Surprise surprise! Guess who never actually said goodbye 🤪
It’s obviously been a while since I last wrote (and I’m two months late to writing this blog), but I’m happy to be back! The 104 days I spent away from Iowa City were certainly enjoyable, but part of me did miss the college life (and also writing these blogs), so I’m quite glad to be back again!
With that, here’s a short summary of my summer and my first few weeks of sophomore year!
Summer
Summer was pretty chill for me. I was mostly working my part-time job and doing volunteer service, but I did have some notable moments!
Saw my hometown friends again!
Went to an ATEEZ concert! Wooyoung ?
Travelling! We saw a bit of Europe!
Sophomore Year So Far
We’re about halfway into fall semester and let me start off by saying sophomore year has been quite a time so far. With academics, student orgs, and everything else I do, my day-to-day life is… hectic to say the least.
But between everything, I’ve been enjoying this year quite a lot! Being so far away from campus over the summer made me miss my friends and lifestyle a lot.
Here are some snapshots of this semester that I got 🙂
2023-24 Mayflower 4AB wing meetup 🙂
Went to St Louis for a weekend to attend UVSA-MW’s CoSR Project!
VSA!! First GBM of the school year <3
FSA first meeting! VSA came to support too 😀
My friends from Hallyu @ Iowa at the Student Engagement Fair!
That’s all for now! I’m excited for what the rest of this year has for me ✨
3 is one of my favorite numbers, but that has nothing to do with this blog other than the fact that March is the third month of the year. But even then, March usually isn’t my favorite month of the year.
But maybe this year could be different.
If you’ve read my last two blogs (which you totally should go read if you haven’t already), you’ve already seen some of the things I got to do, but there’s still so much I haven’t written about. This March has been quite eventful, to say the least, and as I am typing this, I still smile at the fun memories I now have. While this blog might not be as long as my other ones, this blog might just be one of my favorites I’ve written.
It’s sad to think about how there is probably only one more blog that I will be writing for my Asian series after this one, but that’s a problem for future me. But enough yapping, here’s my recap of the Asian-related activities I participated in this month.
To start the month off, I went to VSA’s Ice Skating Social at Coralville’s Coral Ridge Ice Rink. This social was also in collaboration with the Filipino Student Association (FSA; @uiowa.fsa on Instagram), and other student organizations like AASU and OASIS attended as well! This was arguably the event I had been looking forward to the most for VSA (maybe even more than Tết), and as a figure skater myself, I had a lot of fun showing my friends what I could do.
all the people in VSA who went ice skating!!
Next was another Study Social. This was meant to just be a chill time to hang out and/or study, but let’s be real, studying did not happen for most of us there. I got some work done, but maybe it was because I was so ready to go on spring break that I spent the rest of the time there socializing.
Surprise surprise, here’s anotherVIA-1 feature! I know, you’re probably sick of me talking about this one weekend for the third blog in a row, so I am once again just going to promote my other blog that I wrote specifically for VIA-1. It was truly a fantastic weekend and I can’t wait for the next UVSA-Midwest event I go to.
banquet!!
We also had ACCE Week! This was an entire week dedicated to spending time with our ACCE families. ACCE is basically VSA’s big/little program where we get put into groups to have deeper connections with! This week consisted of fun activities like baking and grabbing boba with our ACCEs.
one of the activities of ACCE week: grab boba with your ACCE!!
During ACCE Week, we also had our Squid Game GBM where we played fun games in teams to try and beat the other groups. We played games similar to the ones in the show, like Red Light Green Light and the Dalgona Challenge (this is the one where you cut a shape out of a hard sugar candy).
The first of two KCG meetings this month was Noraebang, where we all gathered to sing songs together. We sang old and new songs, popular hits and smaller artists’ music, and even some songs in other languages too.
2NE1 was an era 🙁
The other KCG meeting I went to was their Independence Movement Day meeting. Here we learned a bit of the history of the March 1st Movement in Korea, drew our own Korean flags, as well as recited the Korean national anthem. It was a rather chill but educational meeting, and I left being a little more educated than I was.
Organisation for the Active Support of International Students
Last but not least was OASIS’s Multicultural Formal. I was performing with KCG and Hallyu (@hallyuatiowa on Instagram) so most of my time at the formal was spent preparing to be on stage. We got to eat some cultural food and watch other groups perform as well. Once the show was done, I spent the rest of the night talking to friends and taking pictures with them.
In the midst of the midterm season, spring break has dawned on us, and while I try to convince myself to start studying for an upcoming Human Anatomy exam I have, I—as noted in the title—have been busy enjoying my time in New York City.
My previous blog featured a somewhat extensive summary of the beginning of my spring break. But while VIA-1 was an absolute blast, there is still an entire week of content that I can write (and post) about.
Granted, I’ve been to Manhattan a few times in the past, so this blog is mostly going to be about food and less about touristy things to do in NYC. But regardless, here’s a short recap of my 2024 spring break.
VIA-1
My spring break started off with a weekend spent at Purdue University for a conference called VIA-1, which was hosted by UVSA-Midwest. I’ve already written a blog about this event, so I won’t go too in-depth with it here. But in case you haven’t already read it (which you absolutely should), here’s an even shorter recap of it.
Essentially, VIA-1 consisted of a lot of family bonding activities, as well as some individual programming workshops to help us grow as people and leaders. There were performances, The three days were filled with a lot of laughter and smiles, and I walked away with so many new friends and countless memories.
an amazing parasol dance by VSAM at the culture show!
New York City
After VIA-1, my roommates drove me to O’Hare so I could catch my flight to New York, where I got to the hotel close to midnight and met up with my mom.
As I mentioned earlier, food is going to be the main thing this blog will focus on. And boy oh boy, I definitely have enough content for this section. But I still got to do some sightseeing in NYC, and we did drive over to New Jersey for a day, so there will still be other bits in here.
