After the summer of 2008 ended, there was no place left to go except San Diego, literally. College was about to start, and I was about to embark on an experience unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before.
Move In Day!
Suite 400 😀
Orientation was “OKAY”, definitely not a life-changing experience, but I got to know the campus much better. Of course, bonding with my suitemates in Suite 400 proved to the real college experience of fun and excitement.
Victor Fung & Ryan O’Hara!Orientation Group!
Anyway, it’s hard to really describe what happened next. School started, we got very adjusted to our schedule, and life went on as continued. I ended up eating everyday with my suitemates and hanging out every chance we could, doing random activities together. It was truly nice being away from home and establishing a new “floor family”. I remember the day we explored campus together. Those were truly wonderful times.
Anyway, we went everywhere together: including the Lupe Fiasco Concert, which was pretty good even though I don’t like rap music. We started adjusting to our school schedules, and really didn’t have any other friends, as far as I know. I remember the first batch of people we actually met as a group was Suite 500 though. We watched Youtube videos randomly one night with all of them, and I remember visiting Suite 300 to watch TV(?). Shrugs.
On one random day; the exact date isn’t exactly coming to me, the floor family started coming together as an entity. It started when we played Volleyball randomly one day with Jordan & Alexis. I believe it was me, Ryan, Victor at first. Anyway, it was fun while it lasted – I can simply recall the chantings of “Victor E” and “J.J” that one random day. Still, it was still debatable whether that was the foundation of the floor family, because there were many in Suite 416 we had simply not met yet.
But, I remember it was John Torres’ birthday (10/17/2008) where we first invited the girls over to hang out! Only Alexis came though, and we ultimately played Quelf.
Quelf! FUN Times!
Eh, it doesn’t matter at this point, but we eventually started branching out and met various members of other Suite (408). At about roughly this point, I believe John Torres also got his job at the Sunshine Market.
The next major event was my own birthday(10/28/2008) ! Where we took various pictures as a Suite….
Oh look, a sausage pyramid…
I forgot to mention, Stacey Hunsucker was our Resident Advisor. – and what a wonderful person she was. She was nice to our suite, and she helped increase the bonding experience for all of us. In our first Suite meeting, we played Catchphrase with one another, as well as attempted to say an adjective before our name that starts with our own letter. I’m “Just John”.
Anyway, the next day I went to the beach with many of the 416 girls, and that was a fun experience too!
Brittney, Esme, Jordan, & Staecy!
The next “Major event” in the foundation of our floor family was Staecy’s Kim Birthday. Several hours before October 30th, 2008, our floor compiled in a video in an effort to honor Staecy Kim. I would like to say it worked, and from that point on, our floor family was truly activated.
400 + 416
From that point on, we started hanging out quite a lot, and doing various activities together that are almost unforgettable.
November 13th, 2008: Election Night. BEN & JERRY’S!Random Random Random!Howard’s 18th birthday… Don’t ask.Red Robin Trip!
Random tibdits happened in between, among hanging out in the study lounge, watching movies together such as “Zoolander” and “Donnie Darko”. It was virtually “drama-free” in the beginning of our wonderful floor family. I remember one night the guys locked the girl’s bathroom from within, and then Yesenia lifting a coach in the study lounge, but other than that, things were good. Oh yeah, and Ryan’s shoes were put in the trash can, and he forgot to get them, and thus Ryan had to look through the trash. He was so lucky though, because the first bag he went through was the bag containing his shoe!
At the Red Robin Dinner we also chose names for “Secret Santa”, an exchange we would do, for one another – it was really sweet. And eventually we would exchange the gifts.
Secret Santa, Freshman Year! 😀
That day, we also showcased a Christmas video present for Brittney, Leah, & Michelle. In the video, our suite (400) played the girls of 408, and basically made fun of their tendencies – Brittney cheerleading, Michelle & Staecy being Korean, Leah & One Tree Hill, Esme being Mexican, Alexis liking churros and meowing, Jordan & Tahoe, and Yesenia lifting couches. They were simply good times!
And after that point, finals came, which were ultimately disgusting. However, having the easy classes I had that quarter, they were very easy.
Brittney’s Birthday!
It all ended up coming up to one night, December 12th, 2008, where: we went to Souplantation, swore we would all miss each other during Winter Break, and I almost lost my keys because they flew into Brittney’s purse magically.
Pre-Souplantation!
The number 1 thing I garnered from Fall Quarter though was a new experience in college, and developing and setting the seeds for a floor family I still miss to this day. The college experience wasn’t really about going to classes, although I thoroughly did enjoy most of them (except maybe the ones at 8am).
With winter quarter arriving in January of 2009, I got a temporary job at Career Services Center this quarter. It was actually pretty simple – all I had to was scan and purge documents. It was relatively easy to balance worklife and school life since I was majoring in Communications after all.
I remember going home every other weekend, which in essence made me miss various floor-bonding events such as parties & dressing up in garbage. Shrugs, oh well.
