I’m a little more than a week into the Fall session at UC Irvine, and I’m struggling to find meaningful activities to fill my time. I’m taking 16 units, found a part time job, and am exploring Alpha Phi Omega (a community service fraternity) and Circle K International (also a community service organization, but this one a club), but I still don’t feel like there’s enough going on this quarter. I’ve reached out to the undergraduate research adviser in the Anthropology department, but it seems that the professors I would be interested in working with are all busy or away at the moment. I’ll need to wait until the Winter quarter to consider even exploring research with them.

I tried out for Mock Trial at UCI but didn’t get a callback. That was a blow for me; I never realized how rusty I had gotten in speech since I stopped doing speech and debate in high school. I’ll have to focus on other things. I need not to dwell on the rejections.

Anthropology classes here are different from Foothill; at one point they’re more advanced but simultaneously they feel less substantive. Sometimes it’s as though the professor has little experience, or hasn’t prepared for their own lectures. It also doesn’t help that attendance is pretty much optional (at your own risk). The labs and discussions are what’s not optional, but those are good. I get to interact with graduate students in small groups. They’re engaged. They enjoy the subject.

I’ve been getting into Python (the language of choice for the programming circuit I’m taking), and I’m getting into it quite a bit. I’ve worked out how to tweet from my command line, but I’m still not sure how to bring it all together, make it work for others, or present it in a reasonable interface. Still… not that bad for 1 week, right?

Maybe.