College Apps

Four years ago, I can still remember trying to apply to all these schools that I’ll be applying this year. I had standard grades which only permitted me to apply but didn’t make me standout as an outstanding student. My SAT scores were like a grandpa with a cane trying to play basketball with Lebron James, I got shitted on. I remember people asking each other which college they got into. “OHHH MY GAWD~ I got into UCLA!!!” or “yea.. I got into SD but I’m waiting on Berkeley.” Well someone asked me that question, and I just quietly whispered, “I think I'm just gonna go to community college.” Back then I felt like an idiot, failure, a pathetic loser. People were celebrating, meeting new people, talking about how cool their dorms are, how they have so much freedom to party, blah blah blah. I did get a bit jealous of their new life, new surroundings, and new environment as a university student but I still did my part as a college student as well. In fact, I have no regrets regarding the 3 years I have “wasted” to transfer to a university. In those 3 years, I believe it shaped me into a man that I am now. I'll break it down by each year of what I have learned and what I have experienced.

To describe 1^st year of college in one word, I would use the word “new”. Everything was new, the school, the students, the people, the environment, the professors, time schedule, and more. El Camino was something new. The classes were fairly easy but since it was a new method of learning, I worked hard the first year. I had mostly A's and couple B's, I had it handled. The jealousy of going to a university was my only inspiration, nothing more. I also joined the El Camino volleyball team. I was the only Asian on the team, the underdog, but as I trained harder and harder, I improved significantly. Outside of school, I visited other cities and universities. I went to UCLA a lot because Vivian always swiped us free food(thanks buddy, I know your reading this and I gotta say I have a fond memories of that year). I visited UCR regularly because all my friends who partied and got effed up were there. I did my fair share of drinking and smoking. This was my way of rebellion against my strict parents. I also got into a lot of trouble. My parents were already disappointed at the fact that I wasn’t going to a university just like the rest of their friend's kids. My rebellion grew this year, massively. So I started smoking, massively. I can't really remember much of what happened in 2007-2008 because well, I inhaled THC and was under the influence pretty much every chance I had. I also started working at an Asian advertising company called AAAZA. 30 bucks an hour sound good? Yep. That's how I was financed to do whatever I wanted this year. I also got a job at Warren High as a JV girl's volleyball team. I also got fired because of my myspace, well actually, it was because of a girl and her bitchy mom who wanted vengeance against me because I put her in freshmen team and told her she wasn't good enough for JV. I didn't care, I had a good experience being around these cute innocent girls, calling me Benny, teaching them how to grunt and hit the ball. I learned one thing, erase myspace.

When 2^nd year came around, I thought I had everything down. I really didn't give a damn about what I was doing, I just went with the flow. Most of my grades were now B's and couple A's. I ditched classes just because I knew how to cheat the system and to succeed with the least amount of work contributed. I found my only friend at El Camino! He was half white, half Japanese, gnarly bro, obsessed with girls, smoked heroin at the time, but his life wasn't revolved around heroin. One day he comes in to the classroom with a wrist brace, full on winter coat during middle of May, and his face looked pale, as if he saw the holocaust when it was happening. Being the good friend I am, I asked what happened and he told me he can no longer move his left arm. The story is, he smoked heroin, fell asleep on his arms, and now he couldn't use it. The doctors told him that it was called “honeymoon” syndrome. They call it this because when a male sticks his arm out for the girl to use as a pillow, it creates major case of dead arm, which stops the blood flow and disables the arm to function for couple weeks. Well my friend freaked out, went to the rehab, and now he's clean as ever and his arm is completely fine now. He also got me a job at the coffee bean. I also got fired from this job. The manager told me I was not suitable for customer service jobs. Ha! Well I'm laughing now because I'm probably making double the amount of whatever that dike is making now. I learned few things about life, not to do any other drugs besides weed for the rest of my life. I'm still doing good and I have no doubt that I will keep this promise until the day I die. I also broke my ankle playing basketball(I blame J Cottle). I couldn't walk for couple weeks, I was out from the volleyball team, and I couldn't get any exercises done. So that year, I went all the way up to 220lbs. Also, I was still smoking the ganjah which only helped the obesity by munching on 3 coke cans and a brownie each day. Let's just say on the physical looks, this year was the worst year I had. I also got a “warning DUI” which was pretty much a joke in regards to my record, but was a pretty serious deal to my parents. I wasn't arrested, no record, just a warning, but my parents thought I was going to jail, get my license suspended and pretty much thought my life was over. Another mistake I made, driving drunk with a drunk idiot friend who helped me get pulled over and of course my other drunken idiot friends who laughed out loud inside my car as I'm sitting on the curve, waiting to blow into the breathalyzer of doom. By the end of the year, I thought about my life a lot. I wanted something new, something better than what I had. I was tired of the same routine I was going through. I had stronger relationships with the people I wanted to be with, and weaker relationships with people I no longer considered as “friends”. This was pretty critical point of my life, I started seeing things differently, questioned everything but no answer for anything. Confusion.

Ahhhh my favorite year. My 3^rd year was probably the most fun I had. I only had 1 semester left of school. Little did I know, that sentence was going to come back and bite me in the ass. Let's just say I “thought” I only had one semester left. So I didn't try hard during school. I got an A, B, and 2 C's. Ouch. But I really didn’t care, only thing that was running in my mind was Korea. Yes, I asked the devil himself to come along, and he did. Around this time, my parents were starting to understand what I was doing with my life, as well as I understood what they wanted me to do with my life. Listen up, your parents don't care if you become a millionaire, the most important thing is that you become a decent human being, which is the reason why my parents are so strict, I think. They also know you're capable of doing greater things than what we do now, might be because of the regrets that they feel when they reminisce about their lives. Oh and trust me, this is never ending. I know I'm going to stress the hell out of my kids to be better than Kobe. Anyways, my parents were proud of me to be traveling and also building experiences for the future. I like to compare my whole “Korea” business to Korean young adults getting drafted to the army. Korean dads always talk about how they became a man after the army and I would like to say the same for my Korea experience. I have lost about 20lbs, I was in the best shape of my life, had fun, met crap load of people(both nice and douches), and I even had a girlfriend who called me 30 times one day because I wasn't picking up my phone. Through these experiences, I know for a fact that I feel like a new man. I have matured, encountered many different people from different part of the world, experienced many new things and many other reasons why I have matured. I have learned a lot. I won't get too much into Korea but it was good experience. My view on things were much more complex. It was no longer “eh, I don’t give a damn” but more on “how can I do better?”. The way of thinking was changed. As much as I hate boasting about myself, I built up confidence in Korea, realizing I am far greater than 90% of these douche bags who were accepted to this program. One of the things I remember that came out of my ex-girlfriend's mouth was “omg, you looked so hot compare to these guys”, pointing at the other TaLK scholars. I mean she might be crazy but even I thought it was pretty pathetic to see these guys trying to pick up girls...

Now, it's the end of 2010 and I am sitting here at the office, trying to convince you how my last 3 years were not a “waste of time”. Because really, I don't think for a second that I wasted my last 3 years. If anything, I would like to say I learned much more in the past 3 years doing whatever I was doing than if I were to be at a university for 5 years. I was young and I still am, and I don't see the point of suffering in classes of 300 students, trying to listen to one professor who's trying to explain something that is going to be completely useless after couple weeks. Universities will always be there, but youth will fade away. I have no regrets regarding my behavior during the last 3 years of my life and I wish to be saying the same thing 3 years later from now.

From a full grown man with a heart of a kid,

toodles.