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idiotically old and impatiently young

Something interesting I’ve been thinking of lately is about dating journal entries as a kid. I used to write in a journal as a kid and I never put the year the entry was written in. I always either wrote “Saturday” or “03/28”– the day of the week or the date sans year. As a kid I had lived for such a minute amount of time that I felt in my bones I would remember exactly what I was writing about and when I was writing about it. At the ripe age of 18 years old, it’s a weird dichotomy of: feeling like I’ve learned so much and feeling like I’ll never run out of questions with no answers. It could just be the fact that I’ve gone through a rapid period of growth in my life. In the span of 8 years, I went from a literal child who wanted to eat spaghetti for dinner every night to a whole ass adult who ponders the world and how she can fill that immense space with something meaningful. That’s an incredibly high rate of progression through life that I’m only just realizing and a reasonable explanation for my sudden mental game of tug-of-war. I’ve learned and grown an immeasurable amount since being 10 years old and that’s why I feel so sage. But the weird thing about being 18 is also that you’re only starting to realize how much you don’t know. 18 feels idiotically old and impatiently young at the same time. 

I feel excited to collect all the answers to my questions as I continue to live. It’s such an exciting time to be alive and something I’m not likely to let pass me by. Sometimes I feel frustrated that I don’t know it all and I feel like life would be so much easier if I just had all the answers. But then there’s not really a point in living I guess? If you’ve got all the answers and no more questions to ask what pushes you to keep going? Maybe my perception of life is skewed and incomplete because I still have so much life left to live but at the moment I see life largely as an endless pursuit for answers, for knowledge. 

Sometimes I wonder how I’ll feel when I’m older and I’m not 18 and I don’t have my whole life ahead of me because I’m in the middle of the life I was so excited to live when I was 18. Will I feel this same excitement? I’m sure I’ll find more things to wonder about and be excited for but at the moment I wont worry about that too much. I’ve got too much to figure out in the present moment to worry about my future moments.

Extremely happy to be idiotically old and impatiently young and looking forward to collecting life lessons and  answers to my endless slew of questions that I hopefully never run out of.

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One Down

Well that was incredibly fast. Look at us. We’ve made it to the end yet the journey has just begun…

Last week an incoming UCI freshman, total stranger, DM’ed me and asked for college advice. Whoa what? I didn’t think I was qualified to give advice, but actually I was. Right then I realized that I had so much to say and so much more that I knew compared to when I first began. As a first generation college student, I couldn’t go to my parents for college advice. I instead resorted to older friends, youtube videos, reddit forms, etc. That was the main thing that helped me navigate my first year, advice and information. If you are an incoming/continuing student, the most effective thing you could do to prepare for the future, in my opinion, is ask people with experience for their advice. You’d be surprised at how useful it is later. 

I realized that writing these reflections really helped me organize my messy thoughts. But most importantly, this method of journaling allows me to track my progress. I am able to look back on detailed entries and see how I have grown and how I’ve overcome obstacles. I can record what I’ve learned from my experiences. It is the closest thing to a time machine for my thoughts. You don’t have to be a Zot blogger to write your reflections. I keep a separate journal at home for my personal life too. I suggest keeping a physical/digital journal and writing a reflection every week or so. Write anything that is on your mind, your worries, dreams, accomplishments big or small. Trust me, when you get to look back and realize how far you’ve come, it is the most rewarding feeling ever. 

One thing I think I’ve done successfully is that I came mentally prepared for the rigor of college academic work. I expected classes to be difficult. I anticipated the late nights of studying and finishing assignments. I knew that I had to really manage my time well and be responsible for my own future. Having these realistic expectations, I felt ready to take on anything that I put my mind to. It’s all about your mindset. One thing I wish I could have done better is connecting with my professors more. I hear that it is important to build a network of people in your field of study/career, but I just haven’t taken the initiative to do that yet. Hopefully with in-person school next year, I’ll have a better opportunity to do that. 

