Recharging the Batteries, and Moving Out?

So we've hit the last three day weekend of the year @ UCLA, and I'm taking the time to just recharge from what's been a crazy and wild quarter. I spent a lot of time sleeping, working out, and spending time with really good company (you know who you are!). I also saw the UCLA softball team win a 12-inning, epic duel to eliminate the evil Stanford (we're gonna take the national title... AGAIN! Over Cal... AGAIN!). And what's interesting is that the events this weekend, combined with an ESPN interview with Keira Goerl's mother (the mother of the star UCLA softball pitcher) has compelled me to make a resolution for the next year. Maybe I should explain:

With the score tied 1-1, and Goerl in the circle (the equivalent of the baseball pitcher's mound), an ESPN reporter asked Goerl's mother how her daughter can stay so cool and collected in the circle in these pressure situations, and yet maintain her competitiveness. She responded saying that her daughter constantly tries to find a balance, not just between being calm and being emotional while on the playing field, but in life as well. Softball is not her life.

And at that moment, it just made sense. For a while, I'd been living my life like I could only be successful if just immersed myself into something. And to some extent, it works; I have been pretty successful in things I've just jumped into. But it's such a huge emotional investment that at times it's felt like one big emotional roller coaster. But that roller coaster isn't so dramatic if you find balance. Finding balance, in essence, is like diversifying your emotional investments. And like diversifying financial investments, it protects you if any one of those investments goes sour.

Just recently, I've found that Samahang and school work have almost completely taken up my emotional investment. Fortunately both things have been going pretty well as of late, but more than once that imbalance has messed with me when things haven't been so rosy. So for the next year, I'm making a resolution to find more balance in my life, and in particular, I need to put more investment in relationships outside of Samahang, especially family, and in my health.

In other Randy news, the managers of my apartment complex have just pushed the rent up to $1800 a month. When I first moved in, it was $1605. Then it pushed up to $1750 (the original price, but we got the lower price for good credit). Now, at $1800, and considering we have some crappy appliances, and repairs come slow, and the laundry sucks here, I've come to the same conclusion as my current roommates and decided to move the hell out. Apartment hunting, episode II, now begins!

So I probably won't be updating until after Samahang elections, when I'll finally figure out what the next year of my life looks like, so until then, wish me luck, and have a happy official beginning of Summer!

Finding A New Direction for PCN

So I watched parts of SPCN last night. Yeah, I was there, but I was in and out of the hall so much (to prepare for the fundraising stuff in the lobby) that I didn't really watch it. I saw up to Kali in the first act, and only saw tinikling in the second act. But while sitting in the lobby, I did get to meet a few people in the audience and their thoughts, and I had an opportunity to think about the direction of PCNs in general, what it says about the undergraduate perspective of their families and community, and what direction PCN needs to go.

If I'm counting right, this is the 8th PCN that I've been a participant, either as an audience member or cast member. So I've been acclimated to PCN culture for some time now, although by no means am I an expert. And when I refer to PCN's direction, I refer to script. Sure the dances may change, and even its interpretations and performances may change to better suit the theatre, but overall they tend to remain unchanged. So this is an analysis of the 8 PCN scripts that I've witnessed.

Although the scripts are all varied and were performed over a span of a decade (from my sister's first PCN in '94 to yesterday's UCLA SPCN in '04), they share similar attribute. With the exception of UCLA SPCN '02, all the scripts emphasized generational gap issues. I think the issue speaks to us really well, since college is often the first time we are "on out own", so the evolution of our relationship with our parents is on the forefront of almost every college student's mind, and thus the student writer's attempts to deal with those issues reflect in PCN.

On a related topic, a good half of those PCNs have made some attempt to tell the the story of our parents' generation. With the disconnect from our parents being an almost inherent part of college life, we have a greater need to connect with our parents' experiences. In some ways, adjusting to college life is an immigrant experience; we are transported into a completely different life from what we were used to, and have to cope with all the obstacles that come with a foreign environment. So college life, in many ways, is the first time where we get an inkling of what our parents went through. So based off of that experience, we attempt to re-articulate the audience's (i.e. the parent's) story back to them.

The other half of PCNs addressed historical and ancient cultural issues. Kinda like telling our parents story, only hundreds of years before. The PCNs I've seen have used Spanish colonization, the fields of California of the 1920s, Mindanao hundreds of years ago, and the 1906 St. Louis World's Fair as settings to educate audiences about the history of Pilipinos and the Philippines. These scripts speak to our need to learn our history (after all, if we were all well-versed in our history, we probably wouldn't be using historical settings for scripts).

