Category: 2022-2023

It is the second week of the quarter and I am already a little exhausted.  A lot of this is my own fault as my sleep schedule is not the best (this is a recurring theme in my blog posts) and I am getting less sleep than I need to function (since the quarter started, I’ve been averaging 6 ½ hours.  Yes, I’m aware many would call this rookie numbers, but I can’t live like this).  But compared to last quarter, I am taking more classes that are more academically intensive and in many ways, I am thriving.  I am the type of person who enjoys being busy because I tend to waste my free time when I have too much of it, but I am beginning to settle into the rhythm of the quarter and enjoying it all very much.

Time passes by so quickly at UCI that I feel like it’s been a million years since spring break when it’s only been around two weeks.  I had a relatively quiet spring break, spent mostly reading (Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens), playing video games, talking to friends, getting really into the K-pop group TXT, and getting excited for the new quarter!  It was nice to have that period to recharge and reflect and I feel like I was able to go into this quarter with two feet planted firmly on the ground.

In this last quarter of my freshman year, I think my only goal is to always enjoy and to always be thinking; starting next week, I’m going to start having projects/exams/”midterms” weekly, and the best I can do is try not to be swept up by the current.  Also, I think that having so many things happen means that I have all the more things to reflect on; I’ve found that the value systems I developed during high school have become subconscious habits and no longer occupy the forefront of my mind.  I’m trying to change that and to spend more time – both this year and the next – thinking about the person who I want to be, even if that person changes from week to week.

For now, it’s time to keep on keeping on.  To any students reading this, best of luck during this spring quarter – which one of my professors referred to as “not Week 2, but more like Week 14 of winter quarter”!  Wishing the best for all of us.

I’ve never really gotten the saying, “April showers bring May flowers” – as someone who grew up on the California coast, it really only ever showered around December or January in the heart of winter.  But this year, I get it more than ever, with hail near Valentine’s Day and rain continuing to visit after the passing of daylight savings time.

It feels nice in a way; a sort of cleansing, a rebirth, a reminder that there’s always still time to refresh and emerge anew.  It was certainly needed.

As Winter quarter closes and Spring quarter emerges, it’s time for me to take inventory of what I have now and what I want by the end of my first year at UCI; first of all, I’m very excited for spring, particularly the courses I will be taking during it.  I made a careful plan and put a lot more thought into what courses I wanted to take this quarter, only to scrap it all once restrictions dropped and I got into the classes I actually should be taking if I want to change my major.  I wasn’t expecting to get into these classes – it took me five minutes to fight past the WebReg lag – so I’m more excited than ever to actually take them.  I’ve heard some of them can be quite difficult, so my academic goal for this quarter is to remain engaged; after years of being a student, of studying studying itself and trying to figure out how to minimize the amount of effort I have to put in, I realized that the easiest way to learn is to simply try.  It’s not easy for me to sit and focus for long periods of time, but I find that I have the easiest time learning when I actually sit down and grapple with the material when I’m supposed to (read: during lectures).  So, I’m going to do my best to not get too distracted in any of my classes.

As I’m still in the process of winding down from Winter quarter, I only have one other tentative goal to speak into existence: I want to be bored more often.  I realized that I have a tendency to fill spaces that don’t need to be filled, either by putting on music or by opening a random social media app and scrolling.  Instead of keeping my mind engaged through low-effort activities like this, I’d rather let my mind hit absolute zero for a few minutes, as it’ll be easier for me to pick myself up and do something that makes me feel better than whatever I was doing before that.

Those are my goals as of now; for now, I’m going to focus on enjoying the upcoming week and doing a bit of spring cleaning – physically, digitally, and mentally – and letting myself return anew for the next quarter.  I’ll talk to you all soon!

Hello everyone! This week, I’m here to give you all a little peek into the inner workings of my mind; I will say that I’m in a constant state of change, and what I’m preoccupied with one week might be vastly different from what I’m preoccupied with the next, but I tried to capture my most common state of being below. Excuse the clumsy doodles — I’m no artist — but let me briefly describe why I decided to include what I did.

At the top, there are two things that I feel are fairly obvious; classes and friends. I don’t think these two need much explanation: I’m a student and that takes up much of my time and is basically the main focus of my life right now (in lieu of a career path). I have to spend at least some time thinking about going to class, doing homework, studying and the likes in order to remain at this university. I feel a little strange explaining why friends is on here, so I won’t go into too much detail; obviously, I love my friends a lot, and they’re always at the top of my mind: even when we’re not in direct proximity, I’m hoping that they’re happy.

This is going to sound odd, but I put music near the front of my face because that’s where I most frequently get headaches (usually from lack of sleep). I love listening to music and letting it resonate within me, and I enjoy listening to it a lot; but, I always seem to have a song stuck in my head, even if I don’t particularly enjoy the song and especially when I have other things to focus on. So, in that way, music is always at the forefront of my mind, either by my own choice or by my brain’s choice.

Like I said in the introduction, my interests can change rapidly, but I usually have whatever I’m obsessing over at the moment enshrined in the middle of my mind. This can vary based on time; a lot of the time it’s a K-pop group, but recently, I’ve been spending time going through an Eleventy tutorial in an attempt to build a personal website, so that’s been lingering around that area lately too.

I put language near the back of my mind because I feel like that’s something I’m always thinking about, even if it’s just a small or fleeting thought; I like to turn sentences around in my brain, think about words and how they’re used, and try to put at least a little thought into everything I say and what its effect could be.

I carved out a space for thinking about plans for the day because that’s something I’ve been trying to do lately; as a first-year, it’s somewhat strange how much free time college affords, as I’m used to being herded along by a high school bell schedule. So, I’ve been spending a lot of time this year thinking about what I want to do each day and when I want to do it, or at least trying to figure out the general shape I want my days to take.

Finally, I always have some space for thinking about whatever book I’m reading and crafts. I try to have at least one project relating to reading and crafts at all times (I’m currently reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and crocheting a bucket hat), so I always have that in my mind somewhere.

Finishing writing this, I feel like I’ve been laid open in a way, as if my brain has been cut open by surgeons and they looked at what was within and said, “Wow, is that really all that’s going on?” The answer is yes: there’s obviously things that I missed (specifically whatever emotions are preoccupying me and a few other interests), but this is the bare bones of my mind. Thank you all for reading and perceiving, I’ll check-in again soon.