Where Does Time Go?!?

-____- Man. At this rate, if I don't keep up with my school work, I'm going to be broke and single before I know it.

Take It Slow and Easy

One of my peers who is one of the oldest adults in one of my classes returning for another degree told me to take it easy and to take it slow.

I think that this morning by simply waking up and the taking the time to just appreciate just the small things make everything or just the whole day better.

So I've been trying a couple of things and experiments.

For about 1 week, I decided to wake up with negative thoughts such as, "Crap! I need more friggin sleep!" and the like or in really intense situations, "OMG! I HAVE TO GET UP! ****!" Yes I do cuss, but not intentionally. It's something I have to learn to stop doing and gradually learning to do.




For another week, I decided to wake up with a thankful prayer and find something to appreciate. Although the surrounding or the circumstances were not favorable such as like not getting enough sleep or not finishing up my homework or waking up late to class. That 10 seconds or even just 2 minutes to just slow down and be thankful made the whole rest of the day better.

Pretty interesting. :] Which option do I choose? Obviously the second one.

And because of that, I'm learning to change the way I think into more positive thoughts and it goes a long way. It's so so so easy to give into circumstances, but we always have a choice to think what we want to think.

And prior to the previous post, I realized that almost all universities are striving to push out their students because well because the college system is business. No wonder sometimes it feels like a sprint rather than a marathon. Everyone's trying to sprint for a degree and get out to get a job. Is that necessarily wise? Are we obtaining the skills and knowledge we need for our jobs? With five classes or even just four classes, it's hard to retain all the knowledge that I learned and even for most of the other people I've asked.

But with a thankful heart, I realized that I am truly truly blessed. Take the time to slow down and smell the roses.

Overwhelmed

It's fascinating how my generation is called the Information Age because it is indeed era full of information. We can search for anything we want in a whim. What a fast paced society this world is.

What are we rushing for? What happened to the long term gratification?

I feel so compelled to catch up with the pace of the world and absorb as much information as I can in the shortest amount of time.

Like right now, I have 25+ books that I want to read and get all done. I'm reading 8 all at the same time because of the different information, knowledge, and skills I feel like I need to do my best in whatever I do.

Oh. What a world.

The Wake Up

6:15 a.m.
I woke up this morning with terrible itches all over my head. I'm not sure what to do so I go take a shower and wash my hair again I think. I took a shower earlier yesterday so I don't know what caused the itch. So the wash made it somewhat better.

And now I can't sleep. So what do I do? I think.

I started to think about the group of friends that I hung out with during high school and now friends with friends I knew from high at other colleges and I'm surprised to find out who knows who on Facebook. In simpler terms, it's surprising to find out my friends mutual friends. It's a hell of a small world. Even at the college level or university level where there at least a thousand plus students attending, there are still people who know other people from the other side of the state. What I'm even more fascinated is how my elementary school friends became good friends with other people that I knew from other places in high school. What small world indeed.


I'm attempting to figure out why I don't like to include myself or sometimes feel left out with my groups of friends. With certain groups, or groups that I could have been part of, I've been shunned out of the picture. And now that years past by, they've become great friends. I could have been in groups if I wanted to, but I chose not to.

Sometimes, I am genuinely happy for them. They found their best friends. But I have to admit that there are other times and I know it's so wrong, stupid, selfish of me to say this because I chose this for myself but sometimes I'm just so jealous. But at the same time, I realize that it's not my place to be in large settings of groups. I just wasn't meant to be. It's a huge part of my personality and my strengths. I love talking to the "less associated" individuals and help them find an interest or other friends to hang out with because I relate to them more. I love bringing people back into society. That's why I have a strong interest in occupational therapy. That's the theme and focus of the job. It's to bring individuals who experienced a trauma or disability that prevents them from achieve their full potential back into society.

It's definitely made for me and I'm made for it. I honestly can't wait to become an occupational therapist. The occupational therapist counselor I met a couple days ago was so warm and gentle. She helped me tremendously despite the fact she was very busy at the time. Man, I can't wait to utilize my strengths and use my skills and knowledge to achieve effective and maximum effects. Not that I can't right now, but I can't wait to work in a professional setting. I love seeing the small potential in people and encouraging them to grow. Someone or several people told me that I have a gift to see from other people's perspective and empathize with them. I didn't notice their comment until now, but I think I can see what they're talking about. No wonder it feels like a sixth sense. I can naturally pick up on emotions that others can't see.

I met another counselor and she explained a personality results test for me. And the results I found were pretty shocking. It was pretty dead on and accurate. So I decided to utilize these results and apply them into my everyday life.

