Mandalion’s blog

I haven't updated this thing in a long time, but I'm happy to report it's because I've been so busy and not because I had a lack of things to write about.  I really meant to write a blog/journal entry like this after spring quarter and give everyone an update after I finished my first year at UCLA, but I haven't had much time to just sit in front of a computer since then so now you get my input on my first year AND summer session at UCLA.

This year has been the most exciting one in my life, so far.  I had a roommate other than my older sister for the first time, and even sharing a room with my sister hasn't happened since I was 8 or 9, so that was new I guess.  I guess you could say I moved out of the house, technically, but now that it's summer I don't have my own place anymore so I don't think it counts.  I guess it's your call, as my reader, to make.

Kaydence at... 5mos?

My sister had a baby, giving everyone in my family a new title.  Her name is Kaydence and she's a very even-tempered and pretty baby.  She's almost 8mos old and I think she's 5mos in this picture that my dad took of her, but I'm a bad auntie and I don't really know for sure.  But yes, when she has the ability to talk I want her to call me Auntie because, personally, I think Aunt Mandie doesn't have much of a ring to it because the two short a sounds make it a little repetitive and Auntie Mandie is even worse in that aspect so I've opted to just be "Auntie" because she doesn't have any other aunts.  Plus it's a little cuter.  Anyway, I'm in New York right now and I haven't seen her for a few weeks but from what I hear she's almost a toddler and is insanely cute.  Having a baby around is tons of fun, though, and the baby-talk that goes on around my house is just insane.


As far as academics, I learned more in this year than I've learned in any other year and that's probably because I'm finally out of community college.  I'm really happy I went to UCLA and it was really reassuring to find out I'm able to keep up with the pace of a four-year, especially UCLA.  At the beginning of spring quarter I got an internship at the Daily Bruin as a copy editor.  I worked there for five or six weeks, I can't really remember, but in any case I haven't been there for long but I would say that this is the first time I'm learning something that is actually valuable in the job market.  Sorry John Wooden Center, but I don't think the opportunity you gave me to fold towels will jump out on my resume.  So anyway, I'm very happy I got that internship and I hope to continue copy editing when I get back from NY.  I'm hoping I can get a job that's somewhere in the same vein as editing after I graduate, because I'd really rather not continue doing anything Sociology-related.

At the top of the Rockefeller Center building

I met Shaun this year, and we've been officially together since Valentine's Day :-)  I don't want to gush excessively, but he is a very significant part of my life and I am madly in love with him.  If there are still people out there unfamiliar with our story, I'll summarize it.  We both worked at the John Wooden Center, so we met when I got hired fall quarter.  He made me laugh and he has fantastic cheekbones (I think I mentioned them in my last post), so I was interested.  He started telling me stories about a former roommate of his who believes that he is a dragon and claims to date supermodels.  Anyway, Shaun had a lot of stories about this kid, so we started hanging out more during and outside of work.  He would usually come into the gym to work out while I was on shift and wait until I was off to walk me home.  It was very sweet and did not go unnoticed by our coworkers, who apparently "saw it coming from a mile away."  On February 14 we went on our first date and decided to make it official then, because I believe having that as our anniversary gives us cute points.  And we crave cute points.  He came out to visit me here in New York for my birthday because he's just sweet like that, and the picture that I've included is from that trip.  And the dress that I'm wearing (not like you can see it that well) is one of the things he gave me for my birthday :-)

Now, I'm sitting in a crappy dorm room in New York on a UCLA Travel Study program for Sociology.  The program ends this Thursday and I fly home on Saturday.  It's been a fun trip, but I will be sooo happy to come back.  Mostly I'm excited to come back because I miss Shaun, but also I hate the filthy room I live in, I don't like being able to eat for free only between the hours of 7:30am and 8pm Monday through Friday, I'm ready to have a break from school, and also, I'm broke.  That probably made it sound a lot worse than it actually is, because I have had good times here as well.  I love that I'm in a city where I can walk around and that there's an actual night life here.  I like the wide variety of restaurants they have, even though I can't afford a lot of them.  I also really like that I knocked out 14 units in four weeks and it was incredibly easy.  It has been worth it, but it'll be nice to be back home.

After this program, I'll be finished with my degree after two more quarters.  I'm not anxious about being released into the "real world" at the moment, but maybe it'll hit later.  I guess it'll suck to not having summer, spring, or winter breaks but it'll also be really nice to not have stacks and stacks of reading to do and pointless papers to write.  I'll need to get a job pretty soon because my student loan payments will be due and I'll have to support my penniless boyfriend who will (possibly) be in med school.

I hope that if you actually read this entire thing you enjoyed it, have a good rest of the summer everybody!

