Panda’s building had a lot of fire alarms this year, seemingly due to a broken panel board? Well, the last time it was fortunate that I had just gotten a crepe at Crepes Bonaparte, which was parked in Westwood. I happily munched away as I waited for the firefighters to take a look inside. Thank goodness for that!
The first finals week after Undie Run at UCLA was cancelled, one of the many ways that students chose to rebel included this performance:
rooftop band performance from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
With 4th of July celebrations coming up, I thought that this would be a cool way to celebrate holidays too. Too bad you can’t always get a band together!
Hummingbirds are the most fascinating birds… they’re like the helicopters of the plane world. I’d never seen so many at once, and in the middle of the UCLA campus nonetheless! Out of all that concrete and brick, they were able to find these feeders. Cool, huh?
flitting hummingbirds from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Early in the year, an electrical explosion underground rocked Westwood and created quite a mess when much of the neighborhood was blacked out to fix the issue. Here it is minutes after the explosion.
Today I attended a friend’s commissioning ceremony and it brought back memories of times long gone. In a way, I still yearn for the military, but my life has taken me so far from that path that I don’t actually want to serve anymore. It was cool to see all the people’s family and friends who came to participate in the ceremony, going on stage to swear them in, pin on their new bars, or give them their traditional “first salute” as an officer of the United States Air Force. One girl even had her brother swear her in via webcam, from somewhere in the Middle East. Others had their fathers, grandfathers, brothers, or friends swear them in or give them their first salute.
After the new lieutenants all received their bars, one went up to give a speech about the class, highlighting each person and what they had to overcome to get to today. It was kind of cool to hear a snippet of each person and their background. There was a girl who transferred a few years into the program, one who had to commute from Santa Barbara, another who also had to work while attending school and doing the ROTC program. Then were was my friend, who had to get though a major change and make it through six years of the program! One of the guys did the program as a grad student, another struggled with English not being his first language (though that one seemed to be more of a joke, since he obviously grew up here), and there were many more. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t also speak of himself, but it was nice to hear a little of how each person got to this point.
And with that, a new batch of 14 Air Force officers will be entering the work force in the coming weeks and months, courtesy of UCLA’s AFROTC. Oh, and a happy Father’s Day to all those dads in attendance today. Not a bad way to spend the afternoon, watching your child or grandchild get commissioned into the USAF.
Screenshot of the UCLA homepage featuring a tribute to the late John Wooden. (Click for larger image, ucla.edu for original.)
I just learned that John Wooden died today, and what a sad moment that was. After yesterday’s false alarm, I was hoping he’d get through this trial and make it to 100 and get that letter from the President! How cool would that be? But unfortunately, whatever ailed him got the better of him today and now I will never fulfill my dream of meeting him in person. I suppose I still could, but not at the book signing I had imagined.
I wonder if part of it was because he’s lived a long, fulfilling life and he was ready to go. Perhaps he just didn’t have the willpower to fight whatever put him in the hospital because he would be perfectly content dying now. I think that was part of it. Without a compelling reason to live, it’s very easy to let go. Certainly he deserved to not have to struggle in an aging body. After all, it seems the only thing he didn’t accomplish was being a centenarian!
It’s amazing that I can feel so sad that this man is gone. I never met him and haven’t even read his books yet. But there’s a deep-seeded respect that runs through every True Bruin, for he was a respectable man who led like no other in the short history of our school. (Random thing I noted was that he’s 9 years older than UCLA. Puts into perspective just how young our school is!) The good thing is that I’m not sad in a bawling all over the place kind of way. I’m sad in a “I missed out and it’s unfortunate the world has lost a great influencer” type of way. A pensive, curious, questioning kind of way.
I wish I could have joined the hundreds of students who gathered at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center today, to pay tribute to this great legend. May his legacy live on to inspire generations to come. 🙂
los dos performing “our youth” from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Yesterday Panda was feeling a bit antsy and wanted to move around. Knowing that I needed the exercise, I decided to go on a walk with him. I had mentioned awhile back that I wanted to do a treasure hunt on campus, so he suggested we go do that. You see, there’s this iPhone app called DreamWalk where you go to various places and either collect a stamp or get an instant win prize. Each stamp is a letter and if you get all the letters to a word, you can win a prize, like an Amazon gift card or movie ticket. Instant win prizes are some form of food that you can eat when you are in that area. Well, the only spots on campus are for stamps for the Victoria’s Secret gift card or a movie ticket. I wasn’t particularly interested in either, so we opted to try out the Geocaching app I had also gotten (and never really used).
There are quite a few on campus, so we headed to one near the IM field and John Wooden Center. I had no idea what exactly to expect or look for, so I felt rather silly standing next to a bike rack, trying not to draw attention to myself while searching. After taking a look at the hints, I was able to find it and was surprised at the huge water bottle full of little goodies! There was nothing I wanted/needed, so I left it as is, but there were some cool items. With our first find under our belt, Panda and I found another one to locate. This time, he saw it and we sat there as two guys on a bench nearby probably wondered what we were sitting on the ground for.
On our walk to the next site, we came across a Star Wars photo shoot. Darth Vader was hanging out around Broad Hall and two Storm Troopers were near the parking structure, one posing in front of a vent and one posing in a tunnel. Amused, we stayed out of the way until people started to walk into the shots, then continued down the tunnel and into the parking structure. There we found our next geocache, cleverly hidden (but unfortunately rusted shut!). I spent a good 15 minutes prying the thing open because I’m stubborn and would never allow such a thing to foil me! 😛 Finally, we headed over near the Chancellor’s residence for our final one, which was in an area most UCLA students are probably not aware of.
After that, we headed back, proud of a good day’s work. It was great to get out, enjoy the day, breathe some outside air, and be active! In the future I definitely want to have more of these adventures with Panda (I don’t think I’d have as much fun alone – plus, it’s a perfect way to spend time together). We even decided to do some team building along the walk back and gave each other piggyback rides, then took turns guiding one another as one person kept his/her eyes closed. Yeah, yeah, cheesy, but we had a lot of fun bonding in so many ways! 🙂
In the wee hours today, just past midnight, this helo just wouldn’t leave the area. In fact, I’d even say it was circling frantically. Or maybe it just felt so because it was traveling in tight, fast circles as its spotlight pointed straight at the Strathmore Regency. A friend who lives there told me that the police had their guns pointed at a guy and they were told to stay away from the balcony. The noise above lasted for about 15-20 minutes before I presume they apprehended the man and the police presence subsided.
helo circling westwood from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
And the view from our porch:
helo overhead from Mary Qin on Vimeo.
Tonight was my first time going to Spring Sing in Pauley Pavilion and it was a really fun experience. The one thing I love about being indoors is that I won’t get cold! So tonight I could really focus on the performances at hand. Also, I went with Panda and Houdini and some other friends I haven’t seen in a long time, which made it very enjoyable too. Now what really struck me about the night, as I was watching all the great entertainment that Company (the crew that does the comedic skits between all the acts) does, was how much I will miss some of my Bruin moments.
A lot of what they do is inspired by making parodies of what life on campus is like for students and there are more than your fair share of inside jokes. I haven’t been away long enough to really miss college, but hearing about swiping into the dining halls and the crazy squirrels reminded me of the fond memories I’d created along the way. There was one joke about passing out a book called “Wild Animals” on Bruinwalk that I didn’t get because it came about after I left. I’m going to be sad when more and more of those references begin to slip by me as I get outdated. Thankfully, there will always be our staple jokes about Trojans and North vs. South campus and Bruinwalk. I’m starting to miss the good old times, when I was one of those “in” students who understood everything.
