Freshman Year in 3 paragraphs

I forgot I had a blog. Update, update, update!
So most importantly, school's over. Since I've been MIA for like 5 months and too much has happened to fully blog about, I thought I'd just sum up my first year of college in a couple of key phrases:

1. Yellow Fever -> Jungle Fever
This is self-explanatory. I blame this change on going to school in downtown L.A.
2. No Bio -> Mo' Bio
The ridiculous amount of biology I study becomes concerning when I use "immunoglobulin E" in everyday conversation. (true story.)
3. OMG a C?! -> OMG a C!
In one short year, I went from being an avid subscriber of the "Asian" grading system (A=average, B=bad, C=catastrophic, etc) to the "USC Science Major who can't Hang" grading system (A=absolutely unattainable, B=better make sure it's not a mistake, C=cry in relief, etc.)
4. Ah, celebs!! -> Eh, just celebs
So it's no secret that seeing famous people is pretty much like my passion in life. Before this year, my celebrity encounters were of the mild and C-list kind (seeing the mean chick from Sabrina at Wicked? Oooh, BFD). I'm glad to say that going to school in downtown LA does wonders for a celeb fanatic. My favorite celebrity sightings this year: Zac Efron and V.Hudge (not as slutty as I thought), Selena Gomez (I want to be her, so sue me), Kaba Modern (Yuri Tag still makes me question my straightness), Fanny Pak, Quest Crew, Sara Bareilles, Pharrell Williams (my attraction to this guy cancels out any confusion Yuri can throw at me). Oh and just for good Trojan measure: Mark Sanchez, T.Mays, Lil Romeo, DeMar DeRozan, Taj Gibson, and Daniel Hackett. I will avoid talking about how the last 3 (esp. the last) left SC and broke my heart forever. -deep breath- No, I'm not crying.
5. Healthy -> Asteriosclerosis
I ate a bag of Orville's butter popcorn every night for about 4 months.
Also? asteriosclerosis re: #2. FML.
6. Couch potato -> Couch potato
Ok, I'm still lazy. But at least I get up periodically now! Towards the end of the year, I biked around campus daily. (granted, the biking was to cup o' joy to buy boba, but it's progress.) And nobody believes me if they haven't seen me do so, but I also ran a mile a day! (my main motivation was avoiding biology)

So that sums up my freshman year.
Now introducing the segments that I feel like I can categorize all my future entries into:

1. Things I hate
2. Annoying things about myself
3. College Advice

Oh yeah, like I'm so sure I'm qualified to be giving advice on college. After this, let's go ask Miley Cyrus for voice lessons.

College Advice #1:
Something I've learned the hard way: don't drink caffeine at least 4 hours before you plan on going to sleep. UNLESS you have a morning exam/project to finish and you have at least 8 hours available and set aside the next day to spend KO'd. When is this rule most necessary to enforce? Oh, you know, perhaps when you have an afternoon class the next day in which there are only 14 other students, participation is vital, and you all sit in a circle so your every move (including crashing on your notebook and waking up with paper stuck to your face) is painfully obvious. Hypothetically. Of course.
In my case, my "caffeine" comes in the form of small boba green tea from cup o' joy.
If your name is Joanna, rule can be rewritten "Don't drink Diet Coke --"
And if you are a crazy TroHo, rule can be rewritten with "Don't take ritalin --"

College Advice #2:
Make friends at orientation. Don't assume that everyone is new and searching for friends on the first day of school. School starts at orientation. If you haven't made at least 2 friends that you've been talking to on facebook over the summer by move-in, you're already behind everyone. Plus, almost all the friends I made this year either lived on my floor or could be traced back to introductions by the friends I made at orientation. :)

College Advice #3:
Don't major in science. Check? Good.

Jessica's Current Obsessions.

1.) Dance Crews
- namely, ABDC season 3.
ok. so. How sick is this season?! :D Blew season 2 out of the water, forsure. Ugh, Super Lame Cr3w. And SoReal. (How did I EVER like SoReal?! While watching this season, I went back and reviewed Season 2 performances. WEAK SAUCE. Also for some reason, watching Ailyn made me want to punch her little scrunched-up face in.)
So kudos, season 3 casting agents. There wasn't a single crew this time that I didn't like! Even as much as Ringmasters freaked me out, they were still likeable people (that left early enough to be tolerated, unlike Status NO from Season 1). And even as much as Dynamic Edition wanted to annoy me, that gap-toothed dude was too adorable and hardworking for me to not like them (again, unlike BreakSk-h8 from S1). Plus, all the voting actually seemed LEGIT this season -- no Kaba/Fanny style robbing going on. (minor glitches: Boxcuttuhz + Team Millenia -- but it's not like they hold a candle to Quest + Beat Freakz though haha) Great season. Finally, a Top 2 that deserves to be there. :)

- Kollaboration.
Seeing Fanny Pak, TM, and Kaba in person? UGH. so sick in itself. But also tuned me back into watching off-ABDC vids of Kaba and Fanny Pak.