As fun and educational as the past PCNs have been, one glaring weakness from all the PCNs I've seen, including yesterday's UCLA SPCN 2004, is that we have not had a script that has captured college student life really well. Beyond the "guy likes girl/girl likes guy" relationship, I've never really seen any PCN, or any cultural night for that matter, utilize the college experience as a setting for script well. When I mean "using a setting well", I'm referring to capturing the little nuances that make a setting come to life. In the case of using the UCLA setting, conversations on Bruin Walk, Samahang general meetings, SPEAR counseling sessions, festivals in P-Town, dinner in the dorms, and study groups would be examples of using the UCLA setting and letting it come to life. One of the reasons I think that students underutilize their college experience as a topic for script is that college students are so inundated with college life, that writing about the college experience seems ordinary.

At the same time, I think "the college experience" is the most relevant and most important story to tell the audience, since a majority of our audience is people are not in college (relatives, alumni, and the youth), and more than anything, they want to know what is going on in the lives of their loved ones. And it's the story that college students are most equipped to tell. And yet up to now, I've not seen one PCN that has done it well.

So my mission for the next few months: to pen the greatest culture night script ever. For those who know me, I'm usually show the humble, "I'll do my best", attitude, but when it comes to this, I really believe that I can, and will, write the best script any culture night has ever seen. So I've added something for my to-do list next year, which includes revising the Samahang Constitution, lighting a fire under the ass of the Pilipino Studies campaign, pushing the Samahang projects to reach new heights, and making Schwarzenegger fall to his knees, begging the students to give back money to the Universities. Yup, consider it all done.

Looking From The Outside

This is the first year in four years that I haven't done SPCN. And although the immense amount of free time for updating online journals is nice, the feeling of being the outsider makes me a little sad. Which is really strange, because my role as Retention Coordinator pretty much integrates me within Samahang as deep as you can get. But the connection you make with the SPCN community, especially now with runthrus every day until the show, there's nothing like it.

It's funny because in many ways, I feel the same way about my family. Having discovered a bunch of my family's online journals, I guess you could say I vicariously live my family life through their entries. This past weekend my uncle's family had a housewarming at their home in Union City. A few weeks ago another uncle had a party in Vallejo. And every time, the entries described how much fun they had bonding with everyone, feeding off the energy of their extended family, seeing some of the small ones running around creating havoc, reminding all of us of the time when we were that age not too long ago, doing the exact same thing. I was so immersed in seeing what was here at UCLA that I didn't even notice how far away I was, but reading about the family at a time when I'm beginning to think about life after college reminds me that college is a temporary thing, that family is forever, and I don't see them enough at all. Again, I'm looking from the outside.

Part of me thinks this outsider thing is genetic. Both my father and his father displayed these outsider mentalities. I remember when I was little I would see my grandfather sit by the windowsill, watching the outside world go by, even though it was a quiet street with maybe a car or two passing by every 10 minutes or so. When my sisters were looking for a picture of my dad for his birthday cake, they had a hard time finding one because often he wouldn't be in the picture; he'd be taking it. And when I'm in the mood, I love just sitting and watching people go about their daily rounds on Bruin Walk. There's that serenity that comes when you just take yourself out of the world and be passive, and just absorb everything around you. Let others around you be, and bask in the beauty of their creation. But now, I realize that if you stay passive for too long, it's like you reach a high, where the world looks almost ideal without you. But at that point, it becomes hard to re-insert yourself again, for fear of ruining that ideal, that ideal world and that ideal feeling. The "Glass Menagerie" Complex. If you aren't familiar with the play, go read it. Tennessee Williams, good writer he is.

So that fulfills my philosophical moment for the day. Time for work.

Tenors, Video Games, and Too Many Damn People

I've been catching up on video games recently. I should correct myself... catching up on a video GAME. Advance Wars 2, one of the most awesome strategy games on the Game Boy Advance.

It's amazing how a good game just sucks you in and engages you. I think growing up with video games has emphasized certain aspects of my thinking abilities: you have an objective, the universe provides the tools to complete it, finish it off. While I think my problem solving skills are up there with the best of them, I get extremely frustrated when the tools aren't right in front of me or not so obvious (similar to poorly crafted video games). I don't mind the hard work if I don't have the tools, but college has made me realize that all too often the tools aren't there, and you have to either work with what you've got, search for them, or be creative in creating your own tools. I'm good with the former, and really poor with the latter two. Creation is painful, whether it's a tool, a paper, a script, or a child (mucho props to the child-bearing ladies), but you do it right and a bunch of people will benefit from your hard work. One of the frustrations of college is if you're not in a major right for you, it's easy to wonder how your hard work will benefit anyone. Do I think I'm in the right major for me? I think some of the problem solving aspects of Computer Science & Engineering fits me, but if I had to do it all over again, I would be either a Vocal major, a World Arts & Cultures major, an Asian American studies major, and/or a Geography major. It kinda woulda made all those AP Calculus classes kinda obsolete, but oh well.

