Christmas, etc

Well, well, well. Where to begin? Christmas was lots of fun; I spent it with family and Bryan. I'm still enjoying the gift cards that I got. Being on break for almost a month is pretty exciting in a very non-exciting way; as in I have done nothing productive whatsoever other than work out a little bit. I love it. Only one more week though which is sad. The end of the semester went well. My GPA went up with my grades; A (philosophy), A- (sociology), B+ (italian), and B+ (natual hazards). I'm happy with that because it is my best semester yet. I think I may have said this already in a previous email but next semester I am enrolled in Social Psychology, Sociological Research Methods, Comparative Literature of East Asian Societies (I have a 300 page comic book to read for that class, awesome), and Italian 3. Sounds like I'm in for a good time right?

I recently went to Magic Mountain with my mom, Cailla, Bradley and Bryan. It was so much fun. Bradley had a blast! He's been to Disneyland before but he was too little to understand. But he got to ride all the little rides and had a lot of fun, especially with the new Thomas the train stuff they have. It was cute.

In other news, USC went to the Emerald Bowl this year which was highly disappoint, but we did win so that's good. Next season is all ours. I'm going to the doctor's on Monday to get tested for gall stones. I have all the symptoms including severe pain in my lower right rib area so they have to check that out. I'm not sure what they'll do if I have them, I'm kind of scared!

Hmmm. I think that's all that is going on here. How was your holidays?

Ciarra

Time is disappearing!

Well hello there everyone. It's been a while no? Lets start where I think we left off. Halloween? Well I came home to Lancaster for Halloween and Bradley and I dressed up as two of the Incredibles! Cute right? He was, if nothing else. I took him trick-or-treating and even got some candy myself (score!). My roommate, Laura, and I have been thoroughly enjoying having that around. It helps to have a Reeses while trying to do homework. Life is just better with candy and we are still kids at heart!

Before Halloween Bryan and I went to San Clemente to celebrate our one year anniversary. It was a ton of fun. Great weather, great sites, stores, food, plus each others company. It was a great mini vacation.

School has been going well. Much better than last year still. No more midterms. I survived those with semi-flying colors. I have gotten a B+ on every Italian test I have taken (grand total of 4) and it is so frustrating! I study differently and longer every time and still cannot get out of that rut and get an A! I'm determined to get an A on this last one coming up next Friday. Classes end here on December 4th. Then finals are from the 9th to the 16th. I cannot believe how quickly this semester has came and gone!

On that note, I registered for classes this week for next semester! I'm taking Social Psychology with the same sociology teacher I have now (she's amazing), Sociological Research Methods (it's required for my major), Italian 3, and Comparative Literature- The Place of Literature in Global Cultures (my final GE). Doesn't sound like it will be a terrible semester. Plus I will have Friday's off again, other than when I have Italian tests. I'll also be working at the same place, which I love.

In other news, we've been taking about free will in philosophy. As much as that class is torturous, it presents some pretty interesting topics to make you question what you thought you knew. I like to share my new-found confusion with you all. This is the situation: there are 3 statements that all cannot be accepted or they contradict each other. You can, however, accept 2 and reject one.

A. Human being can, at least sometimes, act freely.

B. All human actions (like macroscopic events) are causally determined.

C. If actions are causally determined, no human can ever act freely.

Choose your two. If you chose B and C, you are a hard determinist (everything is determined by other events and no action is free). A and C are libertarians (all actions are free, but if they were causally determined they wouldn't be free), and A and B are compatibilists (everything is caused by something, whether it is internal or external, but how the situation is handled is a free action). I'm a compatibilist. I just feel like that is vital information to everyone to know about themselves... not really. It's just interesting.

Well this is where I leave you until next time! What's happening on your ends?? Hope all is well!

Ciarra

Sophomore Year...

Hello again! It's been a while, I apologize. I am coming to the midpoint of the first semester of my sophomore year already. Time sure does fly these days. As you can see from the pictures, not much has changed. I still love football and go to the games, and I still spend free time with Bryan. My life is awesome. This semester I am taking Italian II taught by Alessio Fillippi, an Italian man from Florence. He's so awesome, not to mention hilarious. Another great thing is that it is right next to Matt Barkley's Spanish class! So I see him Monday through Thursday.

