Love Is All It Is About, Ain’t It?

When Christmas time is about to come, Christmas songs start to loudly pervade supermarkets, malls, little shops and the radio, sparkly decorations invade streets, public places and private houses, and people crazily run allover the place to buy and buy and buy!!! The capitalistic society we nowadays live in makes us strongly believe that happiness comes with material things and money, but does it? Well, I believe that most people completely lost what Christmas is all about… I have never been a materialist, and lately I have detached even more from material things, and it is all because society is (unsuccessfully) forcing me to think that happy equals possession. As Trump would say (yes, I’m citing Trump): WRONG! 

Sisters' love

What I still believe in is that Christmas is the time where I can get a full recharge of love from the people that have seen me grow up and become who I am now. It is all about SHARING MY TIME with people that have great importance in my life but that distance and my busy schedule don’t let me dedicate enough attention to. It is all about understanding that FAMILY does never let you go even when you happen to see them all together just once a year. It is all about LOVE. While I live in California I miss my family, but Christmas allows me once a year to be with all of them again and the most blessed person in the entire world. 

Family time!!

This year, Christmas has been an amazing day, more than any other Christmas ever, because I have fully appreciated my relatives’ company and it was awesome to talk with them all and share some bit of myself with them. The first moment of the day was exclusively with my family: Mom, Dad, my brother Luca and my sister Silvia. Yes, there were presents to open… But opening gifts wasn’t about getting something and being happy because of that something, but it was rather about staying together and watching each other smiling while listening to some relaxing music.

All together at Aunty Luisa's house!

After our family time, we spent lunch time and early afternoon at my aunt’s house with my whole mother’s family, and at about five we joined my whole father’s family at my other aunt’s house. I have loved to talk with each one of them because everybody had something to offer me, and I was ready to share something with them. I missed them and this particular Christmas day filled my heard with so much love and appreciation that I will be ready to face other 5 months away from home.

Family, Culture and Food, Always Good

Relaxing with the Sis (Photo Credits... Mum)

I really cannot believe I have been home for two weeks already!! Days seemed so short, and I felt like I didn’t have time to wake up that is was already time to go back to bed… How is it possible? Is it that I am sleeping to much or that since I have started to relax time speeded up on purpose? Well, the only thing I know is that I’m loving being back home, spending time with my favorite people, appreciate the Italian culture, and enjoy the awesome food.

Awesome Grandma

Every time I come back home and see my family, it seems like time has never passed and that I never left my Italian life. It is a weird feeling knowing that I was gone for 5 months and at home everyone treats me as I have been there the whole time. Being so welcome makes me understand how wonderful is to have a family that loves me and that will never see me differently even if now I basically live on the other side of the Ocean!! In particular, the thing I love the most of my returns is the awesome “welcome back” from my 96 years old grandma at the airport. Even if she barely walks, she is so stubborn that she insists to wait for me standing in front of the returning flights doors for even an hour!! And as soon as I exit the sliding doors she starts screaming my name so loud and she hugs me along with the other 4 members of my family that everybody else starts to wonder if we are crazy… Maybe we are, but whatever!! 

Duomo 2k16 (Yes, I take one of this every time I go..)

One of the things I miss the most when I am away is the crazy Italian culture. Crazy in every sense! I mean, Italians are famous crazy drivers who have a crazy life style (yes, we stop working at lunch time and reopen shops at 3pm), and Italians have an awesome crazy history with crazy buildings centuries and centuries old and awesome panoramas! How count’t such a country be interesting? And I haven’t even mentioned the food, yet!! Just one word, WOW.. Every time I am back I need to spend lots of time in the car and enjoy the scary driving skills of Italians, and I must see the Duomo of Milan along with other astonishing buildings and panoramas. 