- USC's Chaotic 3 + TC Dance
What I love most about C3 is that everytime I see any of them in class or at EVK -- they always look FLY AS HELL. man, their fly kicks make Fly Khicks' look like Dynamic Edition's.

2.) Online Blogs
These pages are death to productivity, bff to procrastination. Doesn't stop me from reading them daily. My favorites:

- fmylife.com
- overheardinnewyork.com (props, mliu) / overheardeverywhere.com
- mymomisafob.com / mydadisafob.com
- engrish.com
- failblog.org
- passiveaggressivenotes.com

3.) Music
- Instrumental
I can honestly say that the only thing I've become MORE of since I've been at SC (besides confused, exhausted, sarcastic, cynical)... okay, so the only POSITIVE thing I've become more of is more in "tune" (har har, unintentional wordplay ftw) with my music side. I credit this with the fact that my desk is usually laden with chemistry/biology crap, so it's only natural for me to find some way to destress (esp. ever since midnight bike riding turned into potential exposure to pnuemonia). I've played more piano and guitar this year than I have in my, um, life. I love it. :) And with our constant late night karoake outbursts (or in Angela and I's case - pretty much anytime, anywhere outbursts), I practically never stop singing. I'm like a fcking walking production of High School Musical... without the high school. And the fat chick. And the sluts.

- iTunes
So I've had iTunes forever on my old laptop, but it got all screwed up with the whole flash drive transferring thing, so I recently decided to rebuild my entire iTunes library. I'm so much more in love with my latest library than my old one; I should've started over ages ago. I also love organizing my library -- gotta be honest, sometimes I just sit and stare at my painstakingly well-researched genre/album/year list. No joke, I never leave a space empty or inaccurate; I'm SO on that shit, son. Also love? iTunes sharing with people around me. It's probably just me, but I judge people by their iTunes. If I stumble upon an awesome playlist, I just want to be that person's best friend. (marks hall, 327 -- call me. haha)

- EVK
I've said this before -- whoever picks the music at EVK is baller. I want to iTunes-share that shit.

4.) Basketball
- College ball
If you've been in ANY way tuned in to me these past months, this is probably no surprise to you. In fact, you've probably told me to stop starting all my sentences with "Daniel Hackett-" or "We lost yesterday -". haha. Yeah, so it's hard to be on the losing team all the time (#6 Pac-10, holla -_-), but since when is that anything new? I mean I did go to Wilson, come on now. (haha, jk. mad love, wildcats). But still. It doesn't stop me from being glued to espn's USC updates, collecting the sports pages of the Daily Trojan (props to Brandon for the DHack pics :]), and Googling "USC NCAA chances" every day. (btw, chances = 0, jic you're wondering). Renardo Sidney, work yo' magic next year!

- namely, Daniel Hackett
Okay, can I just take a second to praise this gift of a human being? (Haha, if you spend more than 10 minutes with me, you're probably thinking, "you mean, can you take a second NOT to") But seriously, boy is perfect. haha. How so? Let me count the ways.

a.) He finished high school in 3 years by taking online/community college classes just so he could come to SC to play. (sidenote: And he had a good SAT score. :) turn-on much? Haha.) To quote = "Daniel Hackett, a young man with one of those can-you-believe-it backstories that makes human-interest TV announcers like Dick Enberg positively swoon."
b.) He never gives up, even when he got practically mauled by OJ Mayo last year. With his broken jaw, he lost a whole mess of weight but researched what diet to keep so he could still play ball. And then he painted his mouthpiece the colors of the Italian flag. What a sport. :)
c.) Um, he's awesome at basketball. Even though he's not as naturally talented as Demar (imo) he works so hard. Always one of the top 2 leaders in points each game. (minor glitch: vs. UCLA). Always starts, always plays whole game, never stops hustling. Watching him play is like watching poetry in motion, wordUP. :D <3
d.) He's from Italy. HE HAS AN ITALIAN ACCENT. Viva Italia! :DDD
e.) He's inked. He has a tattoo that says "Italian Stallion" and one of his mom's name. (aw!<3) Hot.
f.) He goes to class on Fridays after games and before games. (Haha, I almost died when I saw him outside Taper. And eating at the Lot. FUCK.)
g.) He writes with perfect grammar/punctuation online... and he barely just moved here! Hear that, Dwight Lewis? "whass good wit ya?"
h.) Last game, he helped sweep the floor with the little auditorium workers so Taj wouldn't slip. Majsigh<3
i.) Um. He's hot. Tall glass of chocolate/vanilla shake, in Marina-speak. haha jk.

