Exchange: August - September

The first two months went by so fast, yet when I look back, there have been so SO many things that I have done! Almost every day has something new to do and has new lessons to learn. These two months have been extra productive and I can't wait for what October has in store!

Here are the highlights of the end of August and September!

1. Calapalooza

One of the first events of the school semester was the Calapalooza where hundreds of clubs gather together at Sproul Plaza, covering both upper and lower parts of the main plaza of campus. There were many unique clubs that I have never seen back at my home university. For one thing, they had a dog de-stressing club where you actually get to do dog-sitting! There was also a lot of identity groups, such as cultural identity, sexuality, religion, etc. One club that kind of took me by surprise was that the campus had a BDSM club... so that's something you would definitely not see back in Hong Kong.

Overall, Calapalooza really excited me, and I joined a wide variety of clubs, including a dance group called AFX, a film production group called CAP, the Berkeley Economic Review, the book club (where I write a story once a week), and a hiking club called CHAOS.

I've been training with AFX twice a week and the people there have been so fun! The dances are also quite challenging, but I always enjoy trying to do it. And the dances make me proud if I finally got the moves right since I got horrible muscle coordination.

2. Nerding Out

Classes here are also completely different here compared to Hong Kong. For one thing, they rarely use lecture slides. Some wouldn't even post the slides on bCourses (the equivalent of Canvas in Hong Kong). So you have to seriously pay attention because I honestly fall asleep occasionally (lol). Not many students use laptops either and would handwrite their notes.

But the courses here have been so interesting that I do enjoy listening, and feel as if I'm learning something new every day! The professors encourage students to keep asking questions or build on other students' points. So the class environment really motivates me to participate as much as I can as well. And being immersed in the learning atmosphere helps you understand the material better.

3. Social Butterfly-ing

Almost every day I would socialize with someone new. Despite it being a bit tiring, I find meeting new people very rewarding. UC Berkeley is such a diverse campus with people from different backgrounds, have different views, and forms of self-expression. I meet people everywhere: at house parties, at school club socials, at volunteering (I even befriended a homeless person), at the gym, at my classes... just everywhere! And no one person has been the same as the one before them. They always bring a new perspective to the table, and that's why I love it. You just keep learning something new every day and makes you think about things you have never thought about.

I also met my close friends who are on exchange in the US as well! They visited San Francisco for a few days, and I got to catch up a lot with them and we got closer. I think there's something about being overseas that makes people bond more easily.

And of course, I'm really grateful for my family to have visited me on my birthday! I'm getting ready to visit them in LA in November too!

4. Escape Room

It was my first time going to an escape room. I went with two of my cousins and we decided to choose the asylum-themed room. Thankfully, there were no jump scares or anything like that. But we still got scared anyway.

Sometimes, there would be loud, sudden sounds in the music which caused us to freak out a bit. At one point, when my cousins and I unlocked the second room of the asylum, the lights in the first room turned off. But we forgot to get an item from the first room, but we were too freaked out to go back. So my little cousin and I just held on to each other and made a beeline towards the item and sped back to the second room as if our lives depended on it.

Nevertheless, despite having asked for so many hints from the game master and slightly going past the time limit, we still made a great team :)))

5. Night Hike in the Fire Trails

I joined a hiking club called CHAOS, which stands for Cal Hiking And Outdoors Society. For our first hike, we went to the Fire Trails not so far away from campus.

At first, they said that the hike was easy. And I don't know if they meant easy to die.

It was so dark, I could barely see where I was going, so I had to use my phone flashlight to watch my steps. But there were a lot of steep ups and downs on the way, and I slipped more than twice. The worst slip was when we were trying to climb up a hill which had very little friction since there were only soil and no rocks. I put all my weight against the ground to make sure I did not slide all the way down from the hill, but I was scared to shift and resume climbing. It was either that my shoes sucked or I sucked. Thankfully, there were people behind me and they helped push me up, while the others in front pulled me up as well. As they say, teamwork makes the dream work.

But the view was amazing at the top of the hill. You could see a lot of stars above, and the nightlife just below. Just the whole scenery was filled with lights, it was a nice reward after a near-death experience.

I'll be going hiking again with some club members in a few days, so wish me luck with that!

6. Football Game

I went to my first American football game! It honestly felt like a movie, with all the cheerleaders and the marching band on the day. I had no clue what I was watching, did not even know if we were winning or not. If they cheered, I cheered. But in the first half, my friends and I were sitting in the opposing team's side, so we cheered for the wrong team the entire time. We moved during the second half, and I eventually started to understand the rules (a little bit).

Go Bears! I really admire the school spirit at UC Berkeley. Sometimes, they would just say that even in normal school days. It makes me feel the school pride too.

7. Gym Day Every Day

Yes, I gym every day. Except for weekends, 'cause I'm not that hardcore. But I remember when I used to be too lazy to go to the gym, but after coming to Berkeley, I realized... wow I have to start putting a workout in.