Speaking of vocals, University Chorale has certainly been a blessing this quarter. Our conductor, Professor Neuen, approaches the music similar to an actor, which is probably why I respond to his style of teaching so much. He really gets into dissecting the meaning of a piece, and then placing the accents and rests accordingly. Makes me want to go into teaching high school chorale when I get older.

Oh, by the way, my final for University Chorale will be a concert on Saturday, June 10th, 8 pm, in Royce Hall. We will be performing Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah, along with the Angeles Chorale and the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra (an orchestra comprising of students from all the local Los Angeles universities). I can get tickets for $10 each, but I need confirmations by this coming Monday, May 24th, or they'll go up in price (they'll be going for $20, $30, & $40). For more info, visit the UCLA Music Department Website. Leave a comment if you want a reservation (and please pay me ASAP).

After I'm done updating here, I have to finish a book for a report I've gotta write up for Engineering 95. The book I chose is called the Population Explosion. It's depressing, because it basically talks about how screwed humanity is if we don't stop population growth. Why do we have pollution? Overpopulation. Why is there this increasing crime and violence? Overpopulation. Why do you have hella disasters killing hundreds and thousands of people in lower developed nations? Overpopulation.

It's sad to think that the beauty of childbirth could be the cause of such turmoil and strife. Just to put things in perspective, the book clearly states that population growth alone doesn't create all these problems (America and its developed friends are the main culprits in raping the earth of resources), but you cannot have an honest conversation about global environmental issues without talking about population growth. The book's basically saying we can either voluntary curb our growth, or nature (and warfare) will do it for us. So does that mean we tell most of the world to stop making babies? I don't know; I haven't gotten to that chapter yet.

Oh, one last plug: Samahang is holding it's first annual post-Samahang Pilipino Cultural Night fundraising brunch on Sunday, May 23rd, from 10 AM to 1 PM in Ackerman Grand Ballroom. Meet SPCN participants, their families, and UCLA student and community leaders. Also get some Pilipino food. Proceeds go to Samahang's high school outreach project, SPACE. Seat reservations are $12 each; $15 at the door. Leave a comment to reserve as well (you can pay until SPCN).

OK, that post should cover me for a week. Go A's!

Bruins... vote STUDENTS FIRST!!!!

A little plug for some special candidates for UCLA's USAC Student Government:

Check out what Students First! candidates have to offer:

http://www.putstudentsfirst.net

and DON'T FORGET TO VOTE at my.ucla.edu!!!! ONLY TWO DAYS LEFT!!!!

Wednesday, May 12th 7am-midnight
Thursday, May 13th 7am-7pm

"If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything."

Crazy week is over, semi-crazy week is coming.

So as you know the updates are coming less frequent and more brief, and this will be really brief because this is actually during my discussion (can you believe that? a discussion in a computer lab w/internet... such a bad combination).

So the big thing is that last week is over, and we've selected our SPEAR staff for next year! I have yet to write up the memo to post everywhere (using the pretty Samahang letterhead), and I still have to call the selected staff (scheduled for tomorrow). Honestly, I had a really awesome time w/the interviews; I don't think I've had this type of feeling since I was a SPEAR counselor. In many ways, the interview process is similar to a SPEAR session: you're in a confidential space, seeking to challenge the student, while learning more about the student's motivations for what they do. And so many times I sat in awe as they described how SPEAR and Samahang have helped transformed them, with a more than a few breaking down in tears thinking about how far they have come. I'd say the feeling was like randomly witnessing an amazing event; you don't know what you did to be at that place, at that time, to deserve seeing it, but you're just thankful that you were there. I honestly don't know what exactly I did as Retention Coordinator that could explain the magnitude in the development of these students, but I can only be grateful for being part of the process.

In the meantime, I have two midterms over the next three days, so wish me luck!

And on a final sad note, I think my cell phone dropped out of my pocket in the Belmont High School auditorium. =( I pray that my phone returns to me.

I'm not dead folks!

Just a quick check in with you all, so that you know that I have not died or abandoned the online journal project. This past week has just been crazy with catching up with studying, finding venues for staff interviews, reading applications, and this week where we'll interview the 24 applicants for the SPEAR project. I'm really excited!!! Although it sucks knowing that half the applicants won't get in; I know a lot of the applicants and know that they would be good people for the jobs, but we've got a responsibility to form the best staff, and so such is life. Gotta go back to studying, but I still keep up well w/all of your journals, so keep it up!