm a person who truly needs down time to just chill every once in a while, so summer vacation is great for me. But alas, I am not truly free, as I must have some source of income to stay afloat, especially with huge grad school loans on the horizon. Enter Big 5 Sporting Goods.


I swore to myself a couple summers ago that I would never set foot in a Big 5 as an employee again, but I sold my soul this summer because I needed a flexible job fast that would give me time off whenever I please. So once again, I put on my business casual outfit with my "Andrew" name tag.

So what is it really like working at Big 5? There are a few key skills you need to work as a Big 5 employee, and this is them:

#1. You have to own a business casual outfit and be clean shaven.

#2. You have to be alive.

Well actually that's pretty much it. So what happens when customers ask you questions about stuff in the store? In general, I'm pretty good at pointing people in the general direction of an item that they're looking for. However, when people ask me specific questions about an item, my knowledge becomes much more variable. When it comes to answering questions about running shoes and camping stuff, I might actually be able to help. With most other stuff my helping skills drop to about zero, and for guns/rifles, knives, and fishing gear, my help actually goes into the negatives. Meaning that if I try to answer a question, there's a good chance that the customer will walk out of the store with less knowledge than they came in with. Here, example interactions at the gun counter:


1. Customer: So what's the biggest legal size of a knife blade that you can carry in your pocket?

Me: o_O


2. Customer: I'm looking for one of those automatic rifles. You know, the ones that go 'bahbahbahbah!'. Do you guys carry those?

Me: .........Let me get the manager.


Those are some pretty typical interactions around the gun counter. Since our Big 5 branch is pretty close to Disneyland, we also get a lot of tourists who don't know how to speak English, so a lot of my interactions with people are actually done with improvised sign language. Sometimes we succeed in communicating, and sometimes they just give up and leave the store. One time, an old Asian lady grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to a clothes rack, where she proceeded to stare at me for a good 7-8 seconds. After asking if there was anything I could help her with and more awkward staring, we just ended up walking away from each other...


Anyways, for anyone who wants to work at Big 5, there are 2 big pieces of advice I can give you.

#1. Try not to look at the time for as long as possible. It only makes it worse.

#2. When faced with a question you don't know, and this will be about 85% of the time, make up an answer that is vague enough that it sounds legit, but not specific enough that they can call you out on it. Example interaction:

Customer: What kind of swimming goggles would you recommend for my son?

Me: Well, basically the higher you go in price, the better quality you're going to get. This here is a pretty good brand (point to random item on the shelf). See, it has all these features (proceed to read the features straight from the box).


And there you go. You're ready to work at Big 5.

P.S. In case you're wondering about the title of this blog, it was something I saw on a piece of tape stuck to the wall in the backroom at Big 5, and it pretty much sums up what goes down at Big 5. :P

UCLA Lab School

Well, my last day as a 5th Grade Teaching Assistant for the UCLA Lab School has finally passed. I'm so thankful I got the opportunity to do something like this; when I applied I think there were around 80 or so applicants.. don't know how I got the job, maybe because I slipped a 5 in with my application. I LOVE working with the 5th grade age group though, to the point I hope I don't regret choosing to teach high school math. If I do, I can always go down to 5th grade, right? That's actually what one of the teachers in my class did, so it's not like it's impossible. I don't ever want to feel "stuck" in a job, so if I don't enjoy the high school level, who knows, maybe I'll be a 5th grade teacher. :) No lower than 5th grade though, then they get too young even for me. I don't know how my Grandma did Grade K for 40 something years..

Being a teaching assistant is a unique experience, because you get to know the kids so well. I think you develop a different kind of relationship with them than the teachers (I'll know this for sure after I've been teaching for a while). I definitely got to joke around with them more and just talk to them more than the teachers did though, and I'll miss that about being a TA. It's only been a couple days, but I already miss my class a lot. Hopefully I'll get to work at the school again part-time next year so I can go visit them.

Anyways, I'm back at home now, and I've become extremely jumpy because of the recent reports of waterbugs seen in my area of the house. I've been doing scans before I enter a room to make sure they're not there.. The other day I was doing a scan before I went into the bathroom, and what I think was a piece of dust moved on the floor, and I literally jumped. I need to calm down a bit.