"Objectively classifiable conditions of existence (class of conditioning) and position in structure of conditions of existence (a structuring structure)" develops into "Habitus 1, a structuring structure and a structured structure."

Show us what you dreamed of last night.

Nazis

    In some strange culmination of the last episode of Lost and Indiana Jones, I dreamt that Nazis were going to release a deadly gas to kill us all.  We all had to wear gas masks, except they weren't gas masks; they were those masks that doctors wear.  Then Kelsey broke her toe and I tried to give her Sudafed to ease the pain.  I think the Nazis were after her and Anna specifically.  I think I tried to stab a Nazi at some point but i was unsuccessful.

I hate being away from close friends for long periods of time.  Vox, however, is not a close friend.  It's a website and I'm okay with not visiting a website for a long time.

I sit here in my apartment at about 3 in the morning chipping away at a paper that I honestly doubt is enough to resurrect my grade in this stupid, dry, Sociology class.  Ok so, grades.  Let's talk about those.  My grades are definitely not where I'd like them to be and if they are any indication of the lifestyle I'll have when I'm out of school, I'll be very disappointed with my life.  I don't think grades will play that big of a role in MOST cases, except obviously they have a lot to do with grad school so if that's what your future holds well I guess grades should probably be pretty important to you.  I don't think grad school is for me.  I have a fatty student loan to pay off, though, so I need to figure out some way to achieve my ideal lifestyle without relying on my stellar student success.  Pierre Bordieu, who I am reading in one of my classes right now, identifies some different kinds of capital that can lead to success like cultural capital, social capital, economic capital, blah blah blah.  So I'll have to find some way to utilize other forms of capital available to me to reach my goal... my goal which right now is just paying off my student loan.  This blog is getting boring quickly.  Moving on.

SO.  When I was a little kid, there were foods that I decided I didn't like for whatever reason that made sense to me at the time.  They included but were not limited to: breakfast burritos, bell peppers, Italian dressing, the crusts of bread, bananas, and any form of sushi.  I still don't like bell peppers, mainly I don't like the smell, but I also don't like the taste.  I still find Italian dressing unappetizing, but I could probably eat it, but everything else I've learned that I actually like.  For example, breakfast burritos.  I think this stemmed from my "I hate scrambled eggs" phase which I went through because once I threw up after eating scrambled eggs (thanks for the salmonella, Mom).  In any case, I'm over it now.  I'm eating crusts of bread now just for the sake of convenience.  I now know they will not give me the curly hair I've always wanted and that my parents told me that only to mock me later, but now it's just a hassle to take the crust off.   Bananas I can't remember why I didn't like them, but one day I ate one and realized it was delicious.  End of story.  My family probably remembers one infamous visit to a Japanese restaurant when my grandma kept ordering more and more food for me because I didn't like a single thing they gave me except for miso soup, at last.  I think my taste buds just changed or something because I suddenly don't find it disgusting anymore.

My downward spiral into introspection continues.  I still really love ketchup, that will never change.

There are more interesting things I could write about.  I have a real live boyfriend now, for one.  It's been official since Valentine's Day (because we're cute like that), so it's new and I don't know how many people have heard by now.  Probably all of my Vox friends by now, but whatever, I'm telling you now.  His name is Shaun, and we both work at the gym so that's where we met.  He's half Arab, half white, about 6 feet tall, 150lbs and has fantastic cheekbones.  I have to interrupt the pointlessness of this blog to say that I think he's incredible.

Studly shaun

It's been half a hour and I think it's time for me to get back to my paper.  Maybe I'll write a better post later.  Maybe I won't.

90% Barack Obama
89% John Edwards
89% Chris Dodd
88% Hillary Clinton
87% Bill Richardson
82% Mike Gravel
80% Joe Biden
77% Dennis Kucinich
40% Rudy Giuliani
32% John McCain
32% Tom Tancredo
29% Mike Huckabee
25% Mitt Romney
18% Ron Paul
17% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Yeah, I always checked my vox neighborhood but then I read Shannon's post and realized it had been a long long time since I've written in here.  And my last post was a clip from Extras.  I hope you all watched it, too.

Anyway.

It's finals week here at UCLA and I have a Sociology final on Tuesday and a portfolio of revised essays due on Wednesday, then I'm done!  I should probably be studying or writing but since I finished my Psych final I've just checked out for the quarter.  It's a little sad because my psych class was my absolute favorite class of all time and I didn't want it to end, but it happened to be the one that ended first, and my lowest grade will probably be in that class.

