Post #60: Graduation.

I can’t believe I’m writing this post about my graduation three week after it actually happened.. I was so drained and I couldn’t handle typing on a computer anymore… Now I am visiting my really good friend and SBCC schoolmate Brian in his own country, Vietnam, and he is driving me toward Halong Bay… Yes, summer has started and traveling won’t stop until August! Ok.. I’m getting of topic so (even if I know that you would like to hear about my adventures in Vietnam), let’s talk about graduation and my last days in Santa Barbara!

Earning an Associate Degree is not as fancy as getting a Bachelor Degree after four years of sweet and tears, but it is still and important step to consider in one’s educational path. My parents never came to visit me in SB, and attending my SBCC graduation was the reason that pushed them over their comfort, zone and gave them a reason to come to a country where nobody speaks their native language. I was so happy that they joined me in this celebration, and that they had the chance to see how my life has been in these past two years. They adored Santa Barbara, they loved City College, they loved meeting all my friends, seeing my room and my little house, and they absolutely couldn’t stop telling me that if they knew before that I was living in paradise, they would have come more than a million times to visit me (LOL).

On graduation day, my dad brought me to buy a fancy dress, I did nails with my mum, we had lunch at Eureka!, and right before graduation I got my make up done at M.A.C. As a typical Italian family, we arrived 20 minutes late to the graduation, but I got lucky and I met up with all my wonderful friends. So many of us were graduating this semester, and, even if it sounds sad, we were like a family getting ready to part ways… It was the end of an astonishingly emotional two years. After the ceremony, my parents followed me everywhere but I couldn’t even pay attention to them because I had to many people to take pictures and say goodbye, too. Everywhere I would go, somebody was there ready to hug me and take one last picture together.. it was at the same time the saddest and happiest moment of my life… My parents and I left the stadium when basically everybody was already ordering food at the restaurant. We concluded the night with the nicest dinner with my friend Amber and her family at Zaytoon. I will miss everything and everyone so much… but I am sure other wonderful things are on their way to my life. Never stop dreaming. 

Finally the Final Finals to Finalize

And here we are again for the fourth and last time: it is the end of the semester and finals week is here! I can’t believe that my time at SBCC is getting toward the end… It has already been two years? What?!? Who made time fly by so quickly? I feel like that I attended Vaquero Welcome just a couple of days ago, and that I haven’t spent more than a day with my closest friends… but you know, nothing can last forever. As professor and PTK advisor Eskandari once said: “change is the only constant in our lives”, and the faster we understand this, the easier it is to enjoy life at its fullest.

God bless iPath

This week I have four finals to prepare and I can't wait to get done with them. My first final was on Tuesday at 8:00am and I was feeling so tired and already soooooo done! Luckily, as I was walking zombie style across the bridge, the iPath program had set two tables, one filled with all the food necessary to get through the day, and one with blue books, scantrons and pencils. Thank god iPath takes care of all of us students… after my finals, I had lunch and then straight back to the UCSB library,

Fortunately, I faced this week with my friends… We would drive together to the library and support each other till late night. This finals week has been the most fun, tiring, sad, happy week out of all finals week at CC. In particular, this semester I have been doing so much that I feel so drained and ready to go back home. I know it is the end but I feel like I got out of City College everything I could, and it has given me more than enough to continue my education. I finished off this week with mixed feelings, but I believe everything just ended perfectly… Goodbye City College Classes!!

SBCC Ambassadors CommUNITY Festival

It was weeks that the Ambassadors have been organizing the SBCC CommUNITY Festival and today it was the day for it to happen!! Teo, Bella and I were the leaders who directly communicated with Shelby about the decisions concerning the event, and then we would assign tasks to other ambassadors. It took so much of our efforts and I was really hoping that the festival would turn out great. In my head the festival would have attracted more that 200 people, however, the number of individuals who showed up was much lower!! Despite this little inconvenience, we still continued the festival and we had a wonderful time all together!!! This event was not only the LAST ambassadors event for the Spring 2017 semester, but it is also my LAST ambassadors event ever!!!

Masterpiece

I got to Pershing Park at 1 p.m. and the gloomy weather wasn’t really promising… However, the awesome spirit that dominates every ambassador was sparking in the air, and by 2 o’clock music and art started to spread allover the place. It was such a chill and relaxed environment, and it was impossible to not feel the vibes and enjoy the time spent together. We were making mandalas while listening to music, or we were painting banners, sharing our artistic creations. I went even further and face painted a friend of mine, Anthony. At the end of my artistic work he didn’t seem really happy… But you know, I had so much fun and actually he did, too… He was probably just giving me a hard time.

Art & Music

Mandala Making

Unfortunately, I couldn’t stay till the end of the festival because I went to attend the Outstanding Student Award Ceremony to support my friend Amber. She got nominated for outstanding student for Phi Theta Kappa!!! Amazing.. I heard from other ambassadors that the last few bands that played were absolutely wonderful, and a friend of mine even got back to me and said that the festival was really enjoyable and that it was perfect for distressing before this busy finals week… What a great day!! I hope that the next generation of ambassadors will be as enthusiastic as this one I was a part of. I can’t wait to see the progress and evolution of this outstanding organization. I love you SBCC Ambassadors ❤️

Let’s Get Fancy: Honors Program Gala

Honors Program Co-Presidents

I have always been an overachiever and I will keep on being one because it is just so rewarding! Since I enrolled at Santa Barbara City College, I have been part of the Honors Program, and no semester went by without taking an honors class. Taking honors classes could be described as a FREE upgrade of your college education… Come on! Who doesn’t like FREE things? So, I immediately took this amazing chance of making my college career even more successful though joining the program, and just a few days ago I received the invitation to the Honors Program gala. 

