Yay free things! I <3 all things Bruin.

Today I attended my first alumni event, a young alumni mixer held in the San Fernando Valley.  People from a variety of backgrounds showed up, ranging from fresh-ish grads such as myself from the Class of ’08 to people as far back as the class of ’98, and grad students as well.  It was a nice event, with free appetizers and some raffle items.  I was the first one to show up, even after I found that my original parking spot is permit-only and had to move my car a very long block away.  The place was strewn with lots of small gifts that people could take at will, like Class of ’09 cups, Class of ’08 keychains, Class of ’07 stickers, etc.

I sat down to chat with a few people and when the appetizers came, I munched my way through quite a bit before curbing my hunger.  I met a bunch of interesting people – a guy who was my year, a Chem major who is doing R&D work now; two girls who were ’04, one is a third grade teacher and the other a nurse at UCLA; a guy who was ’06 Psychology, now working on techie stuff for UCLA Biomed or something like that; a lady who was ’06 Music History and History, and has been a professional musician for 25 years; a girl who was ’03 and is working at the UCLA Fund; and a few others who work for UCLA, as well as a handful of people in the environmental field.  I got a nice lead with Ms. UCLA Fund, who told me to let her know when I submit my application for a job on campus that I would really like to have.

As luck would have it, I also won a raffle item and chose to take home the mug.  I was a sucker for the gold trim and black and white image of Royce Hall.  I was almost tempted to get the mouse pad, but then I realized I never use one.  This clocks in as the second mug I’ve won and one of many that I have unofficially collected over the years.  I will never forget my beautiful black mug from Gallery and Toff’s (two nightclubs in York), which I got during Fresher Week when I first arrived for my year studying at the Uni of York.  I think it’s the sturdiness, yet fragile nature of them that make me feel they are valuable enough.  Everyone’s a winner when I win things, because I get really excited and that brings a smile to most everyone’s face (except for the super bitter who reaaally wanted to win too, I suppose).

I had nothing else to do, so I stayed quite late chatting with these people.  The last guy I had an extensive talk with kept calling me a cougar because Panda is two years older than me.  🙁  He was teasing, of course, but for some reason I was very eagerly trying to deny his allegations.  He joked that I go to high school proms to pick up guys and buy underage kids alcohol to bribe them, all ridiculous notions, but I still defended myself.  I’ve had my share of pseudo-dating but I’ve quite happily settled on my first and only boyfriend, thank you very much.  But hey, cougar is better than cradle-robber, right?  And so I concluded my night, taste buds happy with the food, mind pleased with the service, and overall a very positive feel about the night.

Somehow I didn’t take a single picture there though…