The "Meh"-est Year: A pretty shitty reflection (Part 1)

Approaching the end of the year, I thought I should make a post dedicated to all the going-ons in 2013. 2013 has probably been the "meh"-est year out of all previous years I've had in US. I've been looking back and forth to the previous posts I wrote back in the 2010 up to 2012, and even before 2010, back before I went to study in the US. So I looked back at all the happy posts I did up to 2012, how I had so much fun, when YOLO was a main lifestyle - life's motto, more or less like Hakuna Matata.
Dang, I got to travel to so many places within those 2 years, got to try bunch of things, do bunch of stuff, went to 2 different yet most visited cities in US within a month of winter break, spent so much money on those trips, and all other good things. Before I led you guys to the next point, I went to community college for 2 years from 2010 and 2012. Yes, two freaking superb years of community college life. If you take a 2-year in community college and 2-year in a 4 year university education course, you'd definitely feel what I mean here.
However, the whole community college, YOLO kind of life gradually transitioned in 2012. My graphic design professor asked the whole class this question a few weeks ago. "What major event happened in the 1912?" to which it obviously was the sinking of Titanic. So if we apply this question to my context, it would be, "What major event happened in 2012 for Carissa?" That would be "Transferring to Art Center." where shit, literally, just got real.
That one single event changed my lifestyle completely, of course, and I was aware of it. In short, community college life was child's play, utopia. It was nothing. It was barely even touching what the real world has to offer.
ACADEMIC LIFE Academic-wise, community college was nothing compared to my current school. I took some art classes in community colleges. Back then, I endlessly complained about the class project that's always due in every week, but now I take back all my words. Indeed, back in community college, art class project was due weekly, but the effort I put in all of those projects were nothing by the heavy shitload I have to handle in Art Center. Art Center is all about strong concepts and great executions to a single art project, not just turning in pretty stuff. While back in community college, I could just throw in bunch of colors to a single canvas, add stuff that I barely knew what they were, and just bullshit the meaning and concept behind it during presentation.
You can just give one shot for project and the professor's going to shower you with sweet words on your projects, words like "This is greaaaaat! Nice job!" and give it an A no matter what. While in art school, the life that I'm living here, giving one shot for a project is highly impossible, unless you're pretty darn talented. Many attempts are and have to be made to achieve success and perfection (yes, art is all about perfection and the fact that it's subjective makes it even harder). The professor needs to approve your concept before you move on to the execution. If your concept sucks, screw you.
Professors will frown on your work and have that "The fuck is this?" kind of look; if that happens, you need to come up with more, and that takes more thinking, more effort, more time, more freaking energy. Everything isn't done in one single shot or attempt.
*Also, academic-wise, I took a lot of General Education classes. This was part of "trying out a lot of (new) stuff" that I mentioned earlier. I took classes ranging from Astronomy (4 hours of semi-meditation class) to Statistic, Business to Humanities. I even got to dance in the most time I spent in college, immersed myself in Kpop and its community, became a graphic designer for a volunteer club which obviously worked for an art school resume (because I literally did design for community, and there's no BS on that), and became a writing tutor for two quarters.
The whole thing I mentioned in the paragraph * above are things that I can never do in my 3 years in art school.
I met a couple of people in my Art Center years that asked me how long I spent in community college. I told them I spent 2 years there before transferring to Art Center, then they'd be like "What a waste of time and money! You know you could've spent just 6 months to a year there before going to Art Center." Well, I could defend my actions in reaction to that statement: 
When I first entered community college, I wasn't sure where to transfer from there. I aimed towards mainstream public universities popular among fellow students, like UCLA, that especially offered a great design program. I followed the 2-year system those schools recommend for community college students to go for, I took classes that were required to transfer to those public schools.
It wasn't until a year before my transfer year that I began to find out about the existence of art schools. They offer more legit programs for designing. Apparently, art schools had a whole different system for community college students to take before transferring, a whole lot different classes than what normal universities would require to transfer. So what I did was, I tried to blend those two systems together. While public universities require more general education classes to complete, art schools obviously wanted to see more art classes credit. So I tried to balance them in my remaining quarters in the community college. After many applications to some public schools, I didn't get accepted into my desired public university and got accepted into two great art schools instead.
That was what eventually brought me to Art Center College of Design, the land of "walking zombies" and all-nighters.
So as you see, I had a pretty rough path before it all led me to Art Center. So I couldn't say that the 2 years I spent in community college were a waste of time and money. In addition to that reason, please refer paragraph *. I hope that would explain a whole lot more.
FRIENDSHIP I wasn't a part of a popular clique in community college. I didn't go to fancy parties or attend posh events, but hey I love my friends! In community college, I got to hang out with many different people, created various circle of friends. I wasn't so close with the common Indonesian groups, but we do maintain connection. I just don't fit in with them.
However, starting Spring 2011, I got to hang out with a group of awesome guys and a few girls (me and Elda included) that we dubbed as WLHY (We Love Hiking Yoyo). Aymee, Elda, Nancy, and I (the only girls in the group), met with the rest of the group (all guys) in a hiking trip. Since then, we hung out more. We went hiking together - all 11 of us, we went to the beach at the end of the term (and oh the barbeque moments), we went to see movies, and the best part of our friendship history was probably playing playstation games and watching movies in Long Ge's house (Long Ge is one of the guys in the group). Long Ge had this projector that we often used to play playstation games or have car racing duels. Projector, yeah, that's what makes it even better and more memorable, I gotta say. Yes, the whole 11 people in one 2-bedroom apartment unit in Cupertino with a projector and playstation that brought us closer and tighter. 
I also made friends with my international volunteer (ISV) club people. We met regularly on Friday afternoon to have our weekly meetings, that always ended up in an engaging and playful icebreaker game. Korean Dance Club (KDC) came right after the meeting. I got along with the people too, and the fact that the KDC and ISV people knew each other and made a good bond made it even better. Right after the two meetings, KDC and ISV people would watch the latest movies on the cinema, and that sometimes ends with a good, fulfilling dinner concluded with boba late at night.
In addition to that, I made friends with Indonesian Youth Fellowship, an activity I did that pushed me to go slightly out of my comfort zone. The fact that I was the only non-Christian in the huge group strangely didn't bug me. After all, I went to Catholic schools all my life until I graduated high school. The people were so nice and welcoming. When ISV and KDC didn't even events right after the meeting on Friday, I attended the Fellowship service weekly on Friday night and every service also always ended with a good boba moment.
Last but not least, in the latter moment of my community college years, I joined a choir group by WKICU. This time, it was a Catholic community based in San Jose, consisting mainly of adults and non-college students. Elda brought me to this group of friendly working adults and invited me to join their Christmas concert. Me joining the group and the event to go along with it, might bring a special meaning to me as it was the first time I got to appear in a musical performance in my community college years, and probably in all of my years in US (I used to make violin and piano performances back in Jakarta). I've never not enjoyed any single practice and rehearsal I did with the cool WKICU guys, and those days where I had to wear this corset-like waist band with a golden fan to perform Janger, a Balinese dance piece performed in the concert.
- to be continued, it's like 3 am here -