Magni's House Lunch

As French speakers say, the crème de la crème of Italy is the food. Since I got back, I felt like I have been in a culinary heaven either at home or at restaurants. First, one of my favorite habits is having meals ALWAYS all together, especially dinner time is “sacred family reunion over food”. And eating outside it is ALWAYS a feast!! Really good food accompanied by good tasting wine that everybody drinks, even the twins (my sixteen years old brother and sister). Quality over quantity is the 🗝! Oh, and as you can see from the picture, it is almost never just my family and I.. We love to share our time and meals also with other relative, friends and guests!!! … Yes, we are 5 but we always end up being more than 6… That’s my family 😉 

                                                                         Dinner & Cheers

Here was a little insight into my Italian life… I’ll keep you updated! Don’t forget to check for upcoming posts!! 

Goodbyes Are Harder Than Final Exams…

When any semester comes to an end, inevitable tears of sadness pervade my face… Ok, I don’t cry just because finals are hard and my brain cannot retain information anymore, but also because at the end of every semester there are always lots of goodbyes to say, and some that will be definitive… Let’s be positive, maybe not definitive, but for sure goodbyes that will be said to people I won’t see for a long period of time!!! Finals were just a little pain compared to the last day of this semester… And yes, finals went great and by Wednesday I was all finished!!! And tight here, I will just quickly take the chance to thank all the awesome professors that supported me throughout the semester and thought me awesome things!!! 

The saddest and the happiest day of finals week was Friday the 9th: my last day in Santa Barbara for Fall 2016 and the last barbecue at my house with my closest friends. Even if the day before had rained (I know… the only time ever that it has rained in SB), we decided to do the BBQ in the backyard of my house and have everybody over to have a wonderful last time together. Jules helped me out with cleaning and drying tables and chairs, and Michael and Brian helped in burning the coal for the barbecue. Then, Shivani let me borrow her car and I went to Vons and bought plastic forks, knifes, cups and chips for everybody. By 8.00pm everything was set and ready to welcome my favorite people. Throughout the night about 25 people came over, barbecued and enjoyed the music and the great company. The gathering finished at about midnight, and I loved that everybody before leaving thanked me for inviting them and let me know they had a wonderful time.. It was so emotional!! 

The following morning it was time to leave… I packed my bags and I was ready to leave… As I previously stated in my titles… Goodbyes are harder than final exams. Well, Amber gave me a ride to Shivani’s brother’s house in LA where we would have had one last lunch together Amber, Jules, Sebastian, Shivani, her brother, her sister and I, and then straight to the Airport!! I usually don’t cry when leaving my favorite people, but I have the widest mixture of feeling wandering deep deep into my heart. I feel really sad about not seeing some people anymore for a long time, but simultaneously I am so happy that I have had the chance to meet them!! A great thank you to this world for letting me encounter such amazing people during the course of my life.

Ambassadors Family, I’ll miss you.

This Friday wasn’t the same as every other Friday. This Friday was filled with emotions, excitement and LOVE. This Friday was unforgettable. This Friday was one of the most special Fridays! This Friday was the last Friday I could spend time with the AMBASSADORS of Fall 2016! 

Lovely Jules

At 11.30am on Friday the 2nd, 2016, the International Office organized the Ambassadors appreciation lunch. Durning this time, all the Ambassadors got together, received a meal offered by the International office, and Shelby, the creator of the Ambassadors program, announced and delivered the awards for Best Outstanding Ambassador Award, Best New Ambassador Awards and Sparkle Award. We all went to the Mexican restaurant downtown, called Casa Blanca, and I sat next to Jules, an awesome Perigean guy who is also one of my best friends here in Cali, and who is gonna leave me to go to Canada next semester 😭… I will miss him so much, but this is what college is.. Making lots of awesome friends that you know you will be able to count one wherever in the world they are going to be 😍.

Before the lunch Shelby announced the awards and I was amazingly surprised about the one of the winners… Well, I was the one who won BEST OUTSTANDING AMBASSADOR!!! I couldn’t believe it, but apparently I have been able to make a difference in the program during the Fall 2016 semester. I am really glad that my peers recognized how important is the Ambassadors program for me and how much work I have put into it. Thank you very much my lovely people 🙏🏻.