My final piece of advice: Remember that everything will be alright, trust me on that. Sometimes it seems like it won’t, but if you work hard and keep your head up, you’ll get to the other side and be okay 🙂

I hope this helps someone out there. I hope you know that you’re not facing these difficulties alone. Okay, it has been a pleasure to share my experiences with you on the Zot Blog. Thank you for reading, and good luck!!

Signing off, 

Rebecca Nguyen <3

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I guess this is goodbye.

Wow. My first year of college went by in the blink of an eye.

Some of my biggest milestones this year: finishing the last math classes of my entire life (hopefully), maintaining decent grades while online learning, getting fully vaccinated, and completing several internships! I got to say… I’m proud of myself for not giving up. This year was rough for all of us and there were many lows but also many highs, but I think we’re nearing the light at the end of the tunnel. Hang in there everyone, I have faith everything will return to normal again soon. We’re getting there.

I think my most impactful class this year has been the honors humanities core series! The theme this year was animals, people, and power, and this course has really changed my worldview. It’s made me think about our responsibilities as humans in our relationship with animals–something I wrote about for my research paper this quarter and am quite proud of. Less often, I find myself blindly consuming meat products, something I have felt guilt about before. I think even insects have garnered my sympathy after this course and I am very much not an insect person. The texts, media, topics, and ensuing in-depth discussion really made me reconsider my part in this complex ecosystem. I highly recommend this course to any freshman. Non Honors students can also take humcore, the discussions are just a little different! As an honors student, I really enjoyed the small group discussions lead by the seminar leaders. I have to shout out to Professor Berghof for being such a supportive and knowledgeable professor! I had him for two out of three classes in the series and really enjoyed being in his section! I don’t think my research paper would have turned out as good as it did without his help. 

Now a little about the undeclared life… I’ll be honest, being an undeclared student is not the easiest thing, but college life was never supposed to be easy. So, if you are coming in as an undeclared freshman, do not fret. My tips for you are as follows. Keep up with the emails and actually read them. I know there are a lot of emails that you receive but missing just one bit of important information can really set you back. Avoid that at all costs! Another thing is to reach out to your advisors; they are there to help you! Go to advising appointments and get things figured out. Lastly, join the clubs that interest you. You’ll get a better idea of what you want to major in and meet like-minded people with similar interests. Personally, I joined several career-focused clubs like Human Resources Association and Business Careers in Entertainment to get a feel for what fields I’d like to pursue. By the way, I’m going to be director of marketing on the BCEC board next year! I’m super excited to take the club to new heights. I highly recommend joining the two clubs I mentioned as they really helped me grow professionally and participate in campus social life–something that is difficult as a remote student stuck in her own home! I met so many great people and it has been an unforgettable club experience this year.

I cannot express how grateful I am to have been able to be a Zotblog writer this year. As someone who started college feeling very isolated from the UCI campus, this internship helped me to feel less alone. I was never much into journaling or writing out my casual thoughts so this was something new and exciting to me. Reading my fellow Zotbloggers’ posts and knowing that they were finding their way as an undeclared student made things feel a little more okay. I don’t know how many people actually read my posts but I think just knowing that a little piece of my life is out there for everyone to read and experience alongside me made things better.

So… I guess this is goodbye. I wish you all the best in life. Things are only going to go up from here!

Your friend,

Vivian

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✨The Last✨

This year has gone by so fast that I am amazed that this will be my last blog post. Looking back at my first post as well as a couple of journal entries from the beginning of my first year here at UCI, I definitely can say that I have exceeded my own expectations in many different ways. 

The three main goals I had at the start of my first year were first, to get “good” grades, second, to make time for family and friends, and third, to make the most of my dorming experience. 

You might be wondering, why is good air quoted? Well, everyone’s interpretation of “good grades” is different and so is everyone’s perception of “bad grades.” So what do I mean? To me, good grades are the ones that I know I’ve tried my best on; no matter the grade, as long as I know I’ve done all I could, I am happy with the results. For the past two quarters and hopefully for this quarter too (knock on wood for me please), I have been pleased with my results because I think the grade reflects the amount of effort I put into the class. I don’t put a letter or a numerical percentage as my goal because personally, that stresses me out. To add to this, I’ve also developed ways to study for certain classes that I know will help me with the related courses I need to take in the future.

