Why Cal Poly < Davis
At Cal Poly, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. It was a party-school in the middle of California with no big city nearby. Everyone was into drinking alcohol, and the demographics of Cal Poly were opposite of what I was used to. It was a prestigious university, but the policies on graduating in 4 years, as well as the policy on keeping your major / preventing you from changing were undesirable as well. I came into Cal Poly SLO as a Earth Science major, and applied to go here merely b/c my dad said it was good (I knew NOTHING about the university). I picked Earth Science because it looked interesting and was on the list of majors on the application. Although it WAS an interesting subject, it was not the major that I wanted to work on for 4 years.
Why Davis > Cal Poly
At Davis though, I have a set major in International Relations that I decided on pursuing during my 3 years at Foothill College. My interest in the topic will keep me coming to class every day with an intent to learn something new. I'm in a familiar enough place to not feel fearful while also unfamiliar enough to still be able to explore and try out / go new places. I have a few friends who go here who I will be able to hang out with, while also being able to make many new friends through clubs, classes, etc. Although there is a fair mount of partying going on, as well as a Greek Life here at Davis, I'm not getting the feeling that EVERYONE parties, like I did in Cal Poly. I'm in an all-around better place...although I DID like the weather in Cal Poly better...hahaha (Davis is super hot in 90s-100, then super cold at night...Cal Poly, during Fall, had Heavy torrential awesome rain, and beautiful warm 80s weather, thunder storm etc.).
Stories about Dad Derping Hard On Our Way To UCD
A lot has happened and I've seen a lot of people who I haven't seen in a long time... For those of you who haven't heard from me in a while, I'll give you the rundown of my first week as descriptive as possible so you don't miss any deets (aka details...). Lets start with packing! Anyways, my dad got a huge car for packing everything in. It was a Nissan if I remember correctly and he only had about 5,023 strikes on his record for how many mistakes he had while the car was in his ownership.
- On the day of moving out of my Dad's apt, he brought the car home and upon looking at the new car, while bringing tons of luggage down, he tells me "you won't believe what I did"... or "you're gonna laugh when I tell you this" but anyways, while pulling into the parking spot (which is beside a column in the parking garage), he apparently scraped the entire side of the brand spankin' new rental that he JUST brought home. Keep in mind that my Dad prides himself in his driving skills and brags about how he can get into tight parking spots really well. Here's a picture
- When we got to UC Davis, we unpacked at The Colleges at La Rue Apt. We thought everything was going well and didn't think twice about the possibility something would go wrong. We opened the car doors, trunk etc. and unpacked. So, after a few hours we finished unpacking and decided we'd go out to dinner before my dad had to set off back home. Upon arriving back to the car, you've guessed it, my dad left every door / trunk wide open, AND ALSO LEFT THE KEY IN THE VAN! (And keep in mind this is the type of car where you just hold the key in your pocket, and press the engine button, so anyone could've left with the van)
House Arrangements, Roommate/Housemates, Week in a Nutshell
Lets get to my housemates though. I'm living in a 3br/2bath on-campus apartment with 5 people including myself. I have a roommate named Curtis who I had my Japanese courses with in Foothill. In another room is two guys from SoCal named Evan and Estevan. They don't know each other coming up. In the last room is Matt from NorCal who has his room to himself. He has an awesome desk setup with a TV/monitor behind his laptop for his x-box games. Not to mention that he has Borderlands 2 which I've been dying to play (I've played the game with him like twice... or maybe just once I don't remember). Him and Estevan like poker a lot, but they're all really nice though. We've played Bang! and went to the Buzz together (but eventually split up), and also had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant downtown one night...but I don't remember which night. On the first day after all the parents left (9/23) we cleaned the entire house. Mopped / Swept the floor so that we can walk around without our shoes, Wiped down surfaces with the disinfectants, setup the closets organized our rooms and got situated. I think it was my roommate's idea. I realized though that while I am super organized, my roommate is very clean. So we make a sterile duo or something... 0.0 lol. After those days, there were a few events that I went to such as the Resource Fair (9/25) and welcome speech with my roommate and another friend from Foothill named Jason. Jason, my roommate and I went out to eat a few times this past week. Once it was at a place called Namaste Nepal or something. It's delicious and only 8 dollars for lunch buffet!!! AND I DON'T LIKE MANY INDIAN-ish RESTAURANTS! We also ate at Ohana Hawaiian Barbecue, as well as Old Tea house followed by playing cards at his own single apartment that he has to himself where we met Brendon and James. Lets seee... there were other events that I went to such as The Buzz (9/28) where I ran into many of my friends from back home.... but basically this week has involved going to welcome events, GETTING TONS OF FREE STUFF ( check out my Facebook or Instagram ), or going out to eat. If I updated this daily I could've told you more details about it but I don't remember it day to day anymore it sort of just blends into the welcome week. Just yesterday I went to the Kickoff Football game against Weber St. Univ. where we won!!! Curtis, Jason, Brendon and I only stayed until after the half-time show. They were giving out free T-shirts (which is initially why we went) but we were too late to get any because we were eating at the DC(Dining Commons) and were 10 minutes late.
