Orientation Leaders

For those of you who are coming in the Fall, check out your Orientation Leaders!

http://www.virginia.edu/orientation/summer/orientationleaders.html

Apparently last year's OLs are already facebook stalking this year's new group of OLs. In the words of a wise friend: let it go, guys, let it go.

I was reading these with my friend and I was also just amazed at what a variety of organizations people were involved in. It makes you want to go "Huh, I didn't know we had that... I want to join!"

Anyways, a couple of my friends are being OLs so be nice! :]

As Future CEO of the Sushi+Cupcakes Company...

On an entirely new note, I had an RA meeting last night and it was loads of fun. I think this meeting was different from previous ones, because a lot of us were very relaxed. I think everyone has gotten used to each other and different styles of humor. A lot of jokes went around, the pizza was hot, and business was short and sweet.

Yes, RAs are students too and we love to chill. For those of you who don't know, RAs meet once a week as a staff to discuss dorm-wide issues and events. Around this time of year, RAs are usually planning around Thanksgiving break and towards winter. We're very far-sighted people. Overall, we are excited for break to come and not-so-excited for the finals to come afterwards.

Earlier this year, these meetings have been business for the most part, with a little socializing before and after. Yesterday was the first time we decided to incorporate a dinner with our meeting and that definitely eased the mood of the meeting. If there is nothing else college has taught me, it has taught me that food brings people together and the casualness of it facilitates an easiness found only between friends. If I ever become a big time CEO or manager, I will make sure to always have snacks in my office and conduct my meetings with sushi and cupcakes. Welcome to my cubicle.

sushi, hip-hop, friends, and late-night dancing

I went to a friend's apartment house party last night and it was awesome. Let me preface it though with a description of my lovely Saturday. Honestly, yesterday was one of the most satisfying days of my life. Yes, I am talking about hedonistic pleasures, which include sushi, hip-hop, friends, and late night dancing.

The morning started off quite disappointingly because I woke up early for two meetings, both of which I never got in touch with the person with whom I was supposed to have a meeting. However, I was thoroughly enjoying the gorgeous weather. For the past four days, Virginia has decided to pour her heart out in the form of biting wind, thundering or misty rain, wet leaves, flooded brick sidewalks, and inside-out umbrellas. Miraculously, on Saturday the sun was out, temperature highs were 19°C or 66°F, and girls were wearing strapless sun dresses (your prime indicator of the weather...). For those of you not familiar with Virginia weather, Virginia is a bipolar, maniac depressive maiden when it comes to matters of weather and love. While in New York, once it hits October, it's chilly and then cold and then freezing until March, in Virginia, it vacillates. Therefore I was pleasantly surprised by the gorgeous weather, and despite being dumped for two meetings I was actually in a great mood.

Oh, and despite the fact that it had been raining nonstop for four days and Professor Wilson says that the day of the week doesn't really affect your mood, I was so happy that it was Saturday. I mean, what Professor Wilson says is true... TGIF in America, or Thank God It's Friday, definitely did not apply in South Korea, where the week school used to continue to Saturday. (They're currently trying to phase it out so that on every alternating week, school ends on Friday.) I'm sure if classes continued to Saturday, Fridays would just become the next Thursday. However, I also might just transfer to another school that doesn't implement such heinous practices.

Fortunately, it was Saturday and at the University of Virginia, it means a day of no classes. I decided to go on a sushi lunch date with friends... Guess where we went? YES SUSHI LOVE [see two posts earlier]. Two of my friends actually never had sushi (or sashimi or rolls), so I was really excited. I won't get into too much details, but essentially we had an awesome lunch of the bento box at a reasonable price, and talked for two and a half hours. There was such a feeling of solidarity that it was remarkable. It really reminded me what the combination of good food and fantastic women can do for one's soul. I believe we talked about everything from an amazing novel called Things Fall Apart to African womanism to UVa Orientation to music. We all agreed that the chic decor and great tasting food added to the mood. Silly pictures ensued.

We got kicked out of the restaurant at 3:36pm. They needed to set up for dinner. Because of the great company, we decided to meet again for Ill-Literacy. Essentially the description was something like this:

[Spoken word and hip-hop favorites iLL-Literacy returns to UVA for a third time just days before the release of their first record, iB4the1.1! Creating an ever-expanding sonic universe piecemealed together by their ever-shrinking attention span, iLL-Literacy has invaded concert halls, off-Broadway stages, and college arenas throughout North America and Europe.]

