UCR is changing. I feel it in the nonexistent river. I feel it on top of the C. I smell it in the trees. Much that once was, is now lost, for none who party can remember it. It began with the forging of the Great Tests. By week three, midterms were given to the CNAS, beings who still...
Well, it’s finally coming, folks. The infamous date of doomsday is just around the corner. The end of the Mayan calendar falls on Dec. 21, 2012, and theories of the end times are running rampant. What is going to happen? Will a meteor smash into the Earth? Will a solar flare knock everything out? Will the zombie apocalypse I’ve...
Well, call up Iron Maiden and Ernest Hemingway because the clock is two minutes to midnight and the bell is about to toll for me. I’m about to leave you, UCR. I’ve had a great crusade despite every reeking tree and Gambino-less winter, and as I leave, I hope to touch the hearts of my fellow Highlanders. To the...
Fail Better
April 6-7
The pub was filled with the steady booming of old-school Schlager music—dwarfed in sound only by the clinking of Astra bottles and the consistent cheering of a good time. My six fellow Californians and I had been taken to Hamburg for the weekend, and had spent the day touring the lovely city and enjoying the first clear...
We all know that the start of the New Year is the only time you can get in shape. I mean what is a better condition for running and dieting than the cold winds of January? It’s not like there is a season where the temperature is mild and vegetables are fresh and abundant. And besides, that would be...
April 19 – The Train
I was on a train, alone, in the middle of the night, thousands of miles from my family in the states and with four hours of sleep fighting against four beers in the battlefield that was my body. I’m not usually prone to such surreal, existential realizations, but I couldn’t help but be amazed at...
May Day
May 1
“Happy New Year!” shouted an alcohol-slurred voice among the multitude of faces.
This was the greeting my friends and I met as we got off the U-Bahn and into the crowd that consumed the middle of Berlin. The first of May is a national holiday in Germany, in which almost everyone has a day off from work and...
“Oh my God, I haven’t been on Instagram in like, five days!”
These were the first words to grace my ears as I sat down on my flight from Berlin to LAX. I was surrounded by a soccer team of 15 year-old girls and their parents — the dads all wearing what seemed to be the same pair of khaki...
As of writing this, I am in my ninth week of the 15-week UCEAP Language and Culture Program. So while I feel like I have just settled in here, it has just occurred to me that I am past the halfway mark in my stay here. I can’t say that I am ready to go; on the contrary, I...
A Weekend in Amsterdam
May 9-15
One of the greatest things about Germany would have to be its location. With its position smack-dab in the middle of Europe, you are only some hours away from a multitude of other cultures in every direction. As such, I found myself in Amsterdam for an extended weekend.
My friend and I exited our night train...