~ °Café de Terrasse° ~
The thoughts of an odd duck who sits alone in a night cafe, with a stylo in his right, a journal in his left, a valise under his chaise, a tasse on the table, and plenty of time to pass.
~ samedi, juillet 12, 2003 ~
Summer advising was oodles of fun... here's a few things that went on (I skipped a few incidents on purpose so it may sound a bit choppy)...~ mardi, juillet 08, 2003 ~
Day 1
At first I was soo worried about going to Davis for that whole summer dealie because I thought I was going to be this lonely little anti-social kid in a big new world. Mais au contraire! I started meeting new Davis students from the time my plane landed in Sacramento Int'l. Airport. There was Lisa Chan, a pharmacy major from somewhere in SoCal & Ryan, an econ major from San Diego, & Michelle from somewhere near San Diego too. They were all cool people and we got to talking about stuff as we tried to figure out a way to get to UCD (None of us knew how to get there). My mother was chatting with Ryan's dad, Jerry. Anway, in the midst of our chatter, we missed two busses and got on the wrong bus. haha, but it was all fun. Finally, a few hours later, we arrived at UCD Memorial Union (MU) and again, we were lost because UCD is huge! I mean, you honestly can't tell city from campus because it was like a town within a town. We all stuck together and got lost trying to find Regan Hall and when we finally did, the guy at the check-in counter said that we were two hours early so yeah, we had some time to kill. So I just went with my mother and we explored MU a bit. We got back, checked-in, and I got my ID with a stretched out picture of my visage. It's worse than a driver's license pic. We also recieved huge packets of info that we were expected to read before the program began but first, i picked up my room key to unpack. I was worried about who my roommate was going to be & I was the first to get to my quad-style room. Goodness, it was disappointing because the room was like a prison cell- it was super small. The bed sheets were kindof starchy and the blanket was full of hair and leaves. It was odd. My whole floor was full of guys so it stank of cologne mixed with sweat but it was still tolerable. The girls were on the floors above us. I would go up there a couple times later & sense the scents of shampoo and lotion. Anyway, I was looking out the little window by my bed when my roommate arrived. Mike was his name- a graduate from Belmont High in LA. He was hilarious although a bit cussy but you know how them LA ppl are. Haha, he kept talking about how he felt out of place and that he might get shot cuz he was the only chicano in a white mans world. There were these two asian-am guys in the room across our quad config. One guy was a bit annoying and the other was cool. They were from San Mateo. Yeah, almost everybody in Davis was eithre asian or white.
So the program started and the parents were separated from their children because each had a different schedule of events. They split us students into small groups. My group had tons of people from San Jose. I met this one girl, Stephanie and I got her number but I don't think i can KIT because something happened to my long distance carrier while i was away so yeah, my phone's all kakacoocoo. Anyway, we took a whole bunch of tours around the Health center and the MU. There's a bowling alley on campus (the only one existent in the tri-county area)! The night ended there and I decided to take a walk around UCD to explore and ended up getting lost on the other side of campus for three hours in the dark. It was fun.
DAY 2
I woke up too late for breakfast so I took a cold shower instead. I refused to take the PreCalculus Diagnostic exam so I just went and explored the campus on my own. It got hot- a freakin 105°F!!! I came back, studied a bit of French and went to go take the French placement test. YAY! I got into the intermediate French class (from French 3 to French 21)! We heard a whole bunch of lectures and attended advising sessions. Lecture halls are cool- they echo! When I came back from the sessions, i ran into my mother. She'd been talking with her new friends (other parents) and I met some of them. There was Veronica & Odie & Iga. It was weird at first calling older ppl by their first names. I met my mom's roommate, Bonnie. She was really nice and really friendly- the kind that has mother-daughter girl talks, the kind that bakes a lot of cookies for friends. She was highly sociable. To tell the truth, I think I met a lot more parents than I did other students. Yeah, kindof sad. But it was okay. It got weird though when they all wanted me to meet their children, especially this one woman who got together with my mom to hook me up with her daughter. I just kindof ran away from that situation and decided to stick to meeting other students on my own because now, our parents were meddling. So anyway, after a few more sessions, we struggled to learn how to register for classes. It was confusing as hell. Lisa, if you are reading this, contact me and I'll give you advise on how to avoid all the junk that we had to go through. Anyway, it was lunch time and I proceeded to the Segundo Dining Commons with James (an econ major from San Mateo). The food wasn't too great. I mean, there was a wide variety and the food was highly filling, but the cuisine of it all lacked in taste. Eh, but the potatoes were pretty good. So I sat with my mom and her roomie came by and introduced these two girls I've never met before. It turns out that one of them was Anna, Bonnie's daughter, and Sylvia, Anna's friend. They seemed really friendly and we invited them to dine with us but they'd already finished and so I just left for my dorm to try and figure out the damn class registration process. That evening during the barbeque, I sat with my mother, Bonnie, Anna, and Sylvia. We started talking a bit and ended up chatting and laughing away. The thing is that it didn't feel weird at all with my mother there. We were all new friends. It didn't really matter and that's when it first hit me and I was glad that my mother had come along. Anna and Sylvia were sweet, innocent, opinionated, and nice. They come from the San Francisco Bay area, 1.12 hours away from Davis. So after the bbq, I went back to my dorm and tried to figure out the class registration thing again. It was getting terribly aggravating. James was going crazy. Mike was talking about how he needed health insurance in case he gets rammed by a cow or falls off a tractor or something. Then there was this girl who had sex at the advising with this guy that she had just met the day before. How disgusting. Well, that's college for them, I guess. So I couldn't concentrate because everybody on my floor was terribly noisy (there was a floor party going on) so I went to Regan Hall and tried to make sense of classes with Bonnie, Anna, and Sylvia. It was still a failure and we were kicked out at 11:12 pm. We decided to skip the "Davis Experience" thing and I went back to my residence building and watched Jay Leno with Mike and some annoying immature punk from SF. I went back to my room and fell asleep, oblivious that Mike was giving tours of my room to the girls from upstairs. Sheesh.