For like 2 weeks, I decided to change the way I think about myself. To think about positive thoughts about myself and to believe in myself and my dreams. I always thought it was extremely egotistical of me to think highly of myself, but you know what, everyone person should, but not in an arrogant manner. I think the only difference is for arrogance is loving yourself too much. But within the 2 weeks, the thoughts and dreams I had for myself allowed me to change my habits and harbor more positive feelings more than before until I learned to have faith in myself. It's a powerful tool to get begin the day and end the day to state your dreams and state them out loud and imagine them coming true.

Sometimes it only takes a moment to see your whole life.

Daaaah. Now I feel like I can go back to bed now. Ahahaha. Class starts in 1 hr. -____-

Eh. Over and out. Knocking out at 7:38 a.m.

2 Weeks After

It's hard to say what's been going on because I really don't have any concept or grasp of what's going on around me. All I know that I'm traveling from place to place trying to make it to clubs, classes, counseling services for major and classes, nutritional counseling, gym, and around the campus to eat. Just going through the motions for now.

For college, there's absolutely a lot of reading to do and research to do. You'll have to learn some new skills and stuff like that. In order to learn and succeed, you have to be able to read and apply the knowledge in everyday life or learn some critical thinking. I'm trying to develop some habits to eat my vitamins everyday, memorize 10 new words everyday, learn some grammar, read some articles online, read the Bible, exercise. It's kind of working, but it's a lot of work and commitment. I just have to keep up with it.

I think that once you go to college, you'll have to narrow down your focus in order for you learn effectively unless you're just that amazing and can absorb everything instantly. Good luck with that. It's probably not a good idea. It's better to just join a couple of clubs and be really committed. Well I think that's what the first 2 years are for exploring.

So I finally got a haircut this past Saturday. It was a decent haircut, but I'll never go there again. It was way overpriced. Can't take pictures cause my camera is kind of broken. I think I might repair it myself or eventually get a new one.



And....



I have something to confess. It feels like I'm going through the motions because I can't move on in college. Like I can't move onto new friends without telling people back home how I feel about them and how much I appreciate them. It's going to take awhile, but I'll get down to it. I just wanted to take this time to really sincerely appreciate my friends back home from the bottom of my heart.

Dear friends back at home, just know that I love you dearly and I miss you all too. Please don't be mad if I get someone before you or even don't get back to you. Forgive me. I wish you all nothing but the best and hope that you find better people to be around with and your best friend/s in this world. If I can do anything for you. Please don't hesitate. Don't be afraid to let me know. Take care guys. Don't forget to let me know what's going on from time to time.

Settling in....but not quite

So it's been about 3 weeks that I've been school in now?

Well however long enough, I feel like I've set up myself with a schedule that I like a lot. I got classes Monday thru Thursday all in the morning. I'm always free after 1:15 p.m. on both Monday and Wednesday which gives me the whole rest of the day to do stuff that interests me or to take care of things for college. And for Tuesday and Thursday, I'm mostly free after 3:00 p.m.

As for now, I'm taking 3 Anthropology classes in a row. I'm taking two classes from the same professor which will give me an advantage of getting to know her better. Whooot! Letters of recommendation! The other Anthropology teacher is awesome. Basically I love all my Anthropology classes.

I have a huge gap between my Tuesday and Thursday classes. One class starts at 9:00 and ends at 10:15. I haven't been in such a boring class in a long time. The class is music appreciation. How ironic, it's make me dislike it. -___- I have nothing against the music, but the teacher goes off on tangents and doesn't know how to explain music properly. Well I have to take it for a general ed. requirement. Oh well. It's only 1 semester. But the other class is English which I absolutely love and adore. It starts at like 1:30 p.m. and ends at 2:45 p.m. Notice the huge gap in between? I was thinking about adding a class, but I couldn't get it. My teacher is so helpful and so amazing. She sincerely wants to my classmates and me to reach a higher level of writing. I honestly can't wait till that day or time where I'll be able to do that.

It's one my greatest desires to be prolific writer one day who can string words together like nothing while being simple yet articulate.


So that's my classes for me. What do I do in between? I usually go check out basically every club or set up counseling appointments or go workout or go to Triathlons practice or eat or go to the library to do homework or read or write. Basically, I'm always doing something and that's the one thing I love about college. I have a lot of freedom, but it's not like I can do whatever I want. I just have more choices to choose from and do.

I have yet to go exploring and I FINALLY BOUGHT A LONGBOARD! I'll be getting it next week. Super stoked about it. I'm gonna join the longboard team here. We're gonna go out late at night, go to garages, and kick it. Literally. :D HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLL YEAH! There's a guy on the team with like neon lights underneath his board. It's preeeettty legit. :O And since it's late at night, it's even cooler.

