Posts Tagged ‘journal’

Well, it’s week five of the ten-week quarter here and midterms are pretty much upon us.  What have I to say about my experience as a first-year in college so far?  Here are a few thoughts:

It’s incredibly different for many different reasons.  The environment and the vibe here is so unlike what I have experienced back home.  I think it has a little to do with the regional separation, but mostly because of the type of atmosphere I am surrounded by.  Back home, I definitely felt more…comfortable.  Yes, that might have been due to the fact that I had been attending the same school for most of my life, but I think it also due in a large part to the socially conservative environment there.  Everything was so safe, so controlled.  Of course I’d be lying if I said that it was a perfectly blameless place, but it was definitely quite “perfect” in comparison.  I am not saying this out of pride or spite, but merely out of factual discourse.  I actually loved where I was before.  I enjoyed the guarantee that no matter who you met, the people there would be at least somewhat similar in beliefs and ethical values.  I loved that the “default norm” was Christianity.  However, at the same time, I realize that that was the problem.  I grew too comfortable.  When I enrolled, I knew that it would be vastly different, and that’s fine.  In fact, I welcomed it, because I believed that this would be a way to get out of my comfort zone and strengthen my faith.  It’s just that sometimes it’s hard (and I know it’s supposed to be).  Now philosophies, such as atheism and post-modernism, are the norms, and Christianity is the minority.  It’s tough, especially when all the professors denounce and try to humiliate the values and beliefs I was raised with, but fortunately I was blessed to be able to find a few places to drop an anchor.  I’m still trying to find the right campus ministry to join, but I’ve met a bunch of great people in the process so far.

My family visited me last weekend, which was a blessing.  The college had a Parents’ Weekend with different programs and lectures, but my parents decided not to waste the time or the money on it.  We just spent time together, catching up and just talking about various subjects.  Seeing them for a couple days was one of the best things that has happened here so far.  The hard part is that seeing them again made me miss them even more when they left.  I know it might seem overly sentimental when I say this, but I truly do miss my family, as well as everyone else back at home.  In fact, the more time I spend here in this new environment, the more I miss everything about home.  This is not to say that I do not enjoy my time spent here, but merely that I realize how different it is here and how comfortable my home had become.  I know that some people might shun hanging on so tightly to my home and to the past, stating that I “must learn to let go.”  While I agree that this is the time in my life to become more independent and responsible, this does not mean that I cannot miss my home.  Not at all.  I believe that it is always important to remember to keep those you love close to you, regardless of how old you are.

I was fortunate enough to have my high school marching band travel down here for a competition this weekend.  It was so weird watching them perform without actually participating, but I am so happy to have had the opportunity to hang out with my friends from back home.  We had so much fun, especially going to a mall, talking, and catching up.  For a day, I forgot that I had left and went to college, and once more I felt as if I belonged, as if I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  I almost expected to hop on the bus with them and ride back home, but then I realized that my place is not there anymore, despite always being welcome there.  It was with sorrow that I said farewell to everyone, but I know that I will see them soon when I return home for vacation, and I am looking forward to it.

This past week or so has been stressful having to worry about finishing a large load of homework, especially to get ready for the weekends.  However, the weekends with my family and friends made it all worth it.  Amidst the toil and hardship, I found a short, but priceless period of joy that I will treasure forever.  I believe it is those bits of sunshine that make life wonderful.

First, let me give you a background of my college housing situation.  I am currently in a triple, and one of my roommates is my close friend from high school, whom I have known for quite a while.  I was also assigned with another roommate whom I have only met at the beginning of this school year.

Anyway…

Last night, the latter roommate (let me designate as Roommate Number Two) brought in a girl who was drunk, saying that she needed to recover for a while.  This was around one-thirty or two o’clock in the morning.  The roommate whom I have know for a long time (let me designate as Roommate Number One) later told me that she had bumped into the furniture several times.  After about a minute of struggling with myself, I finally mustered the courage to tell Roommate Number Two that I did mind the fact that he invited the girl.  He complied, woke the girl up (she had been resting in his bed), and took her somewhere else.  I hope that he just walked her back and nothing more.  I give him the benefit of the doubt.  I apologized and told him that I just could not deal with a visitor.  He seemed to understand and said that it was fine.

While Roommate Number Two was taking the girl home, Roommate Number One and I had a deep discussion about what had happened.  We also brought up how we felt about the experience of a new environment here in college.  I told him about how empty I feel at UCLA.  We also talked about the tension that had been developing between us.  We concluded that if we believe in something, we need to take a stand for it before Roommate Number Two, or anyone else for that matter, began to think that we are okay with it.  We also decided that we need to find good people to bond with and to confide in, and we talked about how we still need to comfort and help friends back home and at other schools who are having trouble.  Lastly, I think we nurtured our respect and understanding for each other through talking about our disagreements and issues.  It was encouraging to discover that there is still someone who feels the same way about things, even though he might not be as willing to verbalize it.

I am glad that we explored a church today.  The praise and worship music was very good, and I enjoyed the fact that after the sermon, we broke up into smaller discussion groups in which we were able to meet and talk with people.  Lunch was also provided, which was very good.  The afternoon was spent reading a book for my ENG 85: American Novel class (Clotel), catching up with the television series Heroes, and talking with friends and family.  We were also able to make the room a bit cooler (partly due to the cooler weather).  I discovered how nice the lounge on our floor is, especially with the sun setting in the evening.  It is always so cold and gloomy in our room in the evening, since our window faces the east.  (At least it wakes us up in the morning.)  As I am writing this, I watch the sun set before my eyes.  I just love the warm, comforting glow of the setting sun.  It reminds me of home.

We also filled out our roommate contract, during which we discovered that Roommate Number Two did not, in fact, say the same things as Roommate One and me did on the rooming surveys when we were applying for housing.  However, Roommate Number Two seemed okay with our preferences, and he seems to respect our views and values.  He seems pretty adaptable, which is good of him.  I just hope that this is the way he truly feels, and that we are not forcing him into a corner.