My sophomore year was every bit as exciting, amazing, surprising, disappointing, and just flat out dramatic as I had expected. Maybe even a bit more than I imagined.
I started out knowing a few of the people on my floor, then I expanded to knowing pretty much everyone on “the floor” to even moving to other floors! You know what I mean, Alan. I started out in a steady, long-distance relationship and ended up single, but not desperate. If there is one word that I would be forced to use to describe my sophomore year, it would have to be “relationships.”
I don’t know why, but everything seemed to revolve around relationships. Romantically starting off the school year, a lot of my friends were single, while a few were dating. Didn’t seem so bad, right? As Thanksgiving break rolled around, a few of my friends (including my roommate, Dennis) began dating and sooner than later, everyone on the floor seemed to be in relationships. Continuing on in Fall Quarter fashion, my other roommate (Karo) was part of the BruinLife yearbook staff and unfortunately he was asked to leave because of multiple reasons. One being he didn’t complete his work, the other being his poor relationship with his boss, our neighbor, Jenn. BruinLife was weird, a bunch of ups and downs. We all started out like the best of friends. The editors, that is. Then it kind of all just went downhill after that. People started forming small clicks (including the new interns on staff) and some of the editors turned on each other (secretly probably). I don’t know, it just was a big mess. Luckily we escaped with a great product (as usual). Enough yearbook talk.
My fall quarter, academics-wise, wasn’t the best. Well, actually I take that back, I managed it pretty well considering how much pressure I was under while working for the yearbook. But for some reason I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. Yet again! How frustrating, am I right? I hate it when I figure that after one quarter it’s like “Okay Josh. Put in the effort, get the grades.” And I thought I was doing that but when the quarter came and went, it’s just like “Oh, what happened? I don’t know why I didn’t try harder.”
I don’t know, I’ve just got some weird way of talking and arguing with myself sometimes. Getting back to the thick of things, the year for me wasn’t totally about my external relationships. I feel like I’ve totally changed throughout this entire year and it’s probably because of the people I got to spend my days with. Who knew Dennis would be such a big influence on my Sophomore year — heck even life? Thanks D.
Some of the most significant changes? My mass consumption of Motion City Soundtrack, my re-found love of Frosted Flakes, my re-found love of video games.
Speaking of music, how awesome was this year? I attended two concerts this year, one from The Academy Is… (with We The Kings, Carolina Liar, and Hey Monday) and then the second was the Sun God Festival down at UCSD where I saw The Theory of Funkativity, Augustana, Anavan, Sara Bareilles, and Motion City Soundtrack. Not to mention the Blink-182 concert down in Chula Vista (with Weezer and Taking Back Sunday) happening on September 16th. I am very definitely excited!
I got to attend a lot of football games at the Rose Bowl and a number of basketball games at Pauley Pavilion. Heck, I even got press passes to go down on the floor for the basketball games against Stanford, USC, and Notre Dame. I couldn’t have asked for a better job (with BruinLife).
It was about Winter quarter when I got the great idea to start attending Office Hours. I became like an OH freak. I would go to office hours even if I didn’t really have to go, it took away so much of my study time, but I felt like I was improving as a student. Turns out I wasn’t, same ‘ol same ‘ol. Just as Fall had come and gone, so had Winter. No difference.
I feel like Spring has done the same to me, but I just had a whole lot more fun while failing. Movie premieres (Fast and Furious, Observe and Report, Up), Sprinkles runs, the Kogi Taco Truck, The Getty, and Umami Burger highlighted an amazingly fun-filled Spring quarter. If I could do it again, I would totally.
It was a great year in all, I want to thank all of my friends for just being there for me. I’ve had rough times, great times, and everything in between and I couldn’t have done it without you all.
I look forward to a great 2009-2010 year! The Pink Palace is where it’s at!
