Pokemon Superheroes!
I’m supposed to be studying hard and not go on the computer. But guess who just finished his last day at B-Cafe? ME ME ME ME ME!!
I was actually sad to leave because all the co-workers that I got along with came up to me before I left and told me that they will miss me and wished me luck with my future—even the ones I just met yesterday!
No more free food for my roommates and floor-mates. Sorry guys, but I’m off to better things! BYE BYE B-CAFE.
Oh wait, not quite. I still need to get Ping, Alexa and C2 (who will be referred to as Village Wolf) back for all the crap they did. The story continues. Stay tuned.
Many people have asked me what it is like working at B-Café and, to be honest, it is not a bad job at all. But I am stuck working the two busiest shifts.
After last Thursday, I was seriously this close “ <—(you see the space between the quotation marks?) to quitting: it was fucking hell. Some of the people I encountered at work were just ridiculous and made me wonder how they got in this school. My experience from last week resulted in the creation of this blog. So get ready for a long one.
(Just some background info)
From what I’ve seen, I believe there are five types of workers at B-café: managers, shift leaders, senior cashiers/workers, regular workers, and student workers.
Managers are responsible for overseeing the restaurant’s operations. They are the head honchos: they are the ones wearing the blue shirts and they walk around to make sure that everyone is doing their work and that everything is operating smoothly.
Station leaders are responsible for overseeing the operations at their station. There are four stations: back kitchen (where salads, wraps, dressings, fruit cups, and yogurt are made), deli, coffee/tea, and smoothies. There are always a set amount of regular workers working for them and student workers are sent to them when they need help. They usually wear white, but some dress like a regular worker. (I will mainly talk about Ping from coffee because she is a BITCH).
Senior cashiers/workers: I am not sure how many of them there are, but the two that I know do not like each other (they will be referred to as C and J). Basically, when one is a cashier, the other is a regular worker. Senior cashiers are responsible for rotating student workers so they are not stuck in the same station for more than 2 hours. Since senior cashiers are also regular workers (with power over student workers), they know what they’re doing at stations and usually train students to work the cash register and the station that they work at. There are the notoriously annoying people who come order stuff so we remember them and share stories with each other. Well, I share them with J, not much C, who is more strict.
Regular workers: 90% of the time they are working in the same station. Most of them work the shift 5 days a week and the night shift ones do not go home until 3:15am, because they have to clean, mop, sanitize, and throw all excess items away before they leave. The ones in deli, coffee, smoothies will always stay in the same station and they will usually be the ones making them the fastest. Many of them are Hispanic, so I speak Spanish with them and stay in the loop with what is happening at B-Café. I found out that they get paid like ~$14/hour.
Student workers: We are basically on the same level as the regular workers except that we get only $9.35/hour. Managers/shift leaders/senior cashiers assign us to our station and we work there until we get rotated. We basically get trained to work everywhere.
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I have worked 10 shifts so far, but there are two shifts that I extremely hated and one that will forever change the impression I have of one of my co-workers. These shifts were the third one, the ninth one, and the tenth one. But before I discuss the deranged, aggravating shifts, I will talk about the earlier shifts that lead to them—and the shit that did or did not happen.
During my first shift, I was given a tour of B-Café (by C) and shown where everything is located (and trust me, there is a LOT of stuff; I still can’t remember where everything is located). After I was given the tour, I was placed in the back kitchen to make fruit cups with C. That took around 2 hours and after we were done making around 100 cups, I was taken to the cash register and was trained by J.
I only received 3 minutes of training because it got super crowded, but J was working there and told me to ask her questions when they arise. There were so many buttons and some people order incorrectly (i.e. they would order an iced-mocha [to be picked up at coffee] when they wanted an iced-blended mocha [from smoothies]), so with only 3 minutes of training, I was prone to making errors… I ended up putting 3 things on 1 receipt (1 swipe) for one person and messed up a bunch of coffee orders (because I was unfamiliar with the coffee station—hey, I don’t drink coffee and never worked there!). After 1 hour, C came and told me to go on my 15 min break WITHOUT TELLING ME THAT I WAS ABLE TO GET FOOD, SO I JUST SAT THERE AND TEXTED PPL DURING MY BREAK.