Food
We surprisingly ate a lot of Asian food over break, and here are some of my favorite meals (click on the pictures to visit their websites!):
beef curry udon and beef kakitama udon at udon lab in Koreatown!high tea at the Blue Box Cafe!take out from tim ho wan 🙂soufflé pancakes at flipper’s!
Sightseeing
Though we’ve been to NYC quite a few times, we still did some sightseeing around the city. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the places we went to!
can’t go to nyc without visiting times square :3a side view of little island! yes that is actually the name.one of the exhibitions in mercer labsa view from the brooklyn bridgelooking down at nyc at night from the 60th floor of a building
New Jersey
For the last day we were in NYC, we rented a car and drove over to New Jersey to spend the day there. We had brunch and dinner at Fort Lee, then spent a few hours in the American Dream before we went on a drive to go sightseeing again.
brunch at caffe bene!nickelodeon universe in the american dream mall!late lunch at mitsuwa’s food court!dinner at jumong pocha in fort lee
Chicago and the Drive Back to Iowa City
To end off the break, we flew to Chicago to start our drive back to Iowa City. We stopped by Gaijin to grab lunch before we started the 3-hour car ride. Gaijin specialises in Japanese food, especially okonomiyaki which is by far the best we’ve had in the entire country so far. After finishing 2 okonomiyakis, we realized we wouldn’t be hungry enough for dinner later, so we decided to eat dessert as well.
okonomiyakis at gaijindonuts as dessert 🙂
Originally, we had planned to stay in Chicago a bit longer to eat dinner as well, but because the food at Gaijin was so filling, we decided to head back earlier, which basically ended my spring break there!
Extra Photos from my Camera
I took over 400 photos with my camera during spring break, and it would be a bit of a waste to not show any of them, so along with some photos already in this post, here is an extra section for photos I took with my camera that I especially like.
Spring break has started, and while I am currently writing this in a hotel room in New York, I had the opportunity to attend an amazing event this past weekend.
UVSA-Midwest’s 21st Annual VIA-1 Conference.
VIA-1 (Vietnamese Interacting As 1) is a 3-day event hosted by UVSA-Midwest, and this year it was held at Purdue University. This flagship event is a place to “develop personal and professional skills and give back to the Vietnamese community” (you can read more about it on this page).
I initially had planned to include this event in my spring break blog, but after experiencing this weekend, I realized that this alone would suffice for a decent-length blog (it was that fun). With that, here’s my best attempt at putting this weekend into words.
I would like to thank UVSA-Midwest and all the staff for hosting such a wonderful conference. It was truly amazing and I am honored to have been able to attend. You can check out their website, their Instagram, as well as their Linktree.
Day 1
My roommates and I started our 5-hour drive to Purdue at 8:30am on Friday morning, and I slept twice during the ride (I did all my packing the night before so I slept at 3 ?).
When we got to Lafayette, we first grabbed food at a Korean restaurant not too far from our hotel. After the much-needed meal and stretch break, we checked in at our hotel and dropped our stuff off in our room (long story short, the hotel experience could definitely be better. iykyk). Once we put our bags in our room, we headed to Purdue’s campus to start the first day of VIA-1.
After parking the car and checking in to VIA-1, I met my family leader Belle, and went up to a room to wait for the rest of the group. We were just chilling out and getting to know each other while eating dinner before we went to the auditorium for the Welcome Ceremony and Culture Show.
The Welcome Ceremony consisted of event introductions/summaries, as well as staff committee introductions (thank you to everyone who worked on this amazing event). The Culture Show was where the hype was really at. So many spectacular performances from different schools that ranged from parasol dancing to solo singing had everyone cheering and clapping (my eyes were glued to the stage the whole time).
performance by Purdue’s ADVNT!
After the Culture Show, we went upstairs to start the Family Games segment. We first made our group banner and showed off our group chant, and then we started to do some staff challenges. Some of the challenges were quite funny, like doing a TikTok dance together or trying to see who could do more push-ups. We finished off with making a jar of paper stars that we agreed to open a year later (can’t wait!!!)
We ended the day with the Night Market, where the participating schools got to sell their merchandise and promote their own VSA’s. I didn’t end up buying anything, although some of the shirts were really cute (UW-Madison I’m looking at you). When we were feeling tired enough, we went back to the car and drove back to rest for the night.
night market moment
Day 2
The second day started off bright (it was cloudy so not really) and early at the auditorium with the Opening Ceremony, where we had some morning energizing activities, as well as a segment with Keynote Speaker Linh Tran (and a few minutes at the end for questions). We then had our two programming sessions to go to our assigned workshops (I had “Leaps of Faith” and “Rediscovering Roots”). After the workshops, we had about an hour for lunch and also headshots if we signed up for them (I did, so I, along with some other friends, walked across the buildings to get headshots, just to walk back again to have lunch). Once lunch was over, we had a State Caucus with our state’s VSA’s where we discussed certain topics about our own local VSA and as an entire state.
Family Games were up next again, and there were four rooms of games this time. We rotated through the games and went up against different families (our family didn’t win anything, but it’s the spirit that counts). My favorite would probably be the game that had us make shapes with rubber bands. Once family games ended (and after my friend Joy and I made a quick trip to the recuperation station), some of us headed back to the auditorium for Eboard Elections; they take place every two years, so I felt a bit lucky that I got to participate in elections at my first VIA-1. After the last votes were submitted, we ended with a few Ending Remarks and went back to our hotels to get ready for the Banquet.
family games, featuring a catwalk ending pose
The banquet was a very chill time. We got to sit down and enjoy some food while we listened to some thank-you remarks, as well as some VSA spotlights (UIowa got an award for being the Tier 2 Miracle Minute Winner!). Aside from speeches, we took a bunch of photos with our families, states, and just other friends we knew. There was also an opening performance by Hieu Nguyen and a headliner performance by Hien!
