Exchange: November

November is probably by far, the most productive and eventful month. I did a lot of travelling, and also worked on my personal projects. I'm really grateful for everything that I have done over this time, which does make me feel sad about leaving soon. But here is a recap of everything that I did this month!

1. Went to Mexico

The first week started off with a bang by going to Mexico! I was ecstatic that I finally had my dream come true, as I have always wanted to visit Mexico. I went with two friends on my three-day trip there, where we took a look around Guanajuato and Mexico City. Here is a link to my full post here!

2. AFX Photoshoot

I had my first professional photoshoot with my dance team, AFX! It was an interesting experience, as it pushed me out of my comfort zone. I never dressed up and posed this "provocatively" in my entire life. The photographer sometimes told me to look "fierce" or "smolder more", which honestly, I had no idea how to do it, but I tried anyway. But the team had big hype energy which made me all the less nervous about it. Photos are already uploaded on Instagram ;)

3. Retreat

Right after the AFX photoshoot, I went on a retreat with the people in the Berkeley Economic Review (BER). BER is a student-run organization that publishes economic articles and journals for the public to read. I joined BER as an assistant editor and already helped publish a few articles that you can find here!

The retreat was held in a cabin in the woods, and helped me properly get to know the people within the organization there, and I probably had the most productive, intelligent, and thought-provoking conversations with these people. We talked about morality, communism, and even the stock market for Somali pirates. Other than that though, we also danced together, played Cards Against Humanity, played pool, and went outside to take a walk in the dark under the starry sky (but we heard a growl later on, so we fled back to the cabin lol). It was a cozy night and I was glad to get to know more friends!

The day after, we went to eat in a BBQ place in what honestly looked like a ghost town, since we were pretty much the only ones within sight.

4. Watched the Football Game Between USC and Cal

After the retreat, I returned back to campus to watch the football game against USC and UC Berkeley. I was lucky to watch the game with my friend from USC, Kimmy! It was really coincidence to have met her when she was on exchange in Hong Kong, and now she's meeting me again when I am on exchange in California. I sat with her in the USC seating area, which was amusing, since I was the only one wearing blue out of all the red shirts, hats and scarves. When they cheered, I booed and vice versa. The competitiveness in football is shocking, since they really show their rivalry between each other (all in fun spirit of course).

On a side note though, the big game between Berkeley and Stanford was a few weeks after that and after 10 years, the Bears finally won! I was sad that I did not go to that game, since it was too expensive, but I am such a proud bear to be on exchange on the year Berkeley finally won. There was a huge celebration on campus, and so many students attended, which just shows the school pride the students have.

5. Show & Tell: First Dance Performance

AFX held "Show & Tell", which was basically a mini dance showcase only for teams within the organization. We performed in Underhill, which was a parking lot, and the acoustics made the cheers from teams all the louder. The hype was overwhelming, almost every minute, you hear cheers from everyone in all sides. They cheer when you go on stage, when the music starts, when you do some cool dance moves, and when the performance ends. By the end of everything, my ears were muffled, but I still felt a lot of excitement and adrenaline. I never expected dance to be so exhilarating! The community is just so encouraging and motivating that you don't even feel nervous at all when performing. It's a rare feat to achieve, really.

6. Gym Progress

Once again, I increased my weights for some exercises!

Bicep curls: 15 lbs to 20 lbs

Bench press: 15 lbs to 20 lbs for dumbbells / 35 lbs for barbell

Leg press: 160 lbs to 175 lbs

Shoulder press: 15 lbs to 20 lbs

7. Watched Parasite

Parasite had so many good reviews, which made me want to watch it, and boy, were those reviews true. The movie was such an emotional roller-coaster, ranging from comedy to drama to thriller. It also addressed very real themes, such as poverty, and expressed it through realistic and painful scenes.

I highly recommend this movie as I found it to be a unique, cinematic gem. There's not many movies just like this one.

8. Thanksgiving in LA

After around five years, I went back to Los Angeles to meet my relatives for Thanksgiving! I was happy to see all my cousins again, and we spent a lot of time together. We played instruments together, played Cards Against Humanity (again), shopped during Black Friday and celebrated my great-great-grandmother's birthday!