After my break, I went to coffee. Ping taught me how to use the espresso machine and how to make lattes. She spoke really fast and explained too many things at once so I couldn’t soak everything in. There were too many people ordering, so she couldn’t train me anymore and just told me to go pass out pastries. I did this for the next 3 hours and went back to the dorms, only taking back a pastry that was offered to me.
First day of work wasn’t too bad. I had dinner right before work so I wasn’t too hungry during my break, but I wish C told me that I was able to get food… And I wish I had known that I was able to take food at the end too.
So for my next shift, I started off in coffee and the supervisor on Friday is Enas. Since I’ve only had experience doing pastries, stood there and handed them out. After a while, Enas taught me how to make Tea-Lattes and Hot Chocolates. She, then, taught me how to make the more complicated drinks. But I mainly did Tea-Lattes because the older workers did the complicated drinks much faster than me. I stayed there for two hours, went to register for the next two hours, and went back to coffee the last two hours. Everything went smoothly; it wasn’t a bad day at all.
[[Shift 3: THE PING STORY]]
However, my third shift was a complete different experience. I started off the night doing register for an hour and switched to coffee with Ping. There was another new guy working there, so I taught him how to make Tea-Lattes when he came. Ping needed help with coffee and called him over—I ended up being the only one doing the teas.
That night, Ping turned out to be the biggest fucking bitch I have ever worked with. I made around 12 Tea/Lattes in a row, passed out pastries, and stood there to wait for the next person to come. Then, she yelled at me for just standing there and not helping with coffee, so I went to help make hot chocolates. There were three orders and I ended up making one cup at a time. She saw me putting the lid on the finished cup while the other two cups only had coco powder in them and yelled at me again: she wanted me to make three at the same time, to pour milk in all three and then put lids on all of them. After I made the hot chocolates, there were two people waiting at the Tea and she yelled at me for not being there when they arrived. But how the hell am I supposed to be at two places at once?
I went back and took care of the Tea/Lattes. There were around four people standing around the pastries and I needed a bagel. The new guy was close to the bagel so I asked him if he can hand one to me and Ping turns around and yelled out “You get your own bagel!” I was really pissed off, but I just said “oh sorry” and went to get it when it cleared. She was super rude to me the whole night; coffee is a small area, so whenever she needed to get through she would scream out “MOVE!!” or “EXCUSE ME!” and shoved me aside. Or she would just walk through. I mean, what does she even see us as? I wouldn’t have been so irked if she hadn’t screamed at me the whole night and just told me to help out in coffee nicely and taught me how to do mass orders of hot chocolate before hand. But I dealt with that loud-mouthed bitch for 5 hours that night because I didn’t get switched out.
The next day, I was sent to coffee again. Due to the previous night with Ping, the bitch, I hated coffee and didn’t want to work there again. Enas could tell that I was out of it—I mean, I got yelled at all night so I started associating coffee with Ping’s annoying loud voice. But after awhile, I realized how nice Enas was and I started working happily again.
I don’t remember much else, because it was a night I felt neutral about.
