February 9
attempting to de-stress and get rid of my writer’s block …  It was raining yesterday, so of course I could not stop reminiscing over my time at UCI last spring. I’ve slowly but eagerly been coming to terms with what I want to remember it as—I want it to be all “bliss.” That’s a good word for it. No, I haven’t forgotten the circumstances that got me there or the stupid shit that happened while I was there. But that’s honestly not what comes to mind when I think back to it. I can’t conjure up any viscerally negative feelings about my experience. Maybe I’ve developed a convenient blocking mechanism, but I’d like to think that it’s because all of that doesn’t really mean that much to me anymore.  In reflection, what’s more important to me is what I learned about myself. I can think of two life experiences that enabled me to become more comfortable with who I am and who I want to be: playing basketball with Hot Stuff starting in 4th grade and spending a quarter at UCI. It’s silly, but maybe it was the beautiful, unreal weather that makes me now feel such a strong attachment to that campus and those people (clearly, it was a great experience because my boyfriend was there, but that’s a given, so I’m not going to talk about that). When it’s cold here, I like to think about waiting for the bus in my Rainbows underneath the hot sun everyday. I like to think about going to that mini gym and feeling spoiled while I watched Laker games and biked (that same pampered feeling comes to mind when I think about the private pool and jacuzzi). I like to think about sitting in a class with 100 other people where the professor actually knew my name and where I felt comfortable enough to actually raise my hand to answer a question. I like thinking about going to parties and having fun meeting new people without worrying about being judged by them because I honestly didn’t care…and I honestly didn’t think they were judging me. It was relaxing and important for me to be somewhere else for three months, to be having my “college experience” somewhere else. It was so, so different from Berkeley. My best friends are here and in my opinion, Berkeley is the best city imaginable, but there was just something about Irvine that made me feel comfortable and calm and uninhibited—it’s a flighty, free feeling that I’m trying to remember to aspire to here, especially in this final semester. In a word, it was “fun.” I was taking 21 units, studying for the LSAT and playing on two intramural basketball teams but I just felt like I had so much time for so many things that were purely fun. Everything I do here—{m}aganda, too many units, yoga, cardio kickboxing, the fashion design stuff, IMs, everything that takes up almost every ounce of my time and energy—I do because I think it’s fun. But that’s simply not the same kind of fun as doing wholly “fun” things—meaning absolutely nothing productive—all day and not feeling guilty about it later. It’s also fun going to places and not caring at all what people think about you, and then realizing that people actually like you sans any sort of pretensions. I’m trying really hard to keep that in mind this semester. 

attempting to de-stress and get rid of my writer’s block … 

It was raining yesterday, so of course I could not stop reminiscing over my time at UCI last spring. I’ve slowly but eagerly been coming to terms with what I want to remember it as—I want it to be all “bliss.” That’s a good word for it.

No, I haven’t forgotten the circumstances that got me there or the stupid shit that happened while I was there. But that’s honestly not what comes to mind when I think back to it. I can’t conjure up any viscerally negative feelings about my experience. Maybe I’ve developed a convenient blocking mechanism, but I’d like to think that it’s because all of that doesn’t really mean that much to me anymore. 

In reflection, what’s more important to me is what I learned about myself. I can think of two life experiences that enabled me to become more comfortable with who I am and who I want to be: playing basketball with Hot Stuff starting in 4th grade and spending a quarter at UCI. It’s silly, but maybe it was the beautiful, unreal weather that makes me now feel such a strong attachment to that campus and those people (clearly, it was a great experience because my boyfriend was there, but that’s a given, so I’m not going to talk about that). When it’s cold here, I like to think about waiting for the bus in my Rainbows underneath the hot sun everyday. I like to think about going to that mini gym and feeling spoiled while I watched Laker games and biked (that same pampered feeling comes to mind when I think about the private pool and jacuzzi). I like to think about sitting in a class with 100 other people where the professor actually knew my name and where I felt comfortable enough to actually raise my hand to answer a question. I like thinking about going to parties and having fun meeting new people without worrying about being judged by them because I honestly didn’t care…and I honestly didn’t think they were judging me.

It was relaxing and important for me to be somewhere else for three months, to be having my “college experience” somewhere else. It was so, so different from Berkeley. My best friends are here and in my opinion, Berkeley is the best city imaginable, but there was just something about Irvine that made me feel comfortable and calm and uninhibited—it’s a flighty, free feeling that I’m trying to remember to aspire to here, especially in this final semester. In a word, it was “fun.” I was taking 21 units, studying for the LSAT and playing on two intramural basketball teams but I just felt like I had so much time for so many things that were purely fun. Everything I do here—{m}aganda, too many units, yoga, cardio kickboxing, the fashion design stuff, IMs, everything that takes up almost every ounce of my time and energy—I do because I think it’s fun. But that’s simply not the same kind of fun as doing wholly “fun” things—meaning absolutely nothing productive—all day and not feeling guilty about it later. It’s also fun going to places and not caring at all what people think about you, and then realizing that people actually like you sans any sort of pretensions. I’m trying really hard to keep that in mind this semester.