After the Banquet, we headed back to the hotel to wind down. There was technically stuff to do late at night like Tâm Sự, but I was feeling pretty drained by then, so I just stayed in our room and went to sleep early.
Day 3
We’re already on the last day of the weekend, and it has felt way too fast by now. After we checked out of the hotel and threw our bags into the car trunk, we drove back to campus for the Closing Ceremony and the last few activities of the conference.
Closing Ceremony and Closing Activities were honestly more sentimental than I had expected. Once again, we had the last bit of thank-you speeches from the staff committees, but we also had appreciation activities for our family members and our friends. We wrote words of affirmation on paper stars to give to our family members (mine were really cute, I love you my fellow Greek Gods ?), and we also did an activity where we tapped anyone who we thought applied to the given prompt (we were told to close our eyes so we didn’t know who tapped us). After the tapping and feeling sappy, we ended the conference with a Group Picture and a Regional Chant.
writing cute notes to fellow greek gods <3
VIA-1 was a magical experience and I loved every second of it. I’d like to give a shoutout to my amazing Greek Gods family for being the best group of people I could have spent my very first VIA-1 with; Belle (actual best FL ever), Joy, Evelyn, Erin, Kollyn, Melody, Jason, Max, Alan, Alex, and Shon: thank you guys so much. Thank you to my roommates Ruthanne (respect for being a driver), Denise, and Jennie for taking me in as the fourth roommate of the group. Thank you to all the other friends I made and met through these 3 days too.
we are Greek gods, and we’re above you all ‼️‼️???️?️
I’d also like to thank UVSA-Midwest again for this wonderful conference. I’ve gained so much from it and I would not trade anything for this experience.
Thank you to the UIowa VSA for being the main reason I even got to go to VIA-1. This organization has introduced me to so much these past months and I am forever grateful.
Shameless plug: go watch this Instagram reel I made of the weekend, as well as this post I made with more photos of the conference!
Three months later, I finally get to continue with the series I’ve somehow still managed to keep going.
One of the things I missed most during winter break was doing stuff around campus to be able to write these blogs. Sure, Seattle’s Asian population is way bigger compared to Iowa City’s, but there’s something special about writing stuff about your identity group when it’s so small. It makes me proud to be able to have a platform to talk about my background and people like me.
If you haven’t figured it out already (or if this is the first of my blogs you’re reading), I’m very passionate about representing minority groups, especially those that I am part of.
But enough blabbering here’s what I have done since the semester started!
(I’m combining January and February together, because I went to a total of 5 events in January, and that would not make a long enough blog by my standards, so I apologize in advance for the length of this blog.)
The very first event I went to for this semester (I missed the first week of activities because the snowstorm got me stuck at home) was KCG’s First Meeting. Since I started taking Korean this semester, I’ve been going to KCG every week to hang out with others learning Korean and further learning about Korean (oh, and also for the extra credit going to my Korean class’s grade). This event was overall quite chill since we were all still getting settled into our school schedules. We wrote questions and answers about ourselves on some paper to help us introduce ourselves.
sentence template featuring KCG’s president yunseo 🙂 (go follow her @k7yun on insta)
The week after, we came back to play some Charades. We were split into two teams and had to write words for the other team to act and guess. We weren’t given much limits on the words we could or could not write, so my team (go team 미친사람들!!) came up with some funny ones (I distinctly remember us writing “cow” and “uncle” down, because how are you supposed to act out an uncle??). The scores were pretty close for most of the game, but by the end, our team barely won by two points.
team 미친사람들 deciding on words to write for the other team >:)
February
The first KCG meeting in February was to play Telephone. We were put into groups of 5 based on proficiency level and had to describe a word in Korean to the person in front of us. It was funny watching the other groups try to describe the words, and the times it was successful felt very satisfying, even as the audience. My group, however, didn’t exactly have the best description, but I also didn’t know the vocabulary they used, so I couldn’t really figure out how they were trying to describe the word “라면” (ramen).
waiting to play telephone like:
On Valentine’s Day, you wouldn’t believe it, but our meeting was about making Valentine’s Day cards for each other. There was a table at the front of the room with colored paper on it, and we got to make our own cards to give each other/others we knew. I decided to make 3 cards—one for someone else in KCG, and two more for my friends in Mayflower. The meeting in general was pretty casual; we listened to music while writing cute sentences in Korean for our friends.
all the cards that KCG friends made <3
Next was the Movie Night meeting. There isn’t much to write about this meeting, except that we watched an episode of Street Food on Netflix. Despite it being a Wednesday, I was still really tired from the past weekend, so I ended up drifting in and out of sleep while the episode played. The food shown all looked really good though.
The last KCG meeting of the month was to play Mafia. I was pretty excited to play since it’s one of my favorite group games (except for when I’m the mafia lol), and it’s been a good while—almost 3 years—since I last played. This time, though, we had a few additions to the game. We had to come up with a storyline for how the mafia came to be (to summarise what we came up with, it’s the 1920s in Texas, and a mafia group called Big Oil is murdering people because they are out of canola oil. Do whatever you want with that), and also incorporate two Korean words into our cause of death if we were killed during the night (I made it to the end surprisingly). The game was very chaotic and did not involve as much accusing as there should have been, but it was still very fun regardless. In the end, the mafia won (surprise surprise) with all 3 members still alive.
the girlies behind the story of Big Oil and the search for canola oil ?
If you’ve read my previous blogs in this series, you’d know that VSA is without a doubt the student org that I’m most active. I’ve gone to almost every VSA event (it’s giving diehard, I know), and it’s the section of these blogs that’s always the longest.
I did get to go to the next event, which was a Study Social. Honestly, the study social was more of a typical hangout rather than a dedicated time to study. I didn’t have much homework to do (13 credits is amazing), so when I was done, I spent the rest of the time there talking to others who were also not really doing much studying. Sometime during the social, I was also interviewed for a VSA video that would be played at Tết, and I got a little nervous when I was asked about a hot take on VSA (I ended up blanking on it ?).
