For once, I thought I might actually get my diary done in a timely manner... then 5 weeks passed by. That's the worst I've done ever. I'm sad to say that's probably not gonna change in a long time.
A lot of the noteworthy things that happened this first week was meeting people, which is a great accomplishment for an introvert like me. First new person was on Tuesday- I was reading by the room for the Bio SI (supplemental instruction, given by TAs to help people review and understand anything they hadn't understood in the actual class; I already knew everything in these first couple chapters, but I went anyway in case there was something I'd missed after all), and another girl came by looking for the room, and we ended up chatting. Chrystal (I don't know yet how her name's spelled, so I feel less bad about using it) and I continued until we realized it was almost time for the SI to start and there was no one else waiting by the door too... and that's how we figured out we were waiting by the wrong door. So, ironically, it was a very similar situation to how I met Jacky in the last post. (I found out the next day that we not only shared the same biology class, but the same chemistry class too!)
Wednesday, I went to a talk/lecture by a scientist. Turns out this college is his alma mater, but now he works at Harvard, which says quite a bit about his credibility. He had some interesting stuff to say, so of course I took notes on the things that stood out to me. Afterward, I kinda wanted to ask him something, since he was here, but I just didn't quite know what. Nonetheless, I somehow got myself to join the line that had formed of people who wanted to talk to him, and ruminated on what question(s) I could ask. Meanwhile, one of the faculty who had attended started talking to me and the guy in front of me, who turned out to also be a freshman, and the faculty guy said he was really happy and impressed that we had attended, and asked about our interests and such. We soon made it to the front of the line, and the other freshman asked the scientist, "How do you know what you really want to study?" which was actually very close to one of the two questions I had come up with myself, so I just snuck into the conversation to hear the answer. He told us it was A-OK that we didn't quite know the specific field we want yet, and it was actually probably for the better since that meant we'd need to explore while here, and encouraged us to take a variety of classes and try to get in on research early. I then asked my own second question, based on remembering how he had told us about being in undergrad research himself: "Was it hard for you to talk to your professors to do that kind of thing?" because I really wanted to try to do something like that myself- probably next semester or next year, since as of now I'm still not really all that knowledgeable and useful for a lab or whatever- but had a hard time imagining myself actually doing it... How the heck do you do that?
He agreed that it was very hard, but he needed to be brave, remember that all the faculty are there to help the students succeed/achieve their goals, and just ask, and encouraged me to do the same. He'd pointed out I was able to get myself to talk to him, but that really did take quite a bit of courage for me, and I'd already started to feel exhausted by making myself be brave a lot lately, and knew this definitely wasn't the end of that feeling. Admittedly, I had the suspicion that's all he'd come up with advice-wise on the subject, but then he did two things I never expected- one, he challenged me to speak to one of the main faculty for biology, one of the major people he himself worked with as an undergrad here, and said he'd give me $5 if I did so. (Yeah, it sounded so bizarre to me, too.) Second, he pulled out one of his business cards and handed it to me- he didn't do that for anyone else, as far as I know- and told me to be unafraid to call him if there was anything he could do for me. Considering I was- well, still am- just a little freshman, and he lived on the other end of the country, yet decided he would want to hear from me (and give me $5) was... I dunno how to describe it. I remained a little suspended in disbelief the rest of the night, to be honest. I am kinda hoping I can take him up on both offers sometime in the future, though, and so have put up his business card and things he said on my bedroom door so I have that reminder. Since I was already doing that, I also finally put up my FMA and The Lego Movie posters, and formed Al's blood seal with red Bendaroos, a feat I am very much proud of. (P.S.- I've chatted with the fellow freshman, Nicholas, a couple times since then, since we tend to catch each other at Bio SIs.)
I met a couple more girls at that week's Anime Club (and found a fellow Fiction Writing classmate there, as well; I'd had the feeling since the first day of class that I'd like hanging out with her), and later went to a service club's opening social for a bit. I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned how I was hoping to get involved in service while in college, and this was the first step. This club, which I guess I'll call Tutoring Club, is where we can volunteer to tutor at K-12 schools after classes. I was nervous to try to do it, seeing as I haven't really had much experience with something like that, but I still wanted to try, so I got brave- look at that, had to do it again- and signed up for the middle school. Unfortunately, it really didn't work for any days but Tuesday because of the times of some of my classes... but I figured it was better than just not going at all.
I've gone every Tuesday since then, and I'm happy I did. I haven't really gotten to do much actual tutoring, actually, but I've been doing my best to help, and I've also been hanging out for the second half of Boys & Girls Club after the normal homework help time is over. As of yet, I still wonder if I'm acting more like an adult (AKA someone useful) or just like one of the kids, but I'm pretty sure I definitely haven't got the "adult" part down yet. I feel guilty about that, but the girls who work there apparently still like me, and I feel like I'm warming up a little at a time to the kids and how to talk to them. Something hilarious that happened the first couple times, actually, is that everyone thought I was just one of the middle-schoolers! (One kid there, after hearing the revelation that I was 18, actually went as far as to say, "No offense, but you look like you're nine.") Ah, how refreshing it is for people to still do that. (I recounted that to a couple different people, like roommates and my new lab group, and they all thought I was offended, even though I was laughing while telling them. They also tried saying stuff like, "Well, at least they said you look like an 8th grader and not a 6th..." I guess that's true, but do you not see the delight on my face? I'm used to this, and I love this, and I think it's the funniest thing ever.)
