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Brandon’s Idealized Brain

Although my mind doesn’t always look like this, I think this beautifully artistic graphic represents my priorities pretty accurately. Of course, school and studying will almost always take top priority for me. UCI offers some really amazing opportunities and ways to get out and have fun, but the reality is that more than likely you are paying quite a lot of money with the primary purpose of obtaining a great education. Often times it’s easy to lose sight of that, and I’ve personally let my studies slip a little more than I would’ve liked this quarter. I think that as a student, it’s natural that your studies should take top priority. All that being said however, your health and well being are just as important in the grand scheme of things.

I’ve always believed that your studies and well being go hand in hand. It’s hard to be successful in one if you’re unsuccessful in the other. For instance, if you’ve been getting 3 hours of sleep for the past week you’re definitely not going to be able to perform well in your classes despite the studying you’ve done. On top of that, you’re probably going to feel terrible and not going to have the motivation to keep studying hard. At the same time, if you slip and let your grades suffer there’s a good chance that you’ll become stressed and that’ll take a toll on your health and well being as well. It’s important to balance both your studies and your health so that you can enjoy your time at UCI.

Social life and leisure time is the third section of my brain, and may as well also be a part of the well being section. Aside from friends at UCI, I find it’s personally important for me to keep in touch with family and friends back home. I get homesick quite easily, so part of taking care of myself includes finding time to call my parents and siblings. Me and my friends all love video games, so to keep in touch we play multiplayer games together. The icon to the right of the leisure section is for a pc video game client called Steam, which lets all of us connect and socialize while we’re playing.

The last section is extra curricular activities, which include clubs and hall activities like the FYEP philanthropy project. When I was in high school, I naively thought that extra curriculars were just a way to help increase my chances of getting into college, but now that I’m here, it’s more apparent than ever that they are still important. Counselors and mentors always stress that networking and making connections with a variety of people is one of the most important things you can do in college. Grades are important of course, but meeting new people is also important to help find opportunities which may even lead to internships and career paths.

Although this brain illustration is overly simplified, I hope it gives a good idea of what is important to me and how I try to organize my priorities here at UCI.

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Inside the Freshman Mind

Everyone in university has important details to keep in mind, be it the date of the next midterm, your next enrollment window, or the details of the study session that you just went through. For me however, I like to tell people I’m a pretty simple person. So I used the following picture to describe the things I personally keep in mind while at school.
As you can see, its pretty simple. Four boxes for the four major pillars that keep me going. There is a hierarchy to this image in that like in all things, studies should take priority because that is the reason you’re here at UCI after all. Studying itself is important to me because its like the key that will open up doors for you in the future. I like to think of studying as a way to make that key unique so that the doors that become available to you are ones that will fit your key. Thus, studying takes the highest priority in my mind.

Next on the hierarchy is socializing. This is also another important aspect of college like and is especially important for me because its friends that you learn which professor to take, what is most likely going to be on the final, and if the class is enjoyable or not. I used the logo of an app called Discord because that’s what my friends and I usually use to communicate albeit playing games together or just having a conversation. There was a recent series of events that really made me appreciate having friends in university that I will get to later in the post.

Down the hierarchy is food. Despite hearing some dorm mates complain about the food here, I feel like it was strictly better than what I was eating in high school so I’m not complaining. That being said I put food in my brain because there’s no better feeling than just sitting down, eating, and just talking with friends or studying. I often see people in the Anteatery studying because it has a moderate amount of noise that for some people helps them concentrate. On top of that eating food also keeps you alive so that’s also a nice bonus.

Lastly there’s arguably the most influential aspect of university life, sleep. The photo is also extremely accurate of what goes through my head whenever I head back to the dorm. The question is no longer “what time should I sleep” it has evolved to become “how long can I get away with sleeping” because at UCI, there is always things to do. Sleep is important because simply if your tired, your not learning and that would be detrimental to the most important part of this hierarchy.

Now, for that story that made me appreciate friends. This actually happened yesterday while working on a project for my BIOSCI 9B class that I took with a few of my friends. Being an online class, we didn’t need to go anywhere for our lectures but that’s besides the point. This project is essentially just to create your own food experiment and write a report on it and turn it in. Simple right? That’s because it is. My friends and I decided to extract red cabbage juice and utilize its sensitivity to pH to show the effects of making pancakes with different ingredients. We didn’t foresee the effect of boiling the cabbage which ended up causing the first and second floor of the dorm to smell strongly of cabbage. That was also the night that we learned that cabbage is not popular with the other people in our dorm. We had a lineup of ingredients to mix in like bananas, pineapples, almonds, and the strangest one, baking soda. The whole experiment was going well up until the final portion of the experiment. That was when someone in the group thought it would be a good idea to eat the pancakes that we made. Looking back, 3 of the 4 pancakes that we made were actually pretty good except the baking soda one. I can still taste it just typing about it. It was the unholy combination of way too much baking soda and pancake mix. Now you may be wondering why use baking soda? It was because there was no fruit or vegetable that we could think of that was basic enough to change the color of the mix. Almonds came close but the amount that we needed to even change the color slightly made it so that the pancake ended up being a brick rather than a pancake. Now back to this horrid creation, when you chewed that pancake, you could feel the granules of baking soda between your teeth. It was also beyond bitter and just overall an unpleasant experience. Sadly, one of the members of the group took the worst of it as he ended up having to run outside and throw up around a total of 8 times. So, for future reference, never use baking soda in pancakes or if you do, don’t eat it.