I was distracting myself from studying last night and looking at grad schools for psych.  Well, mainly I just compared UCLA and CSUN's psych programs just to see what difference there was between a CSU and UC.  I think I'd rather go into research but I'm really doubting myself academically.  I know this is my first quarter at UCLA and it'll take me time to get used to something that's not ridiculously easy, so I'm trying to be reasonable here, but I can't help but wonder if I'm capable of doing something really interesting.  First and foremost, I need to see if psychology is even something I would like to practice for a career.  I talked to my psych professor about working with him in various research opportunities to just do anything to familiarize myself with the field.  He told me to send him my resume, so I'm excited to see if that will work out!  I think I want to go into research rather than counseling... but I know that requires more math and science skills that I may or may not have.  I'm more worried about whether I'd actually be able to focus and buckle down and do all the work.  But that's normal isn't it?  I'm just at that stage in my life where I question myself and push myself and find myself and blah blah blah.

Why is my roommate's alarm going off?  It's 1am, silly.

So, other things going on.  I saw Andrew Bird at the Orpheum on Friday.  I was the most incredible experience I've ever had, I think.  Whenever I talk about it I inevitably end up babbling on like a teenybopper fangirl, so I'm going to hold off on that for now.  It was probably one of my favorite nights of my life, though.  Oh, aside from having that bum follow us into McDonald's screaming "come here girl!"  Scary.

I'm also learning to swing dance!  I'm only a beginner but it's something I really want to continue and get better at.  It's a great hobby, plus I've met some really awesome new people.  Last Monday I went out with a few of them and even though my feet were covered in blisters after about 4 or 5 hours of dancing, I had a great time.  My favorite dance partner, Kevin, and I have such a wonderful charleston.  It's not that wildly hopping and flailing thing... yet, but it is beautiful.  We also do this one really awesome move called "the pretzel" and on Monday night couples kept coming up and asking us how to do it.  I guess we just looked that good =)  I'm really bummed that UCLA isn't offering a more advanced swing class next quarter.  They are offering salsa, which I'm considering, but I wonder if it'll be as fun as swing.

Well it's time for me to go back to my essays.  I hope you have a good night, friends.  Hopefully I'll see you all over the holidays!

Here's a video of Andrew Bird performing Imitosis, just cause:

Video: Show us a video that makes you laugh.

What's your cure for the common cold?

I don't know, but I welcome suggestions because I don't have a voice right now!

I guess it actually hasn't been a slow day, but I'm still really bored.  There was that sign from God that Kevin should dress up as Old Gregg for Halloween (although the tutu would need to be dyed pink), maybe the rest of my day just pales in comparison to the magnitude of that coincidence. 

Oh, and I actually got some good news via the phone, it just happened right as I found the tutu so it totally slipped my mind.  I don't know who all I told about this, but there's this organization call International Student Volunteers and their name is pretty self explanatory.  Students travel to different countries to perform volunteer work.  Except there is more to it.  Basically, it's a four-week program that's available in Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Thailand and Croatia.  The first two weeks are made up of volunteer work which can be either community development (building houses, working with kids) or conservation projects (working with animals, the environment, etc) and the last two weeks are an "adventure" program where you do really epic stuff that varies depending on which country you choose.  You can also customize your program by adding on a second or third country. 

So anyway, I applied because that sounds like the most amazing summer vacation ever and I got in!  That's not really a big surprise or relief, though, because the people I talked to said that anybody will get in unless they put something down like "I'd rather eat sea turtles than save them."  So assuming I accept this I am most DEFINITELY going to Costa Rica to do the conservation project and adventure program and possibly adding on the Australian adventure program, if I get the money.  For the volunteer work I can choose from any number of non profit organizations to work for but in Costa Rica, of course, they have... sea turtles!  And these sea turtles need help (not in the same way TL does)!  For the adventure portion I guess I get to "choose my own adventure," but here's what I can choose from:

• Snorkeling in the Pacific Ocean
• White water rafting on the Pacuare River
• Treks through several ecological reserves, including the cloud forests of Monteverde
• Jungle kayaking in the canals of Tortuguero National Park
• Horseback riding through an organic coffee farm
• Zip-lining in cloud forests
• Observing one of Costa Rica's many volcanoes
• Rappelling in La Fortuna
• Exploring the local nightlife in Heredia

So, yeah, just thought I'd fill you all in on what I might be doing this summer.

Aside from that, I've just got a ton of school work to do.  I'm reading a lot of Marx for my sociology class, which is really dry but my roommate bought me ice cream when I finished my reading last week so maybe that will continue.  This week I get to read what he thinks about capitalism.  My psych class is called Conflict and Communication in Couples and Families and is by far the most interesting class.  I need to write a paper about a common problem in intimate relationships (romantic ones) and common ways it's solved now, then come up with a different way to solve it.  Anybody have any suggestions for some good topics?

Well, dear readers, I also have a lot of laundry to fold so I'm going to take care of that right now and then go to bed.  Until next time.