After that day, I never wanted to work with Ping ever again. I always did what she told me to, but that bitch couldn’t stop screaming. I try to stay away from coffee on Thursdays and I don’t even make eye contact with her when I see in. She needs a hard smack in the face for being such a bitch. **I hear a lot of Regular Workers talk shit about her all the time in Spanish and she deserves it! …for being such a fucking bitch!!! They say that she did not even learn their names, although they’ve been working with her. She basically “commands” them to do tasks by pointing fingers (ie. YOU CLEAN THE MACHINE. HURRY!)**
[[Shift 9: C’s FAVORITISM/THIEVES WHO LURK THE CROWDS/LIARS]]
Truth be told, I kind of hate it when C is the senior cashier and not J. C favors these Latina girls, because C, herself, is a Latina. Pretty racist, I know. On Thursday, I was put at deli… and I stayed there for all 6 hours. C told me she would move me to register at midnight so I wouldn’t have to be at deli during the late night rush. But when one of the managers left, she just kept the three Latinas there and didn’t switch me—I was kept in deli for 6 hours. C ignored me every time I tried to ask her if she when she’d move me to the register. J (who doesn’t like C) told me to tell the other manager. But I didn’t wanna cause trouble so I didn’t. It really did suck to stand for 6 hours and call out numbers…
More annoying was the fact that the drunkards did not listen to me when I called out their orders. I hated having to call out the numbers 50 times because they weren’t listening. Sometimes, they would just be standing there right in front of me and talking to their friends… and they come by 10 mins later asking “Have you called number ### yet?”
We usually bring out around 12 meatball subs at a time since it one of the more popular items. However, that night people were way more stupid than usual. I called out “IF YOU ORDERED A MEAT BALL SUB, COME UP!” And only TWO people came up, while B-Café was packed. What the fuck? I called out again, “MEATBALL SANDWICHES ARE READY COME GET THEM.” Again, no one came up and two minutes later, this guy brings up his ticket and asks “When will you have number ### for a meatball sub?” So I just calmed down and said, “We have it ready” and gave it to him.
Then all the other sandwiches [ham&swiss, turkey, tuna melt] started coming out. It was packed after midnight and people were just bad at coming up when their numbers were called so I had 4 towers of food… And a bunch came at the same time asking if their orders came. So I had to look through the stacks for the correct numbers and call them out again… Still, they came up very slowly while the sandwich makers made them really quickly. And I ended up having many high stacks of sandwiches, it wasn’t pleasant.
To make things worse, this bitch came crumpled her ticket, handed it to me, grabbed a box of meatball sub, and RAN AWAY. I un-crumpled the ticket and looked at the receipt: 2 Pastries. It was too crowded for me to do anything, but I really wanted to get her for executing that scheme… I was really stressed because no one came to get their food and I had a lot to pass out.
I continued calling numbers and this girl at the edge of the counter asked me about the status of her turkey sandwich. Too many people ordered it so it came out a little slower because of the time it took to restock the meat. But I told her she should just wait a little more and it’ll come out.
Two minutes later she said “I’ve been waiting for a long time… Can I just take an order that someone didn’t pick up? I’m starving.” So I told her, okay let me call out the numbers again and if no one comes, I’ll give it to you. I called the numbers out for the 15th time and everyone came to pick up their turkey sandwiches and the girl complained even more about starving. So I told her, to give me her ticket so I can check if it got printed out, and it didn’t. BUT SHE SOMEHOW HAD A TICKET FROM THE KITCHEN, NOT THE REGISTER.
Her: Can you check if they’re making 373?
*I went to check and came back*
Me: Uhh… this isn’t the right ticket. I can’t give you your food unless you give me the ticket they printed out at register.
Her: What? I got this at register
Me: No you didn’t…
Her: Well I had a ticket, I gave it to you and you threw it away
Me: (What the fuck??) Uhhh…. If you had given it to me I would’ve given you a sandwich before I had thrown it away.
Her: You just grabbed it and threw it away. I’ve been waiting for a long time, can you just go and make one for me? You threw away my ticket!
Me: How did you even get this ticket?
Her: After you threw mine away I just grabbed one from the counter
WHAT THE FUCK!! DOES THIS GIRL HAVE MENTAL DISABILITIES OR SOMETHING?? IF I HAD THROWN HER TICKET AWAY, WHY THE FUCK DIDN’T SHE SAY ANYTHING RIGHT THEN?! SHE JUST GRABBED A RANDOM TICKET FROM THE COUNTER AND EXPECTED THAT NUMBER TO BE CALLED AGAIN?? WHAT A FUCKING RETARD!