End of Chapter

I have once again reached the end of another chapter in my life. This chapter was a year long and is now finally coming to a close. Mentorship events are over and is winding down, I have 2 weeks left of being a TA at UCLA Lab School, and Unicamp meetings are over as well.

Although I will definitely miss being Program Director for Mentorship, a large part of me is just plain relieved that it is over. I feel like I've sacrificed a lot of relationships with friends, and I'm excited to get my old life back, in a way. That means finally hanging out with people that I kept saying I was too busy to hang out with. And, catching up on my shows/video games of course. One thing I learned about myself this year, among other things, is that I definitely value my "me time". Even if it's just a few hours of a day, it's nice to just sit around and do nothing for a while.

I am going to miss my 5th grade class. A lot. This year was unique, and I probably won't get another chance like it, since I'm going into high school math. The 5th grade is such an interesting age, because you can have real conversations with most of these kids, and a lot of them are so funny and quirky. Knowing that there's only 2 weeks left, I'm really valuing my last days with them. Some of them are already telling me that they wish I could stay and asking why I'm leaving. I hope I get to stay in contact with them and see how they're doing in the years to come.

In other news, I'm excited to move home for the summer. This might be the last summer that my whole family is living in the same house. I never laugh as much as I do at home with my family, so I'm going to savor it while I can. Example: last night, we were playing Loaded Questions and Mom was the guesser. The question was: "What muscle would you flex to impress someone?" My brother and I both said "brain", and my dad and sister both said "butt." Pretty much sums up the family. :P

I Heart NY!

Last week, I broke my strong spring break tradition of sitting at home doing nothing to fly to NJ and visit my sister at St. Peter's College, and I had an AMAZING time! It was my first time in the NJ/NY area, and I loved it. But NY alone didn't make the trip as good as it was - hanging out with my sister and meeting her awesome group of friends played a huge part. They were all so nice/funny, and they made me feel right at home. I thought it was so cool how they hang out with each other all the time, popping in and out of each other's apartments; it reminded me of my first year in the dorms and how I would visit people all the time, and apparently how much I miss being with people all the time. I'm gonna try to spend more time just hanging out with people :)

Some things I want to remember from my trip:

- Tripp's story of how I got the nickname "ATM"

- Mae's story of how someone used the word "noob" in a college paper

- the night Joe thought he had scabies

- Greg doing the John Cena rap (b-b-basic thugonomics)

- winning the game of Mario Party

- when Yomi lost her nose ring ("I'm Yomi with a nose ring!")

- going to the top of the empire state building/seeing times square with kimberly

- visiting columbia and the village with dee lou

- seeing my dinosaur family in the natural history museum

- the subway catching on fire

- spending the day in ny with tripp and mae - playing on every playground we passed, visiting MIB headquarters, and chasing a turkey in Battery Park

- watching Indian in the Cupboard for the first time since childhood and being severely disappointed

- watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and it being surprisingly good

- realizing that my sister wasn't exaggerating about living in the ghetto, how many black people there are at her school, and the size of her school being the size of royce plaza at ucla

- having my mom text me every few hours to see what i was doing, and having her send the same text again if i didn't respond within an hour

If I think of anything more, I'll add it later. If you're reading this and are one of the people I spent the week with - THANK YOU for making it such an amazing week. I really wish I could have stayed longer, and I hope to come back and visit again soon :)

Colorblindness

For those of you who don't know, I am indeed colorblind. Mostly red/green colorblind, to be exact. So what does this mean? Well, until my first year of college at UCLA, I didn't even know I was colorblind, so it honestly doesn't make that much of a difference. I found out that I was colorblind during my Psych 10 class, when there was one of those colorblind tests - the one where you're supposed to see a number in a bunch of colored dots.. and I couldn't see the number -_-

You know that part in Little Miss Sunshine when the son finds out that he's colorblind and flips out in the car? Yea.. my reaction was nothing like that haha. I mean, I had gone through my whole life just fine thinking that the colors I saw were the colors everyone else saw - I think it's just something that most people assume.

