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Looking to the future

Winter break has ended, and now I can officially say that I’ve survived a whole quarter of college. It seems like only yesterday I was still a high school student, wondering to myself what life in college would be like. But now, here I am with an entire quarter under my belt. 

This next quarter, I plan to build on what I learned from last quarter. Now that I don’t have a writing class, I have no excuse to take as many all-nighters as last quarter. In fact, my class schedule this quarter is incredibly light, so my goal for this quarter is to not have to do any all-nighters at all. Speaking of, I really like my class schedule. I’m taking Anthropology 2A, Econ 20B, Math 2A, and University Studies 3. Three of these classes are online, which in my opinion makes the classes easier. I have in-person discussions throughout the week, but the only official in-person class I have is my University Studies 3 class, which is a chill photography class that meets one time a week. 

So far, everything class-wise has been going great. Even though it has only been two weeks, I hope things will continue to go in the right direction. This quarter, I want to try to secure an internship for the summer. As of right now, I have no plans for this summer, but I want to try and do something productive. (Especially since I did nothing but sleep and play video games over winter break)

As a U/U major, I was at first hesitant to the idea of getting an internship before I declared a major. However, after talking to other people, I have come to the conclusion that getting experience is a great thing as a freshman, even if I’m not 100% sure of what I want to do in the future. This summer, I want to get an internship related to my current prospective major, business economics. By doing this, I will be able to achieve two things: my short-term goal, which is to have something to do over the summer, and my long-term goal of building up experience to eventually work at a job that I enjoy. 

At my summer orientation (SPOP), I remember listening to a man talk about undergraduate research. In his talk, one way he advocated for research was the idea that “if you didn’t like it, at least you know you don’t like it now.” This really stuck with me, I realized it was a good mindset to have regarding trying new things. Mirroring this over to my upcoming summer, I will be trying to be an intern. If I do like it, great! But if I don’t like it, no problem. That just means I’ve narrowed down my options for the coming years.

Thanks for reading,

Ian

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How to Start anew

“If you want to change things in a big way, then you gotta make some big changes.” (Rocky Balboa)

Resolutions mean a lot to me. I see it always in the new year to drop the bad and pick up the good habits, to hold myself in a new standard. Always wishing for living healthier, learning new skills, and other ways to live life to the fullest. Of course not all of my resolutions stick, but the one’s that do, the resolutions that I still commit to this day, are life changes I hope I’ll use forever.

Hello everyone and welcome back from winter break and a happy new year! My winter break was a great time for me to come back from Irvine and reunite with family and old friends. I got the chance to celebrate Christmas and the New Year for another year. Coming back to Irvine, with a start of another quarter, I was much more prepared and ready for what was to come. Last quarter I remember spending a majority of it exploring and looking around all the possibilities that are provided around campus. Finding and learning all about clubs, study rooms, and networking with others were the main goals of my last quarter, a way that I could get a footing in pushing myself out there. Now this quarter I plan to set myself to stay on top of class work and develop on what I’ve already worked with. Using the study rooms I found more often, getting more involved in the clubs/organizations I’ve joined, and meeting up with all the new friends I met last quarter is all ways I’m improving my college experience bit by bit.

But just because you explored a lot last quarter, doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to explore. Everyday I always learn more and more about UCI. Take Aldrich Park for example. The park is known for being quite literally the center of the school, one of the calmest places on this busy campus, an eye of a hurricane. It’s a place where people gather to relax, socialize, and just have fun. When its good weather, you will almost always see others having picnics, taking naps, and walking around the park. Since it is also the epicenter of campus, it’s usually the meeting place for Petr sticker hunters to gather before the drops happen. Sometimes you won’t even need to look for the location of the drop but rather follow the running crowd over to get a free sticker of your own.

So with a fresh mind, experience from last quarter, and a positive outlook, I hope that I can take on this winter quarter and succeed. Wherever you are, I hope that you are able to do your best too.

