It was a good week, and all I can say is that:

Spending time with friends that you’re probably never going to see again > Studying alone in your room and Brown summer school homework

People are so similar yet so different.

    As I came to the East Coast, I assumed that because I was traveling to a location that was still in the United States, people would all be the same. After meeting several different people, I quickly began to realize that my friends and I all have so many different interests, yet at the same time we are so different from each other. for example:

Rock, paper, scissors

   Back in LA, when you play “rock, paper, scissors”, you pump your hand 3 times and shoot your attack on the third (“rock, paper, SCISSORS). Here, everyone plays by pumping their hand 4 times and shooting on “shoot” (“rock, paper, scissors, SHOOT). Because of this, I lost a round and ended up losing my first pick for football on the quad here. 

Terminology:

    One of the most common phrases in LA is “butt-hurt”, which means that someone is pouting, being a sore loser, or anything along those lines. When I first said this to someone here, I got the weirdest look that someone has ever given me. In retrospect, it was probably because the term “butt-hurt” itself sounds either extremely weird or just sexual. I had to explain what this term meant, and my friends from Ohio and Connecticut still thought it was weird. 
    On that note, my friend from Cincinnati, Ohio began saying “child please”, which either means “_ _ _ _   you” or just “really???”. Apparently, Chad Ochocinco, a famous football player from the Cincinnati Bengals football team coined this term and everyone here knew what it meant. Everyone except me, of course. 

Stereotypes:

    Everyone carries stereotypes, but the stereotypes between the people from different areas of the country are quite different. 
    When I first arrived to and told people I was from LA, California, people began to immediately ask me questions like

1. Is it true the girl to guy ratio on the beaches is 20:1?
2. I heard every single house in LA costs 1 million dollars, and if you want more than one story it has to cost more
3. Nobody plays basketball or has driveway hoops, huh (seeing that we just wont he NBA FINALS WOOOOO, I don’t know why they would ask this)
4. I heard that show 90241 or whatever is true and everyone in LA is hot.
5. Driving through South LA at night pretty much guarantees you’re going to die, huh.

    Seeing that all of these aren’t true, especially the above number which rhymes with “door” and sounds like “for”, I was kind of shocked about how much of an effect the media had on people and their viewpoints. I had some stereotypes about East Coast people, too however, but some of mine were actually true.

1. Everyone either has an accent or can fake a really good one (true)
2. Everyone here is white (about 90% true)
3. Everyone likes bad sports teams (too true)
4. People enjoy being in bad weather, but think that their weather is still better than LA’s non-humid weather (HAHAHA true)
5. People don’t know that the West Coast is better than the East Coast (sad, but true)

Lesson of the day:

Don’t be afraid to show off clips of Shannon Brown when people are showing basketball videos to each other. 

ASSASSIN!

HOW TO PLAY:

   As the name of the game suggests, the whole purpose of Assassin is to take out your “target” and to be the last assassin left alive. On the first day of camp, the RA gives each student the name and room number of one’s target. The way to “take out” this target is to just find that person alone. Whenever that person is alone, all one has to say is “you’re dead”, and your target is out for the whole week. The assassin then takes the felled assassin’s target, and continues to wreak havoc. 

THE RULES:

1. One can be killed anywhere, including the bathroom and shower
2. The only exception is the dorm room, where one cannot be killed if one’s door is closed
3. If the person in the dorm opens the door for the assassin, it’s fair game and the target can be taken out
4. It is your choice whether you want to share your target’s information with others or not

WHY THIS GAME SUCKS:

    This game initially sounded like it would be incredibly fun. The game started after curfew last night, and while some (like me) didn’t really care about the game, others immediately began to get into the game. Turns out that my assassin was actually killed almost immediately, with his assassin knocking on his door, my assassin opening the door, and BAM someone else has to kill me now. 
    What I didn’t know was that my assassin refused to lose, claiming that he didn’t “open his door all the way”. I also didn’t know any of this until about 11:00 AM today. At about 7:50 AM, when I was still in my bed and about to go to breakfast, some guy walks into my room and promptly tells me that I am dead. Hurray. Whoop-de-do.  I actually didn’t care about that fact that I was killed, although my target was one of my friends so it would have been fun to take him out. 
   Anyways, I found out that my assassin who killed me was actually already dead, so I guess I’m now resurrected and can still play (yay…). I actually just ran into my room running away from my assassin, who claimed that “he wanted to talk to me alone in my room really quick” as he was walking to me really quickly. It would have been less obvious if I had ever talked to this guy in my life before.

FACT OF THE DAY:

Everyone here is freakishly smart

The weather here sucks:

    People of the San Fernando Valley and of Los Angeles grossly under appreciate the beautiful weather that we are blessed with. Everyone back at home seems to whine and groan (dang, look at these rhyming skills) whenever the weather seems to get tad bit too hot or even the slightly chilly and cold. After being here for a few days, I can say with confidence that the weather in LA is one of the greatest things that we are blessed with. Yes, even right now when the weather in the valley is in its glorious triple digits. While it is only about 90 degrees here in Providence, the fact that it is literally 10 times as humid (I checked with my friend named Google) than it is in LA is, well, disgusting. You can’t escape the humidity either, especially when the dorms don’t have air conditioning and you have to leave your window open if you don’t want to suffocate. 
    I also checked the weather before I left LA, and it said that in the next 10 days there wouldn’t be any rain. Thank you for that, Google. However, it would have been nicer if you took into account that Providence spontaneously breaks out in downpours for a few hours (which just happen to be when you have to walk somewhere), and then they abruptly end and go back to being humid and hot. I think I’ve been sweating literally every 24 hours ever since I’ve been here. Sounds gross, huh. Oh well, I expect hugs when I return, sweaty and all.