I got so sick of that bitch so I told the shift leader that we need to make another turkey sandwich for her, just so she’d leave.
Afterwards, the sandwiches piled up even more and after dealing with a bitch like her, I did not want to call numbers anymore.
[[Shift 10: LAZY AND DECEPTIVE STUDENT WORKERS]]
So yesterday, J was the Senior Cashier. I started the shift doing three hours of coffee/tea. It was so nice working with Enas because I didn’t hear any yelling and it was a slow day too. After my three hours I took a break and J put me at the Cash Register and told me to stay there for the rest of the night.
However, other student workers are really lazy and try to get Register even when they’re not supposed to. Most of them just abandon their station and go to the register and start swiping students, leaving a spot that needs to be occupied at their old station. The way that B-Cafe operates allows those students to do that because the “opened” spot can just be filled up by other student workers.
So J told me to go check the counter and restock napkins/condiments because it was a slow day. I went in the back to get the supplies and finished restocking. Afterwards, I looked back at the Cashier, and all three were taking. So I told J, and she told me to kick someone out and just stay there. Fuck, these students are lazy.
So I stayed there for less then 10 minutes and this bitch, Alexa, came and was all “Hey you should go help out in deli. They told me to send you there” and I was like “What the hell? I just started working like 10 minutes ago.” She responded, “Well they told me to go here and send the asian guy over.” So I believed her and went to deli—turns out, no one even called me there. That fucking lazy ass just wanted to switch there and made that up so I’d go to deli… Fucking bitch I swear. But again, I didn’t wanna start shit by calling her out, so I just stayed in deli for the rest of the night.
It wasn’t as bad as Thursday. However, I forever hate that lying, deceptive Alexa girl for that scheme. J told me that her or the shift supervisor does the rotations, but the shift supervisor normally doesn’t switch, he only calls for more workers if students are needed. And J told me I was able to stay the whole night too. Screw you Alexa, I WILL get you next time. Thankfully, that night wasn’t TOO bad. But J told me to be more assertive next time and ask her who is making the rotations. That’s true though, I shouldn’t be too trusting… I’m normally not, but I wanted to be a good co-worker.
I empathize with food service workers now because, heck, it takes a lot of work to get food to the customers. It sucks to receive 50 orders within 10 mins, especially at deli. When you guys come after 1AM, please be nice to B-Cafe workers—especially at deli—and listen when your number is being called.
Note: It isn’t like this EVERYDAY at B-Cafe… There are more B-Café stories, but those are the top 3. I hope you want to slap all of these people across the face after reading this blog. Work is not easy—cuz people are bitches. But at least I’m getting paid.
I have been on my toes this whole quarter with academics, extracurricular activities, and work. And the quarter is abooouut to end. The whole quarter has been eventful and I have done many things that I never imagined myself doing before I attended UCLA.
I have always seen myself as a business person, with a business administration major, not a business-econ major. But due to some unforeseen circumstances and me being poorly informed about financial aid at private schools, I am now an econ major and, after first quarter, realized my discontent. During the first two weeks of the quarter, I was extremely conflicted with everything. I did not know what to do with my life—I wanted to change my major and wanted to transfer school. I enrolled in some classes to fulfill requirements for International Development Studies and immediately decided that it was not right for me. Right now, everything is making a lot more sense now, so we’ll see what will happen later on…
Another change occurred at the end of week three when I received an email informing me of an opening in Rieber Hall. I had forgotten about the transfer request I sent to housing before school started, so the email came to me as a surprise. I was well-situated in Courtside, made friends there, and appreciated its close location to campus. However, after much deliberation and advice from friends I accepted the transfer—this decision was tough because they wouldn’t even let me know the room number or people I would be moving in with beforehand (due to privacy shiz). The move took awhile (damn Rieber steps) but I am satisfied with the move and will save a ton of money (enough for my plane ticket abroad this summer!)