On the first night I was there, I went with my older cousin to Little Tokyo, and we went to different stores. One that caught my eye had retro video games in it, which felt quite nostalgic.

We also went to Hollywood, where I saw the stars of several celebrities! I was especially excited to see the star of Mandy Moore, since she is one of my favorite actresses. My favourite movies and shows of hers are "A Walk to Remember" and "This Is Us".

Afterwards, we went to pick up my brother from the airport. The traffic was insane on the way there. What could have been five minutes or so became an hour. So my cousin and I just cranked up the music while complaining about the cars in front of us every few minutes.

The Urban Lights in LAKMA is also quite a famous photo-taking spot. Our experience there was pretty funny, since on the night we were there, it was raining, so my cousin and I ran over to the place, took photos for one or two minutes, then ran back to the car ASAP.

The next day, I went to UCLA to visit my friend from HKUST. I didn't expect the campus to be relatively small, but of course, it was still a beautiful one. It was funny but also pretty sad that my friend and I preferred our exchange lifestyle. We reminisced on our experiences these past few months, and I did feel glad that I was able to visit a familiar face after quite a long time.

If you look closely, the building is asymmetrical

But not only did I go to UCLA, I also visited UCR where my cousin studies! It was much larger than UCLA and it looked like an isolated Disneyland when we were there.

Finally, to begin the Christmas celebration, my relatives and I went to Victoria Gardens! There were some stalls that sold food and Christmas items, and there were a lot of restaurants and shops with special offers. It was really festive, with a tall Christmas tree, a photo-taking spot with Santa, and a mini-train that went around the garden.

9. Skydiving

Finally, one of my bucket list items: skydiving! I did not really know what to expect, but I was quite surprised by the experience. I was a bit concerned at first, especially with all the contracts and waivers we had to sign addressing the risk of death. Our designated skydivers did not help either, since when my brother asked what to do when we land, the skydiver told us, "One thing at a time, buddy. We don't even know if we will land."

But actually, as we were free falling, it was not that scary (though it was so difficult to breathe). We were told to scream if we could not breathe anymore (which kind of sounds like a metaphor too), but as we were free falling, I could not hear anything, not even the voice of my own scream, except for the wind passing through. But even when free falling, the view looked amazing since all you could see at first were clouds.

As we canopied with the parachute, I suddenly felt the coldness and numbness of my face, hands and feet. We did jump from a temperature of -5 degrees Celsius, so it made sense as to why I was freezing. As I regained breathing and could finally hear my surroundings, I was able to properly appreciate the view from above: the mountains, grass, buildings... it was all just so breathtaking.

As usual, there is something to learn every day. From all of these events this month, I have taught myself three different lessons.

1. Seek comfort in discomfort. Always challenge and expand your comfort zone, and try new things. Funnily enough, the photoshoot I had was a bit scarier than skydiving LOL That was probably because skydiving has always been something I was excited about, but having a photoshoot of oneself was never something that came across my mind, so that had more unfamiliarity to it. But when you do something once and get through that, you realize it was not so bad after all.

2. Proactively seek advice in your passions. This month, I put time in my day to meet different professors to seek advice for my professional development and personal projects. I met some economics professors to discuss about the academic and professional opportunities after graduating, as well as public health professors to learn more about children's health and nutrition. As mentioned in my previous blog posts, I started to become passionate in finding solutions to improve access to the right nutrition for less privileged children. So this month, I have been cold emailing different professors. Of course, I have not received a lot of responses, but for those who do respond, you should always grab that opportunity to discuss with them and receive their advice. They have so much knowledge to offer you which can help you with your journey in achieving your dreams.

3. Initiate. Don't wait for the memories to come to you, go after them! Be proactive in finding the memories you want to make. Hang out with friends to make more memories, and go to events that you have always been curious about! Initiating something yourself is always the easiest and fastest way in brightening up your life with meaningful events.

Next month is going to be my last month, so I will mainly be using that time to meet up more with my friends and get to know them a bit better with the time I have left. So this may be the last proper exchange blog post that I will have! I hope that you enjoyed my UC Berkeley journey with me! Of course, I will still have new adventures and posts to talk about, so stay tuned for that as well!