FIRST of all, I always see old people at the gym, and they are all so strong, doing intense ab and core workouts which I couldn't dream of doing at this point in time. And secondly, the gym is always PACKED with students, sometimes you even have to wait in line to use the weights room! Mind you, the weights room is already big enough, they have three separate rooms with so much equipment.

8. Went to a Gay Bar

A few weeks ago, I went to an 18+ gay bar for the first time called "Gameboi" in San Francisco. This was also the second time I have ever gone to a club (the first being during my first year of university), which made this experience all the more surprising and fun! I went with my dance group members at AFX, and they pushed me and other new members out of our comfort zone by making us freestyle in the middle of a circle of our people. I'm sure I didn't dance too well, but they were still supportive which made me genuinely enjoy doing it nevertheless.

I even got whipped by a drag queen (I caught actual footage of the experience). Never thought I would actually say a statement like that.

9. Eyebrows on Fleek

I was walking past this eyebrow threading store with a friend of mine and just decided on the spot to have our eyebrows threaded. It felt very weird and my eyes were watering from the plucking, and I had no idea eyebrow shapes can change the way you look so subtly, yet so obviously. 'Twas a trippy feeling. Will I try it again? No clue. But it was an experience.

10. Visited Emeryville

When I visited Emeryville, it was very quiet and empty. Not many people were roaming around, which made it a very relaxing weekend stroll. We went to a lot of different stores, such as Sephora, Barnes & Nobles, Bath & Body Works, Forever 21, etc. There was this one store called Express that had a 'Buy 1, Get 1 $19'. At first, my friends and I thought that you could get two items for $19 so that excited us since there were a lot of business casual and fancy-looking items, but then we realized what the sale actually meant... It was very misleading, okay?? They put Buy 1, Get 1 in small text, and $19 in big text, so anyone could have been deceived.

We didn't buy much in the end, but we did go to Denny's. It was the first American fast-food chain that I ate at during my stay here. American fast-food diners still fascinate me. It's such a fancy setting for high-calorie food. The food was still delicious, though.

11. Went to a Farmer's Market

Every Saturday, Oakland sets up a farmer's market where local businesses sell their fresh greens, desserts or provide lunch for customers. A lot of them have free samples, so my friend an I (shout out to Hannah; thank you for accompanying me!) just went around all the stalls then decided what we wanted to eat for lunch. We had dim sum, samosas, crepes, and strawberry lassi. There were a lot of other great food items, so I'll be sure to go back to get groceries for myself.

12. Meeting Entrepreneurs at the BSCF Conference

It was a great way to end September! I had the opportunity to attend the BSCF Conference, a tech and entrepreneurship forum with entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley. Many reputable entrepreneurs were there, including Astro Teller, the CEO of Google X, and Matt Jacobson, the 8th employee of Facebook. More details about this are coming up in my next blog post! I'll talk about the greatest takeaways from this conference because there are a lot.

This conference greatly motivated me to think about what kind of project I wanted to initiate. I've always wanted to create a social enterprise, but never knew what cause I wanted to provide solutions for. But after listening and talking with different entrepreneurs at the event, I started to realize that I wanted to do something about children's health. So right now, I'm starting to do my research about this topic and hopefully, it could blossom into something exciting!

There has been no day that passed by where I did not learn something new. But I don't want to make this post longer than it already is, so here are three key lessons that I have learned in the past two months.

1. Always open up productive discussion. In these past two months, I realized how people are so diverse from one another, and they all have very unique views in a certain issue that it's sometimes difficult to find common ground. But instead of arguing about it, I think there is so much potential and opportunity to learn more about the opposing side and broaden your own perspective on things.

2. Find a learning opportunity every day. A follow-up to the previous one, but there is always an opportunity to learn in everything that you do. Stretch your comfort zone, and do things that could most probably make you fail or make a fool out of yourself. Because that's when you can seek that room for improvement and keep your ego in check. Your learning opportunities could just be through simple interactions, studying, or reading. For instance, I had several culture shocks in the past two months. This included the hookup culture in the US. Even though this was something shocking to me, I tried to let go of my biases and pushed myself to be curious as to why this culture exists. Talking with the local students gave me that learning opportunity to understand a culture completely different from mine. Either way, try to find your own learning opportunities because it always feels enriching to feel as if you gained more knowledge, which can help you go to bed with a relaxed and happy mind.

3. Be dispassionately passionate. This was a great lesson that I learned from the BSCF conference. Find what you are passionate about and be determined to pursue that passion all the way. But if it fails, learn to use that passion in a new way and learn from your past mistakes, rather than get too attached by your failures. This is pretty difficult to grasp, even I have difficulty doing this. But that's the beauty in the challenge to help you grow!