For example, my physics classes have and are still giving me a hard time. My professor for 7C told us a quote at the beginning of his course from Thomas Edison, and it really stuck with me: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” The brilliance of this quote is very subjective, but the meaning is inspiring. Just because one way didn’t work out doesn’t mean that the entire attempt is a failure; you now know what doesn’t work for you and that’s a step closer to the answer you want versus not knowing what to do at all because you are afraid of failing. 

I always tried to go home whenever I could because being with my family and being at home makes me feel so relaxed. I love my family a lot so I even call at least once a week (or is it once a day?) I prioritized studying and family so much that I did not go out as often as people would expect especially because I am in the dorms. I know a lot of people say that I should go specifically because I am dorming and it’s easier to meet people, and they aren’t wrong. I just think it’s a misconception that I can’t also make friends through online classes. Most of the friends I’ve made this year were from online classes, and even though it’s been one to two quarters where we have completely different classes, we still keep in contact. So I don’t think it has to do with what setting you are in; it has to do with the mindset you have going into that setting. 

Another thing to keep in mind: you are your own friend. What I mean is you should treat yourself the same way you treat your friends (I hope you treat your friends well or else this analogy would not work). If you tell your friends that they need get more sleep, you should also be telling yourself that you should also get some sleep. If you tell your friends that it will all work in the end, remember that for yourself as well. Even though college is an amazing and fun experience, remember to prioritize your physical and mental health. 

Wrapping this all up, I think I made the most of my dorming experience here. I experienced my first job, my first lab job, the cafeteria food (which you can get sick of eventually even though it is pretty good), UTC, and the campus itself. I’m really glad that UCI’s campus is very open and full of nature. Even though I almost got stung a couple of times, I still enjoy taking walks and enjoying the scenery. 

Now, for the last time, take care!🤗

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Do your actions align with your values?

In my humanities class, we are exploring the theme of animals, people, and power. As a result, there has been much discussion about animal rights and the way that we have historically understood animals. For example, Descartes, a French philosopher during the 1600s, held a then widespread belief that animals were purely mechanical beings. He performed operations on unanesthetized live animals to observe their inner anatomy and test their “rationality”. Descartes concluded that although animals could “sense”, they weren’t capable of higher, rational thinking that humans are capable of. For this reason, Cartesian thought justified cruel actions against animals because their reactions to pain were purely “mechanistic”. It wasn’t until the mid-1700s that early animal welfare laws were passed–these were very minimal protections. I was shocked at how far we’ve come from in terms of our philosophical understanding of animals and the laws we have regarding their ethical treatment. 

I am not a vegetarian or vegan by any means although I  have previously tried adhering to such a diet in high school but fell back into my usual diet. My reasons for this stemmed from my concerns for the environment, my health, and because I am a huge animal lover. Unfortunately, it was hard to break the habit of eating meat. Now, instead of being a strict vegetarian, I try to limit my consumption of meat products, especially after learning so much about the relationship between humans and animals in my humanities class this year. I hope to gradually move into a vegetarian diet in the future.

I have so much respect for people who are able to change their diets from omnivorous to purely vegetarian! It truly is a difficult task both mentally and physically. Although great strides have been made in terms of animal welfare since the 1600s, our society still tends to objectify animal lives which is why the meat industry still exists. After we have been conditioned all our lives to think about animals as disposable creatures, it is hard to fight that kind of mindset as an adult. And, as creatures of habit who have grown up eating a certain way, it certainly is difficult to make changes. In class, I have read several texts by modern-day philosophers who are proponents of animal rights and see animals as equals to humans, countering the age-old idea of “speciesism”, which is the assumption that human lives take precedence over that of animal lives. They make really great arguments and I highly recommend looking into Peter Singer’s theory on animal rights and utilitarianism. I had an eye-opening moment learning about the philosophy behind animal rights. This class asked me to reconsider my values. I realized that I too wanted to fight “speciesism” and I needed to reflect upon my actions to match those values instead of blindly doing what I usually do. I hope that you can reconsider how your actions align with your values too after reading this!

Your friend,

Vivian