2010 was a year of highs and lows, ups and downs, containing both moments of joy and moments of sadness.
The year started with of course Winter Quarter.
With it being a new quarter, and even more so a new year, I figured it was time for a change. My reliance on girls for happiness pushed me into a depressed mood that I thought I couldn’t get out. I knew it would be an uphill battle, but at the same time I knew I had to push towards happiness.
With a ridiculous list of New Years Resolutions being made for 2010, one of them included the task “not to chase girls”. This proved to be a tough endeavor, while at the same time increasingly annoying. I had to make sure I didn’t get too close to any girl, because I didn’t want to chase them. Chasing girls put me in the depressed state I was in, so I figured the only way to get out of it was to stop the chase, indefinitely. This proved to be too difficult, as I created too many restrictions on myself, ultimately binding my happiness to a fixed state. I was now, if anything, indifferent to life and all that was around me, and I figured chasing girls would be one of the last things I would want on my mind at the time. Still, I tried my best to cope through, and subsequently made many new friends.
At this point, hang outs with my apartment-mates were frequent. We went to Pho & Wal-Mart nearly every other week, played lots of board games in the form of Risk, Loaded Questions, and Bang, and also even engaged in watching an entire season of 24 together. I knew in that arena, there was still a deep source of happiness, but still I needed more. With the floor family not nearly hanging out at all anymore, I figured I had lost a ton of the closest friends I’ve made the previous year. It just goes to show you when you make a relationship based on distance and not on anything actually worthwhile, those bonds are more likely to break.
Where did I find these friends? Programming at Warren. With my initial decision to hang out with Kunal and Tyler first, it eventually blossomed to hanging out with Lauren – and then Alex – and then everyone in PAW. The eventual closeness of the PAW clique derived from the fun times we shared together on Spirit Night. After the big game, we all chilled at Alex’s place playing a ton of boardgames. It was at that point I realized I needed more than just my apartment-mates. Sure, they were great and all, but I learn more from being around different people, and not just the same people all the time. With them as a new group of friends, I also played boardgames with some girls from another suite near Tyler’s place. These friends helped me get my mind off of things and move on to a much happier sense of existence.
Still, I realized by the end of the quarter I was still NOT happy. There was still some drama in my apartment derived from my roommate’s disagreements with one another. I didn’t know what to do at that point, and I was so distraught by it. I went to church nearly every other week in an effort to try to escape the drama, and to see if being spiritual could help cure my happiness. It didn’t.
Further rejections helped to bring back my insecurities as I was ultimately rejected by almost everything I applied to: Camp Kesem, Student Health Advocates, and the final blow of Warren res-life rejecting me to be a Resident Advisor. By that point I didn’t know who I was going to live with, what I was going to do, and how I was going to stay stable. I figured out that the following quarter should be the one where I try to implement more change.
Then came Spring Quarter, and this was the one quarter my mood became steering in the right direction. Instead of relying primarily on girls for happiness, I focused on keeping myself busy for the most part to distract myself from my neediness.
Subsequently, I kept being involved in PAW and ICRA events, while at the same time hanging out with people as I saw fit. As much as I didn’t know it at the time, my apartmentmates and my PAWmates helped to keep me happy, because we had a ton of fun joking around (Boat Pull, ATP, etc.) We had fun times eating, working out, chilling, playing boardgames, watching movies, and most of all having fun. I placed myself in less situations where I could potentially get hurt from rejection, but instead just focused on having casual, fun relationships with my friends. By this point, the floor family was dead as far as I knew it.
Still, drama ensued in the form of my apartment. Me & my roommates had a few arguments that quarter. I knew ultimately it came back to being my fault, and I knew I couldn’t live with either of them next year because of it. Eventually, me and Amul made an agreement to be roommates next year. I decided to stay on campus again being the ICRA Vice President for Warren, and also would room with two others. I figured after living with roughly the same people for two years, it was now time for a change, since I also wanted to stay on campus.
I love my apartment-mates and all and we had a ton of exciting memories together, but it was now time for more adventures with new friends. The Wild Animal Park, the Rezzies, SUNGOD, and other events shared with my PAW friends and ICRA friends helped reestablish the value I knew I had for living. No longer focused primarily on chasing girls, I figured the chase for new friends was an ambitious yet exciting one, and the life lessons learned from Sophomore Year would be carried over to Junior Year.
San Diego Wild Animal Park, 2010
My second summer of college was 10 times better than my first summer. I knew more people, started cooking a little bit more, and had fun taking summer school classes, going to work at EH&S (just one job that summer full time), and doing random activities like P90X and watching all 13 seasons of Degrassi. It was tame, and kept me grounded in quite a bit of happiness.
My last quarter of 2010 (Fall Quarter) happened to be equally amazing. After attending the NACURH conference the weeks leading up to ICRA training, I felt a special bond and connection with all the people in the club, many of whom I still communicate with to this date. We had fun planning events together, eating together, and generally working together. I think clubs like this have established in my head that the people you work with is equally as important as where you work, which is why despite its flaws, I’m glad to still be at Rise with several of the co-workers and friends I’ve made thus far.
With the premiere of Glee that year, I also started having weekly Glee parties, where literally 10-20 people came every week to watch that television show. That was in its prime though in its first season, and I was a little disappointed every time it clashed with one of my club meetings.
Being involved, being with friends, being in clubs, and having fun all aligned together to give me some fulfillment in 2010, and made it a much happier year than the one preceding it.
The top film of the year was Toy Story 3, and it definitely made me cry watching it that summer. ANDY, and his toys?! So sad. The top song of the year was Kesha’s Tik Tok, which I know all the lyrics to.