After the lunch we headed back to school for welcoming the new Ambassadors who will join us for the Spring 2017 semester. I was really nice to see new faces and connect with the people who have been selected for being part of this awesome family! Newbies, we’ll make sure you will become a part of our family and that you will integrate in the group as soon as possible!!! As soon as the meeting ended, all the old Ambassadors went to the Maxwell Overlook to take some awesome pictures to keep some memories from this awesome semester. I really hope that next semester will be as great as this one or even better!!! Love you Ambassadors people.

My Phi Theta Kappa YOGA EVENT!!!

Finals are approaching, and stress is spreading allover the place. Everybody needs a break during these overwhelming days, and this Thursday December 1st, 2016, from 4 to 5 the best distressful occasion came up: Free Yoga with Professor Brett Land!!! In Phi Theta Kappa every leader is required to organize an event whether for the community or for the SBCC campus. This event was the one that I myself organized in order to benefit the student community at Santa Barbara City College. 

Awesome, nothing else to add.

The process of organizing an event is not only time consuming, but it also requires a lot of commitment an effort. Before being in charge of organizing this Yoga class for the SBCC students, I attended other people’s event without realizing how many things must be taken care of to have a successful. I’ll briefly go over what I had to do in order to make this Yoga event possible. First, I had to ask to English professor Brett Land if we would be interested in teaching  a yoga class for free, and fortunately he immediately accepted and gave me a preferred day and time for the distress event. Second, I had to proceed and reserve the West Campus lawn, and to do so I had submit a signed paper to some important people that are responsible of managing all the event on the SBCC campus. Third, I had to order some fruit, snacks and water from the cafeteria and luckily the great Marc Sullivan made a wonderful donation for our event, gifting us with two plates of fruit, 5 boxes of healthy protein bars, and two boxes of water. Then, I had to go literally ALLOVER campus in order to get someone to let me borrow some yoga mats for the event. After a day of email exchange with a number of different people and running from office to office, the Physical Education department let me borrow 12 extra mats for the day of the event. After all this organizational part, I had to move onto marketing the event, and I created poster and fliers to spread allover campus along with a Facebook event, a campus wide email and a poster for Pipeline. …Well, lots are the things to consider but it was all totally worth it!!!

On the day of the event, with the help of some of the PTK members, I set up all the necessary for the event and anxiously waited for how it would turn out. Well, the turnout was simply AMAZING!!!!!!!!  40 people showed up and the class was relaxing, recharging and super fun!!! I would have never imagined I would be able to organize such a wonderful event. I am looking forward to create something like this again for next semester!! 

Friendsgiving in Tahoe!!

Winter has come!!

Thanksgiving is definitely the most American holiday out of all, and it is almost exclusively celebrated in the United States. However, when foreigns come to the U.S., having a traditional thanksgiving is a MUST-DO! For this reason, nine of my international friends and I decided to drive for nine hours and stay for the whole holiday time in an awesome Airbnb apartment. in Truckee, close to Lake Tahoe. We did so many fun things, including cooking an awesome traditional thanksgiving dinner and a ski trip!! Let me tell you about some of the best moments of these amazing four days. 

On Wednesday, after morning classes and a quick grocery shopping, we left for the longest drive I have ever done in my whole life. From Santa Barbara to Lake Tahoe it takes NINE hours!!! Isn’t it crazy?!? Well, as soon as we arrived to the apartment, we were so tired that we took a group picture and then we went straight to bed, in order to get a good rest before spending the whole day cooking for the thanksgiving dinner!!! Yaaay! 

Yoga challenge!!

On Thanksgiving day we woke up, had breakfast together, and then we started cooking the amazing turkey and the side dishes. Peeling potatoes, making gravy, preparing deviled eggs and so on! The turkey took 4 looooong hours to get ready, and we were all staring at the oven, starving and craving the awesome food… At a point the starvation drove us so crazy that we started to try to accomplish yoga challenges… OMG… sooooo hungry!!! Finally, as dinner time was approaching we set the table, put the food on it and started to sit down. We all, enjoyed the meal and, like a family, we talked and laughed while savoring a delicious dinner.

