(no subject)
i'm currently trying to download C.R.E.A.M. right now to no avail. but onto more important things....last night we met up with xuan and andy to give them a present that janet and i got for andy's birthday. we ended up getting them a membership to the V&A and i think that's probably the best thing i have ever gotten anyone. i figure that's the least we could do for them and the cost was only a fraction of the amount they have spent on us on drinks and food. a few of their other friends ended up joining us and we ended up inadvertently going clubbing. unbeknownst to them their friend was having a birthday party a club. i can't remember the last them that i went to a club and needless to say all of us had our cardigans on. it ended up being pretty fun and before we knew it, we had missed the last tube home and had to take the bus from holborn. upon getting to stratford, we discovered that there were no night buses heading to beckton and we were stranded. thankfully our cousin picked us up. but it was kind of panic inducing and i don't think i want to go through that again. tomorrow is the notting hill carnival and after last nights transportation woes, i am really not looking forward to going. but it's such a unique urban spectacle and something you have to do once, that i am sure i'll end up going just so i will never ever have to go again.
today we met up with my friend pei-lin who is studying here at UCL. she was part of our UCI cohort but decided to defer a year to think about whether or not she really wants a phd in anthro. she got into the cambridge phd. program and left after ten weeks when she decided that their program was not theoretically in sync with the kind of work she wanted to do. and i found her situation completely inspirational as it directly hits the issues i had with UCI. at my most honest, i can admit that i did have two major gripes about going to irvine -- 1) location and 2) lack of prestige. i think i really pushed myself to get into big name schools despite huge disparities in research interests because of some deluded notion that i had to "upgrade" from UCLA. but after hearing about her struggles at cambridge--a school i really wanted to apply to, but couldn't bring myself to after looking at their faculty interests and acknowledging that there's was no way it could work with the stuff i wanted to do-- and hearing about how she came to and why she was attracted to irvine. it provided a boost to my affirmation that i made the right choice and am on a good path. even if i absolutely did not want to live in irvine, i had to apply because the fit was so right and i can honestly say that i find everyone's work EXCITING. and its crystal clear why i was accepted first round. i love the people -- faculty and cohort-- that i am working with. and maybe i and spelling all of this out more to justify this for me than for anyone else (and maybe other people too). these past few months, i have gotten into the habit of asking people whether or not they believed things happen for a reason or things just happen and you have to make the best out of them, a private poll of sorts, and i know that the answer is. but i guess at a very basic level, i just wanted to feel taken care of by the universe. i am done with my survey and i am ready to start school and looking forward to the future. i am done reaffirming this to myself (and others). i am ready for the all of this to happen.
today we met up with my friend pei-lin who is studying here at UCL. she was part of our UCI cohort but decided to defer a year to think about whether or not she really wants a phd in anthro. she got into the cambridge phd. program and left after ten weeks when she decided that their program was not theoretically in sync with the kind of work she wanted to do. and i found her situation completely inspirational as it directly hits the issues i had with UCI. at my most honest, i can admit that i did have two major gripes about going to irvine -- 1) location and 2) lack of prestige. i think i really pushed myself to get into big name schools despite huge disparities in research interests because of some deluded notion that i had to "upgrade" from UCLA. but after hearing about her struggles at cambridge--a school i really wanted to apply to, but couldn't bring myself to after looking at their faculty interests and acknowledging that there's was no way it could work with the stuff i wanted to do-- and hearing about how she came to and why she was attracted to irvine. it provided a boost to my affirmation that i made the right choice and am on a good path. even if i absolutely did not want to live in irvine, i had to apply because the fit was so right and i can honestly say that i find everyone's work EXCITING. and its crystal clear why i was accepted first round. i love the people -- faculty and cohort-- that i am working with. and maybe i and spelling all of this out more to justify this for me than for anyone else (and maybe other people too). these past few months, i have gotten into the habit of asking people whether or not they believed things happen for a reason or things just happen and you have to make the best out of them, a private poll of sorts, and i know that the answer is. but i guess at a very basic level, i just wanted to feel taken care of by the universe. i am done with my survey and i am ready to start school and looking forward to the future. i am done reaffirming this to myself (and others). i am ready for the all of this to happen.