Happy Holidays

The semester is almost over! Next week we have a little break for Thanksgiving and I cannot wait because I love the holiday season. I love spending time with my family and stuffing my face full of food. When we come back from that little break we will have a couple weeks left before the first semester is over. In the last couple of weeks I will have a final essay due for my English class, a final test in my statistics class, and I will have a written test and a presentation for my sign language class. I feel pretty confident so I do not believe I will need to study and cram super hard for these tests. I do believe I will need to practice for my presentation in sign language though. I have to stand in front of the whole class and sign a childhood story and I do not know which one to tell. I want it to be a funny story but I do not want it to be one where I got hurt or get embarrassed. I have a lot of those stores. I think I am going to talk about a time my sister and I were walking our dogs in the snow and kept falling over and over again. Speaking of snow, I cannot wait until we have our Christmas break because again I love the holiday season. I can see my dogs, spend time with my family, and most importantly have a gift exchanged of the weirdest gifts with my family because that is just who we are.

Thanks for reading my blog! I hope everyone has an amazing holiday season and that you do not stress out to much for your finals.

Jenah

Going To CSD

On Friday I went to the California School for the Deaf. I went to the school for their open house to get extra credit for my sign language class. I took my sister and mother with me, so they could see what I had been learning in class. When we first got to the school and walked in we saw people signing to each other and I started to get nervous because I was still learning the language. We went into the book fair and looked at all of the books. As we were about to leave a woman came up to us and asked while signing if 'we were students'. I told her 'I was a student' as I signed back. We both talked and signed because we were both learning. She asked, 'if my mother and sister were my friends'. I told her 'she is my sister and she is my mother'. She asked if 'I went to CSD or Ohlone'. I told her 'no I go to CSUS'. She said, 'wow that's far'. I agreed with her and then we all walked away. After we left my sister and mom said, "wow that so cool". We then looked around the school and found the gym where they had a whole bunch of booths set up. We looked around at the booths and then went back outside. After we went outside and bought a cookie from their bake sale. We saw that there was a scavenger hunt, so we decide it would be fun to look around for the things on the list and explore the school. As we were looking around for the things on the list a man walked up to my sister and mother and signed 'if they needed help' ad they were both really confused but they said no ad my sister did the sign for 'no'. The man then signed faster to them and they were both looking at each other and then pointed at me. Another man came up to the first man and asked for help and my sister and mother came up to me telling me what had just happened. We all laughed and went to look for more things. As we went to take a picture of their mascot we heard a loud drum going off and people walked and pointing to the amphitheater. We went over to the amphitheater and sat down, and a woman was explaining what was happening as I had to try to translate what she was saying. She was signing that some students would be preforming a dance for everyone. We watched the dance and then when it was over my sister wanted to buy something for one of the booths. She bought two little hearts with the sign for 'I love you' on it. After we were done with that we left but it was still a lot of fun looking at the campus and seeing everyone signing to each other.

Halloween Gala

On Halloween last week, all the people who work with housing put on a Halloween Gala. They opened the gates and a whole bunch of families and other kids came to Trick or Treat at the dorms. The families could also do a whole bunch of activities such as: getting their face painted, making sugar skulls, and going through the haunted hallway. The haunted hallway was in front of my dorm this year, so I had to decide if I wanted to stay in while the event was going on or if I wanted to stay out the whole time. I decided to stay out the whole time, so I could see all of the cute little kids dressed in their costumes. I was dressed up in an octopus onesie and was helping pass out maps to all of the families. As one family walked in one of the children looked at me and said, "Oh my gosh it's an octopus!" and it honestly made my day. After that I stood with my RA at the end of the haunted hallway to make sure no one entered through the exit. It was a lot of fun to see everyone's reactions after they got out. It was funny to see some of the scared adults, but it was heartbreaking seeing some of the little kids cry as they got out of the hallway. As I was standing at the end of the hallway the same little boy who was excited to see me as an octopus came out of the elevator right behind me. As the family was walking away to leave the little boy walked past me and tried to touch my tentacles and the mother told him not to and as he was walking away he looked back at me and waved saying "It's an octopus!" again and my heart melted. After the Gala was over I helped clean up the haunted hallway and it was so clean it was like it was never even there in the first place.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any stories including cute little kids I would love to hear it.