February
February with VSA started off with their Valentine’s Day GBM. When we first got to the CIAE, we were greeted with a bunch of Crush soda cans on the big table for people who got sent a “crush” (you can thank the co-CPP duo for that). I was surprised when I was handed one, but I smiled when I realized that my VSA Anh Jaden (much love to my biggie) was the one to gift it to me. This GBM was… a bit silly (in a good way) if you asked me. We did some “speed dating” where we discussed some questions with different people, and we ended the GBM with a game of Kahoot that involved questions about love and also the co-CPP duo (the borderline self-incriminating questions were funny though).
alexa, play “crush” by seventeen ?
On a Friday night, VSA drove to Colonial Lanes to do some bowling for our Bowling Social (an amazing idea by the VSA interns). There were a lot of people who came with VSA, so we split ourselves into three games and just had fun. I hadn’t gone bowling in almost two years, so it was really funny trying to see how good (or bad) I was at bowling. The one downside to this social was that my right thumb nail kept breaking, and by the end of the night, it was basically half the length than it was 2 hours ago. Otherwise, watching others get strikes and spares (some even multiple times because they’re built differently *looking at Ana, Will, and Kyra*) and also gutters got the mood very energetic, which left me exhausted but content when we were driving back.
picking nicknames for our lanes
I’m gonna keep this one short because the next bit will definitely make up for this one, but the next VSA event was the Tết Workshop GBM. Here, we learned a bit about the Lunar New Year in Vietnam, how the Vietnamese culture celebrates it, and also bits of the performances for the actual Tết show. I was pleasantly surprised with just how similar Vietnamese culture was to Chinese culture since most of the celebration was almost the exact same as what I remember in my childhood.
learning a bit of fan dance at the workshop (we love you Savannah)
Alright, here’s the big one. The one that I, and also most of the rest of VSA, have been looking forward to for a while. The Tết Lunar New Year Celebration. For weeks leading up to this, I was asked if I wanted to be part of any performances for the show, but me being a first-time Tết experiencer (I didn’t know of Tết even in Seattle), I wanted to use this as an opportunity to fully experience just how extravagant the show could be.
I won’t talk much about the pre-show bit, but essentially it was just me getting ready and doing my makeup (and also getting worried the áo dài I rented would look a bit odd), going through how to check people into the show, and panicking because the check-in station always seemed to have something off. But once check-in was done, I quickly rushed inside to my table where my friend had been waiting for me since before the show started.
The show itself was a masterpiece, which still baffles me that it was organized by the very organization that I go to every week. The dances were all so mesmerizing (personally choreographed by the students as well), the games were fun and interactive, and the food was also not bad. Personally, my favorite parts were the Girls’ Pop Dance and also ISU’s Co-Ed Fan Dance (yes, even ISU’s VSA came to celebrate with us). Hearing the cheers and whistles from other VSA friends was also exhilarating, because the people on the stage are all people that I know, and they all looked like they were having so much fun.
By the last 30 minutes, I was already drained. My eyes were starting to struggle to stay open, but I still had to get through the Fashion Show that I actually volunteered to be part of. I had missed the rehearsal earlier, but my lovely partner and friend Kevy (who was also one of the Viet emcees during the show) quickly ran me through how to walk and what we were doing. I was getting really antsy by the time there were only two people ahead of me, but when I stepped onto the stage, I heard my friends cheering, relaxed my nerves, and just tried to enjoy the walk.
When the show was wrapping up, we spent a lot of time getting pictures with everyone and wishing Jaden a happy birthday (love love love <3). There were quite a few goofy moments that made for quality pictures, but we were beginning to funnel out of the IMU and call it a successful night.
shoutout to ISU for coming to celebrate with us 🙂 (@isuvsa on insta)
The event after Tết was the Chè Thái Social. This was a great breather socially to recover from Tết and also hang out with friends while enjoying some chè thái (the best way I can simply describe it is a Vietnamese dessert cocktail). I was surprised at how similar chè thái was to a dessert I grew up eating called 涼粉, which is basically a grass jelly dessert that can be enjoyed by itself or with other toppings. We basically just spent this social eating chè thái, playing some games, and laughing with friends.
chè thái was good :3
The very last event of February was VSA’s PJ Party GBM. This GBM was mainly to give ourselves a break and have some fun while midterms are around, and contrary to the name, I showed up in my regular clothes because I don’t wear my inside clothes outside ?. After learning about mental health in Vietnam and the stigma around it (oh and also smelling some dau xanh), we were divided into small groups to do some activities. There were four stations: Just Dance (yes, that game), board/card games, a puzzle, and words of affirmation. After the GBM, my friends and I went to grab food from Chipotle downstairs and talked a bit more while we ate. Then I went to stop by The Bếp to write this blog (and not get boba, actually:D), and also briefly hang out with some VSA friends before going back to my dorm.
*i apologise for the lack of pictures for Hallyu’s events ?*
January
Last semester, I found out about Hallyu just a bit too late, so I didn’t get to perform with them in the showcase.
This semester, however, I’ve been keeping an eye on any events that Hallyu is hosting.
The first Hallyu event I went to this semester was their First Meeting. This meeting was mostly just introductions and getting to know the dance leaders and how Hallyu will work for the semester. After the main business was out of the way, we were told that we still had the room for another hour, so the people who stayed back decided to play some K-Pop games, like “Guess the song” and “Save one, drop one song”.
February
The next Hallyu event I went to was the Random Dance. I had dance practice with my group during the first hour of the random dance, so unfortunately we only got to join for the later half. I had always wanted to be part of a random dance session like how the YouTube videos showed, but as soon as I stepped into the room, I immediately got shy and stood further back in the room. Eventually, “Sugar Rush Ride” by TXT came on, and seeing as how no one really wanted to dance to it, I decided to move to the center of the room and do the best I could with what I remembered of the chorus. After that song, I started to feel more confident and joined in more often for the later songs. The vibes were really nice, and everyone was so supportive of each other that I almost couldn’t feel bad about myself.