Some new things I’ve done this year:
InterVarsity (No, this is not a sports group)—I really never imagined myself being involved with a Christian Fellowship, mainly because I’m a semi-devout Buddhist. But thank you Emily Ta for dragging me along to Catalyst events. Although I am not as active as I should be, I still appreciate the fact that everyone still invites me to events—I will go to a small group one day, when things get less busy…
ACA—Been to practically every single ACA event this quarter cause I wanted to be more active. I am glad I am in Ray’s family though because he tries to stay “dry” and he constantly plans events. Part of the reason why I know so many people around campus is because of ACA—so if you wanna meet new people, you should definitely join!
Work at B-Café—Is interesting… I get a lot of free food but I guess I don’t really appreciate it much because I still live on campus. My hours suck and things don’t always go the way I want them to, but at least I get paid. (Rant blog coming soon…)
AweChords—I ended up trying out because a couple of my friends were and told me to do it with them. I was preoccupied about the audition—although I wouldn’t have tried out if my friends hadn’t told me to—and ended up changing my song choices five times. In the end I sang “Part of Your World” and… got a call back! Call back was extremely fun and everyone sang so well (but me.. lol) I couldn’t sang the solo in the correct octave for some reason… so I had to take it an octave lower… After call backs, I really wanted to get in, but I expected to get rejected when I couldn’t sing the solo. Oh well! Because I went though with that, I realized that I like singing and who knows, maybe I’ll try out again in the future!
All right, that about sums up my quarter.
Until next time,
Vu
Disney Classics:
101 Dalmatians II Patch’s London Adventure
Aladdin and the King of Thieves
Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas
Cinderella II: Dreams Come True
Cinderella III: A Twist in Time
Disney Princess A Christmas of Enchantment
Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams
Disney Princess Stories Volume One: A Gift from the Heart
Disney Princess Stories Volume Two: Tales of Friendship
Disney Princess Stories Volume Three: Beauty Shines from Within
Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Had a Glitch
Peter Pan: Return to Never LandPirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men’s Chest
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Hunchback of Notre Dame II
The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea
The Little Mermaid III: Ariel’s Beginning
The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Yeah
Disney Pixar:
Buzz Lightyear of Star Command: The Adventure Begins
Updated: I’ve recently updated this with more movies and fixed the previous links, since links expire quickly. If a link expires or you have any request for movies to be added, please message me here.
GOD BLESS WHOEVER MADE THIS POST
Hopefully for my future reference if it doesn’t disappear too quickly.
So last week, all the students moved back into UCLA. I came back Saturday night, but it took me until Sunday afternoon to finish unloading… moving in sucks. Anyways, none of my roommates came back until 7PM (Sunday night). The first one that came back was unloading while I was checking my email. He sleeps on the bunk above my bed, so he stood on the bottom to pull down his sheets and blanket—and guess what? A FUCKING DEAD MOUSE FALLS OUT OF HIS BLANKET!!!!!!!!!
Roommate (RM): Oh shit, what’s that?
Me: Huh, what? IT’S A FREAKING MOUSE, WHAT THE HELL!!!
RM: How’d it get there? *He stares at it* Woahhh… Is it still alive?
Me: IT’S DEAD, BUT WOW WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!!!! CALL PEST CONTROL OR SOMETHING!!!!
RM: It’s all right, just a mouse. ((JUST A MOUSE???!)
Me: GET RID OF IT!!!! *I leave to go outside and bump into Greg and Connor*
THERE’S A FREAKING MOUSE IN MY ROOM!!!!
When they came in, my roommate was about to pick it up and throw it away. He stuffed it in a bag and threw it in our trashbin.
Me: WHAT THE HELL!!! THROW IT OUTSIDE
RM: It’s in a separate bag and it’s tied up
Me: NO THROW IT OUT! IT’S GONNA ROT!!!!!!
RM: Okay, okay!
