week four (initiation, family, and little reasons to smile everyday)

The last page in the booklet from Little Joy's eponymous album.

Inspiration for the week of 10/13-10/19:

• Aaron James Gresham's posters for Vampire Weekend's UK 2013 tour
• "Emma Approved" — I love it so much already. Thank you, Pemberley Digital!

Things/people I'm grateful to and for:

• Barkada! The whole KAA family thing is making me so happy and excited!
• Honestly, I'm generally just super thankful for the MCC family
• Relatively empty highways on the nights I drive home super late
• A full tank of gas to start off each week (my gratitude for this is immeasurable)
• Daily "pings" (i.e., encounters and brief interactions with attractive people who make me smile)

Recap/highlights of the week:

Monday • CSA Big Panda/Little Panda reveal. My big is a fellow English major!

Tuesday • I went to my first Barkada general meeting after I got back to campus from work. Two English majors, M and H, have been so friendly to me! I filled out a little questionnaire for KAA (kuya/ate/ading), and I made sure to be very honest. For example, five words that describe me: not tall, cheerful, Cheerios, ticklish. I also put down Vincent van Gogh and Ramsay Gordon as my favorite famous people. My theme song/"the song that plays when I walk into a room" was "If You Didn't See Me (Then You Weren't On The Dancefloor)" by DEJJ, "Folding Chair" by Regina Spektor, or the Sailor Moon theme. You can tell that I went crazy on that little worksheet but I'm super excited to find out who my kuya/ate is/are! Later that night I received a huge flood of friend requests on Facebook from Barkada upperclassmen and then they started filling my wall up with posts claiming that they were each my REAL kuya/ate. November 8 is the big reveal day and the suspense is making me so excited! I'm so grateful to have found family here.

Wednesday • APSU Freshman Rep elections! I'm actually really proud of my Powerpoint (not gonna lie, I'm really good at making them). I was so nervous before going up to speak but it turns out I was running pretty much uncontested (two reps get chosen and there were only two candidates). I had a whole blurb I wanted to do about the concept of finding a family within MCC but the adrenaline got to my mind and I totally skipped over it. SO HAPPY. I also had a minor wardrobe malfunction (the strap of my dress snapped, twice!) but a good buddy helped me out and fixed it (twice!!).

Thursday • My first midterm (Intro to East Asia History). Brain was fried and my hand was cramped afterwards, but it felt good to be done with it. Praise the professor for deciding to not torture us with a cumulative final exam at the end of the quarter, because spending a whole week cramming five chapters' worth of information into my head for the midterm was exhausting enough. Afterwards, I played badminton for the first time in a while with the "unofficial" badminton club. Right after that I walked over to the villas and made dinner with my big. There were a lot of people there that night and I made some new friends!

Friday •  Finished class (Prof H brought us bagels!) and later hung out with M, M and V. M showed me how to play her ukulele. She's my inspiration! I've been saving up for one so hopefully I'll have my hands on a soprano or concert uke by Christmastime. Around 3:30 I took my big and her boyfriend to 99 Ranch for groceries. It was interesting to say the least. Got Ten Ren afterwards and went to C's villa to make fried rice for dinner. Then we headed over to Shapell to meet up with other APSU members for the bonfire. I think the bonfire deserves its own paragraph...

APSU Beach Bonfire • I sat in a car of four other guys so I made more friends! There was some confusion over the location of the beach, and we ended up having to relocate. No worries, though, because everything turned out fine. I had to remind our co-chair not to stress. She is so sweet and works so hard for the club! Anyways, we proceeded with the normal bonfire stuff: campfires, s'mores, pictures. When we took our new family photo, they had me and the two other board members kneel in front of the current board. We took one normal photo, but then for the "silly" photo...they dumped water on us. When I felt the first splash on my head my first instinct was to GTFO and I ran away as fast as I could. The other two just stayed there so they got more wet than me. It was all a part of the "initiation" of the new board. Technically we were "lucky" because the board left their buckets back on campus so they couldn't pour water from the ocean on us. All in all it was really fun and memorable. (I can't wait to initiate the new board members next year.)

Saturday • KAA Party! Needs no description.