Unfortunately, I haven’t gone to as many FSA events as I had hoped to, but the one that I did make it to was their Hot Pot GBM. After charades with KCG, I stopped by the library where I ran into some friends and also got some work done. When it was time, my friends who were also going to FSA all headed to the APACC, and we were greeted with the lovely smell of hot pot broth. Being their first GBM of the semester, most of the time was spent doing introductions and meeting new people, and also eating hot pot (which was amazing btw).
Nachte Raho was definitely one of the best parts of February, just behind the Tết Celebration. I honestly don’t even know if my summary can do it justice because that’s how good it was. 10 Indian dance teams from around the nation came to Hancher to participate in this competition, and as first-time Nachte Raho experiencers, my friend and I were absolutely blown away. The fusion dances were all so upbeat and hype, and it made me feel a bit emotional seeing so many students with smiles on their faces while they did what they loved. The classical dances told stories so well through their movements, and I felt literal chills down my spine every time we would get to a slower part in the choreographies. After it ended, my friend and I walked back to Mayflower, and we were both still shaking with excitement (and also maybe from the cold) that had run through our bodies for the past 3 hours.
February gave us the reboot of the MNA. On a Monday night, I made my way from my dorm to the College of Nursing to go to the first GBM, the Introductory and Hangout. This GBM, as the name suggests, was mostly for introductions and hanging out with other MNA members. I spent most of the time with my friends (2 of them are on e-board too!), and it was nice to get to know some others too! There were also a bunch of cookies we could eat, and I may have snagged 3 of them 🙂
MNA’s e-board for this semester!
Shameless plug here: check out my Instagram @miatwt where I post about my college life and what I do on campus through story updates!
One of the things I looked forward to most about starting college was what living in a dorm would be like.
Growing up, I’ve really only lived with my family. Though we’ve moved around a bit, I’ve always had people I know around me. So, coming to Iowa for college was… definitely a change for me.
Living in Mayflower has certainly been quite the experience, and I’m sad that it might possibly not be in use in the future anymore, so here are some bits of my dorm life in Mayflower.
I started this blog earlier this month, and it was announced that Mayflower will be in use next year!
The Mayflower Experience™
Before I get to my personal dorm experience, allow me to list out some of the reasons why Mayflower is still worth picking despite what everyone else says about it.
You only have one roommate, which means more space in the room compared to living in a triple or quad. Don’t worry, you still have suitemates that live in the other room connected to your amenities.
You get your own bathroom (that you still share with your suitemates). No need to worry about carrying your shower caddy while walking down the hall to use the communal bathroom!
You get a kitchen! This is a major plus especially if you enjoy cooking. You’re not always limited to eating dining hall food for all three meals (and yes, we have our own C-store downstairs).
You have a heater/AC in your room! If I remember correctly, most of the other dorms only have one function, so you can stay in your dorm without ever feeling too hot or cold.
Mayflower has its own gym! Although it’s small and lacks certain equipment, it’s still a convenient spot to get a workout in when you don’t want to have to wait for a bus to come by to go to the rec.
There’s a computer room here! We even have our own printer here if you ever need to print your notes or anything else (use printing.its.uiowa.edu to upload and print your documents).
First Semester
I’ll admit, my first-semester dorm-wise wasn’t the brightest. My roommate and I weren’t exactly the most compatible (if you know me you would absolutely know this ?) and there were also a handful of misunderstandings between each other. For example, she would have people over when I wasn’t comfortable, and I in turn also got a bit passive-aggressive to her. But after we solved our misunderstandings, things got a lot better between us. I had the dorm to myself a lot toward the end of the semester because my roommate stayed at her boyfriend’s place a lot, and the air also no longer tense between us.
Mayflower also gave me some of the closest friends I have on campus. Although I’m not usually a people person, the friends I’ve met at Mayflower are people I feel comfortable being around. We’ve had movie nights, girls’ nights, and also emotional support nights together, and I’m glad to have these friends to spend them with. We even had a friendsgiving together, which was the first time I’ve done anything for Thanksgiving!
Mayflower also occasionally has events that Mayco hosts. Although my luck (and memory, but we don’t talk about that) for these isn’t the best, every once in a while, there’s a table by the front entrance with stuff for the event. Last semester there was a friendship bracelet event, and so far, this semester we’ve seen a hot cocoa night too 🙂
some of the food my friends and I made for friendsgiving <3
Second Semester
This semester so far has been a great time, and great might even be to light of a word. My roommate from last semester graduated, so when I got the email over winter break that listed my roommate options for this semester, my family and I immediately decided that buying out the room for myself would be the best thing for me.
And boy has it been good.
I don’t mean to brag (maybe I do just a bit) but having the room to myself is so comfy. An entire space for myself only, more room for my stuff, and even an extra bed and table (my room’s layout is still a double)??? I’ve been living peacefully these past six weeks. I even got the other bed lowered so I can use it as a couch or guest bed when people come over!
Aside from my quality of life improving drastically, there isn’t much else different about living in Mayflower. It’s still great having my own kitchen and bathroom and it’s still just as far away from the main campus.
Oh, right! Over winter break, maintenance was done throughout the dorm, and this semester we don’t have to pay for laundry! I originally thought that this would be the case for every dorm, but my friends have told me that it’s reversed for them, so they now have to pay for laundry when they didn’t have to last semester (it’s about $1.50 per load for both washer and dryer), so I guess that’s a bonus 🙂
how part of my room looks currently 🙂
Overall, I personally love living in Mayflower. It was even my first choice when I was picking my dorm last spring. Mayflower suits my lifestyle a lot, and I love having my own amenities in my room already. I don’t think I can ever live in another dorm now that I’ve experienced the Mayflower life (unless I get chosen as RA, then maybe). I’ve even picked a single in Mayflower already for next year!
