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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!

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Face Masks, Dining Halls, and Naps

College is comes with all kinds of stress: the stress of midterms, stress of relationships, stress of running to make it to the dining hall before it closes. Stress surrounds you and there’s little you can do to control it because it’s just a part of college, but you can control how you react to the stress. Now halfway through my first year of college, I’ve definitely experienced my fair share of stress and here are some ways I practice self care and deal with the stress!

  • Face masks: Okay this sounds super stereotypically girly, but it is so relaxing to be able to sit back and enjoy treating your skin after a long day. It really leaves me refreshed and ready to get back to work. It’s a quick 10-15 minutes that could make all the difference. I love doing this with my roommates because it gives us all a chance to quickly catch up and look silly together. I recommend sheet masks if you’re scared to try face masks because it’s literally a thin sheet that has serums soaked in it. It’s easy to apply and easy to take off, plus they’re pretty affordable. I bought a pack of 24 on Amazon for $12 and it’s been more than six months but I barely finished half of them. Give this a try!
  • Spontaneous Dining Hall runs: Personally, studying drains my energy, so after a couple hours of studying, I’ll grab some hallmates and we’ll go to Pippins together really quick just to get our legs moving and take a little break. A soft serve cone can temporarily relieve some stress! As a freshman, you already pay for the dining hall! So take advantage of it as much as you can.
  • Nap: Naps are essential to college. Everyone naps. Whether it’s a 10 minute power nap or an indulgent 2 hour nap, naps help you recharge and can make you way more productive! When you’re running on little sleep, sure you can be studying for hours, but it’ll be hard to retain anything. Listen to your body! If it’s saying you need a nap, take one. But remember to set an alarm because you still need to get work done!

These are some of my tried and tested ways of taking care of myself and relieving stress. In all honesty, academics are important and you should study really hard for all your exams, but in the long run, it’s way more important to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally, and physically. Make sure to take care of yourself!

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Welcoming Winter Quarter

Ah yes, the notorious week 3. From my experience last quarter, I can honestly say week 3 is the tipping point. How well you’re doing in week 3 will most likely determine how your quarter is, or at least that’s how it was for me. However, winter quarter has been significantly harder than fall quarter.

Last quarter, I was making the difficult transition from high school to college and from home to the dorms but now, I am making the transition from biology geared classes to business economics geared classes. Quickly realizing I didn’t want to be a doctor, go to pharmacy school, do research, or teach biology, I switched my focus to business economics so the classes are on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. I can still take my study skills and time management from fall quarter and apply it to these classes though! Having adjusted to the college time cycle and workload has helped relieve unnecessary stress this quarter and allowed me to dedicate more time to clubs and pursue activities that aren’t necessarily academic related.

For winter quarter, I want to plan my time more efficiently so I don’t have to spend days catching up. So far, I’ve been doing this by using a bullet journal to plan out my entire day the night before! This is literally so useful because I know a rough outline of the tasks I have to do that day. I set aside chunks of time to complete assignments I need to do, time to eat, and time to just nap or chill out in my room. It gives me more order to each day and prevents me from spending time deliberating on what to do. I would highly recommend trying this out for anyone who finds themselves spending half an hour trying to decide whether to do math homework or start their essay (me last quarter).

I’m also planning to be more involved in clubs on campus. In high school, clubs were such a big part of my life but I didn’t feel ready during fall quarter, which is totally normal. Although I am an intern for VSA, I wasn’t as active as I would have liked to be. This quarter I want to change that and have made good progress going to my first staff meeting and boothing. I missed the thrill of selling food to fundraise and represent your organization. Come visit the VSA booth on Fridays on Ring Road for banh mi and boba! I’m also going to join Trace, the traditional Vietnamese dance group, to push my limits a little and challenge myself to try something new. This quarter is going to be filled with firsts because I regret spending more time than I need to on my studies. College is so much more than just academics.

Comparing fall and winter quarter, my sleep schedule has definitely improved as well which I’m excited about. I’m constantly getting around seven hours of sleep compared to my five last quarter and I can feel the difference in my mood. It’s partially because my 11 AM class got moved to 8 AM, but I really don’t mind it now. It forces me to get up early and be productive with my day. (College tip: If you have an 8AM, try not to have a class right after so you can go back to your dorm and nap.)

Winter quarter is a different battle than fall quarter. But this time, I’m well equipped with study skills and have adjusted to college life so I’m ready. Bring it on winter quarter.

