"one groweth"

Okay first things first, the title is supposed to be "one grows" except in olde Englysh (haha not really) - that's why it's one groweth, cause it's like "He drinketh some coffee...eth." Okay fine really not really; actually Old English is like a completely different language it's pretty crazy.

And second things second, I really have to preface this with a "WHAT?! WHERE DID FIRST YEAR GO? HOW DID THIS HAPPENNN!!!??!" I know everyone is saying that around here, just about their respective school years being over (except the high schoolers...oops), but it really is crazy. How can this year already be over? I'm not done being a first year yet - not done being new at everything, not done living at Maupin, not done being roommates with Maddie, not done eating breakfast at O'Hill everyday...seriously. But I guess I'm being kicked out. Done. Boom. Out out. No more living close to every other first year, no more walking everywhere due to lack of knowledge of the bus system (I'm learning), no more being physically and socially lost (...weeeellll...).

So before it all falls out of my brain, here are a few of my favorite memories (warning: not in chronological or alphabetical or any other kind of order)...

...of my first year at UVA 2010-2011!!

They are small, big, and medium and probably boring for a lot of people, but they were momentous to me, and I'm just trying to keep a record so I can look back and remember. Sorry about the monster-sized post ahead!! The scrollbar will probably be really tiny after I'm done with this.

1. One fateful bike ride with Maddie when everything went wrong at the same moment - 29340984 cars appeared from nowhere, pedestrians popped up to get in the way, bike pedal fell off - but we were too busy crazy-laughing to care too much.

2. Yodeling like these people after one especially sugar-loaded brunch at Runk.

3. 40-minute walk down McCormick Road from Old Cabell to Maupin - just cause I could. I think it was Friday and I was done with all my classes and felt like walking s u p e r  s l o w l y because I wanted to revel in not trying to get somewhere so fast. With my iPod and blue-toed flats, savoring every. slow. step. and hopefully not annoying too many people...heeehe I tried to stay on the edge of the sidewalk, like the slow edge of the track, you know?

4. Taking the scenic route up to my room from the beginning of the Maupin sidewalk. AKA walking purposely a little extra distance (like 3 feet, no big deal) instead of straight up the close-by stairs because the trees in front of our building are like a canopy under which one feels like a forest princess (or prince, yes).

5. Cramming into one tiny practice module at Old Cabell with Rajni, Densey, and Ericsam to practice this incredibly sad song over and over:

6. Naming Eric Ericsam - I've never had much luck with nicknames until E.S.! His real name is Eric but on the first day we met I think I decided (what a brat) that he looked more like a Sam and called him that for days until he finally broke down in tears and pleaded with me to at least call him Ericsam (just kidding about the tears). Wait a minute - I just realized how close this is to Samneric, from LOTF...WOAH.

...WOAH!!

7. The first night of art explosion when Maddie and I started scribbling all over our walls and officially became friends, not just roommates.

before (left): awkward and naked
after (right): comfortable and decorated! haha sorry Maddie...it's another sleeping picture...
(maddie and walls, respectively)

8. Lovey-dovey couple sighting at Clemons with Tim. I think they were in the pre-official, flirting stage so they would keep just sneaking looks at each other and being subtly annoying with their giggles and ticking each other. There was a bit of internal drama for the girl for a while because the guy went somewhere and didn't come back for a long time - she kept looking around, worried, unable to move on from the one page she was reading for like 400 minutes. And also she looked a little bit like a lion. I don't know - something about her...nose/mouth area. I had been chatting with Tim and told him to come over and see the small spectacle these people were making of themselves and at first he was like nah they're not so bad, but soon agreed with me that they were kind of ridiculous. Anyways by the end of the night (or day, whenever it was), they (and I) had gotten no work done. Absolutely none.

"bleh we like each other so much but we're not officially dating yet just flirting so it's kinda awkward! bleh we're gonna keep distracting other people around us by being cute/noisy/annoying! bleh! bleh! bleh!" (them, not us)

9. "Homeworking" at Crossroads with Maddie in the booth next to the extremely loud bro who was talking about girls and weekends - seriously I have never heard anyone with a louder conversational voice. The homeworking attempt just ended up with me and Maddie just making loud, obnoxious noises once in a while, half imitating the bro, half hoping he would take the hint. And then laughing about it like this: beweehwhahahhhHEIhihihulhuoohohlhlhuhuhlahahaaalal!!

10. Eating nova-originated pho and feeling a little bit bad about stinking up Crossroads - delivered by David "da bait" Densey. Seriously THE BEST <3

11. Finding, and freaking out about, the straightest banana in the world. 

I mean just LOOK AT IT!!

12. Exam-induced mania that resulted in secret identities.

Stanislov and Boris

13. One solitary afternoon spent exploring the Rotunda and all its symmetry! I think I got distracted on my way home from class and ended up here. It was a Monday. Solo adventures are the best - sometimes you just gotta be alone, and that's O.K!

from inside - hellooooooo Old Cabell!

boO

trying to take a timer picture in the Dome Room, fulfilling so many stereotypes: asian, tourist, noob first year...

14. Going to Skyline and oooh-aah-ing at the 2 billion shooting stars that decided to fall that night! Then coming back to Earth and eating McDonald's with John, Clarisse, Kenneth, David at the Lambeth amphitheater.

15. First day of Musicians on Call when mystery shopkeeper gave me a tiny paper bag with 3 Lindt truffles inside with a quiet "thank you."