Lets do our best,

Nicholas Chou

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Looking Forward and Back

I know it’s only been a month, but I’m feeling a little out of practice with this and not entirely sure where to start.  So, I suppose I’ll begin at the beginning: hello ZotBlog– it’s good to be back!

I’ve always had the somewhat misguided belief that the new year is a clean slate, a chance to start entirely anew, but as I set resolutions and decided what I want my 2023 to be, I thought a lot about how I want my life to change from where it is right now, rather than the vague goal of where I want to be by the end of 2023.  I think I discussed a lot of this in my last post of the Fall quarter, but the thing I’m looking for this quarter is routine; to try to establish some semblance of stability in my life with regards to the times I work, the times I study, and the times I use for relaxation.  I’m saddened to say that as of the time I’m writing this post (nearing the end of Week 2), I went to bed incredibly late last night and woke up closer to noon than sunrise, so I haven’t found much success there.  Fortunately, having to write this out and admit it to ZotBlog is some motivation to change my ways, and I hope I’ll be able to give a better update in my next post.

I thought a lot over Winter break about the person who I am right now and the person that I want to be, and those goals are a bit too personal and abstract for me to fully elaborate upon, but a major theme running through them is that I want to dedicate more time to figuring out who I am and engaging with things that interest me (if only to find out that they weren’t that interesting in the first place); I tend to be a passive person, resistant to change, and that makes for an unfortunate combination when it comes to exiting my comfort zone.  So, I hope to push myself a bit more during this quarter.  One part of this involves wanting to go to more events – as a commuter, a lot of the time, I feel like I’m just I’m clocking in for class and then leaving as soon as it’s over (which is mostly my own fault – I’ve been overindulging in the comforts of home).  So, that’s one way I intend to exit my comfort zone.

My first two weeks of Winter quarter have been nice, as my schedule actually allows me to be on campus at the same time as the sun (during Fall, all my classes were after 5 p.m., with the exception of one 8 a.m.), so I like that I can get my day done earlier.  I also found out that I have days that can be entirely taken on Zoom, which is not doing wonders for my motivation, but is a flexibility that I enjoy.  I’m still in the phase of getting acclimated to the new quarter, but I’m excited for what’s to come and I’m glad that I have established the foundation for systems to guide me through it.

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2023 and Charcuterie Boards!

Happy 2023 everyone! I hope you all had a restful winter break and got plenty of sleep, I know I did! During my break I went to my optometrist and she said that I was getting more than enough sleep! (This was because I had no reason to wake up for any classes) 😀

Some of my winter break highlights were spending time with my whole family, movie nights with my family, seeing my hometown friends, making charcuterie boards, and volunteering at a homeless shelter. 

For me, last quarter consisted of getting acclimated to the rhythm and life of UCI. I will admit that towards the end of the quarter, I started to feel less motivated because of the thought of winter break and exhaustion that was slowly starting to creep in. This resulted in me trying to take a “short nap” at 10pm and wake up by 10:30pm. In reality, I was sleeping at 10pm (which meant I was getting a decent amount of sleep), but meant that I had to catch up on work that I was aiming to complete the night before. Thankfully, I had classmates, encouraging friends, UCI’s LARC, and review sessions that were led by positive Learning Assistants, to study with for my final exams.  

One class that I will miss from last quarter would be my Physical Science 5, Introduction to  Science and Math Teaching. In this course, we had the special opportunity to go to an elementary school, work with a teacher and the classroom, and experience the day in the life of an elementary school teacher. I will miss my fieldwork teacher and always being greeted with a smile from the students that I worked with. 

As I am beginning my second week of Winter quarter, I can proudly say that it is quite different from what I experienced during the first couple of weeks of my Fall quarter. Some habits I have implemented are developing a consistent schedule and including office hours into my Google calendar. I did this because I want to make it a routine to attend them weekly. I am excited for this new quarter, attending my club meetings, strengthening my friendships and forming new ones, and enjoying every moment of the next 10 weeks. I also hope that I stay healthy for the majority of Winter quarter! Staying in good health is extremely important in college. I would highly recommend wearing a mask during the Flu season (November-December) in your lecture halls because this is when midterms and final exams occur. 

