Weekend Updates - RA Retreat

Hello All!  So I know I've been posting a lot of "I've been out of town so I'll give you a quick update and post pictures later" lately, so I'm going to remedy that situation by doing a few "Weekend Updates" with pictures galore!  So, here's the first one about a weekend that seems like it happened eons ago - the EDCO Retreat!  I'm sure you're all wondering what "EDCO" is, so here's a quick overview.

EDCO stands for "Education Counseling" and the course title is "The Process of Paraprofessional Counseling for Young Adults."  This class is required in order to become an RA.  Since I thought I might someday want to become an RA, I decided to take the class and see how it went.  Going into the class, I actually had very little idea about what we would cover in EDCO so I kind of just assumed it would be things useful to an RA like conflict management.  Honestly, the class has turned out to be so much more than just job training for the RA position and has covered so many great life skills.  We've talked about everything from interview skills to general conflict management.  We've also covered crisis counseling and a bunch of different student development theories.  In addition to the class itself, we also attended a 3-day retreat at a campsite in Malibu.  In case you're wondering why all the celebrities go to Malibu, one girl in my class snapped this a few amazing photographs on the way:

It's so beautiful! Unfortunately our camp didn't have a view of the water since we inland in the hills, but we still got to breathe some beautiful ocean air (quite different from the smog called LA air).

We were assigned the color "yellow" and we came up with the theme the "aMAIZEing" yellow team.  It was really quite corny, but it's okay, because we were poppin'! (haha!  okay, so maybe crickets are chirping - we thought it was super clever!)  Here we are acting out our "corny" ways:

And a slightly more normal group picture:

Over the course of the weekend we did tons of diversity and team-building activities and our class really bonded.  Most of the weekend was devoted towards understanding the identities of others and self-discovery.  I've always been interested in getting to know more about other people and understanding where they come from so I really enjoyed the weekend.

On the topic of EDCO, we had our last class this Tuesday (*sniffle*).  I also already had my final for that class (although the finals are continuing this week, I just so happened to have mine on the first day).  Since the class is officially about paraprofessional counseling, our final is a 12 minute counseling session then a 15 minute discussion where we get back our final response logs and discuss how the class was in general.  In addition, our instructor also tells us their opinion of how they've seen us do in the class and the recommendation they will be sending in with our RA application.  For the counseling portion, an "actor" (just a current RA) comes to us with a situation and we are supposed to use our skills to find out more about the situation and help the student work towards a solution.  I was SO nervous going in because counseling someone is such a big responsibility and I had no idea what the scenario was going to be about.  In class we've talked about how to respond to all different kinds of scenarios from trivial roommate conflicts to more serious issues at home and even suicide.  Of course, in my mind I was imagining the worst possible scenario and thinking that I would have no idea how to respond.  It ended up being a more common scenario then the types I was fearing and it actually went really well!

Furthermore, my instructor really encouraged me to apply for the RA position and said she was strongly recommending me.  (yah!)  It was funny when she asked me where I was considering being an RA I mentioned Southside, then she asked me more specifically, "have you considered an academic community?"  I answered, "Yes, I've been considering the WiSE [women in science and engineering] floor" and my instructor responded "oh good!  On your recommendation I wrote 'WiSE' with three exclamation points!"  It made me really happy so see that she also thought that would be a good fit for me and that she was so supportive of my application!

Anywho, we've already started to plan our EDCO reunions.  Mostly though since it's so difficult to get a whole class of 21 people together, we just send each other facebook messages about events and hang out with whoever can show up.  Our first "mini-reunion" was this weekend going to the women's volleyball game.  Surprisingly, I've never actually been to a volleyball game even though I love volleyball and wish that I had played in high school.  But to be quite honest, I've only ever gone to football games and just a couple basketball games.  It's truly sad, I know, given that USC has such amazing sports teams!  Anywho, they were giving out free Shady Peeps at the game Friday night so I had to go!  Shady Peeps are the "Official Sun Glasses of the USC Trojans" and are pretty much all the rage on campus right now.  Check them out by clicking here!  For all my LSU fans out there, you'll be happy to see that Shady Peeps also offers some sick LSU sunglasses (I can't say if they are as popular on LSU's campus as they are at USC though)!  Check them out here!  I was hoping they would have the red frames with yellow lenses, but apparently those are for basketball season so they were passing out the yellow frames with red lenses.  Here's a pic of me looking super fly in my peeps:

The game was really exciting too!  I was so impressed by how well our team worked together and they really set the pace the whole game.  Oregon was constantly scrambling to save points while USC was consistently setting up spikes and getting some pretty awesome kills.