16. Finding a wardrobe of mysterious purposes in Webb Lounge - "The Morgue" - and deciding to hide in it and then deciding to do a whole photoseries about explorer Maddie discovering a strange creature inside the weird wardrobe.

17. Christmas celebration in Maupin 220s for which we were never given our rightful reward of 1 Arch's ice cream pie. Though we spent 2.5 hours waiting for the judges to come and way too many dollars at the dollar store on cheap decor, it was worth the suite bonding and general Christmas merriment.

18. Plucking a certain DH's overgrown eyebrows in Christina's common room and being walked in on by Jacqueline, our RA. Taking pictures to document the evening's activities but swearing to never ever publicize them. 

19. Skipping February 7th of my a-picture-a-day calendar because it pictured a woman so ugly it was frightening. Seriously, what were they (the artist, museum personnel who chose to make the painting important, calendar publisher...everyone who had a part in causing the painting to reach my eyeballs) thinking?! Shudder...

20. Conquering DungeonMan. 

THE FLASK

21. Every time that this happened in chem postlab. Though all green doesn't necessarily mean you're all right...haha.

so excited I took a screen capture of it...

22. Discovering our downstairs (like through the ceiling and through the floor) neighbors in 123!! And proceeding to jump up and down while facebook chatting, "CAN YOU HEAR US?!" and yelling out the window and being responded with chairs banging on their ceiling/our floor. SO MAGICAL! :D

23. Spending an entire month of wintry nothingness, reveling in the beauty that is college vacation time. Being a baby at home and drinking hot chocolate all the time out of giant mugs and bathing Binky and building fires in the fireplace every night. 

24. Texting Joshua Hahm about the state of current precipitation whenever it was raining.

25. Coffee date with Josh Larosa - opposite-soul-revealing, etc. Coffee, blogtalk, discovering how different our brainwaves are.

this isn't from THE coffee date^, just a random time I happened to take a picture of Josh with a cup of coffee

26. Valentine's Day blahblah don't careboutit blah sorrybout it lalala. Okay seriously though - from GCF first year boys' awesomeness to lovenotes in Italian to secret stuff that was crazy but not regretted, really truly.

27. Amy and David's wedding in Philadelphia over Spring Break. It was my first real wedding (one for "my person" getting married, not a family friend or someone my parents know or something) and so touching and crazy (people I know as my sort of peers are getting married now?!) and also they played the Amelie soundtrack at the reception <3

not Amy and David HEEEHEEee

28. This obnoxiously gigantic apple that I found at O'Hill one day that followed me, like, everywhere, and demanded that I take pictures of it in like, every pose. 

if you're fb friends with me, you can read his whole life story!

29. Unplanned all nighter at Clemons that snuck up on me, but was somehow enjoyable in lots of different ways: because of boys talking about basketball (or something...), candy thrown into the air, early morning texts about being "awake as ever EVER!" and the stupid IR final that justified the all-nighter in the first place.

30. Easter Eve, ordering kabobs to Clemons and then ice cream cake at midnight to break Lent. Nuff said. ...Okay but with that said, must add: also doing healthily happy things with Maddie, like spending my entire last day at school together picnicking in New Cabell, sun-lounging and clover-searching in front of Maups, taking good pictures of one another and talking and laughing about everything. 

31. Creating several-minute-long videos, trying to capture my life at certain memorable moments and ending up with shaky footage of things anyone not in the video will skip through (actually I can see some people in the video skipping through it, too). Haha but it doesn't matter because it makes me laugh and remember and marvel at a time "so long ago!" when so many things were different, but also the same. Oops sorry for saying stuff that amounts to nothing.

32. Sitting through extremely long Tollywood movies and groaning about them afterwards.

33. Convocation: sitting facing the Rotunda and thinking about how we'll turn around to face Old Cabell in just a few years. Lots of people complained that it was boring and cheesy, but I really liked it.

34. Train traveling down to Charlottesville from a short stay in nova. It was too short of a ride for all the pictures I wanted to take, all the reading I wanted to do, all the chocolate I wanted to eat picturesquely. 

35. Taking Claire Lyu, who blew my mind every Tuesday and Thursday with her brilliance, out to lunch  (despite my secret fear of Western utensils). My notes from FREN 3032 are full of emoticons like this ":o !!!!!!!!!!!!!!" At lunch, we both had the chicken caesar salad, talked about France/Korea/America, and wondered about each other's brains, I think. 

36. James Cargile, the only reason for me not dropping Symbolic Logic like 309482 times. He enjoys banana bread as dessert to his lunch, works "for freedom", often forgets (to turn on) his hearing aids then sheepishly grins about it. Unfortunately I will probably never again take another class with him (at least let us hope not...for my academic sanity's sake) - I shall miss his brilliance, kindness, and weird humor that makes him admit his "minor pedagogical tragedies."

37. Eunice NO FEAR Jang, the common denominator to so many delightful things in my life this year: prayer team, being tablemates at Amy and David's wedding reception, GNO (girls' night out, as abbreviated by Bobbie) with much Enchanted sing-along-ing, Anne of Green Gables party with kimchi bokeum bap and cookies, crashing a sleepover at Aileen's with a funny collection of people :) 

38. Planning to write a blogpost about all the ways in which "one groweth" during the first year of college and realizing what a baby I still am and therethusforthly not being able to write that original post at all. Realizing that I'm a work in progress and all the ways in which God provides and being okay with not even having that much closure. Learning that I'm immature in ways that I didn't even imagine - how bad I am at moving out and saying goodbye. And at ending blogposts. eep.

GOODBYE FIRST YEAR!