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Brand New Quarter

Hey y’all!

It’s a new quarter, which means just ten more weeks till the end of my first year in college! I honestly cannot believe it, and I’m buzzing for this new quarter, fresh out of spring break. Before I get into this upcoming quarter, let me tell you a bit about my spring break. I went to the Taylor Swift concert! She happened to be performing in Dallas during my spring break, and I was able to get a hold of tickets back during the pre-sale. I may have lost half a day fighting for tickets, but post-concert? It was worth it. Other than the concert, I was able to enjoy the rest of my spring break in the best way—spending time with friends, family, and my dog.

As this is my third quarter, I am nearing the end of my time as a U/U student. However, I still need to finish strong. I’ve decided to try to get into the Business Administration major, something I figured out through the flexibility of the U/U major. And as I have my mind set on this goal, this last quarter is all about applying myself in the UCI business community (aside from maintaining my grades). One of my friends, who is a Business Administration major, has introduced me to this club called MAISS (Management and Information Student Society), and I want to get myself more involved in this club. They meet every Wednesday and have various events that pertain to the tech side of the business world. Last quarter, I was able to attend a couple of MAISS events, such as a UI/UX speaker panel featuring the head of UX design and research at a company called SAP. I got busy and didn’t attend as many events as I wanted to, so this quarter it’s my goal to attend as much as I can.

Other than that, my last goal is to have fun. This will be my last quarter in the dorms (shout out Middle Earth Towers), so I want to make the most of my time here. I will be living in an apartment next year, and I have a lot of commuter friends, so this may be the last time I see them every day. Because of this, I’ll be in the common room even more than I usually am, just to have that extra bit of interaction with all the amazing people on my floor.

This quarter is going to be amazing—I can just feel it.

Zot Zot Zot,

Ian

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Spring Break Fun

Spring break was a combination of half boredom and half fun. Throughout the first half of the week, besides playing video games and watching movies, I really had nothing else to do. In fact, I had a routine: wake up around 10 am, do nothing until lunch, video games/movie, dinner, and sleep. I turned into a huge couch potato to the point I was tired by being a couch potato. I wanted to hang out with my friends, but a lot of them were in school, as their spring break began the week after our spring break. It wasn’t until the latter part of the week where things were not boring. My friends and I played baseball, got food, and hang out for the most part. We watched the movie Zodiac on Netflix, which was an interesting movie. I also watched Captain Marvel, which was not that bad. My best friends finally finished his last class and went on a hike which was fun, since we caught up with each other a lot, talking about different events that happened. I finally watched How To Train Your Dragon 3: The Hidden World, which I was dying to see since it came out. Last and finally, I went to the DMV. Not exactly a fun place, but it was the most productive thing all week. I was expecting to not be done within 6 hours, but instead, I was in 4 hours! I got my token number within 10 minutes, and got called up within 2 hours! The rest took two hours but I am surprised how the DMV changed dramatically for the better! Overall my spring break was nice, until professors on Sunday afternoon starting hitting me with emails to do things. Even then I was experiencing positive vibes about this quarter because three of my four classes were related to my major and minor. And this time around, I had a better idea of what I should be expecting with balancing my life and working hard and smart with my academics to do better than previous quarters.

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The Few Moments to Breathe Before Springing Into Another Quarter

Especially after three weeks for winter break, having only one for spring break made it collectively pass by in a blur. I did not do anything too exciting over break as my time off did not align with any of my friends or my sibling. But it was nice to have a few moments to breathe without the reminder of an upcoming due date or midterm sending me into a panic-induced state of studying. My time was divided between catching up on much-needed sleep and spending my conscious moments with family. After spending a couple days babysitting my four-month-old and seven-year-old cousin, listening to my sister’s middle school drama, and helping my mother out with household chores, it made me realize that these instances would be coming farther and fewer in between. I only have a few remaining breaks left to spend at home with family before I would be expected to set out on my own and live a life independent of theirs. But since that time will not come for another couple of years, I might as well enjoy not having to pay rent for as long as possible.

As the final quarter of my freshman year begins, thankfully I am not as terrified now as I was the previous one. However, I still definitely have some goal reaching to do. First, while I no longer arrive to class out of breath, I would like to go to the ARC on a more frequent basis to get into better shape. Second, I still retain the terrible habit of procrastination. I am trying to stay optimistic in my thinking that is within the realm of possibility to improve my work habits. Most of my stress during the first two quarters can be attributed to completing homework and studying last minute. And third, go to the beach at least once with my friends. As a commuter, most of the time I spend with my friends is on campus. With Corona del Mar beach so close, I think it would be pleasant between midterms or after finals to watch a sunset.

 

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Maximus Relaximus

For spring break, I decided to stay at the dorms. Since The Anteatery is down for the break, I made food preparations so I didn’t have to leave my room for the entire week. These preparations included many packs of instant ramen along with eggs and some beef patties. There was a kitchen downstairs to provide hot water to fuel everything, so I was ready to camp out in my dorm room for the week. My roommates went home for the break so I had the entire dorm to myself. It was fun not having to wear headphones and blasting my music, since I was used to that kind of setup at home. I also had my computer to keep my company for the entire week, which I used to catch up on my video games. Overall, my spring break was pretty much just me by myself in the dorm room having a good time playing video games.

As my final quarter of my first year starts, I have set a few decently hard goals for myself. The hardest goal for me is to pass all my classes with at least a B. It is rather difficult because I decided to take 20 units which also include some difficult classes like Math 2B and ICS 31. I need these classes to be done so I can graduate on time, but the course load is quite large. Another thing I want to accomplish by the end of this quarter is to find time to return to Micro center so I can get some new parts for my computer. That means I would also need to save some extra money as well, which wouldn’t be too hard if I’m frugal enough. Overall, I’m aiming for a good final stretch for the end of my first year of college, and if things went as smoothly as they did before, it would be a piece of cake, although the cake would be baked by me which means it would be overly sweet and hard to the point where it is crunchy.