First and foremost, I wanna say these journals are from three years ago and I want to keep the original tone, so I don't want fix the grammar or rephrase it. Therefore, my English might sound a little wiggly and awkward, please don't mind.
Journal 1
This week is the second week for fall quarter, and all a busy week for me. Since I am working in the DLG dining hall, finding balance between work, study and life had become a big challenge for me. However, I am still working on this and I found that being busy is not a bad thing. DLG dining hall is a place where I can improve my English and even my Spanish. It was really interesting that those chefs always try to speak with me in Spanish and always say that I look like Mexican instead of other nationalities. This week, I also restart working out in gym which I usually do in China in order to reduce my stress while I was really stressed out. Recreation Center is the best place to work out thanks to it has large scale area to put various instrument inside. I am doing cardio fitness to reduce my body fat, and I will start doing anaerobic exercise after a while. That’s all for this week.
Journal 2
This week, especially in weekdays, there is nothing really new. I went to school everyday and work at DLG dining hall. I think the highlights of this week is all in weekend. On Saturday morning, I went to work as usual. While I was reading some articles on social media in the bus, I saw The was going to be an annual solar eclipse in California. That was around 9:14 when the sky suddenly got dark. I went out from the dining hall and I saw that it is getting cloudy outside. All of a sudden, I saw the sun was in a really weird shape, I had reminded of the article that I read that morning. So I took my phone immediately and took some magnificent pictures.
It was really amazing to see this annual solar eclipse, which is a very unusual astronomical phenomenon. After I took these pictures, I sent them to my astronomy professor and he gave me lots of complements. And on Sunday, Kail and I went to downtown Santa Barbara to be a volunteer for an event called Asian American Neighborhood festival, which is a festival with lots of fun and meaningful activities. In the morning, we set off from Goleta around 7:20 and got there around 7:50. Then we started to move chairs and made tents what made me really tired. However, two hours later, that place came alive. It was really crowded when the event started. As volunteers, Kail and I taught people how to write Chinese calligraphy, which is recognized an art in China. We told people where those characters come from and how to pronounce them etc. I also met bunch of people, which makes me really happy. I met a guy who had had lived in China for few years, he said he had a Chinese name but he forgot it. And I also met a lady, who once was a teacher in China and she lived in Taipei for four year. She can speak really fluent Mandarin and she said she started to learn Spanish these days. It is a really good and funny weekend. I learned lots of new values and met new people.
Journal 3
There is nothing different from last week except we went to Coal oil point near the campus and I joined party in IV. It was a foggy day when we went to the Coal Oil Point, which is a bi different from what I expected previously. However, after we had our economy class, Susie drove us to the Coal Oil Point where we met Bonnie, a very professional volunteer who introduced us lots of birds there. We saw various kinds of birds, I can’t think of their names in my head now, but I took a lot of pictures.
I learned not only the name of these birds also I learned they do lots of efforts to protect these wild animals. I also found out that this place is a good surfing spot. Therefore, I will go there again if I have time. When I was in china, I always heard that UCSB is a party school. So after I finished my work, I went to IV to seek for some parties. I saw lots of parties and I met new friends, which is really exciting. On Saturday, I went to Gloria’s apartment when I finished my shift. I went to their apartment and cook beef curry. After I start cooking, SuBin and a friend of hers also came to Gloria’s. After eating curry, we went to IV again to join some parties.
It was really a funny day.
Journal 5
It has been a tough week for me because of exams and midterms. I stayed for hours in library to prepare for my exams, especially economy exam is the one that gave me vast level of pressure when I found out it was really obscure to understand by professor in class so that I started to learn by myself. However, I got through that exam this Friday. I was also working in this busy week which makes me more tired but made my days complete. Additionally, I was still learning how to swim this whole week. I mastered the breast stroke and I personally think that I got better even though Subin said that I swim so funny(I believe she was joking). This is a picture taken in the recreation center when it was sunset.
And I also tried new food in Santa Barbara downtown! There is a noodle restaurant where sells pho noodles. We tried it on Monday, it tastes really good.
In class, we learned about the day of the death, and we saw the exhibition in the library. I took some beautiful pictures for those cute papers.
Journal 6
In this journal, I want to put my birthday party as an additional part. Before last Sunday, we discussed having a Korean food party at Gloria’s place on Sunday. Soon Sunday, I texted Gloria and Subin to ask when I should arrive at Gloria's apartment to help cook food, both of them said around 7 PM due to Gloria being out. However, I listened to them so I went to the Tilly’s to buy some clothes for myself. After spending money at Tilly’s, Gloria called me to come over. When I arrived there, I saw one of our Friends Hayoung, who is also an exchange student from Korea, standing outside of Gloria’s apartment. I asked him why he was standing here, he told me that he was just calling his parents. Then we went to Gloria's together, I asked him who else was there, he told me just Subin and him. When I was ready to become a chief, a birthday song burst out of that house. To be honest, I was speechless and I froze there. I saw they took a cake which had candles on it, they wanted me to make a wish. After blowing out the candles, they turned on the lights. I put some pictures of my birthday party. I wanna thank my friends, I will never forget this day.
On this Monday, I heard that there will be Barbie played in IV theater, so I went to watch that movie. The reason why I wanna watch it is because my favorite singer is Billie Eilish, she sang a song for that movie.
Except watching movies, I went to recreation center a lot to exercise. I did cardio fitness nearly everyday in order to lose my weight. However, I found out that losing weight by just fitness is not really possible because the food in US provides huge energy, which will turn out being body fat. So I’m just thinking to make myself a special recipe to lose weight.
On Wednesday, we went to the Museum of Art in downtown. I saw and leaned various art masterpieces. After that, we go to the court to see the city view of Santa Barbara.
This week I also tried Boba Tea, which tastes really good. To be honest, I didn’t have a high expectation to it because I tried many Chinese food in US which are completely different from what I ate in China, but after drank it I found out it was really good. Sunday morning, I tried to cook at home. I cooked steak and fried eggs.
Journal 8
This week, I went to Yosemite with my friends, a wonderful place with magnificent views. But before going there, I had to finish all of my homework(except this one). Therefore, I had a really crazy busy week. However, I made it. The day we left SB, everyone was so excited. We arrived our house booked on Airbnb at 5 PM and then we went to the store to buy some stuff. In the second day of our trip, we went to the Tunnel View. I knew this place because of the MacOS, which is the computer system for Apple. But when I really see those mountains, I didn’t believe I was really there. And we also went to the waterfall, which is also beautiful. I fell down from the rock because it was rally wet so that I couldn’t stay on it stably. Luckily, it wasn’t that serious. After coming back from our trip, we cooked by ourselves. We cooked Ramen, BBQ and fried eggs. We played card games when we finish eating.
In the third day of our trip, we went to the Niagara waterfall. But this time it was little dangerous and challenging be cause we had to hike four hours. Due to we don’t manage our time, we got really late. When we were going down from the mountain top, it got entirely dark and we barely see everything. However, we are safe. We also went to the tunnel view again to observe stars. We saw the milky way, some clusters and Andromeda Galaxy.
In the end of the journal, I wanna put a picture that we took in the Tunnel View.
