My Top 5 Saddest Moments in TV/Movies

We all need a good catharsis every once in a while. And although I experience the whole spectrum of emotions on a daily basis at my work, it is nice to experience emotions in a more.. shall we say, "controlled" environment. Hence my recollection on the TOP FIVE saddest moments in my history of television and movies. I have spent all of about 10 minutes trying to remember the saddest things I have ever seen, and here is what I have come up with, videos included. All of these scenes are pretty much guaranteed to bring tears to my eyes.

5. The End of Selena:

This is by no means one of my favorite movies - I've maybe seen it in its entirety once or twice. But this last scene definitely gets me every time. That hag in the car is annoying as eff, but after they show her sobbing some incoherent mess, they start to play "Dreaming of You" and show the empty stage.. and if that's enough, they cut to the family learning about Selena's death.. I DIE.

4. The Up Montage:

If you did not cry the first time you saw this, YOU ARE NOT ALIVE. No one warned me that the first time I saw Up (and every time thereafter), I would be crying my eyes out within the first 10 minutes. For a four minute time frame, it has got to be one of the most powerful montages out there. No dialogue, no words, just a beautiful, moving story.

3. The Annihilation of the Straw Hat Crew:

This actually takes a whole episode, but the clip condenses it down to a few minutes. Throughout the hundreds and hundreds of episodes leading up to this one, Luffy (the captain) has been on an epic journey in which he meets and recruits the 8 other members of his crew, which, after starting alone, he considers his closest friends (his "nakama"). On the brink of finally going to the New World, however, they face an opponent that completely outmatches them. Luffy is completely helpless as he watches his best friends get separated. One by one, his crew members are defeated and sent off into the unknown.. the saddest being the weaker ones who cry out for help, but with Luffy being unable to do anything about it. These scenes were DEVASTATING to watch, especially because it was so unexpected. The show is literally based around his crew, and they are all defeated and separated in one episode. The guilt and desperation that Luffy feels is really hard to watch, and you can't help but feel for him..

2. The End of Toy Story 3:

Guaranteed sobbing every time I see this. As someone who grew up getting way too attached to material objects (such as toys), the ending of Toy Story 3 definitely hits some personal notes. Who hasn't at some point in their life had to decide whether it was time to finally give up that favorite childhood toy? Silly as it may seem, there is a special bond created between physical toys and a child's imagination. I grew up having "adventures" with my toys - just me and the toys. Do kids even do that anymore? I still have a select few of my toys in my closet from those childhood days that I have not been able to give up, and even though I don't even remember them for years at a time, I find comfort now, in my reminiscing, that they are still there. In this scene, you can see how conflicted Andy is when he is debating whether to give up Woody or not. When he says "Thank guys.." at the end, and then Woody says "So long, partner.." wow. Get me EVERY time.

1. How I Met Your Mother: Season 1 Final Scene:      

 

"As I rode home the next morning, the city looked the same, the people looked the same, it all looked the same.. but it wasn't.. in just one night, everything had changed."
It was really close between this scene and #2, and honestly they're almost interchangeable, but the suddenness and tone of this one makes it #1. The music they chose for this scene is PERFECT - the scene would not be the same without it. The change of expression on Ted's face - from happy to the dawning understanding of what happened - and then the cut to Marshall sitting alone on the steps in the rain.. no words were necessary.

And there you have it. The Top 5 saddest scenes, in my personal opinion. I'll have to make my next post a relatively happy one to balance out this one. Some honorable mentions that did not make the list:

Going Merry Funeral:

This is also from One Piece, and features the funeral of a talking ship. Judge me.

LOST: Charlie's Death:

The saddest scene from one of my fav shows, LOST.

1st year of Grad School Recap

So it appears I've been neglecting my blog.. for a while. And by a while, I mean almost a whole year. Oops. I've been meaning to write in it, but so much time had elapsed that I just figured I would wait it out until I was completely done with my first year of grad school. And that day comes tomorrow, as I finish my last day of student teaching.

Needless to say, a lot has happened in the gap of time from my last blog post to now. I'm living in a new apartment, I am in a new relationship ("new" as in about 6.5 months new), and I have a new job lined up for next year. A "big person" job, teaching math at Animo Locke 2 High School.

A lot has happened in my first year in graduate school, but I feel like I haven't changed too much, in the sense that at my core, I am pretty much the same person. By the time we're this old, most people have a pretty strongly established core, right? I do, however, feel like I have gained some new perspectives, acquired some new skills, and perhaps most importantly, learned some new things about myself. How exactly do you learn new things about yourself? Well, it's not so much learning, as it is realizing what was there all along, and bringing it into your consciousness. It only took a couple weeks of student teaching for me to realize what my strengths and weaknesses as a teacher, and there are definitely a lot of weaknesses. So much so, that there were definitely a few points in the year where I seriously questioned my decision to become a teacher. Where I almost gave it all up for a career that would be less stressful and depressing. For a good while, I was coming home feeling defeated everyday, and it was really affecting my mood.