The following day, we went to check out the beautiful Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City. In comparison to Santa Barbara, it was sooooo freeeeezing… We walked on a pier an felt the fresh air gently touching our skin. It was col, but regenerating and refreshing, overwhelming. About an hour later we left to visit Tahoe City, a cute little town with lots of small shops and restaurants. After a day of walking in cold whether, we were absolutely ready to go back home for some board games and hot chocolate. 

Snow time!

Saturday was the ski day!!! I couldn’t wait for a day on the snow and for throwing myself down the slopes with a snowboard. We went to a ski resort called Sugar Bowl and spend the whole day there. My friend Brian had never skied before and so I thought him some basic techniques and he improved so quickly! It was so much fun to spend time together and snowboarding in slopes never seen before! All sore and tired, we drove back home and played some Jenga and other games all together!!! It was the last night that we could spend together and we got the most out of it. Like the previous nights, we stayed up till super late and partied almost till the following morning!

Sunday came and we had to drive another nine hours… instead of getting on the 101, we took the road that cuts through Yosemite National Park. We were surrounded by awesome panoramas and the time flew by… We got home at about 10.30pm, exhausted but more happy and satisfied than ever before. I loved it.

Is Climate Change Real?

Prof. McIntire and Prof. Green

This Wednesday November 16, 2016, the leadership of 2020 A Year Without War, of which I am a part of, organized a great and mind-blowing event: CLIMATE CHANGE: Are We Responsible? The debate was between the SBCC faculty members Professor Mark McIntire and Professor Adam Green. In the debate, Professor McIntire was supporting that climate change is not due to human activities, and Adam Green was instead supporting that climate change is real and it is greatly due to the human impact on the Earth’s environment. How interesting was it going to be? Would it be a great turnout? I’ll tell you soon everything about it.

OMG.. Too many people!

The event was initially held in room A-160. However, as soon as the time of the event was approaching, more than a hundred students that couldn’t fit in the room were waiting outside the class to hope for having a chance to get to see the debate… The event organizers and myself were starting to worry on how we could have fixed this situation. Who could have expected more than 200 people to attend?!? Fortunately, one of the faculty members managed to have permission to hold the event in a bigger room and a flow of hundreds of students slowly moved form one the room in the Administration building to another room on the third floor of the EBS building. Successfully, we moved all the people but still a lot of students were waiting outside, disappointed in not having the chance to assist to the debate.

22 people watching!

Here comes my part! As 2020 AYWW Public Relation Vice-President, I decided to stream the event live on our Facebook page!!! In this way the numerous people who were missing out on the event would have had the chance to check it out from the 20202 A Year Without War Club Facebook page. Setting up the phone in order to live-stream the event was a bit of a challenge, but in the end I managed with the help of a 2020 AYWW volunteer to stabilize my phone and stream 1 hour and 35 minute of debate! It was impressive to see that 22 people constantly for the whole length of the event watched the event while I was streaming it! Wooooww!!! Besides, I found out later that in another CC room about 20 other people were watching the event live from the page live-stream!! Isn’t it impressive?? I would have never imagined that the event would be this successful… Amazing.

Possible future Graphic Designer

First successful Poster!!!

I have had many doubts about my future career… I am always so interested in many different things and I find it so hard to focus on just one thing! I like to gain knowledge in every single field from astronomy to environmental studies, from film production to mathematics, and I just believe I will never stick to one thing in the future… I just love experimenting and learning new things!! Lately I had the chance to put my self up with Graphic Design… What an experience!! Let me tell you everything about right here in this post!

Since I started this busy Fall 2016 semester, I have found myself involved in numerous activities, programs and clubs, and most of them have as their main focus to gather up students and building a community at SBCC through the organization of events. Well, in most of the things I am involved with I am usually the Public Relation Vice-President or the Historian, and therefore I am responsible for the marketing of the events. How can you market an event if you don’t have a poster to advertise it? …yes, without having any knowledge about graphic design, I found myself to be the responsible person to create the posters of every event. OMG… A totally new world for me, and a fairly challenging one!

