How can you possibly fit five weeks', or half a quarter's, worth of events and happenings into one post? No idea, but I'll try. I can't believe I really haven't written in so long. This quarter truly has been the quarter on crack.

PYED

Yeah!! Pilipino Youth Empowerment Day was really awesome. We had over a ton of students at UCLA and I got to be a family head or kuya (along with Ate Rachel and Kuya Mark) for my group, which we called Soopahfly. I'm so proud of my students. We had a great chant, opened up to each other, and just all around rocked! Some have s till been keeping in contact since they left!

The FRESHEST Fam

My OSA family got to hang out twice this quarter. The first was at Barbara's apartment where we finally adopted Kimi. Everyone from my family was there and we played Cranium and did homework. It was the first time everyone, even our adopted peeps, were together. The second family event we went to was the OSA Cookoff. The Freshest Fam made its FresheSPAM. So good. That was also the birthday of our logo. Fresh.

Relay for Life

I wasn't part of committee this year, but I dropped by Relay with Cheryl to visit Michelle. Reminded me a lot of how much fun I had there last year. Also ended up running into Marissa and Ashley. While watching the luminaria ceremony, I looked up and saw a really white bird flying in the sky. It was weird and I didn't know how to explain it. I don't usually see white birds, and if I do, it's usually a seagull. That thing wasn't a seagull. Plus, it was a bird flying at night. Gave me chills.

Sign Language Club

Barbara, Jessica, Justin, Laika, and I started our own unofficial club to learn sign language. We meet Mondays at the SAC and have learned random words including leprechaun and lumberjack. We've already grown to incorporate more people, so it's been cool.

Samahang Leadership

I applied to be a SPEAR counselor for next year. Had an interview. Bombed it worse than Hiroshima. I did get nominated for Cultural Coordinator for the next term and I am currently running unopposed, so hopefully I can get the position.

SPCN Run-Thrus

It's been a mix of frustration and love since I feel close to my suite, Maria Clara. We've been practicing a lot and we really do have some awesome people: John-Gabriel, Rouel, Rachel, Jewelle, Kevin, Tim, and Justin, just to name a few. Apparently, Mantones was choreographed wrong so we had to learn a new dance in three days. We pulled it off though and I think we are doing well. MC Fly. No Lie. Maria...CLARAAA!!

Community Performance

Ahhh. SPCN is coming up soon! We just had our Community Performance where we showed off our dances in Historic Pilipinotown. Not a lot of people showed up to watch, but it was really cool seeing the cast in costume and doing their completed dances. Paseo is still my favorite for MC. We got good reaction to it.

PAA Banquet

Afterwards, Mantones (from MC) also had a performance at the Pilipino Alumni Association banquet with Tinig and Binusuan (from Rural). We got there around 4:30 but didn't perform until 9:30. Dang. We did get a really good meal for free and a complementary flashlight, haha. Camile Velasco from American Idol performed and I got to hug her. Yeahhhh.

Qualified Signboards

It's election season at UCLA! Students First has partnered with SERVE to create Qualified since Bruins United is running a candidate for a traditionally in-house position. I'm really excited for this upcoming week and at midnight yesterday, signboards started to go up in Bruin Walk. The Students First signboards are so awesome. I love that Jason and Abby are on the slate. Go Samahang!

Well, there's the rough gist of things. I guess I'll e nd with an FML situation that just happened this morning.

Today, my phone alarm accidentally went off at 6:30 in the morning. I left it on a desk in my room and I scrambled to turn it off before my brother work up. Still feeling groggy, I missed a step on the ladder down and crashed, bring down a frame that was hanging on my wall. My brother woke up and I ended up with a lot of scratches. FML.

I'm sorry I've been neglecting you, Xanga.

It's been over a month already since I last wrote here. I've just been busy. Seriously freakin' busy. Next quarter doesn't look that much better either, though I am excited for new classes. I'm  pretty much on Spring Break now, so maybe it's a good time to try and catch up. Sadly, I don't remember a lot of what happens, which is precisely the reason I write here, but I will try. Try.