Luckily for me, along with recognizing my weaknesses, I also realized another thing: that I am very critical of myself. That I need to give myself a chance to get better at this before I call it quits. That I'm not going to be a super great social justice teacher my first year. That I need to rely and trust other people to help get me through the hard times. All these things are, of course, easier said than done. But at least I am aware of them, and that is a good first step. Now if only I can remember them...

And so in a little over one month, I will begin my first year as a "real" teacher, in addition to completing my second year of my Master's Program. This has all the makings to be one of the most challenging and testing years of my life; fortunately, I have people I can depend on to see me through it. Here's to a new chapter, a new summer vacation, and a new blog post.

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. :)

Grad school apps are one of the worst things ever. Specifically the personal statement section. I KNOW what I want to write, but whatever I type just doesn't seem good enough, like I'm not using the right words or making it exciting enough. And so then my motivation to work on them just gets lower and lower.. Not a good cycle. I just have to sit down and do it, even if it doesn't come out perfect. SOMEONE has to accept me, right? Who knows where I shall end up.

Grad school apps aside, there is a $50 Visa Gift Card that I should spend soon so they don't start taking monthly fees out of it. The prospect of being forced to buy something for myself is new to me. I keep thinking of what I should get with this money but I am not knowing. Here are some things I've been considering: new computer speakers, new TV (obviously more than $50), Xbox 360, GPS... that's really all I can think of.

The list of things I want for Christmas has gotten shorter and shorter over the years. Does this mean that I'm getting more content with what I have? Or maybe the things I want are something my parents aren't going to buy me for a holiday aka a new car, new tv, grad school tuition, etc...

I saw Avatar 3d last night and I think I blinked like 3 times in that whole 2 hours and 40 minutes. The visual effects were incredible.

Christmas Break

Ah yes... Christmas break. My favorite time of year. Not only is it one of the best chances to relax and have lots of free time, there are Christmas lights everywhere! And I get to spend a lot of time with family. So good memories and quotes I've had so far this break:


Me: Ahhh should I buy that new TV??
Gma: Well do you actually watch a lot of TV?
Me: I would if I had a nice one.
Gma: Well if I had a brain, I'd be a brain surgeon.
Me: ......?
- Talking to my grandma about getting a new TV

"Seven lords a milking"
- My grandpa's guess as to what is on the 7th day of Christmas

Playing Scattegories and Pictionary with my family.

Mom: Andrew, what are the 3 things you look most for in a girl?
me: I'll have to get back to you on that one.
Mom (a day later): Have you thought of the 3 things yet?
me: not yet
Mom: No wonder you don't have any dates
Me: sigh

Playing DDR and Diablo with Brian.

Anyways that's all the good stuff I can think of right now. While I was sitting in Christmas Eve mass, I had some time to reflect, and I came up with a New Year's Resolution. It's a bit general but I know what I need to do from it: Get it together. Yup, get it together. Life is going pretty well right now, but I'm at a point where I really need to get more organized and figure things out. Sometimes I tend to have a kind of go-with-the-flow attitude towards the future. I need to get my things together, clean up my room, get back to grad school apps, do Mentorship stuff, etc..

When there are a lot of things I should be doing, they sometimes cancel each other out, like if 2 equal forces are pulling in opposite directions. Then I end up feeling guilty about doing neither. I just gotta get down to it, even if it means sacrificing free time. This is hard for me to do, because I really value free time. Going out and being busy is great, and some people like to keep themselves completely busy, but I feel like I'm one of those people that needs their free, personal time. Just time to be alone and relax and chill. That's hard to do being Program Director for Mentorship and working at the same time, while trying to do grad school apps and now adding on doing WALL as well. This may well be one of the busiest times of my life. I just have to do my best to manage my time, trying to leave some free time where possible.

Well, the new year's resolution starts with cleaning up my room. It may seem like a trivial thing but I think it's a step toward organizing my life. Then comes making a list of what I need to do. Then working on grad school apps...

All right, that's enough for one post. Merry Christmas!

Hey Mr. Mendoza

I've been working as a Teaching Assistant for my 5th grade class for a few months now. When I first applied for the job, I had no idea what grade they were going to place me in, so I was ready to work anywhere from preschool to 6th grade. Now looking back, I'm really happy I got placed in the 5th grade. The kids are still silly and energetic at times (ok still most of the time), but are also mature enough to sit down and talk. I also shouldn't generalize the 5th grader though, because the students in my class are anything but uniform. There is such a wide variety of personality and maturity in this class, like each kid is their own separate character.