I'll mention the girls that work there (not volunteer) now, since I think I'll be talking more about them in the future. The first is in charge of the homework help, and I met her on my very first day. I think I'll call her Mak. She's planning to become an LA teacher, so I'm hoping we can help each other out with our English-related assignments every once in a while. She's really nice and chill, and was actually willing to take me home after everything (and to Smith's, once, when I admitted I needed a couple things, like quarters for the clothes washers and dryers in my apartment complex). The second is in charge of Boys & Girls Club activities, if I got that right, and... okay, I'm sorry, but I don't quite remember her name. I don't know why, but barely anyone refers to her by name at the school, and it's killing me. (Now that I think about it, it's probably because all the kids refer to all the adults as "Teacher".) She brought me home a couple times, too, and we even spent some time together last Tuesday going to her dog-sitting job and getting a couple free veggies at this thing they were doing at the college. Something we talked about during that time was the nonprofit organization she said she was planning to start up with a friend this December to help people who live in refugee camps in Greece (because she'd volunteered there a couple summers ago and was disgusted by the conditions). I'm gonna call her Frourá (according to Google Translate, the Greek word for "guard", since I was kinda thinking along the lines of how she wants to guard the refugees from further trauma, abuse, etc. when they just escaped from such a terrible situation). There's also the school principal, and the woman who is in charge of after-school activities in general, but I haven't really talked to them as much.
Since I've pretty much unloaded everything about Tutor Tuesdays thus far, I'll just finish with a couple other memories from them that stood out to me. One is that, a little before my second time boarding the bus to go to the middle school, my mom sent a text that they just felt a big earthquake, but everyone was fine. (As you may recall, she'd gone down to Mexico for the month to take care of her mom.) She called me when Mak was bringing me home the second time to assure me a little more that, yes, they were okay, though the text had been enough to assuage me. I knew earthquakes were relatively common in Mexico, so I hadn't been all that worried, though I imagined it was kinda scary at first for her and Abuelita, since she'd said it was strong. I'd had a reality check later, though, when I saw my sister post on Facebook about the earthquake and how she'd been really shaky for the rest of the day upon hearing about it, and it turns out that earthquake really was bad. Bad. The worst in years, and people died in it. Then there was the second quake, which my mom and Abuelita felt, too, and I'm so grateful that they and everyone else in my family were far enough away from the center of both to not be in real danger, because things would be so different now if they hadn't been. They could've died in the earthquake (oh my gosh, and it was the anniversary of the earthquake in the 80's my mom told me about, and I'm wondering why she and everyone else had to go through these), or at least been severely injured, like so many other people in all the natural disasters that happened over this month. Seriously, giant hurricanes and earthquakes and forest fires one after the other, boom boom boom, and it felt a little like the Earth was falling apart while I was over here just trying to figure out how to do college. Unfortunately, the string of bad stuff just keeps going, and I don't know what to do about it besides pray and donate a bit of money to the Church's humanitarian fund.
Last Tuesday, the middle school's book fair was going on, and (for once, since I'd never bothered at my own schools, from what I remember) I decided to buy something there. Though I was interested by a lot of books there (and took pics of those), the only one I was willing to sacrifice my wallet to was Wonder by RJ Palacio, the only book there I've already read. I raved about it a good long while in 11th grade (and got me to love "Space Oddity" by David Bowie), and I was so sure I could never not love that book. It was about $18, much like the other books (dangnabbit, why'd everything have to be a hard-cover, guys?!), but as long as I still love Auggie to bits, I'm pretty sure it's an $18 pretty well-spent. While hanging out with the kids later, Frourá had set up a painting project, and a couple of the girls ended up using remaining acrylic paint to doodle on their arms and other kids' faces, and I ended up joining them, too... Oops. I promise I tried to avoid the temptation, especially considering how I was wearing a whole lotta black and FMA for October 3rd (which I'm totally going to talk about later, trust me), but it was too strong for me.
I also painted a couple blue dots under Frourá's eyes and a blue arrow on her forehead (because Aang for the win).
(Side-note: Seeing these middle-schoolers with their dark humor and sass are reminding me that I was a whole lot like them at that age... Not as extroverted, obviously, but it's embarrassing to realize that even I was subject to the eccentricities of a 13-year-old mind. I can't decide if I should show them some of the stuff I used to watch when I was in middle school, since they'd surely like them as well, but I also feel like I shouldn't encourage that kind of thing at the same time? Ugh.)
I have sooo much more to say, but I'm gonna be going to ward prayer in a bit and just wanna get this post out because I don't want to put off putting anything up any longer. I'm gonna work on telling about all these past few weeks a little at a time, and hopefully I can eventually catch up and stop doing this to myself.
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