I have to admit, summer was too short for me. I have was home for three and a half months and i think it was too short? Here's my justification: ever since the summer after sophomore year (excluding senior year), I have done summer school and summer lasted between three weeks & two months. Since starting college, the longest I have been home in Seattle was this summer; before that was during Semester break and was about three weeks. I'm home about three-four months out of the year, so it's nice to be home once in awhile and I like it when I'm not in school at times. This was definitely not the best summer, but it was a summer vacation that I needed the most.
I've been in Pullman since Sunday. Why so early? Sunday was the first day that my apartment lease began so I had to move in eventually. Moving away from home is stressful. PERIOD! I had to gather almost everything I needed to survive and bring all the way back to Pullman. The ride over was an adventure in itself. I brought hella stuff and the car didn't work at times. It pretty much stopped on the highway before entering Colfax. My family and I being Filipino and us being in the middle of nowhere, close to conservative, white-town was not a good sign. Luckily we made it to Pullman just in time and in one piece. My roommate, Diana moved into the apartment too that night and so I have a roommate once again this year. I'm pretty excited because I'm living with someone I know and like instead of being stuck with some wierd dude who thinks I'm the meanest person on Earth for a semester.
Monday & Tuesday I had the MSS Mentor Retreat on campus and Spokane. It was a fun [?], and very useful retreat because I got to reunite with friends, meet my fellow peers and I felt more prepared in becoming an AAPI Student Mentor. Most of all the retreat was tiring because of the lack of sleep from the summer. I finally contacted my mentees this past week. The first time was back in July when I had to write 17 postcards in three hours and my right hand was in pain for a day or two. I met one mentee yesterday at the All Campus Picnic and one finally replied to an email. Hopefully, I get to meet more mentees this Sunday and throughout the fall semester. I'm excited for the mentor program this year!
Wednesday was a clean up day: fixing up the apartment & enjoying the apartment with the roomie!
Thursday & Friday was the Pacific Islanders Club retreat. I did some PIC planning over the summer, but those days were the big days. I had the general members do a survey the past week and the response was good. I'm glad people enjoy the club and the time I dedicated with PIC was very worth it and successful. I felt confident when I decided to run for PIC president last year and now that survey reassured that confidence. I have an awesome group of cabinet members and general members and this year is going to be an interesting and refreshing year for the club. New leaders, new and returning members, and a new and very cool co-advisor.
It hasn't really hit me that I go back to school on Monday. I'm signed up for 18 credits, but 15 of those classes are Sociology classes, two are PE and one is the mentor class. It shouldn't be bad right? After taking my least favorite class of the spring semester, Social Theory, I realized how much I liked Sociology more than Psychology. At one point I hated Sociology, but now I think I can actually apply the theories and I might find it more useful than Psychology. Who knew that I'd love a major after passing a boring thoery class with a C-? What did hit me was... I'M GRADUATING IN MAY 2009! I'm graduating one year early and [I hope] with two Bachelor of Arts degrees. I would've gone for my Bachelor of Science in Psychology, but I thought I'd benefit from the BA more. Four years ago, I had hella doubt in myself that I'd make it to a 4-year university and now I'm getting a 4-year [maybe 5-year] degree in 3 years!
Even though, I'm majoring in Psychology and Sociology, I sometimes do have my doubts about those majors. I sometimes do think they are known as easy majors and I heard that you can't go into a well off job with a Psychology or Sociology degree and I'm doing both! Sometimes I think I went to those majors for the wrong reasons. I fell to those areas because it was the easiest majors to transition into if I wanted to graduate early. I think that if I could do it all over again I would've taken advantage at WSU's Communication & Business colleges and majored in Public Relations and Marketing. I started off as a pre-Nursing major only to realize as much as I'm interested in the health sciences, being a nurse wasn't for me. I know, I'm Filipino and I wanted to be a Nurse. Was I falling into the sterotype? Possibly, now that I think about. Maybe now I find it funny when a Filipino tells me they are a Nursing major.
I have lots of pressure on myself this year. School has always definitely been a pressure. I felt the pressure to do well in school ever since elementary school. I hated going to school with my cousins because of the comparasions so being away from them allows me to do my own thing in school and not care about their academics. The added pressure definitely is in trying to graduate this year.
I also have to think about graduate school. I don't even know where to start when it comes to graduate school. I'm a second generation college student, but when it comes to graduate school, if I do go I'll be a first generation graduate student in my family. Fortunately a Graduate Assistant from one of the Multicultural Centers said they could help me about information about graduate programs in Education. I'm still thinking about what I want to do after undergraduate studies, I feel that I'm leading more towards Education, but as an education, counselor or in higher administration? All I know is that I have to start on my resume, looking to jobs and figure out where I'm going once I finish college.
So there's the school pressure, career pressure and leadership pressure. I'm involved in school, but this year I know I have to cut down on my invovlement. Right now my activities include PIC, the SHAPING Conference and Theta Xi. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that takes away time. I'm able to manage my time, but I know that I can't be dedicated to other stuff this year. PIC has lots of planning and meetings and lots of dedication because I'm the president. SHAPING is fun and luckily I'm done with that in October, but planning it takes lots of time. Theta Xi is for life, but sometimes I feel disconnected as a brother. I got close to the Fraternity during my pledging period, but later on I missed out on lots of brotherhood and somewhere I felt more like a tenant in the house than a brother. This school year, I missed work week and I might be missing out on informal recruitment. I know once my schedule gets easier, I'll finally be able to visit them and support my brothers and pledges.
Like I said earlier, I now live in an apartment and I FREAKIN' LOVE IT! I've lived in a dorm, a fraternity house and now an apartment. I just feel more like an adult with my own place now and I think I'm finally in a housing situation at school that I'm going to enjoy. Dorms were boring a f*ck and I never got involved. The House was alright, but there were just nights when I'd be in my room and can't concentrate because of loud music, partying, noisy people and chaos. The apartment is cool, small, simple. I think I'll learn to be more responsible and I think it'll be beneficial, especially since I want to move into my own place in about 5 years.
Wow, I've been up since almost 3:00am. I'm getting pretty tired. I had a few more things that I wanted to blog about, but I think that can wait.
To remind myself for my next blog, here's what I would've covered if I wasn't tired:
FINALLY VOTING
FILIPINOS
ABDC
MAC