I've never worked with the same group of kids for so long and for so much time. I've worked with kids a lot before, but Unicamp is only a week long. Because I'm with them so much, I'm really starting to get to know them each on a really personal level, discovering their interests, personal history, quirks, habits, problems.. They are all so interesting in their own way, and I'm glad I'm going to get to keep working with them for the year.

On the flip side, they are also getting to know me pretty well. Surprisingly well in fact. They've noticed that I only shave once a week (with some of the girls demanding that I shave more), that most of my clothes are comprised of UCLA and Unicamp gear ("You need to lay off the Woodsey clothes, mister!"), and that I smile a lot (one of them calls me Mr. Smiley). Everyone in the class calls me Mr. Mendoza, though some of them pronounce it "Mr. Mandoza," and a few of them, deeming Mr. Mandoza too long to say, shortened my name to simply "Mr. Man." Eh, close enough. A couple of them saw my BruinCard from when I was a first-year, with the picture looking like I just came out of the military, and they laughed at me. Also, for some reason, it's a huge deal when a kid finds out your first name. One time one of the teachers let it slip in front of the class, and they were like.. *GASP*. Your real name is Andrew?! Like Mr. Mendoza is a fake name. :P

Life Update

Hello blog.

Sometimes I forget to write in my blog until someone reminds me that it's here. Anyhoo, it's been a while, so LIFE UPDATE TIME!

1. I've started working at UCLA Lab School, formerly known as University Elementary School, as a full time TA for 5th grade. In a closely related subject, I am now officially getting old. The kids call me Mr. Mendoza, I'm paying rent all by myself, and I don't go out past 10pm if it's a weeknight.
The job itself is pretty good - I'm getting a lot of experience working with kids, and hopefully it'll help me figure out if teaching is what I really want to do. The kids are very observant - they've noticed that I smile all the time, have a really loud laugh, and wear camp shirts a lot. They've also noticed that I only shave once a week.

2. I'm living in a new apartment this year with my roommate from first year, the legend BC (Brandon Contreras) himself, thus bringing my roommate cycle full circle. The apartment is a lot nicer than my old apartment (See: The Worst Apartment Ever) - it's bigger, the rooms aren't awkwardly shaped, it doesn't smell, it has reception, and there are no cockroaches. So +5 for new apartment. The manager was really mean at first, but I think I'm getting on his good side. On a downside, I saw some termites inside last week, but I swiftly killed them all and haven't seen anymore... yet...

3. Mentorship is really starting up now. My co-program director and I spent a lot of the summer writing our funding proposal, and I'm happy to say that a few days ago we found out that we got MONAY IN THE BANK! We got $9845 out of the 10000 we asked for, so we were very pleased.

4. I found a new show: How I Met Your Mother. It's quickly becoming one of my favorite shows.

5. I started playing Pokemon again. I played it on the car ride back from Vegas with my family this summer, and since then I've still been playing it. Although I'm playing less now because of #1 and #3.

The Westwood Omelette

I realized that my past few posts have been me ranting about stuff I didn't like, so I decided it was time to write about something of which I revere: The Westwood Omelette.

The Westwood Omelette at Headlines is my favorite meal in Westwood. The omelette seriously has everything you could ever ask for in an omelette, and more. It's like God descended from the Heavens, looked at the omelettes we had here on Earth, and said, "No no you silly humans, here is how you make an omelette." God then proceeded to create the Westwood Omelette and entrusted Headlines with the task of distributing His creation to the world at a reasonable price. God looked at the Westwood Omelette and said, "Yes, this is good."

I was trying to find a picture of it online and I couldn't find one, but the picture wouldn't do it justice anyways. Just imagine in your head a huge omelette, with cheese, avocado, bacon, ham, and tomatoes, served with delicious hash browns and french toast. Now imagine that x10 and you have the Westwood Omelette. I realize that an omelette may not seem like a thing to get this excited over, but only those who have not tasted the Westwood Omelette would think such things. I hope to some day live in a world where everyone appreciates the Westwood Omelette for what it really is, and I have them served to me in bed on a platter every morning by little Headlines fairies. Until then, if you're down to go get a Westwood Omelette at Headlines, I'm down as well.

Music on the Radio

So I was driving home on the freeway today, flipping through my radio stations like I usually do, and I hear this catchy song, and I think to myself.. "wow, maybe there's actually something good on the radio now!" Turns out it was a commercial for Toyota. And that's when I really realized it: the radio, for the most part, just does not satisfy my musical needs anymore. All these new songs seriously sound the same.. And at one point on my drive, that one song, "Tonight's Gonna be a Good Night" or whatever it's called, was playing on 3 stations at once. I only like this song when I'm in the car with other people, cause then it's like.. ya know, tonight is gonna be a good night with my friends, and the lyrics are simple enough to repeat over and over. But when you're driving by yourself, the song just gets annoying and repetitive in my opinion.

