My roommate Kency just came up to me randomly and said, “Jenn, I’m glad you’re happy.” And it’s true - I had a really good day today, and I have been so much happier recently compared to just six months ago.

This morning I woke up at 8 to get ready for CHAMPs. It was the first site I attended since early November, so I was really excited and awake in the morning. I met a few new volunteers, and introduced them to our system (and tried to convince them to work with the K-2 kids). On the bus-ride to downtown Los Angeles, I listened to my iPod and just relaxed in preparation for the morning. After getting to Casa Heiwa, everybody introduced themselves over breakfast (bagels and cream cheese, of course) and then I headed over to the K-2 room. Man, I totally missed those kids these last two months. Dasauni and Aleena, the cutest siblings ever, came today, and it was great seeing them and playing with them alongside Destiny, Memphis, Lailone, Gabriel, and the rest of the kids. I’ve definitely gotten attached to a large handful of those kids since I started attending CHAMPs a year ago, and don’t plan on quitting as long as I reside in LA.

After we got back to UCLA at around 1, I went back up to my dorm to work on homework due early next week. A few days ago, my computer got infected by a virus - my friends were using it while I wasn’t around, and when it froze, they came to get me from my boyfriend’s room. Josh had this serious expression on his face, and said he had something to say to me. Josh and Emili were freaking out about whether I’d get mad at them and yell at them for crashing my computer…I just laughed it off. No way I’d get mad at them for something that could’ve just as easily happened to myself. But anyway, last night I asked my boyfriend’s roommate, Matt, to help me get rid of the virus that caused the crash (and the successive crashes afterwards). A software genius, he spent a few hours figuring everything out and cleaning my PC up for me while I used my neighbor Wesley’s, spare laptop to do my CS lab (with Visual C++ instead of Xcode). When he got my computer working again, I was so happy! It’s really nice to not have to reinstall Windows on a reformatted PC.

My afternoon continued with my first problem set for MAE101 (Statics & Strengths of Materials). I got through quite a bit of it, happily, and was totally ready for our floor dinner reservations at BJ’s at 5:30. Kency wanted to go out to BJ’s tonight for her birthday, so twelve of us went together (Josh, Wesley, Emili, Harrison, Sing, Lynn, Matt, Dennis, Nghiem, Steven, Kency, and myself) to Westwood. The food was delicious and plenty, so we’re planning on a leftovers-party tomorrow in the dorms. After the meal, of course we had a few pizookies for the table, which were pure yum. We took a group picture outside of BJ’s (which I opted out of) and then headed home.

My day was productive and fun, the best day I’ve had in what seems like a long time. (The only thing missing was Stanley, who I saw in the morning but went home while I was at CHAMPs. I missed him the most while the rest of us ate dinner.) Tomorrow I plan on going on run in the morning, a quick Costco trip, finishing the last of my MAE101 homework, doing the bulk of my math homework, and maybe some shopping for a birthday present.

It’s been a pretty good first week of school. Earlier this week Heather and Sophie visited me at UCLA and we went to Rodeo Drive, Sprinkles, and Pinkberry. I really like being around my high school friends, as it always seems like they know me better (or at the very least, differently) than my college friends. I hope that this quarter doesn’t get too much busier, as I’m afraid I won’t be an efficient time-manager. If all else fails, though, I’ll at least have learned my limits.

PS. After we walked back home, I stopped and sat down outside to relax and check out the full moon. I was just sitting around with Matt and Wesley when Steven Chang, from Miller/Lynbrook walked by with his girlfriend, Daisy. Man, that brought me way back, haha. I vaguely remember being pretty good friends with him in 8th grade…

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 10th, 2009 at 9:09 pm and is filed under personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.