Anywho, that's it for EDCO.  Look forward to more coming up about my weekend at Kim's wedding next!

Big Bear

Hello All!

So, as you know, I spent three weekends in a row off campus (RA Retreat, Wedding, Balls).  Well, I figured I might as well spend a fourth weekend off campus.  I'm already so far behind on homework it can't possibly get any worse right? (ha!)  Well anyway, when my friend invited me and a bunch of other peeps from Rocket Lab to come stay at his cabin in Big Bear for the weekend, I was all for it!  Big Bear Lake, for those of you who don't know, is in the mountains about 100 miles east of L.A.  The elevation is about 7000ft and I can definitely feel the decrease in oxygen (partly because my nasal passages are clogged and partly because being an engineer leaves no time to work out).  We left campus yesterday morning and got to Big Bear around 11am.  We went out on the lake for a while and a bunch of people inner tubed behind the boat (it's like water skiing only in an inner tube).  I personally didn't because not only was the water freezing, but the air temp was also only in the mid-60s!  The people who did go in got out of the water shivering so badly I felt terrible for them.  Anywho, I've taken a bazillion pictures but I'm on a terrible 3g cell data internet connection so I don't want to upload them for fear of destroying the internet.  Whenever I get back to L.A. I'll be sure to upload tons for pictures for you all!

Abandonment

Ah dear blog!  I haven't abandoned thee!  In all honesty, I've just be SUPER busy.  Really though...these past few weeks have been some of the most hectic of my life.  I've spent the past two weekends in a row off campus (first for the EDCO retreat, then for a wedding) and am leaving in about 8 hours to go to Balls!  In case you don't remember from last year, Balls is the biggest rocket launch convention in America and it only happens once a year!  Rocket lab has been working round the clock to get our rocket, Traveler, ready for launch.  Traveler is "the big one" as they say and is the culmination of 6 years of hard work in rocket lab.  The founding purpose of rocket lab was to build a rocket to reach space and we're finally about to launch a rocket designed to get there!  In less than 24 hours the moment of truth will have happened!

Anywho, a few of the other things keeping me busy are...
Work - my project has been going well so far but has been on a bit of a hold this past week.  I hope to get more done next week.  I try to spend about 15 hours doing work-related things a week.
Work #2 - Supervising the freshman in the AME 105 lab.  This is actually super fun!  I spend about 8 hours a week in the main AME department lab and machine shop working with freshman on building their gliders.  Also, my little sis in AOE is in 105 so I get to hang out with her!
Rocket Lab - Haven't spent as much time in rocket lab as I would like, but I do whatever I can.
Classes - Of course, I'm maxed out on units which means I spend approximately 18 hours a week in class.  Not to mention 3 hours of homework for every 1 hour of class so one can reasonably assume 34 hours of my week are spent doing homework. In case you're keeping track, about 75 hours of my week are already accounted for.
AOE - Chapter meetings and Candidate meetings, unfortunately being off campus means I haven't been able to go to any of the social events so far :(  Plus I'm secretary and merchandising chair, so about 5-6 hours each week goes to AOE.
Ballroom - New for this semester!  I joined the ballroom club!  Sadly, I've missed the past couple weeks :( But normally I go once a week for about 1.5 hours.
Sleep - (HA!) About 6 hours a night (average)

So, if you're keeping track:  Approximately 118.5 hours of my week are accounted for.  Deducting my weekends (since I've been off campus) and 106.5/120 of my available hours in a week are accounted for.  Add in some time for Facebook, eating, checking email, and random meetings, I basically have zero time to waste.  Also, I feel super nerdy for actually calculating that out (it is times like these when I realize how much engineering is taking over my life).

Life has been good though.  Being so busy has definitely been keeping me out of trouble.  I feel like I haven't been to a single party since the first weekend here (before I had homework) but the time I've spent off campus has been super fun and I've been enjoying most of my classes.  Anywho, I hope to get a more detailed post up here soon with tons of pictures from my various adventures and go into a little more detail about my classes and stuff.  I promise I haven't abandoned the blog!

Week 3 - Errands

Hello All!  I know I start every post with "I can't believe how much time has flown" so this post I'm going with the variation - I kept meaning to post every day this week and time kept slipping past!  (Really guys!)  This week has been really exciting but unusually busy with errands.  I've been running around trying to put together my study abroad application (due tomorrow!), getting stuff organized for AOE and figuring out what I need to do for work.  I'm hoping that for the next couple weeks things will settle down before midterms start.

