Spring Break Update

I'm one of the few people on my floor who hasn't gone home for spring break, but for me, that's okay, because 1) I don't have to deal with noisy floormates and 2) I don't have to deal with noisy siblings. It's been a lovely, peaceful, relaxing, quiet few days so far, and I love it. I've been a cozy cat, catching up on work, sleep, and shows, and I've cleaned up the room a fair bit. It's gotten a little messy lately because everyone's too busy with midterms to bother picking up, so having this mini fresh start was a nice way to reset. Really, the year does't begin until spring; winter's when everything's dying and ending.

Spring break is also a much needed breather. I haven't had a free weekend since winter break, and it looks like my weekends between now and the end of the year are more or less full as well. As such, I haven't had a chance to think back and reflect on the things that have happened this semester. It's been quite an eventful semester. I joined Berkeley Political Review as a writer and sometimes artist, as well as CREATE, teaching a first grade art class. This fulfills my goal from first semester of "wanting to do more," but I think next semester I will be cutting out some of the extracurriculars in favor of a more rigorous academic schedule. I've dipped my toes in, and now it's time to dive in and swim.

It's late, and I don't have much to say, but I wanted to make an update just to keep a record of some of the things I've done recently.

»Berkeley Tournament
Speech and debate tournaments are better in memory than in experience, but it was still a ton of fun to hang out with the Expos Small Children.

»Bouldering and Nerf Wars
I was unsure of whether to go or not at first, but I ended up having a ton of fun, even though I was sore for days afterwards.

»Memorial Stadium Secret Tour

I'm in a history seminar led by a very old professor emeritus and former dean, so he arranges a ton of cool secret trips for the class that are off limits to the public. Here's Memorial Stadium from the press box.

»Pancake Day

National Pancake Day was Tuesday, March 8, so the weekend before, Anna, Emma, and I made pancakes in the ground floor kitchenette.

»Spring Fling

Unit 2 Hall Associations organized an event called Spring Fling, the highlights of which were the polaroids and the flower crowns.

»Museum of Entomology

Another one of the secret trips organized for the history seminar, the Essig Museum of Entomology has a vast and fascinating collection of insects and other bugs, including a few original samples collected by Charles Darwin himself! The butterflies are prettier though.

»Identity Crisis Resolution and Blog Redesign
I know I just posted on this, but I've resolved my identity crisis and it feels so good. Moratorium made life in general feel so listless, directionless, and anxious. It was hard to know what I wanted when I didn't even know who I am. To mark the occasion, I updated my blog theme by changing the title fonts and the color from purple to black. The monochrome feels so clean, which is the intended effect. Spring break has been highly effective for spring cleaning, both physically and mentally. I also updated all my social media handles. I fully intend to use them more, especially as I get a better idea of their purposes. I consider Tumblr to be like scrapbooking, where sideblogs are collations of images of a certain theme. Twitter will be the digital house of all my post-it note thoughts, which are currently suffocating my walls. Instagram is a photo album, Snapchat is for communication, and Pinterest is the organized cabinet of ideas. I'm thinking of deleting a few social media sites too, mainly Facebook, some time around finals week. Overall, I'm feeling quite good, and I'm looking forward to establishing a healthy eating, exercising, and sleeping regimen throughout the rest of this week. ◊