If you’re considering living in Mayflower, I’d say go for it. It’s a nice environment to live in, and even if you don’t like it, you can always request a room change. But for now, I believe in the Mayflower supremacy <3
The past winter break was the most I had looked forward to something in a while.
If you had heard me any day last semester, you probably would have heard me saying something along the lines of how excited I was to go home. My borderline complaining only got worse as the semester went on, especially when Thanksgiving break hit and basically everyone went home.
So, when I finished my last work shift of the semester on Wednesday of finals week (and also when my mom moved my flight earlier), I was more than eager to pack my bags to go home the next day.
Going back to Seattle was more relaxing than I thought. Throughout the 7 hours it took to get back, I wasn’t thinking about anything difficult or stressful; I put my earbuds in and zoned out while thinking about how much fun I had last semester, as well as how much fun I was about to have over break.
And I did in fact have a lot of fun.
I’m not about to write a diary-esque blog recapping everything that happened over the month I was home. Instead, here are some of the highlights of my winter break.
Oh, by the way, check out this reel I edited with some parts of my winter break (●’◡’●)
Friends
Pretty soon after I got back home, my friends and I tried arranging a meet-up day. The conversation was a little messy, but at some point, I mentioned that I had plans to pay our dance teacher a visit, to which my friends agreed. Visiting was a lot of fun; we got to sit at the front of the class and watch all the younger students work hard, and we even got to help the little kids with their stretching! We, however, did not plan out what we were going to do for the rest of the day, so when dance class ended, we stood in the hallway for 5 minutes trying to come up with what to do next, to which we decided to grab boba first. While enjoying our drinks, we settled on going over to one of our houses to play some games (especially Overcooked, because we don’t value our friendship enough to not want to play that game ❤️).
happy lemon with the gang 🙂
One of my favorite things I did over break was when I hung out with my best friend Tiffany. We met up at the mall to first grab boba and exchange gifts. After walking around the mall for a bit, we went for the main event of the day: ice skating. We had been talking about skating together for almost four years by that point, but it never happened because our schedules almost never aligned. I was especially excited about this since I love taking my friends skating and dragging them all across the ice. Even in the crowded public session, we still had a lot of fun; I pulled her through the people and helped her skate away from the wall, and we took lots of cute pictures together. After skating, we went to grab dinner together, and I got to introduce her to Din Tai Fung, which is one of my favorite restaurants in our area. We ended the day with me driving her home while we listened to her playlist.
skating with Tiffany ?
In January, Ana, one of my friends here at the University of Iowa landed in Seattle. She stayed over at her friend’s place, but I got to spend some time with them while she was in town. We grabbed dinner together on the day she flew in, but it was the next time we were together that was better. I got to take the two of them ice skating at my old rink, and it was so fun seeing them dart around the rink (and also attempting some tricks, but I made sure no one got hurt). After ice skating, we went to get some boba at a store that I used to visit a lot (so much that I had a free drink I could redeem), where we ordered some drinks and a bubble waffle. We stayed there for a bit until we eventually decided to go to a shopping mall downtown, and there we walked around and shopped for a bit (the main spot was Uniqlo, which I cannot even say is a bad choice). At around 5:30pm, we went to Din Tai Fung to have dinner, where we probably ordered too much for three people who just had boba a little over an hour ago (Din Tai Fung is still great though). After we finally finished our food (I packed a bit of my red bean sticky rice to go), we walked around the mall for another hour before finally going home.
skating with Ana ?
Canada
A really neat thing about being in Seattle is that it only takes a little more than 2 hours to drive to Canada. Yes, you read that right. It takes longer to drive to Oregon than it does to Canada. We also don’t really celebrate Christmas, and Christmas also means most things are closed, except for Asian places. And luckily, Vancouver has plenty of Asian places to go to. So, my family decided to spend the Christmas weekend in Vancouver.
We spent most of the trip in the Vancouver area, especially in Richmond where we knew all the good food was. The first thing we did after we crossed the border and made our way along Highway 99 and into Richmond, we went to Chef Tony Seafood Restaurant for lunch. We ordered a lot of dim sum, and everything was so good I was smiling the whole time I was eating. After lunch, we went to check into the hotel before we went to the Metropolis at Metrotown in Burnaby to walk around for a bit. We didn’t really do much apart from try on stuff at Uniqlo, look around in Daiso, and take some quick glances at T&T (we will be back later), so when we felt like we’d looked around enough, we got two cups of boba and left to go eat dinner at Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant back in Vancouver. There we ordered a plate of lobster in soup (上湯龍蝦), steamed fish (清蒸石斑), salt and pepper steak (椒鹽肉排), and braised sprouts with crab (蟹肉扒豆苗) (I apologize if the translations are off), and we were so stuffed from lunch that we were at the restaurant for almost 2 hours. After dinner, we went back to the hotel and called it a day.
dim sum at Chef Tony’s 🙂pork, lobster, and fish at Neptune Palace ?
On Christmas Eve, we drove up to Whistler as a day trip. It had been a few years since we last went, so it was nice to see how things changed or stayed the same. After spending about 10 minutes looking for parking, and another 5 paying for said parking, we went to eat at Joe Fortes, a restaurant that we used to eat at almost every time we drove up to Canada. The lunch menu didn’t have as many of the dishes we usually ordered, but we mostly ate at Joe Fortes for dinner anyway. The dishes we ended up ordering were all really delicious, and everything was going well until some red sauce got on my sister’s white bag and my white earmuffs. Long story short, the waitress spent almost 10 minutes trying to wipe the sauce and stain off the bag (my earmuffs were more than a decade old, so I didn’t really mind). We ended up getting a free pavlova as dessert to finish off our meal. After Joe Fortes, we walked around the village and went into a few stores (with the goal of finding a new pair of earmuffs but that wasn’t that important at that moment). When we couldn’t find any earmuffs and felt like we had walked enough, we went back to our car and left for the 2-hour drive back to Vancouver. Along the way back, we decided to stop by one of the waterfalls along the highway, so we went off the highway to drive to the waterfall. Unfortunately, the slope to the waterfall was snowy and icy, so my sister and I had to walk down to the viewpoint, where there was a group of people blocking the best angle for photos, and walk back up to the car. After the waterfall, we stopped by Lansdowne Centre in Richmond to eat dinner before heading back to the hotel and got ready for bed since we were leaving the next day.
the food we ate at Joe Fortes ??