At the end of every spring semester, the Honors Program organizes a gala to congratulate the students who have completed the Honors Certificate through taking at least six honors classes before receiving an Associate Degree or transferring. I finished the honors certificate this semester and I could not wait to dress fancy, meet with my honors peers, and receive the Honors Program stole!!! The event was held at the John Dunn Gourmet Dining Room where there was lots of free food and fancy tables. As soon as I arrived I saw all my friends dressed up on point for the event and we enjoyed eating dinner together.

Right after dinner, Professor Melanie Eckford-Prossor stood up and delivered a wonderful speech that reminded me the wonderful, and at the same time painful times, of my English 110 class with her. Professor MEP is one of the best professors I have ever taken, and her class was so open minding and inspiring that now I reason and analyze things in a total different way. Before taking her class I was scared to write papers, during the class I was terrified to write my papers, but after taking the class I can nail down any essay that is assigned to me. Today it was the day that repaid me for my all the efforts… I stood up, stated my name and received the Honors Program stole. Amazing day.

Birthday Scavenger Hunt

Jeannine's Breakfast

Today it was the day… Oh yes! It was my 20th birthday!! Now I am officially not a teen but also not an adult yet!! What a weird number the number twenty.. kind of meaningless. But even if turning 20 is not such a big deal, it doesn’t mean that it doesn't have to be celebrated as if it was a big deal!! I didn’t plan anything special for today but it turned out to be such a wonderful and special day!! I have to thank so much my friends who made it so amazing and super duper fun.

Runnin' (The "secrets" to all men’s dreams)

The day started with an amazing brunch at Jeannine’s with Shivani, Amber and Sebastian. It was so delicious and the atmosphere was priceless… so relaxing!!! After breakfast we all went to meet at Ralph’s other SBCC students and friends for the last Phi Theta Kappa event: The Scavenger Hunt!!! We were five teams and I was the “captain” of my team composed of Amber, Shivani, Sebastian and I. Sherwin was the one who organized the scavenger hunt and he would send us the guidelines by text while we were driving to accomplish the task he assigned us. We had to solve 10 enigmas and find the place described by the enigma. Once we found out the places we had to go and take a selfie of the whole team in front of it. We were so competitive and we did everything possible to accomplish the tasks. 

The squads :)

After we sent all the selfies and received the confirmation, Sherwin gave us one last enigma so that we could find him and finish the race. As we were going to the place to meet Sherwin we found him not he road right behind us!!! Unfortunately we arrived to the location a few seconds after Maddy’s car team… Well, since the goal was to find Sherwin and we found him first, then we could say that it was a tie (or even if you don’t agree, let’s say that just because it was my birthday and I had to win anyways LOL). What an amazing race… I could have never wished anything better that this… After the scavenger hunt I kept on celebrating with my friends till late at night… One of the best birthdays!!!

Free Yoga With Professor Brett Land pt. 2!

This semester I decided to organize another “Free Yoga With Professor Brett Land” event for my Phis Theta Kappa project, and I really hope that this event will become a tradition for PTK at SBCC!! This time I already knew who to contact for making this event possible and the organization of the event was pretty easy… Well, easy is a word that should be erased from any dictionary because nothing is easy! Keep on reading and I’ll explain to you what happened.

In order to host an event at SBCC on the West Campus Lawn it is necessary to fill out a form that is found in the Special Events office of SBCC. Like last year, I filled out the form, had the advisors sign it and I submitted it, convinced that the event would been approved without any problem. Just three days before the event’s date, I received an email that prevented the event from happening if Professor Brett Land didn’t have an insurance that listed SBCC as one of the studios where he taught yoga. Obviously, Professor Land teaches just english at SBCC and the insurance is just for the studio he works for.. Well… after numerous complications we had to cancel the event……..

However, on Wednesday during our weekly PTK meeting, the advisors proposed a solution. We moved the event off campus at Leadbetter Beach and we finally got to keep the event!!! Unfortunately, many people didn't come because they didn’t see anybody on the West Campus lawn.. But in the end about 15 people came and we had a wonderful private yoga class with the amazing Brett Land!! I am so glad that we didn't give up and fought for having this event. Oh and by the way, this is MY last event for PTK ever!!! Yes… My community college honors society experience has reached its end…

Let’s Do Something Important!

Phi Theta Kappa is ALWAYS up to something. Sometimes there is just so many things to do for PTK that I start wondering if they should make it a life experience class… Yes, I said that because I have to admit that I usually spend much more time doing things for Phi Theta Kappa than homework for my actual classes! Crazy, I know… But it is just so much fun, and so interesting to attend the events we schedule!! (Check out the roll ups I created for PTK in the picture right here… it was a LONG process but they turned out AWESOME —>)

This weekend I have attended in one day the Walk For Water and the Walk For Science with the PTK leadership and I have loved to take part of these two walks!!! I have really enjoyed chatting with Professor Sanders and discuss a variety of different topics school and non-school related. And I have also felt awesome to be part of something bigger than myself. I just love participating in events that raise awareness for such important issues… Cool cool!

Face painting + new tiptop

Lastly, today I went to the Santa Barbara Earth Day Festival!!! This activity wasn’t a PTK Activity but I attended it with my good friend and Phi Theta Kappa VP Amber, and Shivani, another close friend of mine that I probably have mentioned already. I attended the Earth Day Festival also last year, and its is just amazing to see how many people have brilliant and innovative ideas that don’t concert the annihilation of out Planet’s gifts and resources. At the festival I checked out all the interesting booths (one was even making skateboard from the recycled material retrieved from fishing nets.. wow), and then I ended up buying a really cute t-shirt and a phone case WITH CREDIT CARD POCKETS on its back!!! After leaving the festival it was time to come back to reality and actually do some school work…