Again, Happy 2023! 

#ZOTZOTZOT

Here are some photos of my charcuterie boards.

This one was for a New Year’s Eve get together with hometown friends    

This one was made by me and my hometown best friend. 

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A Super Radilicious Fall Quarter (mostly radilicious and a little not but its okay)

Howdy,

Yay winter quarter. I mean it with zero enthusiasm, truly. One thing I have decided recently, after a spectacular winter break, is that I have been lying to myself. I do not like school. It sucks. I mean yeah who does but like I literally don’t want to do anything but read (I read this fantastic novel over the winter and the writing was just so phenomenal but I will get to that later). Like seriously, I am so ready to retire. I cannot wait for my life in thirty years when I am a super successful author (journalist? english teacher? magazine editor? super star celebrity? You see, as much as I have changed in the past few months, being undeclared is, it seems, still a major problem) and I can do whatever I want with my time and not have to think about money or, I don’t know, arbitrary obligations like school.

But enough rambling, I am supposed to reflect on the last quarter which, I kind-of don’t want to do but a prompts a prompt.

Well, academic-wise, I learned that, as an undeclared first-year looking into humanities, I can really kind of just try my best and still be successful. I have talked about this before I think but I took Writing 60 with Professor Ryan Chang and gosh, the class was so fun. As an intense writing course prioritizing research writing, I had to dive into professional academic writing and it turned out to be (to my surprise) a really enjoyable experience. The biggest thing that I learned from the course, though, was the strangeness of my work-ethic. You see, when it comes to writing, I really do not write unless it feels right. And I don’t really know to how to describe it to you, my dear reader, other than sometimes, I imagine writing my papers and feel dread and sometimes I feel excited; so I decided that I will write when whatever task I was supposed to do came easily. Same goes with most other things now. Of my obligations, it either gets done naturally and painlessly, or it won’t get done until then. So, my inconsistent work-ethic, and it’s exhilarating dangers is, of one of my recent self-discoveries.

Socially, I have more interesting things to talk about. I have honestly had a lot of trouble making friends and engaging in the community here. Back at home in the good ol’ Elk Grove, I was myself, comfortable and confident. But here, I was faced with a new environment, far far away from the luxuries of my family, close friends and most heart-wrenchingly, my 2009 Honda Accord that is so ever representative as a symbol of my adult freedom. So being a student here has been particularly rough on my social life. I had to learn to function around other people when I really didn’t who I was. Around these new Southern Californian plebeians, I was more anxious and more often than not, uncomfortable, insecure, and afraid of being myself. And even now, I am still working on this anxiety. It has been, believe me, very difficult but I know I am getting closer and closer to finding my confidence back.

On a more positive note, I am very proud of the past quarter actually. I have really put myself out there and, at times, a little too much. Sometimes, mostly in social situations, I would push past my discomfort in order to, you know, seize the moment, seize the day. But sometimes, personal growth and becoming a better human being has to take a backseat to how I am feeling. Sometimes, I don’t want to do things because I just don’t feel like it. Sometimes, I am tired and I don’t want to go to a team hang-out or study together or go and do a lot of methamphetamine (a joke). So, in a self-care moment, I have learned to protect my energy better. But my carpe diem adventures haven’t all been that bad. I have a few friends that I wouldn’t have talked to or wouldn’t have met if I let my anxiety stop me. And, I wouldn’t be on the amazing dance team that I am on if I had let my self-doubt win. So yay me! I hope you are “yay-ing” yourself too for your hard work over these past few months as well. And a quick warning, there is an incoming affirmation: I also hope you are remembering to be kind to yourself on this journey and that you are trying your best. I am practicing reminding myself that too: that I am trying my best, and it really is enough.

Anywho I shall be back to write my book review so look forward to part two of this when I abuse my Zot-Blog privileges to promote the superb literary prose in the novel “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara. So until then,

Toodles,

Jaden Chung