Jenah

My Trip To LA

On Friday I left for LA with my roommate and members from the Pinoy Ako Club (PAC). We went down to LA for a fall retreat and to help support the API (Asian Pacific Islanders) Club from Stan State. The API Club was participating in Friendship Games at CSU Fullerton and we thought it would be fun to go and support them as well as see what the games were like. We left at about 11:00 P.M. on Friday and finally made it to the hotel at around 6:00 P.M. We then went to the Orange Outlets and walked around and played some games in Dave & Buster's. We had a lot of fun but had to go back to the hotel because we had a long day ahead of us. We finally went to bed at around midnight. My roommate and I woke up at 7:00 A.M. so we could have time to wake ourselves up and eat breakfast before we left at 8:45 A.M. We ate and got ready and left to go to CSU Fullerton. When we got there, it was about 9:00 A.M. and all the schools were still getting checked in, so guests could not go in yet. We decided to explore the campus but when we were done not all the schools had been checked in, so we went to Starbucks. When we came back we could get checked in and was able to watch the roll call which was all the schools doing a dance routine on the stage one by one. Most of them were amazing and fun to watch. Some of my favorite groups did 'oldies' songs and got the crowd pumped and the atmosphere was exciting. After we watch them take roll call we walked around a little bit and left to explore downtown LA. We ended up going to the Natural History Museum and it was a lot of fun looking at all the animals and dinosaur bones. After we were done we went to Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills and took a lot of pictures and looked at all the high-end stores. After we were done with Rodeo Drive we went to the Beverly Hills Outlets and looked at more of the stores. We then went to take pictures with the Lights in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). We took a lot of pictures because it is not like we get to see them every day. We went back to the hotel after we were done taking pictures because we were going to leave early the next day. We went to bed at around midnight again and we were supposed to leave at around 8:00 A.M. or 9:00 A.M. I had an alarm set for 7:00 A.M. again but my roommate and I fell back asleep and we did not wake up until about 8:45 A.M. and found out that everybody had slept in, so we did not leave the hotel until about 10:00 A.M. We stopped at Porto's because apparently you cannot go to LA without getting Porto's. We went to one, but they ran out of a certain pastry, so we went to the other Porto's in Burbank. After that we finally started our way back to Stan State. We made one last stop of the day just after the grapevine to get gas and lunch and then hit the road to come back home. the rest of the trip was about 6 hours and we finally made it back to Stan State at about 5:30 P.M. My weekend trip was super crazy, but it was a lot of fun.

Thanks for reading my blog! I would love to hear about a crazy weekend you have had.

Jenah

Floor Events and Too Much Junk Food

On Friday I went to my RA and PAL's floor event. We watched the Book of Life. It was my first time watching this movie because I never really had the desire to watch it, but I went to support my RA and PAL. The movie was super cute, and I am glad I went to watch it. They provided snacks such as popcorn, brownies, and soda for the people who went. My PAL offered me soda, but I said No thank you, I do not drink soda and she was shocked I said that. During the movie I ended up eating 4 brownies and I am not proud of that. After the movie was over the people who came to the floor event to watch it still wanted to watch another movie, so we ended up watching Corpse Bride. During this movie I ate about 3 solo cups full of popcorn and I should not have. My roommate had never seen it before and one of the RA's that was in the Residential Life Hub was shocked she had never seen it before. My roommate said it was because she does not like Tim Burton movies. The RA was shocked because she loves Tim Burton movies and told my roommate that she would only forgive her if she made her brownies or cupcakes. The next day my roommate made cupcakes and gave the RA that got mad one and she forgave her. I ended up eating 2 cupcakes and I am not proud of that either. I was not proud of eating the junk food because I have been trying to eat well but I did not.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have ever watched a move expecting it to be low budget but actually turned out really good let me know!

Jenah

Remodeling

This past weekend I went home and it was crazy. My sister came back from a year abroad in Europe and the stuff she brought back is everywhere in the house. All of the new things she brought back with her do not have a place in the house so we decided to clean out our shared room to create room for her stuff. We started by going through our clothes and throwing out the items we do not wear (which is a lot). We then decided to switch my sister’s dresser with a different one and started taking some furniture out of our room. Since we took out some furniture and had some empty space we decided why not shift our bunk bed to a different wall. Do to the fact that we were going to move our beds we had to take out all of our furniture. Consequently my sister thought the walls looked ugly and asked if we had any paint. Also because we moved the furniture my parents wanted to put a new carpet in our bedroom so it turned into Home Improvement. Early on Sunday morning my mom and I went to Lowe’s to get the paint and some other supplies we needed to redo my room. When we got back we took the rest of the furniture in our room out and ripped up the carpet that was already in there. After the carpet was ripped up we started painting the room Ultra White and it took longer then excepted. Even though we are not done yet and I am back at school for the week I am excited to see how the room will turn out when I go back home.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you’ve ever started a small project that turned into a large one I would love to hear about it.

