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Home Stretch

Dear Freshman Me,

Congratulations, you are about to step into the college days that you have seen on television growing up. It is now time to leave the place you call home and start getting settled somewhere else. This is going to be a difficult change, but that is part of the process. As you are venturing through your first year as an adult, you need to start this chapter in a new environment. I think Southern California is one of the best places to start this chapter of your life. I think movies and television shows play college out to be a bit overdramatic, with lots of partying, tons of classes, and loud noise all day long on campus. What I have realized so far at school is that all of these do exist, but certainly not for everyone and everywhere. In my first quarter, I had a lot of free time. It is up to me whether to be productive or not, but I do find myself making small decisions that hopefully help me in the future. College is a very self-driven environment because there are so many small temptations that are faced each day that can break the momentum you create for yourself. The first few weeks of college go by fast because you and everyone else are trying to make friends, classes aren’t too difficult yet, and it kind of feels like a vacation (especially when you’re this close to Newport Beach). However, around a month in, classes have ramped up, everyone is more busy with extracurricular activities, and you may start to feel a little homesick. I certainly did. My advice to counter this feeling of homesickness is to build a routine that you can stick to. Every Sunday I would have a list of tasks each day of the week and would check them off accordingly. This list included attending classes, homework assignments, reading, working out, calling home, and other small parts of my day. Each time I would complete one of these tasks, I would feel more accomplished and it would help me stay motivated throughout the rest of the day and week. Overall, staying busy enough where you feel you are moving in the right direction is a major positive, and this feeling is what has helped me overcome my homesickness. While I still make sure to call my parents daily and some of my friends back home once in a while. 

-Rohan

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It’s Rabies!

Dear Reader, 

These two weeks have been the most chaotic and the ones I have enjoyed the most. After having my appointment with my U/U advisor, I have decided to double major. I have been finding my bio-sci classes fulfilling (even my mood changes after going to lectures), and I feel more knowledgeable and confident about what I want. I have decided to continue with the bio major pathway, specializing in neurobiology and double majoring in Spanish. I headed to the Spanish Department early in the morning to get more guidance. Along the way, I had to stop several times, amazed by the fauna that Aldrich Park houses (see pics attached). A short 10-minute walk cleared up my convoluted mind (I had midterms and quizzes that week). Even though I found that the office was closed, I felt revitalized and motivated to keep shaping my academic journey.

Squirrels, ducks, and birds in Aldrich Park

Later that week, I found another opportunity to boost my college experience: studying abroad. I went to the fair to check out some programs. I collected brochures and stickers and added going abroad to my must-do list.  There were summer, semester, and quarter-long programs for specific majors and specific classes in specific universities. I concluded that taking some G.E classes in the summer can be very strategic, in this way, I don’t have to worry about adjusting my quarterly schedule to semester programs or missing out on my experience at UCI (but I still have some questions about financial aid so I’m going to have an appointment with an academic advisor before making a final decision–all keep you updated).

Brochures and gear from Study Abroad Fair

 I had my last club meetings for the quarter. I am an official member of IMED and Teddy Bear Hospital! In IMED, we had panels going over involvement in research. In my notes, I circled that 1) the fall quarter is the best time to apply 2) when being interviewed, do not pretend to be savvy on matters you are not 3) Be careful about researching Professors (make sure they are main contributors in the publication and that you chose a recent one). On the other hand, with TBH I went over medical study cases. Despite the poor performance and cooperation of my patient and my amateur expertise in medical conditions, I was able to “diagnose” my UCI medical school “patient” with rabies and inquire about his journey. When it comes to volunteering, he advised me to consider commitment over quantity, join a few clubs but stay engaged with them until my undergraduate journey expires. Furthermore, he commented that going to Med school is possible even without publications under your belt unless you have some specific universities in mind. His wisdom alleviated some of the stress that haunted me for not having joined many clubs or labs this quarter; however, this gave some insight in how to adjust my priorities and give more shape into my academic journey. 

Once more and as always, thanks for reading me. Make this journey enjoyable and meaningful to you. Join clubs in which you feel included and do it because you want to be there, not because it will make your resume look better. Appreciate your uniqueness and nourish it by focusing on activities that require you to apply your strengths and enrich your passion. 

Write to you soon, 

Glenda Orozco.  

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KKAP Fall Dance Showcase!

