Flashback Fridays: Statement of Intent

Before my brother graduates from high school a month from now, he'll need to decide where he wants to go for college. My parents forced me to have a little talk with him--let him know his options, share my own experiences, and help guide him on the right path.

All this college-talk took me back to a time three years ago when I was just absolutely the most indecisive person and couldn't decide where I wanted to go to school. I guess my brother is in that same boat right now. I wanted to venture off from home and go to school in Southern California, but a part of me was really scared to make that commitment. Back and forth I contemplated mainly three choices. Finally on the last possible day to submit my statement of intent to register, I picked a school. I wasn't satisfied with my decision initially, wishing I had more time to decide. Prolonging things probably would have made the decision more difficult anyway, if anything. I was anxious and regretted my decision for the longest time. In retrospect, I don't think it was until my second month in college that I actually fully accepted my choice and started to embrace my school and my college experience.

At the end of the day, I can say sure, I occasionally ponder what life would be like at UCLA or UCSD, but I have been a Cal Bear for three years now and I've loved (mostly) every minute of it.

I look forward to hearing from my brother when he makes his decision. It'll be his start to a fantastic four years.

Digression: Anyhow, I just wanted to add that I have had the nicest, stress-free week. Thanks to everyone who made this possible!

Crystal Lately.

Long time, no posts.

I've just been feeling a little stressed out with school, feeling ridiculously uninspired and just plain lethargic at best. Study, eat ramen, sleep...as the routine went. I'm finally done with midterms, but I've still got a couple more papers left to churn out, but I'm hoping those won't be too bad. I'm slowly starting to pick myself back up. 7th-inning end-of-semester stretch, right?

I had a nice little conversation with some friends and acquaintances the other day about post-graduate plans and such. They were all business majors and to be honest, it was really nice not hearing the words "pre-med" or "med school" coming out of their mouths as I hear from most of the people I meet here on campus. These folks are so motivated and goal-oriented that they have inspired me to just suck it up and continue to do what I'm doing. I remember someone asking me how I felt about school and the workload I'm doing, and I responding by saying that at times I feel depressed. I quickly took that statement back because "depressed" is such a strong word, and depression is a serious mental issue. I'm not depressed, just occasionally down or discouraged, like the average college student.

It's just been really tough now that I'm essentially fulfilling requirements for three different areas of study--social welfare, education, and nursing, and it can be taxing. Throw in my terrible habit of comparing my life and situation with other folks' lives. I have friends studying abroad this semester and I'll just be honest here, I am jealous to say the least. Sometimes I think if I had planned my college career better and knew what I wanted to do from the start, I could be abroad as well. It's funny that the one thing I thought I knew I was going to do in college--study abroad--is the one thing that I definitely will not be doing. But that's life. It doesn't necessarily always work out as we've planned, and life is some crazy dynamic thing...I guess I've just gotta roll with the punches and just keep swimming.

 

Hello Spring Break!

Someone started playing Rebecca Black's "Friday" at the end of chem lecture...totally an appropriate symbol of the start of the weekend and spring break, haha.

Even though break has just begun, I feel as if my brain has been on break since the beginning of the week. I had trouble waking up for class all week. I stopped reading for my classes. I dropped and broke a flask and ended up spilling dilute HCl all over myself in chem lab. School has just been overwhelming and frustrating. Break could not have come at a better time.

As frustrating as this past week may have been, it wasn't all so bad, especially toward the end of the week. I had the opportunity to reconnect with some friends I hadn't hung out with in quite a while. I met up with Jesson and went on a mini excursion to Oakland's Chinatown area to grab lunch at a cute little cafe. We had their famous pulled pork adobo sandwich. I'd never had adobo before and needless to say, I really enjoyed it! On Thursday night, I met up with Deanna and Rick for sushi at Joshu-Ya Sushi. This place has the most extensive specialty sushi menu I have ever seen. We shared some rolls, and had some nice conversations. Hooray for good food and good company!

As for spring break itself (this week), I plan simply to relax and catch up on my schoolwork. I know this isn't really exciting, but hey, it'll do.

flashback fridays: everything was easy then

Fridays will now be "Flashback Fridays"? Possibly maybe.

I was browsing through some old photos and came across these photos from a Cal football game back in 2008. To be honest, I've never really been that interested in college football, but hey, who can pass up free tickets?  Anyone who has not been to a football game should definitely go. The fans are so loyal and supportive and this creates just the most amazing environment of intense school spirit. Go Bears!

Looking back at these photos, I feel as if I haven't done anything as fun as attending a football game since my first year. As a third year now, I definitely feel more withdrawn and less social. School has been getting tougher with the years, and I feel like my workload is just barely manageable. I have also been thinking a lot about what post-college life will entail. Grad school immediately after? Take a year off? I am perplexed.

I was a carefree first year with not too much to worry about. Everything was easy then. What happened?

Things I'm Loving Thursdays: Cream Cheese Frosting & Cupcakes

I've been thinking that I should post with themes/features on certain days just to give this blog a little more organization beyond the random ramblings I do. So far I've come up with "Things I'm Loving Thursdays".

I've been loving cream cheese frosting on cupcakes. I've never been particularly fond of cream cheese by itself, say on bagels. I do however, love cheesecake, and I guess now I'm loving cream cheese frosting!

We made these carrot cupcakes about a week ago. They were absolutely delicious! We had a lot of fun frosting and decorating these too!

"Yeah, we're hungry"

It's Thursday night. We're all studying very hard. We hadn't had dinner yet and it was 9:30 pm. Someone suggests wings and pizza and next thing you know we have 55-pieces of spicy buffalo wings, a large pizza, eight cheesy garlic twisty sticks, and a whole lot of ranch dipping sauce delivered to the apartment.

Delivery man: "This is a lot of food!"

Me: "Yeah, we're hungry."

So for six girls, this was a whole lot of food--definitely a late night pig out. No worries, we didn't actually finish all this food. We still have leftover wings in the fridge because seriously, 55 wings is a whole lot of food.

I expect to have gained pounds after all this stress-eating I've been doing for this round of midterms.

eggplant parmesan & air conditioning?

The roomies and I made this eggplant parmesan a while back. I love love love eggplant, so I was super excited that we decided to make this. It was labor intensive, but absolutely worth the time and effort it took to make! We even made the sauce from scratch. I've never made sauce from scratch! Totally delicious.

On another semi-related note, I've noticed that the roomies and I have been cooking way more this semester than any other. I guess we've all just become super fed-up with eating ramen and cereal all the time. We're cooking so much more now that we occasionally joke around about pitching a show to the Food Network about college students cooking on a college student budget. We'll be famous like Paula Deen!

We'll probably need to put cooking on hold for this coming week though. It's midterms round two! I need to be spending more time in the library and less time in the kitchen. AHHH, wish me luck!

Oh, and our heater has turned itself into an air conditioner.  Instead of blowing out nice warm air, it has become confused and insists on blowing out cold air. It just decided that it wanted to malfunction on us in this ridiculously cold weather. I slept with four blankets last night. We're working on getting this thing fixed...soon!