Jenah

Studying First Games After

Every Tuesday and Thursday from 8:00 P.M. to 10:00 P.M. in the Village Café there is a study night. All the PALs from housing have an hour shift to help the students who need help with a specific subject. My dorm mate and I have been going to them for the past month not because we need help but because it is a quiet place for us to study. We also get free snacks so that is always a plus My PAL has gone to every study night to support the PAL in charge of that study session and to also have a quiet place to study. Last Thursday, October 5, My RA, PAL, dorm mate and I all went to the study night. My RA worked on a study guide for one of her classes and my PAL was facetiming her sister to help her with a power point. My dorm mate was working on her music fundamentals homework and I was working on an assignment for English. After 10:00 P.M. the village closes so we have to leave but we all decided to go to the residential hub and play games. My dorm mate and PAL were playing Rocket League on the PlayStation while I started playing a game of Clue with other people that were there. They played two rounds and my dorm mate got crushed both times so she passed the control to someone else who then demolished my PAL. There were five of us playing Clue with a few people watching wanting to learn how to play. It was a newer version so the game went by very quickly and unfortunately, I lost. It was basically a game of who could get to the middle of the board first because we all knew who the killer was. After we finished the game it was time for us to go back to our dorms because the hub closes at 11:00 P.M. and the game ended a little before that time. The games were a lot of fun and I hope we do it again sometime soon. It is always a good idea to reward yourself or give yourself a break after studying hard and getting a lot of work done.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any crazy stories involving Rocket League or Clue please let me know I would love to hear them.

Jenah

Stressing Out

I have been having a lot of stress over getting school work done, having trouble in my dorm, and craziness with family over the past couple of weeks. Getting my school work done was not stressful in the beginning of the semester but with the problems in my dorm and the things happening with my family it has been hard to focus on school work and find time to get it done. In my dorm we now have a new person moved in and it has been very stressful trying to set up a time for all of us to make our new roommate agreement and actually all sit down and talk to each other. We were finally able to make our new roommate agreement on Tuesday at 10:15 P.M. It was a hassle to find a time because we had to deal with classes, people going home over the weekend and our RA to not be working so she could be there to help us. I admit over the past couple of weekends I had to go home to deal with the craziness with my family but that also is causing me to have stress. I had to go home because there was a death in my family and I am stressing out because it is very emotional and I cannot find time to do my school work if I am dealing with all the stuff at home. These past couple of weeks have just been super crazy. I hope that now we have done the roommate agreement and we had the funeral that I can finally just focus on my school work and not have to worry about anything else.

Thanks for reading my blog. If you have ever been stressed out like this do not hesitate to tell me because normally if you talk about it it can alleviate some of the stress or pain you have.

Jenah

Laser Quest

Last Saturday one of my dorm mates and I went to Laser Quest in Modesto for the housing weekend trip. I really wanted to go because of the escape room and my dorm mate really wanted to go because she loves laser tag. When we got to Laser Quest we had to split up into two groups of five people and the rest of the CSU Stan students. The two groups of five people were the groups that would be doing the escape rooms first and the rest of us would be doing a round of laser tag. As the two groups were getting ready for the escape rooms we had to tell one of the workers our code names for the laser tag game. My dorm mates name was 'Diva' and mine was 'Jern'. My code name was 'Jern' because it is an inside joke between my family. During our first round of laser tag I stayed in one area and would shoot the people that crossed into my path. In the end, I was ranked 13 out of 23 players. After we all got our score cards my dorm mate and I volunteered to be in the next group to be in the escape room. We had 45 minutes to get out of the one called 'The Cellar' and it was basically about a serial killer who captured us and we had to discover who his next victim would be to make it out alive. I was the one who figured out how to open the last box that had the key in it. By the time we got the box open we only had one minute and one second left. After we made it out of the escape room we had one more round of laser tag to play. During my second round of laser tag I went up to the second story and was shooting people one the first floor as well as people on the second. At the end of this round, I was ranked 9 out of 31 players. After this last round we all got back on the bus and went across the street to eat pizza at Mountain Mike's. After we ate Pizza we got back on the bus and went back to the school. When we made it back to the school my dorm mate and I were super tired so we went to bed.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have ever made it out of an escape room or have a crazy story about laser tag I would love to hear it.

Jenah

Supporting The Stan State Volleyball Team

When I was younger I started playing volleyball and it has been such I huge part of my life. I played for about nine years playing on club teams and in middle school and high school. I stopped playing because I was burnt out and there was just too much drama with a whole bunch of girls. I decided to go support our volleyball team here. On Friday my dorm mate, my PAL, and I went to our first volleyball game to support the girls and see how they played. It was a lot of fun even though we lost the game was still intense and the warrior mascot was pumping everybody up. The final score of the first game was  25 - 19 and we lost, the second game we also lost 25 - 18, we won the third game 25 - 15, and the fourth game was a battle, but the final score was 29 - 27. We even though we lost it was still a great game and everyone was still cheering. One of the students even started a wave in the crowd during the fourth game because it was such a close match. During time outs they played music to pump up the crowd and the warrior mascot was dancing his heart out which made everyone in the crowd cheer even louder. Even though we lost it was still a super fun game and I can not wait to go and support other sports in order to have this much fun again.