Exposure Trip: OMG, I really haven't written in a while. This is so long ago! Basically, I went on the SP Exposure trip to Stockton and San Francisco. I left in Mike's car (with Chester, Donnaly, and Tila) and we had a long drive to Sacramento. We were staying in Mike's house and to pass the time, we read FMLs that Mike had printed out and Donnaly and I sang along to Mike's Jack's Mannequin CD. It turns out that we three actually have a lot of the same taste in music.

On Saturday, we went to Stockton in the morning. Went around a little bit, learned a form of martial arts called screama, and got to go inside a house condemned by the city. We left that to go to San Francisco and stop at the iHotel, a big landmark in Filipino-American history. We watched a video and then got to go to the top. Amazing views from there. It was awesome.

We had one more stop at the Bayanihan cultural center. We checked out the Filipino bookstore they had there. My Filipino language teacher actually has a book on amulets out. We toured SF a bit, went to eat, and then headed to the hotel that a bunch  of us were gonna sleep in. I didn't sleep there though.

I ended up going to a Berkeley party with Jason, Joe, Jan, and Kristina. Berkeley is sketch. We saw more police cars there in one night than what I have seen in a quarter at UCLA. We pre-partied a bit in the car before going inside. Actually saw some friends there and we all had some fun. Stuff happened, we went from one apartment, to a Berkeley dorm room, woke up late, and then drove to SF State.

We learned about stuff, went around, it rained, and then went home. Wow, sorry for the rush. I realized that there is so much more from the quarter to go through!

Stoplight Party: Green if you're single. Red if you're taken. Yellow if it's complicated. It was alright, I guess. We took the party bus from the dorms and I was a little buzzed on the way there. Not too much to talk about except some people got crazy.

Alumi Mixer and After: Karaoke at Kapistahan Grill. We got to chill with alumni and eat good Filipino food. Afterwards, I ended up post-partying with my mentor and some of the other fourth-years. I was really tired though and knocked out at some point. Last thing I remember was someone asking if I wanted fries since they were going to Jack-in-the-Box.  Next thing I remember is waking up the next morning, haha.

OSA Field Trip: Four out of the five pairs in The FRESHEST Fam ended up going to the OSA Community Service Field Trip. It was a lot of fun and our group ended up going to the Fil-Am Library. We helped to look for books that mention Filipinos in Los Angeles. The guy who worked there gave as snacks during our break and we had a fun time volunteering. We went to check out the mural after and then eat at Bahay Kubo. The other families who went to volunteer at other places came to join in and eventually, we dispersed.

Rock Band: Another OSA Event. My fams is awesome. Eight of us came out to the event to play. Woo!

Griffith Observatory: It happened! We went to Griffith Observatory to hang out one Sunday since it's free. We got there at around sunset and got to check out the views. Still amazing. Went around a lot inside, chilled with Einstein, measure our family weight on planets, and did some more exploring. We even got to watch a planetarium show that was so dramatic. It was pretty amazing though.

I love how my OSA family is starting to hang out now. It took a while to ripen, but now we are fresh and staying that way!

Gawad Kalinga: Tinig performed at the GK summit.

SP Talent Show: Tinig performed at the SP Talent Show. Flashback to the 90's. Doug, Arthur, Dawson's Creek, Friends, Boy Meets World, Rugrats, and Out of the Box. Check out the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlnvANaPvLk&feature=channel_page

Finals: Uh, yeah. Stressful to study for but I think I did okay on all of them. Yay.

AcCo Dinner: After I was done with finals on Wednesday, I ended up going to dinner in Marina Del  Rey at S&Os with Mike, Lorali, and Barbara. It was an Italian restaurnt that was pretty good and we got to draw on our table with crayons, haha. There was garlic balls and That's Amore to add to the atmosphere. All in all a good way to close up the quarter.

Okay, I think that's it. So much work to catch up and I know for sure there are things missing. I'll try to update more regularly so that I can avoid trying to cram like five weeks of stuff into one entry.

Until next time...