No major parties yet. Eh...not sure if I'm gonna get into that. Maybe not yet. I wanna get focused first and get a good feel first of how college works first and then have fun.

But in the end, I still think about why I'm here at college and what I'm trying to get out of it. I'm still dreaming of things that I haven't gotten yet or achieved yet. They're the reasons why I'm here. As of right now, I'm still dreaming.

Pictures to come. San Jose is beautiful and friggin amazing.

The First Week

So after spending some quality time with the family on Saturday and Sunday, I went to my dorm on Monday morning around 11 a.m.

My roommate who I didn't meet yet wasn't there. So I kind of lounged around and decided to get to go out and meet some people. I met a couple of guys across the halls and in my dorm after going out. Pretty cool guys. I looked at the program the school gave us and decided to go to a couple of welcoming events to meet some other people with a floormate.

We kind of just started to get to talk and get to know each better. I hung out with them for the first couple of days and started to hang out with people I met Orientation. Later that night, I had to go to Target to get some stuff for the room. San Jose set up this exclusive event for its students which was pretty cool. It was pretty fun. Got some coupons for some stuff and free stuff. :D

The following day, I just basically walked around campus to check out some college workshops and clubs, get some academic counseling, hang out with some friends. Basically, it was all so hectic, going from one place to another and climbing 12 flights of stairs to get my room because the elevator takes way too long. Eating at the amazing cafeteria cause I can get unlimited pizza, jamba juice, coffee whenever I want it and however I want it. (: Thaaaat's right. Take that suckas.




But for the past week, it's been ridiculously hot. My window is open 24/7. Notice how I sleep right next to the window? It has a nice view and everything, but the one thing that freaks me out is that if I ever push the screen and fall out, I'mma fall down 12 stories down to my death. Remember, the window is open 24/7. I move in my sleep too. So if I don't ever respond back or pick up up my cell, you probably know why. :D

But that's pretty much all for now. It's just time to explore the campus and among so many other things.

Move In Day

On Saturday morning around 9 a.m., I left home and hit the road around 10:00 a.m. My two uncles and one aunt came to join my sister, my mom, and me to San Jose. I slept most of the way to San Jose since the trip itself was a 6-8 hour drive. Besides, what else can you do if you're stuck in a car with a Chinese speaking family. I couldn't read since all my books were packed. It wasn't until the last hour that I decided to stay away and talk with my family. Throughout the conversations, I made last minute promises and confessions.

We arrive at the university at 5:30 p.m. just in time to move in since the closing time was 6:00.

I came thinking that I would live on the 10th floor, but a change of plans were made. I would now live on the 12th floor which is the very top floor of my building.

The first thing I noticed when I walked on the 12th floor was that it was a little hot in the room. The floor was empty since I was moving in a day earlier than my scheduled move in date. I came in to my room not knowing what it would look like.

 Here's front entrance to my room. (Postmarked 8/23/10)

I immediately dropped off and move everything into my dorm. I didn't unpack everything just in case if my roommate wanted to change beds or desks.

My family and I scanned the room for any damages. I was given a paper to document any noticeable damages.

After scanning, I decided to go with my family to San Francisco just for the sake one last family time before college.

We left the campus around 6:30 to go back to the hotel and look around the area for Chinese food. We ate and then we went back to the hotel to play with my cousin and my niece Sienna.

The Elephant

Aug. 21st, 2010 - 1:58 A.M.

Thoughts are coming at my heard like thin needles piercing through barely leaving any concrete details to grasp on. It's a mixture of lack of sleep and other emotions that confuse me at this moment.

In about 8 hours, I will be on the road to my new Life.

The one thing I know for sure is that I'm excited, but am I necessarily ready for it?

I'm not sure? It's too soon to tell. The horizons have just broadened itself in this very ungodly hour. It is much too soon to determine whether high school prepared me or not because they have to be experienced and tested. The mixture of emotions contain feelings of sadness and deep regret for not being able to be have as many opportunities to have deeper relationships with friends that I wanted to keep in touch with.

After high school graduation, the world suddenly became so big as if a balloon just became inflated. My once sheltered mindset immediately came into attention with health, personal, financial, and technical aspects. Not that I didn't notice about them, but they suddenly became important. The sense of sudden anticipation release was delayed all the way up until now. My stomach feels slightly uneasy for the future.

I'm nervous. So what? It's normal.

I'm leaving behind my community, my love, my joy, my frustrations, my past, my friends, my family, my church, my foundation, my home... for a whole new world.

Not sure what to expect or feel. I give it all up to faith.