Sorry, I got a little caught up on my rant on that Good Night song. But yea, I've been resorting to turning off the radio and just singing in the car by myself. Not even singing along with the radio.. just singing by myself. I find it a lot more entertaining than most of the radio. Unfortunately, my car does not have a CD player, and the tape player also isn't working so I can't use the tape converter for my ipod. It's hard to emphasize how unfortunate this is, because good music would make car rides a heck of a lot more fun.

Then again, maybe this is just me getting old and not liking all this new crazy music that kids listen to nowadays. Don't get me wrong, I do like some of the new stuff that's out there. But for the large part, I don't like the general trend of where the music industry is going right now. Specifically in the rap/hip hop genre, which is mostly what the radio plays. Maybe I just need to find some new stations? I've found myself starting to drift away from kroq, kiis fm, and amp radio to more mellow stations like My FM and Coast.. :P

The Worst Apartment Ever

Ok, so I've only lived in two apartments so far, and one of them was a furnished University Apartment, but I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the apartment I stayed in last year is one of the worst apartments, if not the worst apartment, in the Westwood apartment area. Where do I begin...

I guess there are a lot of little things that add up to big problems, and there are also big things that are just big problems on their own.

1. Smell. The apartment building had a variety of odors, none of which were all too pleasant. Depending on where you were in the building, you could experience a different foul odor. The elevator often smelled of alcohol and trash, our own apartment often smelled of secondhand smoke, courtesy of the chronic weed smokers elsewhere in the complex, and in the hallways you could actually smell a plethora of different aromas as you walked the length of the corridor. Someone wrote "This place STANK!" on the elevator door halfway through the year, and the mark was definitely warranted.

2. Reception. Or rather, lack thereof. It wasn't very convenient getting voice messages and missed calls hours after they were placed. Nor was it fun having to go outside the building every time I wanted to make a call.

3. Ya know, the place was just OLD, and in need or repair. They just need to shut down the building for a while and renovate the place. When we first moved in, they claimed that they "cleaned" the carpet, which apparently doesn't include removing bits of trash and nails. My closet doors were broken all year, though they "fixed" it a few times. At one point in the year all the burners in our stove stopped working. The water from our bathroom sink and shower was brown for a while, and sometimes it smelled like sewage. I learned to always smell the water first before using it.

4. Floor plan. The apartment had the most awkward floor plan I have every seen. Who makes rooms in pentagon shape?? It's like the place wasn't designed to accommodate furniture (or people for that matter).

5. Roaches. I saved the best for last, because this is what really made the whole apartment experience. Let me introduce you to our 5th roommate, the cockroach colony. They were there when we first moved in, and who knows how long they had already been there. Naturally, we complained, filled out request forms, etc, every time leading to an attempt at spraying down the place and leaving nice smells (see #1). However, I am fairly confident that all the spraying did was cause the roaches to evolve into bigger and stronger roaches. Survival of the fittest at its best. In the beginning of the year, they were actually pretty small and slow. Towards the end of the year, they had gotten much bigger in size, and I'm pretty sure some of them were starting to evolve wing-like structures on their backs. Thankfully I'm not going to be around when they finally do evolve the ability to fly. Seeing as how the feeble attempts of the apartment service were only making the roaches stronger, we had to take matters into our own hands. This marked the beginning of a longstanding war between us and the roach colony. We bought traps and our own spray, but the roaches had numbers on their side. Clearly, a large scale attack was needed. And so about halfway through the year, The Purge happened - we cleaned everything possible, sprayed in every corner, and for once we thought everything was going to be ok. We slept peacefully that night. Unfortunately, it was a false sense of comfort. The next day, the roaches were already back. I'm pretty sure all we did was anger them. And so we conceded to a truce - they stay in the kitchen and come out only at night, and we'd just let them be. This worked for a while, but blatant violations of the truce soon began, and we were powerless to stop it, still being demoralized from the failed Purge. It got to the point that sometimes I would open up a drawer, watch a cockroach scramble out from inside one of my bowls, and be like "eh." By the end of the year, we knew that we had clearly lost the war. Whenever I would go out into the kitchen at night, I would give the roaches a 10 second grace period after I turned on the lights to run and hide in their little corners, so I could at least pretend like they weren't there. Towards the end of the year though, they just stayed where they were after I turned on the lights, mocking me, knowing that I was defeated and powerless...

For the price we paid, the apartment was nothing short of robbery. There was ONE redeeming factor about the place, and that was that we had free fire in the fireplace. You could flip a lightswitch, and a fire would come on in the fireplace! Sometimes I would turn on the fire even if it was hot, because it was the only good thing about the apartment, and I wanted to cling to that light in dark times.