Monday we didn't have class (hooray!) but I spent the majority of the day catching up on homework.  Tuesday was a crazy day running around campus because I had so many errands to run.  My day started around 8 when I left to print my homework (to turn in before 9) then I had an appointment at the health center, class from 10-4, then I had to stop by the study abroad office to schedule an appointment, the registration building to pick up copies of my transcripts, class from 5-7, then I went to the RA fair from 7:30-9, I also had to print out my homework and turn in some stuff online.  By the time it was 10pm I was so tired I did a little homework and just passed out.  Wednesday was every bit as busy as I had class from 9-2 then I had to run around trying to fill out my passport paperwork and get my passport photos taken.  Then I met with a professor at 5:15 to get a recommendation letter for my study abroad app and hang out at Starbucks for a while (she's really awesome!)  before heading back to my apartment to do Thermodynamics homework with a friend then heading to Ballroom Dancing class at 9.  Class ended around 10:15 and the whole class headed over to Traditions (the bar/club on campus, commonly known as "Traddy's") to hang out and eat nachos.  Side note - Traddy's is awesome.  It's basically half sport's bar with big TVs and a bunch of people hanging out watching games and half dance club with cool DJs and light shows and awesomeness.  And even better, it's on campus!  They're really strict about not letting under 21 drink but it's still a fun place to hang out.  Anywho, needless to say, by the time I got home on Wednesday night I was once again so tired I did a little homework then just passed out. Thursday was less busy because I didn't have anything due on Friday but it was still a pretty long day.  Study abroad advising at 9, class 10-4 (don't forget the math quiz every Thursday!) and 5-7, then tie dying with AOE!  Tie dying is one of our recruitment traditions and everyone looks forward to it every semester.  I was pretty happy with how mine came out.  Check out this picture.

It was a little more yellow-y than I had hoped, but none the less, I was happy with it!

Friday was a much more chill day.  Thankfully I only have math class at 10 then honors colloquium at 1.  I hung out in Rocket lab for a little while between classes (but didn't really do any work) then headed over to my lab afterwards for our group meeting.  We still haven't heard back from the manufacturer of the mandrels I'm supposed to use about the layup procedure so I haven't started making any samples yet but I plan on cutting carbon fiber on Monday.  Hopefully the manufacturer will get back to us about the specifics of how to use the mandrels soon because I really want to get started!  And I also don't want to just "wing it" when it comes to the layup.

On Saturday I finally submitted all my paperwork for renewing my passport!  The stupid office is only open from 10:30am-3pm (super inconvenient for my class schedule) and you have to have an appointment.  At least it's just across the street on the west side of campus so it wasn't too far to bike.  Anyway, what with my passport submitted for renewal, my recommendation letters turned in, my essayed finished, and copies of my transcripts bought, I'm done with my application! And it's probably a good thing because the application is due tomorrow.  I just need to stop by the office, turn in all my completed materials and then hope for the best!  I'm probably going to turn in an application to one back up program (but I can use mostly the same essays and nothing else needs to be redone) but that application isn't due for two more weeks.

Saturday was also GAME DAY!!  The game had one of the most exciting endings ever.  During the first half we were leading by about 10 points but in the second half Utah started coming back to bring the score to 17-14.  With only 18 seconds left, Utah was on its forth down and only 1 yard away from a first down.  After the play, it was initially called short but after review and re-measurement they called it a first down.  Then they reset the clock to 20 seconds.  At this point, Utah was on the 41 yard line.  They decide to go for a field goal and BAM, USC's 6' 7" offensive tackle Matt Kalil blocks the kick sending the ball right into the open arms of cornerback Torin Harris who ran like crazy for a 68 yard touchdown.  SO INTENSE!!  The whole student section was going crazy!!  The idiot refs took away the points for "illegal celebration" (what the heck is that anyway?) but two hours later they gave us our points back for an official final score of 23-14!  It was such a great game!!  A little too close for comfort, but we were all proud that our defense held through all the way till the end.  For your viewing pleasure, I have included pictures!

They were giving out flags to commemorate 9/11.  I thought they looked good in my hair!

Roommates at the game!

We had four F16s fly over after the national anthem.  Having the flag in the picture was totally accidental but I kind of like it.  Go America!

As for today, I'm just trying to catch up on homework and we had candidate initiation for AOE!  We have nine lovely candidates this semester.  After initiation we went out to lunch in Lil Tokyo and got some delicious lunch!  Oh how I do love avocado rolls...yum.  Take a look at our beautiful candidates:

As for now, I'm off to go work on statics homework with a friend.  Wish me luck!