Intro to sociology is being taught by Dr. Julie Albright. You may have seen here on CNN and MSNBC. She does frequent interview with them. She's the first sociologist they call. She's also one of the head researchers for eHarmony! Needless to say her focus is on marriage and relationships. I love her and her class. Next is natural hazards taught by Andrew Curtis. He worked with President Bush during Hurricane Katrina. Finally, there is Mind and Conception taught by Janet Levin who, if nothing else, looks exactly like Professor Trelawney from Harry Potter. The staff here is pretty legit. I fall more in love with this school everyday.

Some food for thought: In sociology we were learning about schools and what they are supposed to do. The next lecture we learned about the media. Did you know that by the time someone turns 18, they will, on average, have spent over 4,000 more hours watching TV than they will have spent in a classroom? Scary right? So who is really educating our youth? Maybe that's why the world seems to going downhill so quickly.

In other news, Bradley is 2 years old now. He's getting so big so fast. I am currently writing a paper arguing against Artificial Intelligence. Robots cannot think! It's more philosophical than I am letting on but in the end that's what it comes down to. What is a mind? That is the unanswerable question of philosophy. Thoughts on that? Let me know.

I think this update is sufficient enough for now. I will try to be more regular with this! And I will also try to include more info other than "I am still alive and school is going fine blah blah blah." I don't want to bore you to death :)

Thanks for reading!

The Beginning... of a New Beginning!

I moved into my apartment this morning where I will live for my sophomore year at USC. It was an adventure. First we tried to check into the wrong apartment complex because grandpa was "positive that was it." Then we got set in the right direction, checked in and went inside to check it out. It's... decent. There is chipped paint all over the place, holes and dents all over the place, it's a little dirty and cluttered, but it's home; or it will be soon. The 2 girls living in the other room, Nellie and Ashley, are here now unpacking their things. I am lonely in my room because my roommate, Laura, is in Virginia with her family until Saturday. Anyways, I got all moved in and unpacked. It feels home-y I suppose. Or it will soon once I get used to it. I forgot to bring all my refridgerated food so I am waiting for my pizza to get delivered since I can't make anything without all those essentials like milk, eggs, butter, even the bread and tortillas are gone. Leave it to me to not think I needed it until Sunday. I posted my move in pictures on my facebook page; it's too much work to put them on here also. So make sure to go there and check those out. They aren't too exciting because no one was here to help me unpack so I mainly just snapped some quick pictures before getting into my boxes. But you'll get a feel for my apartment that way. Oh! Crucial information is that my new address is 3115 S. Orchard Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90007. Send all your letters and cards and goodies there for me! :)

I'm a Slacker.. Sorry!

My grandpa emailed me and asked when I was going to update next so I figured since I have a little time now I could jot some stuff down... since I have been so busy with Facebook and Twitter lol. Well I am home for the summer and have been since May 22nd or something like that. A couple weeks. Finals went well. My GPA went up with this past semester, not much though. I am not really sure how either seeing as how my grades were horrible. But I did get my first A so that was exciting. That was in Italian which was my favorite class so it makes sense. My goal is to graduate with honors so I have a lot of work to do the next few semesters. Hopefully many more A's are in my future. I ready to put the work in so we'll see what happens. But for now, SUMMER! I've already gone to the beach with resulted in a sunburn only on my backside because I never flipped. But now the sunburn is a pretty nice tan which will do as a nice base tan for the summer :)
I've been working at CVS for a little over 2 weeks now. It's been pretty fun at times and other times I hate it. It really depends on the customers, and in Lancaster we know how they can be. My co-workers are great though.
Other than work I have been becoming reacquainted with something called sleep. Also I have been spending lots of time with my little brother which is fun. And of course spending time with Bryan which is also always fun. I've seen quite a few movies which I didn't do in school at all. I think I saw all of maybe 3 movies during the school year, sad I know. But thanks to Bryan, I've seen one every week at least since summer started. I've been listening to a lot of music and reading for fun, forgot what that was like for a while. Hmm other than that... nothing much has been going on. Jill and I went on another silly stringing adventure which was pretty fun.
Do I have anything deep to talk about? Kind of I suppose. I am pretty sick of our governor and his sad attempt to fix the economy in California. He wants to cut Cal Grants for college students. I'm pretty sure most people would agree with me when I say that it's a horrible idea. I go to a school that costs $28,000 just for tuition, not including books, cost of living or housing. All that including its estimated to be between $42 and $52 thousand per year. I need my Cal Grant! I cannot afford to go there if it is cut. I could always transfer to a less expensive school but I would hate to do that. And there are so many students who would have to drop out of school without the Cal Grant. It's really bad. They are also making it harder to get student loans so it's so impossible to go to school right now. But if you don't, you can't get a job. Even people with degrees can't get jobs. It's just a mess. Hopefully it gets worked out. I am afraid for my financial aid package. I should be getting that soon.
Anyways that's enough for now. Hope you enjoyed this update :)

Change of Heart.