Then he took it out. And I went to the music room in Sproul Hall cuz I didn’t wanna be in there. Holy shit, I’ve always thought my roommate was filthy. He eats in the room a lot and doesn’t clean up… but I never expected for there to be a dead mouse in here…
I was the last one to leave during Winter Break, and I made sure the windows were closed and locked… The only way it could’ve gotten in is through the gap between the door and the ground. But how the heck did the mouse get up there?! Did it climb up my bed?! So paranoid, so scared to sleep now!! There better not be a hole in the room, or worse a family of mice.
I told my cleaning lady (we have Spanish conversations every week) and she actually reported it to the front desk. She submitted a work-order to have the spacing checked and they did a thorough examination of the room. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with mice anymore. My roommate needs to clean up after himself, I swear… or to start throwing the trash outside.
…oh yeah, he still sleeps with the same blanket.
Today I played Ultimate Frisbee with Quincy Chau, Emily Ta, Monica Vu, Andrew Hoang, Sarah Le, John Duong, Amy Le, Peter Doan, and Andy Tran. It’s always nice to hang out with the XC people, but today made me realize how out of shape I am. Andy, Andrew, and John were just too agile…
We got so freaking tired afterwards, but it seemed like everyone had a great time. I really miss playing sports just for the sake of having fun and not for competition or solely in attempt to get fit. In competitive sports, you always end up feeling like shit when you lose and/or get bitched at coaches and teammates. And when you do something simply to “get fit,” you’re not really enjoying it. But today wasn’t like that at all, we genuinely had fun!
Back then (probably 10-12 years ago), I used to always go outside to hang out with the other kids in my neighborhood. We would play tag or hide-and-seek, make up our own games, run around, and, basically, did everything it took to have fun. Then we all got Gameboys, Playstations, cable TV, computers, high-speed internet, AIM, MySpace, etc. and remained stuck at homes. I swear I knew all my neighbors and there were always kids running around. But with the advancement of technology, well, you basically have all the entertainment you need at home and don’t really need to leave the house unless you want to force a workout. My point: Today was just genuinely fun and technology reinforces laziness* (because it makes everything too convenient).
With countless options to have fun within my house, I am only active when I feel like I’m getting fat. Perhaps, my idea of having fun has change—and I’m sure it has… simply because I am getting old now. As I age, for some odd reason, that question (title) becomes harder to answer. The most frequent response that I get: I don’t know… Whatever you want.
In elementary school, I can have the best time of my life and still remain in my neighborhood and I never wanted to go to sleep. Now, I’m content with napping, driving somewhere for a bite, and just sitting around (and do nothing in the presence of friends)—things that kids would probably think are boring.
School is approaching so quickly! I’m thinking of coming up on Saturday to spend some time away from home and get in the school mood. I don’t want to be in “home mode” too long. I really can’t wait to see everyone again, especially Hannah and Sarah! Since I have a DSLR now, I will probably take more pictures of my UCLA adventures and try to blog more often. My first quarter (of junior? year) is already over. My college career is gonna go by quickly, so gotta make the memories last!
*There might be a blog about this later… if I’m not lazy. <—- While I’m on this topic, blogs you might see in the future: Technology and Laziness; Camera Day; Going Abroad; Aggressive Drivers; Smart? …Or just a good memory.
Stay tuned,
Vu
It is the last day of 2011 and I realized that I haven’t updated my Tumblr since June. So to end the year, I will quickly (or not) conjure up some reflections of 2011 as well as some resolutions for 2012 that I will attempt to follow.


1) I am extremely fortunate to have been able to travel and I don’t plan to stop anytime soon. Each time I go somewhere new, I get feelings of anxiety, curiosity, and a deep thirst for adventure—and well, I just love it!
Spain was definitely a different experience for me and the immersion into that culture resulted in many firsts for me.
I had to take the subway to class everyday, something that I never imagined doing. Also, this trip allowed me to visit castles and cathedrals, and meet very interesting people (like Chinese people who spoke Spanish fluently). I also realized that I enjoy speaking Spanish.