I'll stop now.

second semester rocks so far...

... NOT!

it's not so much my schedule.

so i have spanish at 8 am. wtf is that shit about? i have to drag myself up at like 7:15 every other day..... to do spanish. um, i can barely comprehend english at 8 am. now i have to not only try to remember to stay concious, but i also have to, like, conjugate shit on top of that. that's bull. (sadly, i wanted to be witty there and write 'bull' in spanish. but i couldn't. i just sat there and sadly realized the limit of my espanoledge. HEE! i should patent that.)

my circus-themed TO course is okay this semester. if there's anything that can make me feel better about myself, it's learning about midgets and gangrene-infested prostitutes for 2 hours. plus, the first day of class, the teacher played creepy circus music in the background. i was like, couldn't she just have played britney's Circus album? it's significantly more upbeat, if not less creepy.

chem lab is terrible, as usual. i'm 99% certain that my lab partner hates me and thinks i'm 110 pounds worth of useless weight who fucks up the data with her mistakes. how do i know this? on the first day, he told me, "man, you fucked up the data with your mistakes." (the 1% margin of error above belongs to my uncertainty about my weight). granted, this was after i, well, fucked up the data by pouring the wrong chemicals twice, then forgetting to turn on the hot plate so we had to start over, then lost the stirring rod while he sighed, "man, we're FUBAR" in the background and rolled his eyes incessantly. what a douche. i hate chem lab. it makes me want to cry every time.

bio lab, as usual, is slightly better than chem lab. once again, i fucked up the data there too... but at least all of us fucked up a little bit together. it's all about teamwork. my partners are awesome! i already adore them all, down to the witty hapa chick to the quiet filipino girl to the stylish senior to the... witty hapa dude (no relation). but still. lab is lab is stupid is hella boring.

it's not even so much my major.

even though, you know, even i recognize that i'm going absolutely nowhere with this. despite being on the most structured program path ever, i feel so lost when i think about the future. like when i picture myself 10 years from now, i just see a big black hole. (oh gosh, i just realized a terrible possibility to that metaphor. God forbid.) but yeah, i'm not knocking pharmacy (major bank, holla), but i just cannot see myself doing that for the rest of my life! i don't know if it's because i don't even really know what exactly pharmacists do or it's because i can't even see myself passing Gen Chem, let alone see myself becoming a pharmacist. my parents and i argue about my career path every week, and i'm so tired of it. i can't stand the thought of having to argue every week for the rest of my career. i don't want to. agh, my future! ah, but let's practice optimism and live in the present. ... agh, my GPA!

sidenote: so i recently heard back from the archaeology job i applied for. the kind, not condescending at all employer emailed me back one line - "How about you contact us at the start of next semester when your GPA improves." what. the. fuckity. fuck. ouch. well, these archaeologists don't mess around, i'll give them that. and they're concise. i half expected her to sign off, "kthnxbai."

i think it's just my overpowering cynicism.

even though one of my new year's resolutions (aka shit that never gets done but just keeps reappearing on every resolutions list each year) is to stop cynical thoughts (or at least reduce them... baby steps, baby steps), this cynicism is slowly seeping deeper into my brain/heart/bloodstream. it's harder and harder to get rid of. it's like the whole deviation from the straight and narrow path that i learned at bible study (where, incidentally, i just feel more inferior than ever. i mean, lu was saved over winter break. like, how do you even top that? "well, i went snowboarding and fell on my ass a lot" just doesn't seem to measure up to "God spoke to me"). anyway, so the point was that it's getting harder and harder to get rid of cynical thoughts, and i fcking hate it. it seems totally counterintuitive, i know, but i really hate being cynical. is there like some equivalence of repenting for cynicism so i can get back on my optimistic path (rainbow brick road, if you will. har)?