Hi again! Hope you had a not too stressful week so far. But hey, it’s Friday! We have a weekend of relaxing ahead of us! I seriously can’t wait to just sleep in this weekend because this whole week has been so hectic. On top of several class projects, starting our finals, and trying to make it to every club meeting, I’ve been spending this past week practicing for the KKAP Fall Showcase. In case you aren’t familiar with KKAP it is a K-pop dance club at UCI. I’ve mentioned it a few times in my previous blogs not too long ago. Since I’m a noob at dancing, I decided to participate in the fall showcase in order to gain more experience and learn from talented members in the club. For the showcase, the club basically breaks up into groups where each one chooses a k-pop song choreo to cover. I ended up in a group of five fantastic and super experienced dancers, so we decided to choose to cover a band that also had five members. We ended up deciding to cover TXT’s new song Over the Moon. It was honestly such a fun and insightful experience learning how to mimic a professional choreo, but oh my god was it difficult. I had to practice a lot on my own at the very beginning in order to get the gist of the choreo moves because I was too scared about showing up to group practice being the only one who had no clue what they were doing. Part of my choreo also required me to be in the dead center of the spotlight at one point and that made me soooo nervous about messing up. However, when it came time to practice the performance with the group members as a whole, I realized that working together with others on things like this made everything so much easier. They were able to point out every little detail that I missed while still being encouraging, and once we all started dancing together, everything slowly clicked in place one by one. We would usually practice for around two hours a few days a week. Most of the practices would be at the very end of long days and late at night. I think our latest practice went until 12:00am almost. Super tiring, but super fun and rewarding. Peforming alone was a completely different experience than performing together as a whole. It was super reassuring having others around you who had your back during the performance. Right now, as I’m posting this blog, we’re actually in the middle of the showcase and watching other groups perform their covers. Hopefully, by the time it ends I can grab a quick video of our performance and edit it into this blog a little later, so keep an eye out for any changes to this post an hour or two after I’ve posted this! If you are just seeing this post right now then it’s not too late! Come and check out our performance today at 5:30pm at the UCI Social and Behavioral Sciences Gateway! Hope to see you there, and if not keep an eye out for our showcase next quarter! Byeeee 😉

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Home Stretch

Hey everyone! I hope you are doing well. The last couple of weeks have been quite hectic wrapping up midterms, and just like that, getting ready for finals. The beauty of the quarter system. 

School has been moving so fast that I haven’t had much time to think about my upcoming plans. Like classes I am going to take in upcoming quarters or what I want to do over summer break and all. One thing that I am thinking about for next summer is studying abroad. 

And it looks like I wasn’t the only one thinking about it considering it was a 15-minute wait just to get into the ballroom. 

I used to travel a lot when I was younger, but by the time my brother and I were both in high school and juggling many different activities, it became harder for our family to go on vacations. Throughout high school, I got very comfortable with being at home and began to fall in love with my hometown. I don’t think this is a bad thing, but it did make me worried about leaving home for college. Now that I have stepped out of my comfort zone a bit, I feel like spending an extended period in another country would be good for me, and something I can handle. 

At the fair, I was looking into a few different places, but hope to find a program I like in Europe. I would say Europe because it has been recommended to me by older people, and I feel there won’t be as much of a language barrier. 

Aside from looking into summer programs, this past week has been a bit relaxing for me without any big exams. Mostly I have been trying to stay on top of work so it does pile up after the break, but also trying to figure out what classes to take next quarter. This is a much-needed break, and it’s crazy to think how little time there is between the next break, the holidays are coming, and my roommates and I are getting ready.

Just a picture of our little tree in the dorm. Anyways, hopefully, everyone is managing school well and finding ways to have fun on campus, we’re almost there. Have a nice break, everyone! 

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Jazz Vibes at UCI

This past week, I was able to attend and experience UCI’s Jazz Combos concert for the Fall 2024 quarter! The concert took place at Winifred Smith Hall, located at the School of Arts on the UC Irvine campus. It was a cold evening night, but the hall was so cozy and perfect for a lengthy jazz performance—a delightful atmosphere for the winter season!

Here was the program given to us before the concert started.

I’m sorry I did not get the names of the music that was played :(. Otherwise, I would’ve listed all of them on the blog.

Below are a few snippets of the first band under Prof. Darek Oles.

Here is the first band! They played up to 4 songs and the one that I’ve recorded above are my favorite ones played by them. I especially loved the piano solo by Nathan Fong in the second snippet!

Here is the second band under Prof. Jerry Pinter. Below are some photos and snippets of their performance!

Here is the second band under Prof. Jerry Pinter, where they also played up to 3-4 songs. This was by far my most favorite performance played by the second band, I really enjoyed all of the different instrument’s solos and the song overall (couldn’t get all of the instrument solos because the video file was too big)! I’m not a musician, and I don’t know how to describe it, but I really liked how the saxophones played in harmony and the notes that they played in the first snippet above. I thought the drums were also a nice touch to the saxophone’s spotlight in that part of the song.

Unfortunately, I could not stay any longer for the last jazz band since it was midterm week. I still had to get a lot of studying in that night, BUT I was glad I had the time to attend this event because jazz has always been such a relaxing music genre to me that it eased the midterm stress off my shoulders. Consider attending one of these concerts if you want a work-free night to enjoy yourself, the atmosphere, and the vibrant jazz music at Winifred Smith Hall. If you are interested in a future jazz performance, definitely look forward to the upcoming UCI Jazz Orchestra Fall Quarter performance on December 4, 2024. It will be at the same place, the Winifred Smith Hall, at 8:00pm.

Also, if you’re interested in attending any other UC Irvine events beside just music performances, please check out this website: Featured Events // Today // UC Irvine
This website lists all of UC Irvine’s campus events that can range from art shows/galleries, presentations, music concerts, and more!

Thank you for reading my blog and please stick around to read even more of my Zot Blogs!

All the best,

Lucas