At the time I was quite a prohibitionist and against underage drinking – not really interested in the party scene. Eventually I became more tolerant of it, but being only 2 quarters in and having never experienced anything like it ever before, I had my reservations and became increasingly disappointed. But who was I to judge?
Me and a few of my suitemates eventually started hanging out with members of another dorm, numbered “408”. Eventually all three suites would eventually become friends.
It all started one day when me & John Torres randomly decided to start eating with residents of 408 – specifically Tiffany, Michelle Kyong, and Julie Chen. It was at that point I ate a hot dog and threw up. It was kind of disgusting and kind of a bad introduction, but it was really funny nevertheless. Shrugs! From that point on, we started hanging out with them watching American Idol & 24 biweekly from that point on.
Speaking of throwing up, this reminds of Canyon Vista, the dining hall I used to eat almost every day in the Fall Quarter. By Winter Quarter, I had discovered Sierra Summit and ate there as often as I could. YUM! Stir-fry!.
Me, Howard, and John Torres began discussing apartment plans for the following year Ultimately, we decided to stick together, simply for the superficial reasons of being the non-athletic, and sober ones. Anyway, it would take quite a while before we figured out, or before I figured out which fourth roommate to pick.
By the end of the year, we created a movie for our RA Stacey Hunsucker, which proved itself to be awesome:
Because financial aid didn’t cover all the costs for college, my dad had to pay about 1.2k extra per quarter for me to able to afford my tenure at UCSD. As a result, I felt very guilty using my parent’s money, so I vowed to get a job that summer and work hard to pay them back. Unfortunately, because my summer involved working 60+ hours at Conference Services & EHS all summer long, not having enough friends to keep me company, eating microwave meals all summer, being very lonely having to deal with life on my own, and of course being rejected yet again by the girl of my dreams at my brother’s wedding, I was very depressed and I knew I had to do something drastic to get my life back in order.
I tried distracting myself with the use of partying and alcohol, and broke my vow to not drink until I turned 21 that summer. Perplexed by events, I knew something had to change, and my journey towards self-actualization would start with the desire to rush a fraternity.
The transition from summer to Fall went relatively smooth, as I moved back into Warren, into my new apartment with my three roommates. We reunited with the floor family from the previous school year, but as I would soon learn that quarter and the rest of the year, the relationships and bonds we established the freshman year of UCSD would never be the same ever again. Victor and I got relatively close as we attempted to rush the best fraternity we could find: Lambda Chi. Under the guise of “no hazing” we were seduced into rushing and going to various events to go chill with the frat brothers: those being through Taco Tuesday, Monday Night Football, & Wednesday Bowing. We were both devastated to learn that we both got rejected, and moped immediately afterwards. Alone time kind of helped, but my desire to join new clubs and get myself out there was increasingly motivated. In retrospect I probably could have done better had I not gone to the Monday Night Football Frat event and told everyone very openly how much I didn’t care for Football. Then again, I wouldn’t have fit into that frat anyway unless I was a little more athletic and manly.
I decided to join new clubs on campus to compensate such as Programming at Warren (PAW) and the Inter Collegiate Resident’s Association. With my decision to raise my hand to be “ICRA Rep” for the club, I had sealed the deal. Now having a duty to go to club meetings, I knew I could not let my PAW-mates down. With this came the creation of new friends.
There was some unfortunate drama in roommate conflict this year, but I still thoroughly enjoyed living with everyone regardless of the disputes that came up frequently and passive aggressiveness throughout the course of the year. We played a ton of Bang and board games, and engaged frequently, but more so with the residents of 408 rather than our neighbors of 416. I miss those days when we would stay up to 4AM every night playing boardgames. It was amazing!
I happened to get Brother-Zoned that year, which was very interesting, and left me once again very depressed. That left me even more devastated than before, and alcohol quickly became a defense mechanism for me to battle those demons. On the night of Halloween 2009 I vowed never to drink again, because I kept kicking chairs, ripping down posters, washing dishes, screaming “I’m the happiest person in the room”, screaming “Don’t compare me to Ryan”, and being generally angry, but more so emotard. I settled the rest of the quarter with just living a normal life, and taking it quite literally easier. It was difficult, but I knew I had to keep my morale up. The attitude I had that quarter set me in a generally bad mood, one I thought I never would get out of it. I have to say though that my apartment-mates knew I was sad, and tried their best to cheer me up, and I will always love them forever for it.
In summary my first year of college was great, but also brought out the massive insecurities engrained in me since childhood, which resulted in a desire for approval from others. I should mention that despite all the negative qualities of the year, I did also discover my true love this year in the form of Phil’s BBQ, and for that I will be eternally grateful.
The top grossing movie of the year was Avatar, aka a rip-off of Pocahontas. The most popular song of the year was Boom Boom Pow, which I found quite annoying to be honest.