2) Although traveling is fun, I like being home. Spain was my second big trip (alone) away from home and, for the first time, I felt homesick. Surprisingly, I also felt homesick on several occasions while at UCLA, but I guess that’s where this quote applies: “Wherever you may go, home is where the heart is.” Ms. Smith told me that I’m probably at the age where I want to be home more because I’m starting to understand my parents more. I still think some of their reasoning don’t make sense, but it’s okay because I’m barely home now. Wherever I go, I guess I will end up missing Little Saigon and its familiarity.
3) I love being at UCLA—although I am not content with my major. This time last year, I would have never imagined going here because I was so set on going to USC. Although first quarter was a little rough, I hope to work harder so the rest of my time at UCLA will go by more smoothly.
Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like at USC. I wouldn’t be in Westwood or dorming, but I would be majoring in something I probably would enjoy a lot more. Oh well, life isn’t about regrets, so I can only look forward to the rest of my college career.
4) 한국어가 많이 재미있어요. (Korean is interesting) Although I suck at it, it is still very fun to read, write, and attempt to speak it—especially because I had to learn everything from scratch (the Korean characters, sentence structures, vocabulary, grammar). Learning Korean makes me think back to the time when I started Spanish. I sucked too, a lot. But now I consider myself to be pretty decent (especially after my trip to Spain). Korean is definitely harder than Spanish, but I hope I can improve quickly… because I’m getting old.
5) I am old! I just turned 20 and am already starting to lose my mind. Throughout the quarter, I experienced a bunch of life and educational crises. I know I want to work with numbers in the future (as a consultant, accountant, or with international developments) but I am confused on if I took the right path to do so. I tell people to wait and see me make a 7-digit income in the future, but that’s just my inner confidence speaking. Here’s where I confess my fear and uncertainty, but who knows? I’m not in any college debt! …I just hope I don’t fail in life, haha.
I am 20 and haven’t really had any work experiences… and obviously am not getting any younger. And with that, I have been feeling so stupid at UCLA. I study for my exams and don’t do as well as I’d want to—am I really just dumb now? Or did I overwork myself last year? Or did I not do a very good job adjusting to the quarter system? Or am I just stressed? I hate how I blank out during the exams… and figure everything out afterwards, when it’s too late… Oh well, there’s next quarter.
6) I miss my friends from high school. I got closer to some after high school, drifted from some, and maintained contact with only a few. But it’s always nice to get back together and catch up on life. At the end of senior year, I wanted to get be done with high school; probably because my journey through high school wasn’t too… pleasant. But now that it’s over, I’m just a little bit nostalgic. I don’t think I would want to experience high school again, but I did make some good memories here and there.
2012 RESOLUTIONS
1) Seize opportunities. I’ve had too many instances where I want to apply for something, but focused on something else and missed the deadline later on… Maybe carrying a small notebook with me will allow me to be more organized about deadlines. Additionally, I will attend everything I get invited to. If it’s something I am capable of doing and something I’m not morally against, the answer will be yes!
2) NO MORE AFTERNOON NAPS during the quarter/week. Why? Because they are a waste of time.
3) Exercise (with China) because I felt myself getting fat and sluggish (or the Spanish word that my cleaning lady uses, “flojo”) No es bueno si sea flojo. An hour a day won’t hurt, especially since I will have more hours in the day by not taking afternoon naps.
4) Review what I learn early on and don’t wait until a day or two before the midterm/final. I wish I did this earlier last quarter. But it sucked because of my week 3 midterm… I barely had time to adapt and figure this out.
5) Go off campus more often.
6) Finish my blogs. I swear I started writing five blogs throughout my time in Spain, and on the flight there and back… And I never finished any of them! But now, my memory isn’t as fresh anymore, so those Word Documents are just off to the Recycle Bin, hehe.
I felt like I just wrote an essay. This is the first blog that I’ve finished in half a year. 2011 was an interesting and rewarding year. And I hope 2012 will, at least, be just as good.
Happy New Year Everyone!
- Vu