 

Zot On!


-Josh

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FYEP Grey Havens Philanthropy Project

My hall Grey Havens is part of what is known as the First Year Excellence Program, or FYEP for short. Every year, all of the FYEP halls organize a philanthropy, community service project. It serves as both a way to give back to the community, as well as a way for first years to build up their resume. I was personally a little skeptical at first. I thought to myself, “Man I already have so much work, is this worth it?” I figured it would be at least worth checking out, so I decided to go to the first meeting with my room mates. After the first meeting though I was totally on board.

The project is organized and overseen by our wonderful UU counselor Andrea, but the residents are the ones who actually plan everything out and make the project their own. Attendance isn’t mandatory, but we’ve really been trying to get more people to come out. Even if residents choose not to be a part of the planning committee, they can still help with the event itself. As of now, we have around fourteen people who show up regularly, and we’re making good progress! Our goal right now is to hold a community event at the Brookdale Senior Living Facility over by UTC, and we’re still in the process of communicating and getting something officially organized with them. We’re thinking of holding a kind of roaring 20’s themed dance/game night with the residents, and we’ve been trying to think of different ideas for activities.

Right now I’m in charge of putting together a music playlist for the event, and I’m also working with other people to come up with fundraiser ideas. Other people are in charge of communicating with Brookdale, trying to recruit people, and managing the project’s Facebook page. Although it can be a lot of work depending on what you volunteer to do, I see it as one of those things where the more you put into it, the more you get out. So far it’s been really exciting coming up with ideas and seeing our group making progress. I’m really looking forward to executing the actual event and seeing all of our efforts come to fruition. If you’re an incoming freshman reading this and choose the first year excellence program as your desired theme, definitely make an effort to come out to the events. I know it doesn’t seem like it’d be fun to add work on top of all the other responsibilities you already have, but I can say for sure that it’s been totally worth it.

 

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Valentine’s Day Shenanigans

It all started about 3 weeks ago when my roommate saw this flyer on Instagram:

My roommate told me there was an event where I could get Hydro Flask for free. To me this was a surprise because a regular Hydro Flask costs around $30-60 so to me this was a great deal, so I asked what this event was and he said a matchmaker event, where they would pair you with someone based on how you answered the questions on their survey. After hearing that my decision changed to NO. Feeling as though he could convince me, my roommate decided to open up the survey, fill it out, and leave it for me to submit when I came back from class later that same day. I however, was not amused and closed out of that tab. The following day, my roommate asked me if I submitted the survey to which I said no. Looking back, he was probably getting annoyed with me because he then took to our friends back in Eastvale saying “Ay yall gotta convince josh to do this”. Luckily there were still some friends that would take my side in this issue because a number of them were arguing that the free stuff needs to be like “a PS4/Korean BBQ/Monster Hunter World all in one to bait josh” while others took my roommate’s side. It was at this point where I learned that my roommate was planning to redo the survey and rather than wait for me to hit submit, hit submit for me. Then, he noted that I would HAVE to go since I was going to be paired with someone apparently and it would be rude to leave them standing. Upon learning of this plan, I promptly changed the password to my computer (before this event, he knew my computer’s password to gain access to my sound system).

The next day he asked me that if one of our mutual friends thought it was a good idea for me to go would I? I agreed having complete faith that our mutual friend, Brendon, would take my side in this argument and I would not have to sign up just to help my roommate get a Hydro Flask. This was my critical mistake because when he called up Brendon, I swear that he must’ve bribed him beforehand or something because Brendon betrayed my trust in him and told us that he also thought that I should sign up for the matchmaker event. Jokingly I told him that he was the one that was supposed to destroy the dark side not join it. Brendon responded by saying “Hey, you never know you could meet the one.” To which I told him to get out of my room. Now backed into a corner, I played my final card to attempt and get a positive outcome from this argument. I told the two of them “I’ll do it later” with no actual intent to do it.  I almost got away with it but Brendon and my roommate knew me for too long and knew that I wouldn’t do it so they just sat there, staring at me, and said, “We’re not leaving until you sign up for this.” Defeated I gave them my word that I would sign up for it before the sign-up window closed and went back to whatever I was doing before my roommate brought Brendon up to my room.

