I love fragrances. Ever since the first time I walked in a Bath & Body Works store in middle school, I’ve been so drawn to perfumes, scented candles, body lotions, etc. I also have always been able to stay in a store like Bath & Body Works longer than my friends, who would usually get nauseous of the overpowering scents after a couple of minutes. I don’t think I’m too sensitive to scents, but over the past few years, I’ve been more attracted to things that are better for the environment and body. …
As my last semester at Cal is nearing its end, I want to reflect on some of the best professors I have had out of the breadth of classes I’ve taken. I know that some professors teach certain classes well and others not so well, but I tried to base this list off of how much I liked the professors as lecturers and instructors rather than how much I liked the course content. Here are the professors that I think taught their respective classes very well and the ones whom I think I can listen to talk about anything:
6. Scott Shenker
Class…
I’ve been using Mint for nearly 1 year now to track my expenses and budget, but a few months ago I switched to Google Spreadsheets. Although I like that Mint automatically syncs my transactions across all bank accounts into one place, I find the features restrictive.
I like manually tracking and being able to customize by budget with spreadsheets
I created monthly budgets in Mint, but I did not have a sense of how much I was spending and how much I had left. I needed to change the way I viewed and understood my income and expenses. I noticed that I only started truly actively cutting my expenses after I had started…
In a previous post I talked about how disappointed I was in the city for producing so much waste. After having spent the summer there, I developed some habits that help me reduce waste on my part.
In that previous post, I mentioned how there are no trash or recycling bins on the sidewalks. I was wrong, because after having explored the city some more, I found that there actually are trash and recycling bins, just not everywhere. For instance, in Lower Manhattan where I stayed, there were trash bins at almost every block, but there were not always recycling…
I spent June, July, and the first few days of August in New York this summer. Before I arrived in NYC, I was worried that I wouldn’t like the city and that it would feel too stuffy to me. It did feel stuffy, and there were many times where I wanted to get out of the city to a place with fewer people, fewer cars, more greenery, and more space. However, I do not regret having taken this summer opportunity. …
In 2009, when the city of San Francisco started requiring people to compost in, I at first thought it was a bit burdensome to learn what can and cannot be composted, but catching on did not take too long. As years went on, I got used to composting. I don’t find it burdensome to sort out my waste into the recycling, compost, and trash bins anymore. In fact, I actually enjoy it because it feels like I’m “returning” items to their proper origins (except for items that go in the trash bin).
It recently has occurred to me that not everyone likes cyclists (the term “cyclist” seems to have a professional-sporty connotation, but when I say “cyclists,” I mean to include regular bike commuters like myself). The other day when I was talking with a car-enthusiastic friend, he mentioned briefly how drivers and cyclists have a strained relationship. Today, when I was biking to get groceries, this car drove past me and the driver in it, having had rolled down his windows, exclaimed “Can you take up less space?! JESUS!”
I’ve never had that happen to me —having a driver yell at…
My 2018 Insights (what I learned)
- I cannot expect to make friends if I do not open myself up to people: This year, I wanted to expand my network of friends. Though I went out to several social club events, I did not feel like I was making any friends. It took a little while to realize that being closed off made it harder for me to connect with others. I’ve always been a pretty closed-off person. I constantly worry about how others think of me and am afraid of being too different in a weird way. I think I chose to not open up to…
In 8th grade, I did a debate project with a partner, and we were assigned the topic “is eating meat ethical?” One of us was to argue that eating meat is ethical and the other that eating meat is not ethical. We were given several weeks to research and form convincing arguments, and at the end, we had to present our debate to the class. I don’t remember my exact points, but I do remember that I was assigned to support the “eating meat is unethical” side, which I honestly had no complaints about. Even before I had done any…
I never really understood what loneliness felt like until recently. Up until August of this year, I have always lived with at least 1 other person: I lived with my family before I left for college, with 1 roommate in the dorms in my 1st year of college, and with my older sister in an apartment in my 2nd year of college. I’ve always wanted to live alone because I like the quietness for getting work done, and I like having my own space. Though I was living alone, not once during this school semester did I feel lonely. I…
Celena
Hello! I am CS new grad from UC Berkeley. I am using Medium for my brain dumps, so they may be unstructured, but I will try my best to structure them.