Upcoming event!!! Come to this!

The first time I had to create a poster was for the event Pondering Politics, organized by PTK. My first attempt was a total failure… We ended up contacting one of Michael’s friends, the PTK Leadership Vice-president, in order to have a decent poster done in time… So embarrassing. My second attempt was much more successful!! In order to make the poster for the Faculty Colloquium PTK event I sought help from the great SBCC graphic designer, Melanie Belanger, who gave me some essential advice in order to create a poster on point!! From that day, I have been much more comfortable in the creation of posters, and I feel like I could even pursue this career! It is so much fun!!! But I still think I’ll most likely stick with film production, though…

After making other posters for 2020 A Year Without War and Phi Theta Kappa, I won’t look at posters in the same way. They seem easy colored piece of papers with some pictures and lines of text on it, but they are much more than that! Balance, composition, details… Everything must be taken into account! I have never thought that graphic designers had to go through all that… Amazing profession!

Dorantes Memorial lecture with W. Kamau Bell

This Wednesday, at the SBCC Garvin Theater was held the Leonardo Dorantes Memorial Lecture which takes place every year in November on the SBCC campus. For who may not know, the Leonardo Dorantes Memorial Lecture was created in honor of a Mexican immigrant who attended Santa Barbara City College, and who “died in a race-related tragedy in November, 1990”. Since then, a lecture was established in order to spread awareness as concern racial and ethnic differences. The lecture brings always notable figures to speak and engage the SBCC faculty and students to heighten respect toward anybody regardless their ethnicity.

Kamau and I

This year, the guest speaker who was going to hold the lecture was the astonishing stand-up comic and television host W. Kamau Bell!!! Even if during the time of his lecture I had class, my amazing public speaking professor Cameron Sublett decided to cancel class and have us all attend the Memorial Lecture. I am soooooo glad he decided that because the speech Kamau delivered was simply breathtaking, eye opening and, after the outcome of the recent presidential election, tension reliving. Two hours flew by so quickly while he was braking down this though topic making everybody in the audience laugh but at the same time reflect. Besides, since W. Kamau Bell is an African-American, most of the people were expecting a lecture about the racism and disrespect toward black people. However, he was able to include in his speech an analysis of the discrimination of every ethnic minority, smoothly shifting from one to the other. It was unbelievable.

I believe that this lecture had a particular impact on me, and I think that what Kamau touched upon was mind-blowing and inspiring. In fact, as an Italian International student, I wasn’t aware of how big the ethnic and racial discriminations are in America. The highly varied American society is a unique environment that most European countries don't get to experience, and therefore the racism discussion rarely comes out. However, since I got here I have learned to appreciate this amazing variety, and I really hope that in the near future everybody will be able to recognize that the way we appear is not what describes us, and that what actually counts is what we think, how we act and who we are as an individual. Differences should be embraced and not penalized.

After the presidential election, a number of racial and discriminatory acts have already started to spread allover the nation and even here at SBCC. In fact, already two episodes of discriminatory acts have already taken place on campus. With this said, now it is time to come all together and show that being humans is learning to live with each other with love and respect. Please, let’s show everybody that ignorance is not the answer, but what we must embrace is a behaviors based on understanding and acceptance.

Here an important and inspirational letter send out to all the Ambassadors by our supervisor Shelby Arthur:

Lastly, I would like to add that we need to take action in order to produce real change. We need to act non-violently and raise awareness through pacific protests and anti-hate events. A great and inspiring event to which I just took part was the March in Santa Barbara against Trump! Thousands of people joined and pacifically marched down State Street chanting and spreading love and peace against the hate that exponentially increased after the election. The fight against homophobia, racism, sexism, the destruction of the environment hasn’t started with Trump election, but he gave us an even greater reason to make minorities have their voice heard. Let’s keep fighting for a better world.