On Christmas day, we had breakfast at Lido Restaurant in Richmond, where we had some great Hong Kong-style breakfast. Lido is a restaurant we eat at basically every time we’re in the Richmond area, and it felt really nice having some amazing pineapple buns and egg tarts after a while. After breakfast, we went back to Burnaby’s T&T (I told you we would be back) to do some shopping so we could bring stuff back home (and for me to get stuff I wanted to bring back to my dorm). We initially couldn’t figure out how to get into T&T, because the rest of the mall was closed for Christmas, but when we started to follow some cars that seemed to have the same goal as us, we soon realized that we had to go through a different entrance to get to the T&T-exclusive side of the mall. After almost an hour of shopping, we decided to have lunch before we drove back home, so we drove to another Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant that was located in Brentwood. Why the encore? When we finished dinner the other day, my sister happened to spot a cute little duck-shaped mango pudding dessert at the table next to ours, and she went on for about 5 minutes about wanting to eat said pudding. We ended up ordering more dim sum—some of which were animal-shaped—and of course, the duck-shaped mango pudding. After a heavy lunch that we had to pack some to go, we finally wrapped up our trip and began the drive back home.
breakfast at Lido (bomb buns and tarts fr)dim sum at Neptune palace (look at the lil animals!!!)
Food
Over break, I was fortunate to be able to eat a lot of good food, so here are some of my favorites that weren’t already mentioned earlier!
青紅蘿蔔湯 (carrot soup) that my mom made when I first got back <3one of my favorites back home, Boiling Point (“mini wok on a box”!)Korean food at a Korean-owned restaurant ??hot pot at home to welcome 2024 🙂okonomiyaki made by me!
Studying is hard. That’s a fact for a lot of us. Sometimes you can stare at your notes for hours straight and still not understand a single thing you wrote. Sometimes you think you understand something, but you don’t know if you have things right because you might be overthinking. Sometimes you don’t even know what you do or don’t get. School is tough, and at some point, you need a way out.
Instead of sitting at your table with your books and notes splayed out agonizing over your inevitable doom that is your unit exam, you should see how you can get yourself to understand the material. And a lot of the time, you can’t do this by yourself.
With finals around the corner, having good and healthy study habits and tips is even more important than before. So here are some ways to improve your studying for finals (and also future exams).
Academic Resources
Staring at the same page for 2 hours straight is not going to get you anywhere if you don’t even understand what is on that page. Here are some resources that could help you get out of your stuck study spot:
Office hours: If your professors/TAs have office hours available, use them! They’re usually either posted on the home page of your class on ICON/Canvas or somewhere in the class syllabus. Office hours are a great way to ask questions to your teachers one-on-one. Typically, if you can’t make it to your teacher’s office hours, they give you the option to set up an appointment with them outside of the designated times, whether in-person or online. Personally, I’ve used office hours a lot for my biology class, especially when exams are near, and I feel like I don’t know if I’m studying the right material.
Writing Center: If you have a paper to write and you need help at all, or if you just want someone to read it over, you can make appointments or submit your draft online for review. Writing Center services are free!
Tutor Iowa: Need help in a specific class? Search for your class here, then make an appointment with one of the student tutors on campus! You do need to pay a fee for tutors, however, rates are different for each tutor.
Supplemental Instruction (SI): SI is a free group study session led by an SI leader. SI is only available to certain courses each semester, so check to see if your class is listed.
Note: SI experiences are different for everyone. I’ve asked a few students what their experiences with SI was like, and while some students say it was really helpful for them, other say it wasn’t really the help they needed. I attended SI once myself for my biology class, and it was kind of helpful for a minute or two, but I needed extra help in other topics that weren’t covered during the session.
I get it. Studying is difficult and tiring, especially if you have multiple exams within a short amount of time. Here are some study patterns I’ve found helpful while preparing for exams:
Find a study spot: Sometimes I get way too distracted doing work and studying at my dorm. Finding a spot just to study can be great for avoiding distractions and dedicating time to being productive. A study spot doesn’t have to be in a specific room; many of the buildings on campus have tables in the hallways, and cafes or coffee shops also make great spots. If you’re lucky, sometimes you may find an empty room in the library that you can use, although many of them are reserved beforehand.
Study with other people! You can study with friends or people in your classes. Studying with people can make you more motivated to be productive, and you also have people to ask questions to when you need help.
A good trick I’ve recently started using is trying to explain the concept to other people. If you can confidently explain the material correctly to someone else, it shows that you’re proficient in it. This tip has helped me a lot for my last few biology exams!
Space out your studying: Starting early not only means you have more time to study, but you also have more time to find what you don’t understand so you can get it in your head better. As some of us have probably experienced, studying last minute and cramming everything in the day before is not a great strategy. Giving yourself enough time is maybe more important than you think it is.
Take breaks: If you’ve been looking at the same slides for 20 minutes straight with nothing good happening in your mind, a break might be what you need. It’s draining studying for long periods consecutively, especially if you’re studying multiple times a week. Taking short breaks can be a good way to not only stop what you’re doing for a bit but also refresh yourself both physically and mentally. Stand up, take a walk, drink some water, and refill your snacks. Anything to get yourself to get back to the grind.