Thanks for reading my blog! Hope you have gone to support your school also it can be a lot of fun.

Jenah

Television Verses Doing Homework

Every floor in the housing dorms has a theme. The theme of our floor is Lilo and Stitch and because my roommate and I are still children at heart we decided to watch all the Lilo and Stitch movies. I brought my television from home and we hooked up my roommates' laptop to it in order to watch the movies. After I came back from home on Labor Day my roommate and I decided to start watching the first Lilo and Stitch movie because why not. Our classes did not start until 11 the next day so we decided that we could stay up late. The next day after I got back from class at 7 my roommate was watching Lilo and Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, so we hooked up her laptop to my television and finished watching it. We then watched Stitch! The Movie and Leroy and Stitch even though we both had homework we needed to get done. After the movies were done we both started our homework but at midnight we went outside to see the full moon and stop stressing about college. The next morning, I woke up early to get some more homework done before my first class of the day at 8 in the morning. After my first class, I finished the rest of my homework for my next class up until almost the last minute. The moral of the story is do not wait until the last minute to do your homework and do not watch three movies in one night if you have a lot of reading to do.

Thanks for reading my blog! If you have any stories similar to this please let me know.

Jenah

Memories and Making Inside Jokes From Welcome Week

My first time leaving home, meeting people I will live with for the next year, and my first week on campus before classes start. Pulling up to the round about right outside the housing gates I saw a lot of people unpacking their cars and volunteers wheeling their stuff to their dorm room. It was my turn to unpack the car and the volunteer brought me to the wrong room. When we finally made it to the right room the first thing I noticed was all the cute welcoming decorations that my RA and PAL had put in the dorm. I was the first one in my room so I got to choose which bed I wanted. After dropping off my stuff my parents and I went to Super Walmart and spent $428.01 on other things I would need. We came back and meet the other people I would be sharing a dorm with and unpacked some of my stuff. After that we went to the welcoming dinner and my parents left. Our floor met out on the grass and got to know a little about each other. We then went to main dining for the huddle where there were games, prizes, and food. One of my dorm mates and I went to a secession the next day called Netflix (Safe Sex) & Chill, we sat at a table with our PAL for the presentation and for some reason she got very excited. We asked what she was so happy about and she said she hoped they would show us the Tea Video. We were still very confused but the presentation started so we could not ask any more questions. One of the slides had a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZwvrxVavnQ&t=4s and it was the tea video. It basically is a video that explains how people need consent before making people tea (sex). It is now an inside joke between me my dorm mate and PAL. The next memorable event was our first meet your neighbor hour where most of the people on our floor went to our RA and PAL's room and played Cards Against Humanity. There were a lot of laughs and more inside jokes were made. We all went to the village cafe for dinner together as a floor and the laughs continued there. There was a raffle and one of the people running it offered us more tickets and someone on my floor grabbed a handful of tickets and had to return half of them because she took to many. She ended up winning the prize and our whole table cheered for her. Later that night we went back to the village cafe for game night and played a few rounds of Jenga before we started playing Cards Against Humanity again but this time with a smaller group of people. With this smaller group of people, we made a lot more inside jokes. The next day after the morning workshops three of my dorm mates and I asked our PAL to take us on a campus tour so we could see where our class were and to get the edge on everybody that would be participating in the campus scavenger hunt later that day. We made it back to the dorm to change our shoes and go to the scavenger hunt which was a complete waste of time because we were hot and tired and it was not fun. Later that night there was a glow pool party where everyone got glow sticks and were dancing and playing games. Even though the music sucked it was still a lot of fun. The next night my dorm mate and I went to an event called Tribal Tag put on by a club at school. It was basically capture the flag but at night with glow sticks in the quad. After the game was over we crossed the street and had nachos. When we came back to the dorms it was sometime around midnight and we were getting ready for bed. As I was laying down about to go to bed I heard people above us running around on the balcony and knocking on people's doors. Come to find out they were throwing a dance party. The next day I went home for a dentist appointment and missed out on a lot more jokes from the floor events that went on. I came back to campus on Tuesday the day before classes started and tried to do one last event but they ran out of things for us to tie dye so we could not do it. We finally went to bed Tuesday night ready for classes to start the next day.

Thanks for reading my blog. Let me know what you thought of the tea video.

Jenah