CHANGE (with an exclamation mark)

Every year, the Honors Program decides a new topic for the honors classes offered and for the Honors Conference which takes place at the end of each spring semester. In particular, the honors topic of the school year 2016-17 is CHANGE! and I believe that with what has lately happened the topic chosen is the perfect one. In fact, after the election results I am foreshadowing great CHANGE to come!!!

The first big event of the Honors Program happened right this Monday and it was called Prof-Off. The event consisted in a discussion about change with Doctor Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar, Professor Mark Sanders, and Professor William Dinklage moderated by Professor Melanie Eckford-Prossor. The professors loved expressing their opinion on different topics concerning change and the student audience was really engaged and interested in the discussion. I really loved taking pictures of the event for Phi Theta Kappa, and I really enjoyed the conversation!

Sad and scared
about the outcome..

The day after the Prof-Off it was the fateful presidential election day… My friends and I were super interested in getting to know the outcome, and we decided to meet at a bar to follow the progress of the election night. We were almost sure that Hillary Clinton would be the without any doubt the new president elect, but we were TOTALLY wrong!! I’m glad I didn’t bet any money on the outcome of the election because since the beginning Donald Trump was winning… Well, our hope were up and we watched the election night till 2.00am in order to understand what kind of future we would have had to expect. Now Donald Trump is the American President Elect. As an international student, will I be able to remain in this country? Will I be able to start a career and become successful as the American Dream has promised? I have no answer to this questions right now… I just hope that love will triumph over hate, acceptance over discrimination, and unity over separation. 

Color Run, Always Fun!

Happy, Healthy, Hearty

This weekend I had the splendid opportunity to participate to my very first Color Run!! And guys, it wasn’t a normal color run, and let me give you three quick reasons why it wasn’t ordinary. First of all, it was in Los Angeles and right for this event some streets and stadiums of this super busy and crowded city were closed and decorated!! Second, it was specifically called The Color Run Night, and therefore, it took place at night, and the colors that were thrown on people would glow in the dark. How cool is that?! And lastly, it was with five very awesome people who made everything even more special!! Too cool to be real… But it happened!!

Saturday late afternoon, my friends and I left the lovely Santa Barbara and drove toward the super busy and trafficked Los Angeles. In the craziness of this town’s streets it took us there hours to arrive to the color run location, but it took us just a few seconds to get ready for the adventure! In fact, after a super quick check-in, getting a super cool t-shirt, and glowing tattoos we were ready to RUUUUUN!!!! Ok, I have to be honest, we ran just the first 600 feet because of excitement… when we burn off all the excitement, we pretty much walked, talked and enjoyed being around happy and healthy people!!! Don’t tell anybody, but even a mum with a stroller with two kids in it passed us, but you know, sweating it’s just so annoying!

And here we are!

With glowing lights on our heads and comfortable snickers, we walked through 5 different color stations with people throwing color powder onto us, and each one of them was marking a kilometer. Besides, there were two other stations in which there were soap bubbles with color powder in them that after being popped would color all of us!!! The vibes of this environment were making us feel relaxed, happy and all colorful! For the first time in my entire life I had the chance to feel like a unicorn and spread happiness and colors everywhere!! Yahoo!!! I simply loved this experience, and I can’t wait to attend another color run maybe in another American city!!!

School is important but…

Since I started blogging, I have mainly talked about how many things I am doing for school, how involved I am in school, and how important are the school activities I am participating into… Well, I believe that if now you think that my life is school, and that school is my life you have a total wrong picture of me!! I have also a normal social and healthy life outside classes and school related activities!

The Squad

First of all, I want to tell you everything about the past awesome Halloween weekend! This year, my friends Dianne, Brian and Alex and I decided to experience the American Halloween in a total different way. In fact, on Friday afternoon we all left to go to a Music Festival in San Bernardino called Escape! It took us about three hours by to get to the festival location, but as soon as we arrived we immediately felt the Halloween vibes! Everybody was dressed up in the most creative ways and the music festival venue was filled with  decorations! It was impressive how many people were there and were dancing non-stop! We danced all night, too, at while artists such as the Chainsmokers or Hardwell were playing!!! I think you have been living under a rock if you haven't heard the Chainsmokers’ big hit Closer on the radio. Well.. I am just obsessed with that song, and seeing the artist who created it playing it live was awesome!!!!