Hello!
Well I have 2 more weeks of classes until I have completed all the lectures of my freshman year in college. After that I have 5 "study days" until finals start. I have 3 finals scattered from May 6th to May 13th. After that I am finished, and I cannot wait. This semester has been extremely difficult and it has driven me to the realization that I am not a science person. It just is not my calling. Sitting in a biology lecture realizing I am utterly lost and confused God struck me down and was like "Ciarra you are not meant for this." Okay that literally did not happen but it felt similar to that. After class it was relieving and unnerving not knowing exactly what I wanted to do with my life anymore so I had a little breakdown, talked to a good friend and some family, and moved on. The next day I was in the sociology office submitting a change of major form and now I am officially a sociology student! I am not positive what I want to do with that but there are many options and I have a while to decide. If I don't know at the end of my 4 years here I will just go to grad school to buy myself more time. Bottom line is I am happy with the change. Studying sociology will be a lot more fun for me and it is what I feel I am supposed to do. I don't really want anymore negative opinions on it telling me I am giving up or taking the easy way out so if that is what you have to say, please don't.
On another note, Easter was so much fun! I know that was a while ago but it has been a while since I posted and Easter was the other major thing that happened. The family came over, I obviously went home, and we BBQ'd (veggie dog for me!) and had a really fun Easter egg hunt. The night before that, Cailla, Bradley, Bry, my mom and I colored Easter eggs. Bradley went to get his crayons when we said "lets go color eggs!" He was confused. Then he smashed one and ate it, shell and all. Needless to say it was a very fun time. On Sunday evening Bry and I went to see "Knowing." It was... interesting. I found it to be a good movie but too scary in several ways. He really enjoyed it. It was another fun event to add to the day. Monday, early morning, I took the metro back to school and went the biology lecture where I had my epiphany about changing my major. And now you are up to date!
This weekend I am going to spend some time at my dad's house. Haven't been there for a while so I am looking forward to that. Hope all is well!
Until next time.

RIP Adri Bachan

I am not sure how many of you heard about the hit and run incident here at USC this past weekend. Here is a brief synopsis of what happened: Saturday night, or technically Sunday morning at 3 am, 2 USC students, a male and a female, were crossing the street at Jefferson and Hoover (using the crosswalk). A car came zipping through hitting both of them. The driver kept driving with the male student on the hood, stopped and shoved him off, then sped away. The male student survived and was in critical condition but is stable now. Unfortunately the female, Adrianna Bachan, was not so lucky. She died at the hospital shortly after arriving. I heard this news late Sunday morning and was upset about it. The more I think about it, the more upset I get. Can you imagine how upsetting that phone call was to her parents? To her roommate? I cannot even begin to imagine how I would react to that if that happened to my roommate. That is devastating. Adri lived in the same building I live in (I live on the 2nd floor, she lived on the 4th). I did not personally know her but I do remember passing her a few times. I remember that she was walking out and I was close behind and she held the door for me. The building just is not the same after hearing this. Sunday morning, before the name was released, I remember looking on facebook and seeing pictures posted by some friends who live in the suite next to us of the night before. They were hanging out with her at a party and she left before they did. The difference is she never made it back. She was so happy in those pictures, without the slightest knowledge of what would soon happen to her. Later that day everyone's status would soon change from talking about how fun that night was, to how much they miss her. The guys that were with her that night are understandably devastated. Guys that are usually happy and smiling most of the time are walking around with hoods on and sunglasses to hide how upset they are. It makes you think about how quickly things could change. She had her whole life ahead of her. She is just like me, a freshman at USC just studying to get to where she wanted to go in life but it was ended just like that, because someone could not just stop their car. That person never was caught, not yet anyways. While we are all mourning, they are off not knowing the pain they have caused to so many. It is not fair for that to happen to her. RIP Adrianna Bachan, you will be missed by all who have known you.