Saturday, September 18, 2010

342.

Mom and Dad loaded the van and drove me to UCLA this morning. We got there a good half an hour earlier than we needed to be, which was great because we found parking really easily and we were able to avoid the masses of people that were there when I helped Andy move in his freshman year. It helps that it was 7:30 in the morning. There were "Wrong Way: Do Not Enter" signs all over the place, but since we're Asian, we ignored them all lol. When I saw my building Hitch, with all those balloons and everything, I think all of my fears from last night just disappeared. I was so excited to be moving in.

Write to me? (:

Our building doesn't have an elevator, which sucked for us moving everything upstairs to the third floor, but I love it! I love the look of it, that circular wiindow, how there's platforms everywhere ... I love all these stairs and halls and how it feels like we're living in one of North's building complexes, except this one's much more intricate. I love all these trees! They were blasting "Teenage Dream" from outside and that is exactly how I want to start all my mornings hahaha.

I met one of my suitemates Devin, and she seemed really nice (and super outgoing, which means I'm going to have to step it up haha). She was the only one there, and I guess she's been there since Tuesday since she's there as one of the move-in assistants. Also, she brought a TV! ♥ I went into my room and it was empty! No one was there yet which is best case scenario for me! So Mom and Dad helped me unpack, and I got my bottom bunk. (:

We were driving back home and I mentioned that I should've just stayed there today, and then Mom said that technically I could. Because apparently Andy's moving in later today around 4pm, and Dad's helping him, so I could just go with them. And. That totally threw me off, because I hadn't planned on it at all. But I thought about it on the car ride and I decided I would. Everyone's leaving today and. There's really nothing left for me in Torrance, you know?

I got Ricardo to kind of take in my kids into his class with his kids (with Jaimie's approval), so all I had left were my pre-porpoise and pre-dolphin classes. I didn't even put on my suit cuhs I don't have to get in the water for those classes lol. Anyhow, Mom and I got some candy for them while we were at Costco yesterday, but I think my co-workers took more bars than the kids lol. I was pretty annoyed though, because at one point during my 11:30 porpoise class, Katie called Ines and told her to tell me that I have to be in the water. No one ever jumps in the water for porpoise (logically it makes no sense, because they should already have all the skills and there should be no need for the instructor to be in the water). And I went over to the office to tell her that. And she just said that we are supposed to be in the water. And I said that I didn't bring my suit because I didn't think I'd be getting in so yeah. And she said okay. And then I looked at her and said "You're going to write me up aren't you." And she said that she couldn't write people up anyway (which is odd, because I've had some experiences that are definitely linked to her) but just to wear it next time.
--

We loaded the cars again and I left with Dad in his car around 4:30pm. You know, for that half hour before we left, I was just crying off and on. I didn't realize it until now, but I'm really going to miss Mom.

We went to Andy's apartment first to help him set up his stuff. Two of his roommates were there; apparently one of them's an international student from Italy!

His roommate had this up in the living room, and omg. ♥

We dropped off my suitcase full of additional stuff in my room (which was empty), and then headed over to De Neve for dinner. My flipflop broke along the way (it's strange cuhs Mom was just telling me a few days ago how quickly it would break) and the front thong thing came out, so Dad stabbed a hole with his keys and it was able to keep it in (I taped the back when I got back to the dorm later). Anyhow, food's been better, but I'm not complaining.

ESTABROOK WOULD BE PROUD.

I will definitely be eating at Hedrick Mondays and Thursdays. ♥

Dad, Uncle, and I headed back over to my dorm to help me with my ethernet cord and tape it down; my other roommates came in a few minutes later. Alyssa and Natalie (and Rodal who came in some time after that). They all said the wifi worked pretty well here, so I opted not to use the ethernet cord for now. However, I couldn't access the internet at all for some reason; apparently you have to agree to their internet use policy and download some safe-anti-virus program check thing, and I did, but it still wouldn't work. So we called Andy over. And he got it working. But then he signed onto the internet under his own name. And then for the next half hour or so, he kept trying to sign out of it without success (we even restarted the computer a few times and no luck). He was working up a huge temper because he is so convinced I'm going to use Limewire here (I even deleted him in front of him, although technically I could just go back into the trash and pull it out lol). And then I got pissed because he was being stupid and even made my computer freeze. So they finally left, and I was so upset that Andy ruined what should have been a really good move-in day (just like how he ruined graduation).

I talked to Alyssa for a while (she's my roommate while all the others here so far are my suitemates). We were talking about going to Westwood later with everyone, but I guess Rodal had a headache, and the other two were tired, so it kind of fell apart. I called Ken and Adrian, and they were both in Covel Commons watching the football game so I headed over. I was really proud of myself though, because it was dark, and I was able to find my way over, and I've only gone this way once, way back during Orientation with Rita! My other flipflop broke on the way over! I tried stabbing a hole with my keys (which I just realized I forgot to leave at home), but it was messy and didn't work as well as Dad's.

There was this huge screen and so many people! During the commercial breaks the MCs would raffle off items or give them away for a correctly answered trivia question. I'm really not a huge football fan at all, and I was kind of falling asleep a couple times, but I'll probably be a fan by the end of the year lol.

There was this free photo booth thing, and Adrian wanted a picture lol.

I'm not quite sure how this all happened, but after the game, I got separated from Ken and Liz. And I called Ken and he said something about going to Westwood and told me to stick with Liz and we'd meet up. So I found Liz, and she was with her friends Helen and Lisa, so I just stuck with them. And we were all walking to Diddy Reese in Westwood (I got really anxious just because it was like. Pretty late by this point, and I just don't go walking around strange cities in the middle of the night with people I barely know!) and somehow they just start talking to this group of people in front of us! And then our groups just kind of merged! It's so strange to me just because I'm definitely not that outgoing that I could just pull strangers off the street and make friends out of them, you know? Ashley, Jason, Neal, Keon, Kevin. They were all first years too; they claimed to be second years at first, so that totally threw me off for a while lol. ... And my flipflop strap kept coming back out of the crappy hole I made, so I was just walking with my left foot bare for half the time. ):


We actually did see Ken while we were waiting in line for Diddy Reese (I didn't get anything). And then he left like as soon as we saw him. -___- We saw Brett and Aileen there! Which seems so bizarre since, I mean, what are they even doing there lol. I guess it's not so bizarre since they were there with Matt Maki and Brett Sakaguchi lol.

Afterwards we walked back to campus, and my anxiety was just so great, because it was past midnight by this point. And Liz suggested we all hang out in her building, Rieber Hall. And everyone was down. And I figured I wasn't exactly in a position to be turning down opportunities to make friends. It was pretty cool though, cuhs they have all these lounges on each floor (we went to the 4th floor), and all these people were gathered there, meeting each other! We all sat in a circle and said our names, majors, where we're from, and a random fact. If anything, this only made me even more unsure about being there just because I was so worried people were doing something like this in Hitch, and I was missing out to be here of all places, with people I'd probably never see again.

Anyhow, I decided it was time to go around 1am, and hurried back to my dorm. I felt like I'd completely made a bad decision tonight since, one, Mom even called me tonight to urge me not to go out too late. And two, it was just way too out of my comfort zone and just with the wrong people. I should've been getting to know my roommates. I felt worse because when I got back to the room, everyone was asleep. I just suddenly felt so homesick because it was so quiet and so dark (because everyone was sleeping), and I just thought if I were home, it'd be all lit up, and I'd have the tv on to adultswim. And I just missed everything.