Scary Farbod...

The weekend adventures were not yet finished… In fact, after coming back to Santa Barbara from the music festival, I was already ready for some more music! After a day of laziness in my bed I wore again my super firefighter costume and I went to a party near to my house.. You know… Party… here in Santa Barbara it is very common to think that party must always turn out in an “Isla Vista Halloween Riot”… However, I am here to say that if you don’t want to go look for trouble, just don’t spend any Uber money to go to some random party in IV and keep it local! We all know that it is impossible to stop college students from partying, but it is possible to party in a safe and responsible way. For this reason, when I decided to go out Saturday night I called four of my friends and we all went to a party close by in which we knew it would have been fun but safe! So.. Stay away from Isla Vista during the festivities and enjoy partying with people that you know!

Film producer? Nah, maybe I should become an event planner

This week has been really stressful but at the same one of the most gratifying out of all the awesome weeks of this super dynamic Fall 2017 semester. In fact, this Wednesday and Thursday I had two events back to back of which I was one of the responsible organizers. First of all, on Wednesday took place the event called Make Art, No War by the 2020 A Year Without War SBCC Club of which I am part of the leadership, and in particular the Public Relation VP. Secondly, on Thursday the SBCC Ambassadors organized their first Pumpkin Carving Contest ever! My co-leader Tayfur and I were the ones who organized it with the great help of a super efficient Event Planning Ambassadors committee.

Happy Bloggers' Family :)

During the course of my life I have been attending event of every kind but I have never realized how much effort is required in order to make everything go the way it it supposed to be. This semester I had the opportunity to see things from a different perspective and I immediately realized that most of the times setting up an event requires so much energy, strong will and collaboration!! Surprisingly, the night of the event went so smoothly and you can’t imagine how how happy my co-leaders and I were! Amaaaaaaziiiiingggg! Anyways, the event took place at SOhO in Downtown Santa Barbara and it consisted of a series of performances of artists playing many different kinds of music. Out of the all the seven artists, four were my friends and it was so enjoyable to see how good they actually are!! My friend and other student blogger Cheyanne gave astonishing singing performances, my SBCC ambassador friend Gianluca played the guitar and sang with one of his good friends, 

Natsumi gave an amazing piano performance, and finally another student blogger, Cameron, had the honors of opening the night with his classic guitar’s lovely music. Along with these amazing performances, we sold 2020 AYWW merchandise, set up a 50/50 raffle and a silent auction! This fundraiser was not only successful but it was also super enjoyable because lots of my friends came to support our cause and spend a pleasant night with us!!

Enjoying the night!

On the following day, on the Maxwell overlook was supposed to take place the SBCC Ambassadors Pumpkin Carving Contest, but cold wind and rain started to bring our mood and hopes a little down… Well, after setting up everything in the open air, a super cold wind started to blow everything away including my enthusiasm (which is usually really hard to blow away)… However… backup plans are always the best option to keep everything rolling!! In a few seconds, really hardworking Ambassadors took down all the equipment, tables, pumpkins, food and drinks and moved everything to the East Campus cafeteria!! It all happened so quickly that I didn’t even realize that we were mastering every single problem that would come up!! After moving everything to the cafeteria, people started to show up, carve pumpkins, enjoy candies, warm popcorns and hot chocolate!!

Contest Winners!!! 

Happiness, kindness and serenity were all around us and it nothing could have disrupted our event. Even the thriller flashmob organized by World Dance for Humanity was a blast and a lot of ambassadors danced with the super cool zombies!! At the end of the night I was the one responsible to give out the three prices for the best pumpkins (practicing my poor public speaking skills…). After that, everybody went home tired but relaxed and satisfied. Haaaapppyyy Hallooooweeen!!!!