DAY 3
I actually woke up, took a shower, and ate breakfast. I was tired and it was already hot out. I packed my things, and turned in my sheets with my key. No wonder the blankets were dirty! They never wash them! Ilck. So anyway, I had finished my class choices the night before and I felt ready to register but when I went to the final advising session, things got crazy. Two out of three of my classes were already closed and my class schedules were totally warped. We all tried frantically to replace our class choices with alternatives but none seemed to work! I just said, "bah pooh forget it", and gave up. The advisors knew these classes were closed since the night before! Why couldn't thay have told us then!?
So anyway, we went to a final closing session in the Chem Lecture Hall where I noticed that parents ask more questions than students. I met the College Dean and the Political Sci. professor- very admirable people. After all that, we all walked back to the Dining Commons for lunch. My registration appointment was at 1:46 on the other side of campus (it takes the average person 17 minutes to powerwalk from one side to the other). I walked with Anna and Sylvia and we chatted about why we chose Davis and how our lives have been up to now. They went to MU and i proceeded to the Labs to register. Ohmygosh, none of my schedules worked out! I didn't want to take any 8:10 am/pm classes. The Communications 1 class was filled up. I spent almost two hours in the lab trying to get my schedule to work. I struggled and in the end, I ended up with two out of three classes, which isn't too bad I guess. I didn't trust the language placement test because I don't think I could be that far advanced with the way Pulido taught second semester back in high school so instead I enlisted for college level "French 3". I'm also taking a "Religion in American Lives" class. There's this other class I have to take and I don't even remember what it was but I think it's "Community Development" or something like that. Eh, oh well... it's probably interesting. Poor Anna & Sylvia didn't get any of the classes they wanted. Mike got 2/3 and I dunno but I think everybody got bad schedules except lucky James.
So yeah, it was time to say goodbuy to everybody. Ryan had a flight at 4:12 back to San Diego. I never saw Stephanie to say gbuy. Mike had a flight at 6 to LAX, James' parents picked him up. My mother and I said goodbuy to Bonnie, Anna, and Sylvia. I was sortof sad to leave. It was a strange thought to think that you can be with somebody 4 inches away and in 4 hours, have them be 4 hundred miles away. All in all, the UCD experience was tiring but fun. I skipped a whole bunch of other people I met like Lam, Michelle, Vincent, Christine, and a few others. I don't really know if I'll ever see any of them again.
My introduction to college life was indeed an interesting experience. When you get there, people don't really know each other, except for the ones who do but you go there feeling soo alone and find out that you really aren't. For me, it was a transition into a new world that I knew I was living in but never noticed. Now I have a whole new outlook and I'm ready to look out for my future. GO AGGIES!
~Benjamin 7/12/2003 05:28:00 PM
And now, at 11:32 pm, it's time to start packing. hehehe
~Benjamin 7/08/2003 11:29:00 PM
Procrastinators for life!!! I'm leaving for the UCDavis summer advising dealie tomorrow at 4:32 am and I haven't packed anything yet. haha I'm a light packer though. I sortof wish my mother wasn't going with me... not so much because it may get embarassing (goodness knows, incidents happen), but just that I wanted to see if i could get around the area by myself... you know, really be independent. Then again, I'll have plenty of time to do that when i go up there for good. Well, not for good, but for... yeah.~ lundi, juillet 07, 2003 ~
Anyway, I don't like how hot it's going to be at Davis this week- a broiling 107°F! Ilck, I really detest chaud weather... the only weather up there that I look forward to is the 37°F during the Winter months.... oooh, I'm sooo going to love that. It'd be almost snowin. So anyway, i don't know what to expect at this advising thing... I just hope it's nothing like the UC Irvine orientation stuff that David was telling me about yesterday... they made him dance in front of everybody!? Goodness, lol sorry David, but hahaha.
I have to take a French placement exam when I get up there so I guess I better start reviewing tonight. Bohnjoor! Cohmant allay-voo? Yep, I still got it. Hmmm... well i'll be back on Friday so until then, oodles of blogging blessings to all!
~Benjamin 7/08/2003 08:36:00 PM
This is a morning of peace. I managed to awaken at 5:12 a.m. to take a stroll in the cool morning mist, so rare a situation in hot Los Angelican summers. I had a wonderful promenade along the San Gabriel mountain ranges... very easing. The only sounds I could hear were of morning doves mourning the end of night and the happy greetings of morning people along the Royal Oaks Trail. There were some people at the park doing Tai Chi. Sheesh, I want to learn to do that. They look so peaceful, makes me wanna knock them down. I returned to chez moi and read a bit from my new book, "The Magic of Provence: Pleasures of Southern France", which, by the way, I highly recommend to anybody with a passion for peace, travel, food, or Europe/France. It's light, and witty, and anyway, that's beside the point. If there's any point to this at all. Everybody needs a little peace sometimes. There's something about a tranquil home and easy-going relaxation that everybody needs once in a while. Goodness knows, I'm not a morning person and I've detested the hour for such a long time. But today, I came to notice how intoxicatingly enchanting it could be. The morning sun is very good for the body as is the morning air, and the soft luminance of dawn is very pleasing to the eyes. I highly recommend it all. Then again, sleep is still very good and I highly recommend it up to eight hours... but too much sleep brings you closer to death. But we could all use a little morning blessing.
"The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there." ~Monica Baldwin
~Benjamin 7/07/2003 01:09:00 PM