My First Day of Classes (9/27)
The first day of school wasn't too bad either (9/27). The class that I had was UWP 001 ( Expository Writing ) to satisfy my lower-division writing requirement ((I saw in the handbook that I WAS exempt if I got a 3 on the AP exam... ILL CHECK THAT LATER)). I only got tons of paper. One was about why writing was helpful and we discussed that as a class together. I raised my hand and contributed so be proud! :) It was a 10-12 class, and the bike there was pretty intense as well. I sort of got lost but the ride back was worse. I took a wrong turn but told myself I wasn't going to use my map so I biked around, found the water tower, biked towards that, ran into the arboretum for some reason (WAYY off), turned around, passed some cows, found La Rue Road and biked down that until I found my house. Mission Accomplished. By the way--- I have NO FRIDAY CLASSES
Organizing/Noting Resources, Textbooks, Seeing Old Friends
Apart from the welcome events and classes I've been consolidating papers about school resources and stuff into this notebook which includes things like possible on-campus jobs, study abroad opportunities, UC Washington program, Sacramento Program etc. I bought my notebooks for class, put my papers into that folder, REALIZED THAT THERE WERE NOT TEXTBOOKS FOR ANY OF MY CLASSES (so far. but there is 1 more class that I'm unsure about.), and printing out lecture notes for my evening class on M/W. I've been productive, social, I haven't met TOO many people other than my housemates, but I have met up with friends that go to Davis and run into people I haven't seen in a very long time. The first time my roommate and I went to the dining commons, I saw Ben Geva which was a friend from elementary school, but I was rushed cuz we were late so I couldn't say hi.
My First (2-2.5) Shot(s) of Alcohol
And one last thing. I had my first shot of alcohol. No, make that first two shots of alcohol. After the buzz (9/28) my roommate drove Brendon to Winifred's lil sister's b-day party, and we stopped by for 20-30 min to say hi. I told Winnie that I'd have a beer with her since she has never drunken anything with me. They "didn't have any beer" so she told me to take a shot so we gathered some friends that we knew, she poured me a shot, gave me the few sips left of sprite to use as a chaser and so we clinked glasses and took the shot. Immediately after, the birthday girl (Winnie's sister) came by and she wanted a shot. Since the first one ACTUALLY WASN'T BAD, I took another. She filled it all the way to the top of the shot-glass so I'm assuming that it was more like 1.5 shots or 2 shots in that glass. I chased this one with Root beer because the sprite was gone. All in all it wasn't a bad experience. I'm sure some of my friends would be 'proud' that I took a shot because (sarcastic tone) that's such a important thing to do (end sarcastic tone). Some were genuinely happy that I took it and at least experienced it or whatever. But yeah after the party I talked to some people I haven't seen in a while and my roommate and I went home.
That's pretty much all.... OR at least all that I can remember at the moment.... I'm going to add titles to each paragraph so that you can just pick and choose which one you want to read since this one is hella long. but by the time you read this you'll already see the subtitles....I'm just thinking out loud while i read this. CUT ME SOME SLACK.