Awesome? Oh yes. We were blasted with truth in the form of spoken word and beats. Why is the word fuck beeped from shows and movies that have murder scenes, sex scenes, and drug scenes? Why is our first black President talked about as if he is the last chapter in the race dialogue? Who does Glenn Beck think he is in coining the term "post-racial America" because of Obama? Not only were we the row who screamed encouragement the most, I believe we got a kick out of the fact that N.I.C. took a picture with me and my friend. Overall, a very fulfilling night.

musing of a girl with a knapsack

Coming from my favorite little coffee-tea shop, Para Coffee (shameless plug, I know... it's on Elliewood!!!), I bumped into a friend on the Corner. It's the typical UVa scene. Two college students, a boy with a cup of coffee and a girl with a knapsack, talking in front of the bus stop on the brick-paved streets of the Corner. It happens all the time.

I guess what's different about this scene is that I knew this guy for only a month. I took three summer classes over two months, and we had met through one of them. For those of you unfamiliar with UVa's summer classes, the entire summer is split up into three sessions (session I, session II, session III). The maximum number of classes that you can take per session is two. Yours truly, being the overzealous and overachieving student that I am, took three classes and had a job. Needless to say, there was a negative correlation between the number of classes and jobs that I had and my grade.

My friend and I had met during the second session, where I only had one class and was more relaxed. It was a great class, simply because it was an actual Professor who was teaching, he was amazing, and instead of the usual several hundreds of students that he taught, there was only 25 of us. It was definitely an advantage over taking it in the semester. Because of the small class size, I got to know a good number of my classmates pretty intimately, considering that it was only 6 weeks long. We met often for picnic lunches in the Gardens, trips to Downtown, cooking adventures in my apartment, and study groups that actually worked. I must say, I was really impressed with myself that session. I was being social, I excelled in that class, and I still had lots of sleep despite the fact that the class was 8am every morning.

But summer feels like a dream. It was rainy today, I was feeling miserable from sickness, and I'm sure my friend was busy thinking about the things he had to do today, because he was holding a lot of books. It was such a contrast from memories from the summer season, with balmy sunny days and open schedules. We talked a bit about our lives. I told him about my bout with the cold and he told me he was enjoying his classes. It was short, terse, and almost static. Then he said he needed to go to a meeting. I nodded and waved him off.

There's a point in second year where you realize that you're not a first year anymore. For me, it was when I realized that a lot of my friends from first year (and yes, I was still a first year over the summer...) were busy with their activities in which they were leaders. My friend was an Orientation leader, another friend is deeply involved in Student Entrepreneurs for Economic Development (SEED), and another wants to get involved in drama and work with children. I am not involved in any of these activities nor are they particularly important to me. Yet, with the activities that are important to me, I am deeply involved. As we progress and become third years and fourth years, I'm sure that we will all only increase our commitments to these activities, and be more involved in them. At what point will we be too busy for each other?

These were the thoughts that I was mulling over after my encounter with my friend. Typical encounter on the Corner? Oh yes. Typical College of Arts and Science student? Hell yea.

it's a small world after all...

Alright, meeting one of my alum friends on the sidewalk as I was leading a tour today got me to thinking.

So straight off the bat, those of you coming from really small schools might be concerned or even intimidated by the thought of 13,000 undergrads. I know I was, there was only 200 people in my graduating class. But coming here, I've never felt like a face in the crowd. I might've mentioned this before but it feels like an amazingly small community sometimes. It's crazy how so many people know each other. You often hear about a six degrees of separation between people knowing people here, but it's more like two, three degrees of separation at UVA. I absolutely cannot walk anywhere without bumping into someone I know. Don't be worried.

For those of you who like the size though, there's definitely something always happening and new people to meet. I also come from a huge city of around seven million people, so I definitely know what city life is like. In Charlottesville, I really don't feel like I'm missing out. I've gotten used to Charlottesville life and in fact rather like it. Our basketball arena was recently finished -- the JPJ arena and we've had people like The Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake performing in it. I wish I'd remember the day the Maroon 5 tickets went on sale. By the time I finally remembered, they were sold out. *sigh*

But back to my alum friend. Even people who've already graduated, they come back all the time. It's not uncommon to walk into a restaurant or down the street and see someone who graduated two years ago. And I keep bumping into my friends all over Grounds and in Charlottesville. What a place.