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Dear Week 0 Nancy

Dear Week 0 Nancy,

You’re going to love week 0 so so much. Don’t miss out on the hypnotist show because that was so crazy and I’ve never seen anything like that. Take advantage of the Anteater Involvement Fair and get involved in clubs. Go to all their week 0 events and get free food and meet new people! Be a little uncomfortable and go to the dance workshops, even though you have two left feet. There’s so much free time during week 0 because you don’t have classes so take advantage of every second, because there isn’t going to be another week like this.

Please don’t fall behind. I know you’re gonna do it, but please try not to because ten weeks goes by SO fast. Before you know it, it’s midterms season and it’s gonna be crazy. You’ll be okay though because you have an amazing group of friends in your hall to help you cram for bio and chem which helps so much when the final comes around. I didn’t skip any classes this quarter, and I’m glad I didn’t because you need to go to class. Don’t kid yourself, you’re one of those people who needs to have a teacher explain it to you. Also, please read your bio textbook, otherwise the lectures will make no sense, learned that the hard way.

Take advantage of late night! Having Pippins and the Anteatery open until 12 is honestly a blessing, especially if you plan on staying up late, which you will. Pippins usually doesn’t have much, but it’s only an 8 minute walk across campus to the Anteatery. Take some of your hall mates and it’ll be your own little adventure/study break.

You don’t think much of it now, but you’ll love your card holder phone case. Honestly, I had to survive without it for a week because I broke it, but it’s a lifesaver. Always having your credit card, ID, and room key with you is the best because you never have to worry about remembering to grab any of those things. The week I broke it, I got locked out three times and couldn’t eat because I didn’t have my ID. I ordered one right away!

It’s only been a quarter into the school year but I’ve grown and have so much advice to give. Like for high school, please take as many AP classes as you can handle! I regret not taking more because more AP credits gets you a higher standing and earlier registration windows to make sure you’re on track!! It doesn’t sound like a big deal but when your friends are scrambling for classes, you’ll be thankful you took so many and entered UCI as a sophomore.

Wrapping up this quarter was hectic, but now I get to enjoy my three weeks off before winter quarter starts and I take classes for my new major, business economics! Wish me luck and happy holidays!

Sincerely,

Nancy

 

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Going Home or Away from Home?

For Thanksgiving Break, we only got Thursday and Friday off, so the break was way shorter than the week long high school break I’m used to. Some classes were canceled on Wednesday as well, but sadly none of mine were. So I went to all my classes and left Wednesday afternoon for the long 4 day weekend (after leaving all my food with my friend that stayed over the weekend because the dining hall closed)!!
My Thanksgiving Break was pretty uneventful to say the least. My family doesn’t do the big family dinner like in the movies so there was no rush to cook massive amounts of food or get table settings ready the night before. Thanksgiving honestly felt like any other day to me. This year, however, we tried to be more Thanksgivingy and got a rotisserie chicken and pumpkin pie from Costco for dinner! Probably the closest to Thanksgiving dinner I’ve ever gotten. We eat dinner together every night, so it was nothing special but it was still nice to get a day off to spend with my family. We also don’t do the mad rush for Black Friday sales so Thursday night was pretty chill. Basically, Thanksgiving break was just a long weekend for me, but much appreciated after the wave of midterms.
I did eat my weight in Korean barbeque at Gen in Fullerton Friday night though. I’ve been craving it for weeks and I finally got to go. My family eats a lot, especially when it comes to all you can eats, so we stayed there for the full two hour limit and they actually had to come nicely kick us out lol. Just to put in perspective how much my family of five actually ate, here are some numbers: 70 pieces of beef tongue, 20 pieces of rib meat, 39 pieces of galbi (beef short ribs), 30 pieces of flat iron steak, and three plates of garlic calamari just to name a few along with plenty of side dishes. Impressed? I know our server sure was.
But anyways, not sure if you guys remember, but I live on campus in Valimar in Middle Earth even though I only live 20 minutes away. Also, I go home almost every weekend, so going home is a normal thing for me and UCI’s environment isn’t that different from home. However, being at home for more than just a weekend was really weird. Even though I was in the same home I grew up in, everything feels different and after the second day, I started to miss my dorm.
Over the past quarter, my dorm started to become my home. During break, I missed the familiar faces I saw in the hall everyday. I missed the couch on the second floor common room I always curl up with my blanket in to take my 1 AM power naps. I missed walking down the hall to see my best friend. I missed seeing my RA when I leave to go to class. I missed all the small things that started to make Valimar home. It’s weird because I left my dorm to go “home,” but ended up missing my dorm home and dorm family. (Fun fact: my phone saved Valimar as home) I am so grateful for both my homes and both my families.