   Interesting lesson of the day:

    Always bring your own soap and toiletries to college. If soap that was originally green instead looks more brownish and on the gray side, it’s wise to not use it. No, I did not, don’t worry.  

    Hellloooooo. Day 2 of the East Coast was so similar to yesterday (hot, humid, gross, full of Celtics fans) but at the same time so very different. 

    I finally got to the campus today, but only after I went to church with my wonderful new adopted white grandparents/parents, Rick and Jean Quattrini. Yes, that is an Italian last name, and yes, I thought about the mafia whenever this man spoke to me. Everything in Rhode Island is really small and comfortable, so going to this church which only had about 25 people (I actually counted) was something very new to me. I used to think that small churches were small because they were either politically or financially unstable. After visiting the church today, however (it’s the church of Warrick…or something), I realized that small churches might be small just because they like the intimacy and familiarity of these churches which is absent in the huge mega sanctuaries found in many parts of LA.

    So Brown is kind of an interesting school…and not in a good way. It’s a a great school, but there’s definitely a lot of things that did not impress me this first day. For example, I don’t understand why they make check-in end at 1 PM, when orientation starts at 3:30 PM. It seems like there would be a lot to do at a college like Brown, but you can only do much roaming around alone before you start to get lonely/hungry/bored/lonely. 

    Up until orientation, I thought that I would be stuck here with a week with no one to talk to. Brown staff actually does put a lot of effort into making students meet one another, which really made me happy. What didn’t make me too happy was that:

1) I met zero people from LA (Orange Country barely counts) and
2) I’m the only Asian that speaks coherent English not including the RA’s (sorry, Marvin)

    The people here are really cool though. What kind of confused me was how no one asked the kids from New Jersey if everything in Jersey Shore was true, but they were not hesitant to ask me if LA beaches really were full of thousands of beautiful women everywhere and if I visit Disnelyand every weekend. I think it would have been funnier if they weren’t so serious when they asked me. I personally am not the one who is asked questions about one’s background, so this was a pleasant little surprise. 

    Sadly, I have class tomorrow, but the only things I’m really concerned about are what the cafeteria is serving tomorrow and just how much sleep I can get. Oh and for those of you who don’t know, the class I’m taking is called “LOL! The History of Comedy”.
    Yes, I’m being serious. Not only were the purely academic classes already full because I procrastinated so much to sign up, but I also want to enjoy myself as much as possible by thinking as little possible for my week up here.

Peace. 

    Today was full of many lessons as I began my first day on the East Coast. For example, did you know that if you need to wake up at 4:30 for a flight, going to sleep at 2 probably isn’t the best idea? Or that running after every bus that looks like the bus you need to catch just ends up making you look ridiculous and stupid. Here are some more things that I learned today by traveling to the home of the 18-1 2008 Patriots. Only a few of you will understand that joke.

Lesson 1: Food is vital for survival

   From 4:30 AM (Pacific) until about 7:00 PM (Eastern), I ate one Starbucks scone, one Kashi nature trail mix bar, and…that’s it actually. This can make a 5 hour flight feel like a 10 hour flight, and a 20 minute nap feel like a 1 hour coma. Time seems to slow down whenever your body wants food, which really isn’t good when all you want to do is land and get to the place where you can finally eat and sleep.

Lesson 2: When people laugh at LA’s traffic, they have a reason to

   We all hear that Los Angeles is infamous for its insane and unrelenting traffic. However, it’s not until we go to other areas when we see why other cities mock us for the way that people in LA drive. When I suggested to someone that I met in Providence that on a bad day, driving 20 miles can take over an hour, he just couldn’t grasp the idea. I quickly understood why when I went on the freeways in Boston and Providence. You could literally walk across the freeway, and you would still have to try to get hit by a car because the highways are so empty. They even look nicer too, with lakes and trees bordering every major highway. I don’t think Los Angeles is going to boast about its brush and barren hills surrounding its highways anytime soon. 

Lesson 3: Be honest

    Most of us are inclined to be extra polite when we are with people who are taking care of us, even when they barely know us. However, when they ask you questions that are extremely vital to your health, such as “Hey, are you tired?”, just be honest. 

“Hey, Noah. Aren’t you tired? You said something about not getting too much sleep last night or on the plane.”

“Hmm? Oh no, really. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

Don’t worry about me as I collapse and die over there in the corner from exhaustion and starvation.

Anyways, first day was pretty cool. By the way, one of the coolest date places ever is the Providence Water Fire event.

It’s literally what the name implies. You walk past a river (water) and see burning torches on top (fire). And it’s in Providence.

There’s also live jazz bands, food vendors, freaks who stand around acting like statues, and people touching each other in public.

Good night.