That weekend, I went home and signed up for the matchmaker event since I gave my word to both of them. So at this point the survey consisted of basic questions like:
What are some hobbies/interests of yours?
Music Genres?
Major?
Additional Comments?

After filling it out I just submitted it and waited.

On the day of the event, I had to ask my Resident Adviser where the Conejo Suite was since I never been there. Upon learning of its location I made my way over and found that rather than the matchmaker event as I was expecting, the poster in the window said Mesa Court Social. Confused, I waited until a little later to go in (since I was still early). When I did walk in, there was only one other person in the entire room and somehow her color under her name tag (which was just a piece of tape with your name and a color) matched mine so I walked over and tried to strike up a conversation while waiting for my roommate to arrive. As the social event went on it was getting obvious that there was no sort of matchmaking being made so I just strolled over to my roommate and dorm members and just sat with them for most of the night. While there was hot chocolate and doughnut holes, there was no stirring straws to mix the hot chocolate so I just kinda had to wait it out. That night, I ended up meeting the Vice President of the Mesa Court Council who seemed like the kind of person who would have that position in my opinion. He was super sociable and upbeat about anything and everything, these attributes mixed with the fact that I ended up sitting next to him made it so that I was constantly in a conversation. While talking to the VP I noted that many of the people are only here for the Hydro Flask, much like my roommate. He agreed and realized that he should distribute the two Hydro Flasks that they bought at the middle and end of the event to ensure that people will stay. I told him that was a great idea to make people stay but I was hoping he wouldn’t execute on that plan because that would mean I had to stay the whole event to try and get the Hydro Flask that my roommate wanted. It was soon approaching time to give out the first Hydro Flask and the conditions to be entered to win were that you must have signed up on the survey. So this was the time to try and pray to whatever lucky symbol I had so that I could win the Hydro Flask, but much like my plans on the weekends, nothing happened. So I stuck around until the end of the event in hopes of winning the second one and when that time came the conditions were that you had to have walked into the event. Personally I thought this was a ridiculous idea since the whole event was supposed to be based on the Google Forms surveys so I was slightly annoyed but to those of you who won the Hydro Flasks, congratulations.

So, did the event meet my expectations? No in fact it should have been called what it was a social, not a matchmaking event. Did I find it fun and useful? It was definitely fun but I don’t enjoy being told one thing and ending up attending something completely different. Regardless, it looks like its going to be another Valentines full of ice cream for me.

Zot On!
-Josh

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February 14, 2018

Ahh yes, February 14,Valentines Day. But it was also the same week as Ash Wednesday for Catholics, and Lunar New Years! So it was a pretty eventful day for me with a Valentine’s Day dinner at the Anteatery, Ash Wednesday mass on campus at the Crystal Cove auditorium, and VSA tet general meeting.

The first event was Valentine’s Day dinner at the Anteatery on Tuesday, February 13. Around week 2, Mesa court residents received an email about a special Valentines Day dinner and people could RSVP to go with a significant other or friend. It was semi formal attire with a full five course meal, all for free at the Anteatery. I was lucky enough to be one of the few who RSVPed early enough to get a spot with my friend. Personally, I love dressing up so my roommates helped me curl my hair, do my makeup, and pick out an outfit for the dinner. The food was surprisingly good and I was so impressed it came out of the Anteatery. There was a crab cake salad, mushroom tortellini, and so much more. United Voices, an acapella group on campus, to come perform for us! It was such a nice experience because it make Valentine’s Day a little less stressful and a lot more fun. I would definitely recommend this for incoming freshman! I’m so glad I got to experience this.

Ash Wednesday was the next day on February 14, and as a Catholic, I fasted and abstain from meat so I am so thankful the Valentine’s Day dinner was the night before. For those unfamiliar with Ash Wednesday, it marks the beginning of Lent, a season of fasting and prayer in preparation for Easter. There is a special mass where Catholics can receive ashes as a sign of repentance and an outward symbol of their faith. The University Catholic Community held mass on campus at Crystal Cove which was amazing and so so convenient. I was actually so excited because there were so many people there for a mass that isn’t even mandatory. It was so cool to see everyone gathered there for mass and be part of a huge community.

Lunar New Year was also that weekend so for VSA’s general meeting, staff members wore our traditional ao dais. As an intern, I wore my ao dai too to celebrate the new year by playing games with the members and get into the spirit. So those two days were pretty eventful for me. On Valentines Day, I passed out flowers to all my friends to brighten their days, had my traditional Vietnamese ao dai on, and had ashes on my forehead for quite an eventful day. There are so many events at UCI going on, so reach out and find one that speaks out to you!