As my departure date approaches, I am frantically taking advantage of the time I have left to visit my friends at and around UCLA. The other night, I met up with a friend for tea and two and a half hours later, I left campus with a nostalgic feeling in my heart. I miss the days of staying up late with my friends, discussing all sorts of ideas and lamenting the work we had to do. One of the things I will miss most about college life is those late night chats in the hallway or lounge.
That is the reason that I stayed in on-campus housing for as long as I could; I loved the atmosphere there that cannot be replicated. When else can you go knock on a random stranger's door and make a friend without seeming too forward? Where else will you find so many doors kept open and people weaving in and out of the hallway? College residential life is the best buffer for meeting new people who may have nothing in common with you. In every other social situation, you are brought together by some shared interest, but in this one, your choice of living situation hardly dictates the type of people you will be living around.
It was the nicest thing to be back in that environment I adored so much, doing what I do best - livening up the quarters! In fact, as we stood in the hallway chatting, the duty RA came by and told us how he had just been thinking how he hadn't heard the place so chatty since I was last around when he rounded the corner to find it was actually me there! We caught up briefly and then he left to continue his round, jokingly warning us to keep it down or else he'd have to come write us up (he's a friend of mine, so it was only half serious). I thought about it and you know what? I'd much rather be the type of person up way too late interacting with my peers and possibly getting written up for it than the type of person always holed up in the my room, hardly ever socializing with fellow students.
College is a time of great growth, academically and socially, and everyone should take advantage of it in all aspects. I will always fondly remember the feeling of sitting around with my friends, exchanging our thoughts throughout the night. And I will miss that, as well as having such a huge concentration of friends in a small area. Life is changing quickly.
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I've found that the best source of creative ideas is personal experience. It is in my day-to-day life that I think to myself randomly, "Oh now there's something good to explore and write about!" Immediately I jot it down on my "little fat notebook" amidst the growing list of topics to discuss. Just living life (and being curious) can be the greatest muse! I just overheard my mom on the phone, booking her plane ticket to Mongolia, due to leave just about 12 hours after mine to Singapore leaves LAX. The past couple of days she has been lamenting what to do about our mail, since many statements cannot be sent to P.O. boxes and there is no one in our family here to take care of it for us. We used to get it forwarded to a family friend's place, but that's such a hassle to do for just a month or two. You know when you think it's just another meet-up with your friend and then BAM you arrive and it's a surprise party for you? Well if you haven't experienced this, it's just about the coolest thing ever. If you have, then you know the utter shock and amazement that washes over you when it dawns on you what is happening. And yes, I am writing about this because it happened to me today (well, I guess technically yesterday now). A few years back, Katana also did something similar for me, arranging a surprise birthday party. Sometimes I can't believe I actually thought I was going to her house for lunch with her parents! Haha, I can be so gullible when it comes to social gatherings. Instead of a warm family gathering, I walked into their hosue and found a dining room overflowing with gifts and food, and most importantly, good company! What a special day that was. I am not sure how it happened, but 8Asians started to follow me on Twitter! When I was notified of this, it got me to go back to their site to read some of their entries. I eventually came across an article about teaching your kid Chinese, as a response to an article that the author had read about the decision to not teach your kid Chinese. It was interesting to see the perspectives on this issue, being one who went through years of Chinese school. Though I hated getting up on Sunday mornings to go learn, the extra homework that inevitably came with extra schooling, and the difficulty of learning the characters, it is something that I am tremendously grateful for. This is a thought that comes up periodically in my life. It's not that I'm a nomad, but I have no true hometown to speak of. I am not really "native" to anywhere. Though I was born in China, I grew up in the United States. Does that make me "native American" (as opposed to Native American)? I don't feel so. Then do I feel Chinese? Not enough, especially when I go back to visit and the very way I look and hold myself gives me away immediately. Plus, my way of thought is greatly influenced by the American culture. What a day! I left for Kollab around 4:30 in the afternoon yesterday and just got back 11 hours later. It was intense. From the obscene amount of traffic to get there to getting in early enough for awesome seats (and pit access!), it was quite the adventure. I even ran into three accidents on the drive down from home (somehow always ending up in the lane where the debris was from the collisions). Not the best start to the day, but it ended on a very high note. So who all was there? Well... Kenichi Ebina, Jazmin, Paul Dateh, Kina Grannis, Lilybeth Evardome, Jane Lui, and David Choi competed; BoA, Jo Koy, Kaba Modern, Fanny Pak, Norman Ng, and Team Millennia performed; Printz Board, James Kyson Lee, James Ryu, Welly Yang, and Teddy Zee judged; random volunteers from the audience freestyled; and of course, my lovely AKP brothers and I attended, along with the rest of the sold-out crowd (including Philip Wang, Wesley Chan, MySpace Tom...). Jane Lui on the piano, earning her second place. Kina Grannis at the after party. Yet, interestingly enough, a lot of popular YouTubers are of some sort of Asian descent. What happened there? It seems that having a platform that empowers the individual to make it on their own enables these Asians who are not making it on the big scene to create a following of their own. Kollaboration is a means of getting those types of artists to the forefront through exposure beyond social media. Social media is more grassroots whereas Kollaboration is more mainstream. It can help slowly bridge the gap between online phenomenon and nation-wide star. Aww, David Choi was really enjoying himself. BoA wants to Eat You Up. When that part of the evening ended, my fraternity brothers and I took a break to get something to eat before heading over to the after party. I was fortunate enough to come across Philip Wang, Wesley Chan, David Choi, Kina Grannis, and the guy who won the freestyle vocal competition (gosh, what was his name?)*. And I took pictures with them. Of course. ;) It was sooo exhilarating! I never run into people that I know from some sort of media outlet. It's cool to see them in person. AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! I heart Wong Fu (too bad Ted's in NYC). They're so sweet. :) Smiles all around. Maybe this is why I like low-key "stars" - they don't have some sort of upkeep to make them happy and they really appreciate their fans so much more. I'm not into the big Hollywood stars and I probably would want pictures, but wouldn't care to really interact with them beyond that. Part of that is because they probably wouldn't give me the light of day anyway, but part of that is because they've got so many fans they're probably used to that whole lifestyle already. I'd much rather appreciate those who are more real, living like I am, working in less than ideal situations, but nevertheless pursuing their passions. Not that there aren't A-list stars who do that, but they just don't interest me. If you're familiar with blogging, you have probably heard of (and seen) vlogging, the video version of it. For many, it is too intimidating to try. Concerns of how you look, how you speak, what you sound like, your body language, and other self-conscious issues arise. When you're on film, there's a lot you can't hide. I've spent a lot of time in the past week fiddling around with sites of mine that allow personalization (including this one). It's a tedious thing to do for a self-taught beginner like me, since I have almost no foundation knowledge in CSS and only know basic HTML. Yet, I still pounded away at it obsessively, working on getting just the right colors, font, layout, etc. It's rewarding when things finally look a little more the way you would prefer! I was browsing Brushdance journals and came across these two that made me smile. Just thought I'd share. (Click images to go check them out at the site.) |
laelene My philosophy is simple: things change. Therefore, we are all on a lifelong journey of discovery. We should be flexible, questioning, learning, adapting, and growing. Always. Archives
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