The past couple of weeks have been pretty boring. Just mainly getting ready for college. The last exciting thing i've done is probably going to SPOP 3 (Student Parent Orienation Program) at UC Irvine a few weeks ago. It was a really fun and memorable experience. At first I thought it was gonna be a basic orientation, but boy was i wrong.

Thursday: The drive from Delano took about 4 hours and when i finally checked in, it was about 4:30. I ended up being in the Prado dorm. Right when i walked through the door, i was greated by a couple of our staffers. They were pretty cool, but for some reason a few of them thought Delano is a suburb of LA (???). Then i took my stuff and went to my room. The rooms were actually pretty big. After that, i went back to the living room and talked with a few more of the staffers and fellow SPOPers. At about 6:00 we headed for dinner at Mesa commons which was suprisingly close to my dorm. The food was ok, but i was suprised to hear that UCI has the 2nd best food of all the UCs. I'd hate to see what other UC schools are eating if they think UCI food is great. Neways, after dinner we decided to play some volleyball. It was pretty fun, except it was kind of hard to move around in jeans & shoes in the sand. Next we went to the auditorium for the welcoming. After that we all went back to our dorms. We broke into groups of our suites and ended up having to do a skit of the rules. Afterwards we started introducing ourselves. I met my roomate for SPOP, and he was pretty cool. At first I thought everyone would be from the Irvine or the LA area, but there were actually quite a bit of people from Central and Northern Cali. We finished at about 1:00 in the morning then we went to sleep.

Friday: I woke up at about 7:30 in the morning and I only got about 2-3 hrs of sleep. Eventually we went to the auditorium for academic advising. It started off with a dorm roll call where every dorm came up with their own cheer. We spent about 2hrs in the auditorium for advising and it was really boring. After that we the broke us into groups based on the department our major was in. While every group had around 30-40 people in it, the ICS group i was in only had 5. It was kind of embarassing being in such a small group people. Then we took a walk to the Engineering building for more academic advising. After about 2 hrs we left the engineering building and went for lunch at the park. After i finished eating, i went to get my UCI ID, which ended up being real crappy. Then we went back for more academic advising. Since it was such a small group we finished pretty early so, we went back to the dorms. We pretty much stayed at the dorm playing games and getting some sleep until dinner. After dinner we went back to the auditorium for the talent show put on by the staffers. It ended up being a really funny show made up of several small skits and musical performances. It ended with a very touching moment where the staffers expressed how much they truly love the SPOP program. After the talent show, we went to the dance. It took us a while to get there cause the staffers got lost, but we eventually found our way to the social science plaza. The dance was pretty fun, but it was really hot and kind of tireing. The dance ended with everybody linking hands and running around in circles while Don Mclean's "American Pie" was playing in the background. Since i was wearing baggy jeans and sandals i couldnt keep up very well and broke the link a few times. It was about 1:30 when we got back to dorms. According to SPOP tradition, we were suppose to stay up all night and watch the sunrise at the Mesa Court Parking structure. So we started playing some games to past the time. We broke into groups, and the staffers gave us a task to do. "Staffer impersonations" and "Wedding Proposals" were a couple of things i remember. I tried my best to stay up all night, but i gave up at around 4:00 in the morning and went to sleep.

Saturday: I woke up at 8:00 and we assembled in the living room to make our final cheer. Then we headed to the auditorium for closing remarks. It seems everybody was tired because all the cheers were really crappy. Afterwards we headed back to the dorms and started packing. Then we all headed upstairs to do one final game. We all sat in a circle with our backs towards the center, and our eyes closed. Then we each had a turn to go into the circle and then someone would say "touch someone u would like to know better" and so we would. We did this for a while and it was a very touching moment. Afterwards we went outside to take a few pictures and say our last goodbyes.

Overall, SPOP was one of the best experiences of my life. Both the staffers and fellow SPOPers were really cool. I was suprised to find out how hard it is to become a staffer. Not only do u have to go through a very strict application/interview process, but u also have to speed 10 weeks training during school and give up some of ur summer. And all of this without being paid a dime. No wonder its considered to be one of the best collge orientation programs around.