Living the 'College Life'

It is a completion of another week and nothing exciting really happened, but I am enjoying the flexibility of being able to do what I want at school and being able to come home in between activities.

I made some friends and it is nice to be able to go through class with people I know. For my statistics I know a classmate that is in music education. She is easy to talk to and we sit together during lab and lecture. Then Valeria and I hang outside of class which is lovely because it is nice to experience college with someone. We even went grocery shopping together.

I went to the Center for Multitlingual Multiculture Studies for conversational hour a couple of times this week. Talking to the students is always interesting, since they come from different countries and it is fun to learn more about where they come from.

I also went to the gym a couple of times. I did yoga and the Barre experience. I did yoga before, but this class was more intense and it a small class so there was ability for correction by the instructor  which I like. I went to the Barre class with Grace and it was great doing ballet movies again. I am glad that UCF provides these classes for us since my goal is to become more fit this year.

On Friday I went home to visit my family. I took my sister shopping since she needed to pick up somethings and she couldn't get anyone to take her out. I finally got my soccer cleats and then went to was Ross where she bought us matching shirts of the Eiffel Tower. Then I got to introduce her to a Chinese restaurant I used to go to when I worked at Publix and we both got the lunch special. It was a good being out together and just being sisters.

Then at home Rebekah and I planned our favorite game Hand and Foot together and of course Jeremiah won. Then we played Wii golf, tennis, and bowling with Micah. This visit will probably be my last time until the end of February since I don't really need to go back home and I've been home every weekend since I left. Tomoko is on break from work so she came home with her new car that she bought that day. :) She is the first of us kids to get a car! Then mom decided that we should eat out and we went to Outback Steakhouse so Micah would join us. Yummy! I love good food! 

Then on Saturday, I went with the Happy Hour Showcase with some of my classmates. Valeria gave me a ride there since buses don't work on the weekends. We meet up with Victoria and her sister. Valeria and I went to some conference classes together and it was nice having someone that I knew there with me. For lunch we went to susHi and it has Chipotle style ordering for sushi! There was so many choices and everything looked so good! In the end I chose shrimp tempura with cucumbers and avocado. Then mangos, dried sweet potatoes,  green scallions and spicy mayonnaise on top! Altogether it was amazing now it is my new favorite place to eat! 

Being on my own is nice. Even though it is quiet at home since my roommates are busy and stay in their rooms a lot. They are really nice and we have kitchen time talks (mostly with Andrea). Besides the first night there we haven't really spent to much time together, but we did watch the Grammy's together. 

The only draw back about living on my own is that I have to cook for myself. Although it is nice to pick what I eat the only thing is that I have to work for want I eat it! I  have to go shopping for food which means a lot of walking to get to Publix! Here are some meals that I have cooked. 

The dish on the right was my breakfast one day. The dish is composed of stir fried bell peppers and onions in sesame oil with scrambled eggs. The dish on the left was a chickpea curry dish I made for dinner. I ate it with  naan bread that I got at Publix and it was made the meal complete. I found the recipe on Pinterest and this is the website: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2011/02/quick-curried-chick-peas/ I used sesame oil instead of olive oil and I didn't include cilantro since I didn't have any.Anyway, it was ok, it wasn't the greatest tasting dish since the spices weren't that strong. If I had more spices I bet I could fix it up, but I am too poor to buy them so I will just continue using the sriracha I have to spice it up. 

The apartment that I live at is decent and they even give out free food! One day they gave us a box of pizza and another day they gave out bags of chip and sandwiches. The only exciting thing that has happened is that at around 2:30am someone decided to pull a prank by pulling the fire alarm for fun. Thankfully I was still up studying so it wasn't a bad shock. We had to wait outside for more than 10min waiting for the fire department to turn off the alarm. The alarm was extremely load and it was freezing cold! But other than that the apartment is good and I am glad I moved here. 

First Steps of My Knightly Journey

The goal of this semester is to meet tons of new people, join numerous clubs, and try as many activities as I can. This is my senior year so I feel like I should make it the best year I can make it. Looking back at my college life, I feel like I haven't really experience an exciting college time and that I missed out of the regular experiences that most students have... Thus, this semester living near UCF is to be a grand adventure! 

It has only been 10 days since I moved in at The Pointe at Central, but I have done numerous activities that I wouldn't have done if I wasn't living near by. I have taken several dance workout courses, joined the BCM girl's IM soccer team, attended an IDS meeting, joined Shift, tried paddle boarding (Lake Claire)  and Racquetball for the first time, went to the BCM progressive dinner, volunteer at CMMS, and volunteer at the Highland Games!

The Scottish Highland Games

The Highland Games was a lot of fun since so many people were dressed up in traditional clothes, there were medieval tents filled with traditional items, knights fighting, animal shows, interesting games, and bagpipes! I got stuck checking tickets at the front and I wish I got something else that allowed me to see some events, but I had a good time seeing people in their outfits and kilts come through. I even took a couple pictures with some of them. After doing tickets for about 3 hours, we got lunch (chicken and chips, yum!) then we got to finally walk around! Amanda (the Arts and Recreation director) and I saw different tents. Some tents were dedicated to different clans while other were selling merchandise. Then we watch a rock carrying contest. It looked like contestants tried to carry a ridiculously heavy rock as far as they could before they needed to drop it. There were some Scottish cows so of course we had to pet them. After that we saw some knights fighting, although i didn't have the greatest view and the knights weren't the greatest at sword fighting, but it was entertaining to watch since I think they were actually fighting and not just staged! Across the field I heard the sound I really wanted to hear all day, bag pipes!! We went to follow the bag pipe band and it was wonderful to listen to them! Then we went to watch border collies herd sheep. It was interesting to actually see it happen and I loved the last trick that was shown. The dog split the herd into two and then at the shepherd's command the dog would watch the other group. It was cute seeing the dog immediately turn around on command. I enjoyed going, even though i didn't get to see all the events I wanted. The weather was pretty nice too so it made it a pleasant day and I hope it is one of many events I volunteer at with Volunteer UCF.