Being colorblind honestly doesn't bother me at all, but ever since I've found out I was colorblind, there are some instances where I found out things I never knew about from normal-vision people. For example, I just found out the other day that Microsoft Word actually has two different colors for underlining mistakes - one for grammatical and one for spelling. Definitely had no idea that those were different colors. About a month ago, I found out that the status dots on Gchat actually come in different colors too - green for available and red for busy. As you can see, these are definitely not life-altering revelations, but it does make me wonder what other things I will discover down the line that everyone else just seems to know. And the thing is, I won't discover these things unless a normal-vision person happens to bring it up in conversation, like the Microsoft Word incident. These little revelations are interesting. :)

When they find out I'm colorblind, people always ask me "Ooooh, what do you see?". And I never know what to tell them. It's not like I see black and white, I definitely see colors.. just not the colors that everyone else sees. And it's weird, because I have distinct ideas of what red and green are, but sometimes I can't tell them apart or can't tell if something is red or green. So in those instances where I can't tell if a color is red or green... what AM I seeing? Well, that's a really good question. It's hard to describe colors though - I mean, what would you say to someone if they asked you to describe the color blue?

Anyways, there have only been 3 actual instances I can remember where colorblindness has hindered me from doing something:

1. In a lecture when the teacher was using green and red sharpies do draw diagrams on the board.

2. In Mario Kart, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between the red and green shells and I have to aim them like green shells just in case.

3. In tetris-like games based on matching colors together.

I'd also like to attribute my poor fashion sense to colorblindness too, but I'm pretty sure that's just me.

Busy Indicators

So I've been pretty busy these past few weeks with Mentorship/Unicamp/work, and I've noticed there are definitely a few indicators that tells how busy I am.

1. The cleanliness of my room - Especially the clothes on floor/bed : clothes in hamper ratio. Right now that ratio is pretty high.

2. My beard - Shaving is a luxury activity that I partake in when I have ample time. Right now my beard is pretty shaggy.

3. The number of LOST episodes that I'm behind - I'm currently 2 episodes behind for the newest season. In another few days I'll be 3 episodes behind, which is borderline unacceptable, but will make for an epic catchup session.

4. The number of pages my bookmark has moved in my book - I've been on the same book since Winter break actually (The Black Hole War, good stuff).

5. The number of times I update my blog - It's been a while since I've updated this thing. Since the last time I've updated, some pretty big stuff has happened. Let's see... It looks like I am officially going to be a Bruin for another 2 years! I got into UCLA's grad school for Education and I just submitted my Statement of Intent to Register the other day. That'll make it 7 years that I've been around UCLA. That's almost a third of my life!

Also, I finally caved and got a new TV. A 32' Samsung LCD HDTV to be exact. For the past few years, what has happened is that my urge to get a new TV will keep increasing until it reaches the threshold point, at which point I'll call my mom and she'll talk me out of it, returning the urge to a base point. However, this time when I reached the threshold, my mom said I should go ahead and get it since I've been wanting it for so long. And that just pushed me over the edge.

Power Out

I had an interesting experience the other night. As I was sitting at my computer around 10pm, the power went out. The loud hum of my roommate's desktop computer died, and the room went completely black except for the glow of my laptop, now living off battery.

Now I haven't been in a blackout in a while, but this particular one brought with it much more than just darkness. It brought freedom. That's right: freedom. That might seem like a weird thing to come with a blackout - I mean I couldn't really do anything. I couldn't go on the internet because the router was out, couldn't watch tv, couldn't read because it was too dark. BUT, I also couldn't do any work for Mentorship, grad school apps, etc.. and with that came the amazing, guilt-free feeling of being incapable to work on anything. For once I could finally just take a second to just sit back and really just.. think. It was like a huge weight had been temporarily lifted off my shoulders, and I was free from all obligations.

Ah, what a great feeling that was. It was almost ridiculous how happy it made me feel for that hour or so. It was kind of a wake-up call that I'm probably trying to take on too much at once - what with being Program Director for Mentorship, doing W.A.L.L for Unicamp, working as a full-time TA, and applying to grad schools.. So, note to self: After this is all said and done, I need to cut back on the amount of stuff I try to take on at once. I love volunteering and having responsibility, but I'm learning more and more that my "free time" is just as valuable. I need time to just chill, catch up with friends, relax.. something I haven't really had time to do these past couple weeks, and probably won't have a significant amount of until June. *sigh*

Well, lesson learned. I'll just have to suck it up these next 5-6 months. Who knows, maybe there will be another blackout some time. :)