Set goals for each study session: This can be done in different ways, but if I’m studying for a unit test, I like to dedicate each session to studying 2 or 3 chapters/lectures depending on the length. This can help you stay on track without overloading yourself with work.
That’s a question I often ask myself when my mind wanders or when I think about home. Sometimes, I don’t find an answer other than “school” or “nursing”, especially when everyone else around me is either from Iowa or from one of the neighboring states. A lot of times, I wonder how different my life would be if I was still home or somewhere else.
But then I think about the present, how I am now, and what I can do to make the most of my time here. I think about the friends and memories I’ve made in just three months, the community I’ve found, as well as the fun I’ve had and will have in the future. Those thoughts alone are enough to make me realize that it’s not so bad being in Iowa. Although I still sometimes consider Iowa as a “foreign territory”, I’m warming up to it more as I spend more time here.
For the third post of this series, I’ve once again written down all the Asian-related activities I participated in November. Although a little lackluster compared to the previous posts, I hope this is still interesting enough for this month.
Organization for the Active Support of International Students
OASIS is a student organization that targets international students, and every year they host their Multicultural Showcase which includes performances by other clubs and organizations on campus. The showcase was very entertaining with performances of singing and dancing, as well as a short Kahoot game during the intermission. I had a few friends who were in one of the performing groups, so I got to watch them dance to K-pop songs with other H-Wave (@hallyuatiowa on Instagram) members.
On a Saturday afternoon, some VSA and FSA members drove to Wilson’s Orchard & Farm for their annual collab social. After waiting for everyone to show up, we took a group photo by the stairs for the Instagram post. This social was just a time to spend with friends and new people at the orchard, so we hung out by the playground, went back to the benches, and got food and drinks (thanks Jaden for the slushie!). The social was a great start to autumn for me (I’m slowly learning that autumn doesn’t really exist in Iowa, but let me have this), and it was also my first time to an apple orchard! We even got free pizza from the owners for being the last ones to leave!
Guest Speaker GBM
The next VSA event was the guest speaker GBM. The guest speaker An Phan came from Des Moines to share her experience with Vietnamese culture. We got to hear how she grew up, her time in college, serving in the military, and more of her journey. Surprisingly, I found myself relating to a lot more than I thought I would, despite major differences from my point of view. She ended her speech with questions and advice, and we all took a group picture to end the GBM.
On a Monday night, I walked into Molly’s Cupcakes for VSA’s social, and also to get a cupcake for the fundraiser. This social mostly involved playing games with other people, so I got to watch and play a few rounds of Tapple and Spot It. Although things got heated sometimes due to the competitiveness of people, the atmosphere was warm and welcoming and everyone had fun.
Minute to Win it GBM
The last VSA event was the Minute to Win it GBM, which also marks VSA’s last event of the semester. After the usual GBM presentation, we were divided into six teams, which got hectic because my team was initially missing 3 members compared to other teams. We played a series of rapid-fire challenges, like using chopsticks to put Skittles into cups (I got second place with 24, so that’s a win in my books), scooping cotton balls with no hands, math problems, and other fun games (we do not speak of my embarrassing attempt at the Oreo challenge). This GBM was fun not only because of the games and challenges but also because some of my friends who aren’t in VSA also came to play with us! My team won overall with 5 points, which was a great way to end the semester for me.
On Veterans Day weekend, two of my friends and I The Bep Teahouse’s soft opening. We were all really excited that another boba place had opened up downtown. Although they weren’t serving food then, we still got to try some drinks from their plentiful menu. The drinks were all very delicious, but the store’s interior was also very pretty and aesthetic. We stayed there for almost two hours before I had to go to work, but I ended up coming back the next day with a friend again just to take advantage of the soft opening (I’m aware of my money spending).
Almost there. The fall semester is at its homestretch, and the holiday season is upon us.
November is ending soon, which means we get a week off for fall break before tackling the last two weeks (and also finals) of the semester.
Unlike most students who either went home or traveled for a week, I was among the few who stayed on campus for Thanksgiving week, moping over the fact (or opinion really) that it wasn’t worth it to go all the way back to Seattle for a week just to come back for 3 more weeks before going back again. Instead, I spent the week trying to occupy myself to avoid boredom, which admittedly didn’t work out too great. Here’s an overview of what my fall break looked like:
Monday
I was tasked with an Instagram takeover for Monday to show off what I did for the day (over on @iowaadmissions on Instagram). Basically, I posted Instagram stories in a “day in my life” format, while also answering questions from incoming Hawkeyes. Aside from this, I went to the Fall Break Meal and had my first “Thanksgiving meal” ever (I didn’t even know what stuffing was before this). The food was decent for me, and it was nice not having to think about what to eat for lunch. After the meal, I tagged along with some of my friends to go to Coral Ridge Mall to hang out. We walked around, got boba (JaeTea’s strawberry matcha is really good) and some other food, and also tried on some clothes. When we came back to campus, we hung out at the dorms for a bit, where we played some Call of Duty (I mostly watched them play so I could catch up on Instagram questions). We ended the day by making a brief run to Target, and I signed off Instagram when I got back to my dorm.
Tuesday
A fire drill woke me up from my sleep at around 11:30 am, so I put on my puffy coat on top of my pajamas and walked out onto Dubuque Street while my eyes were still squinting my grogginess away. Apart from that, I have nothing else to write about Tuesday except for my 7-hour shift at the Power Cafe. The shift was mostly slow like my usual shift, except I closed for the first time that day, and with my amazing luck, there was a big crowd forming right as we were about to start closing. After that unexpected rush, my coworker (who doesn’t even work at the Power Cafe – Jackie, I appreciate you) and I powered through the closing process (pun intended) and made sure everything was as clean as possible with the minimal energy we had remaining.
Wednesday
I had a shift at the Coral Ridge Ice Rink on Wednesday, so I spent 3 hours handling rental skates (and answering the same two questions over and over again). After my shift, I went straight back to my dorm and just lounged around until I got hungry and made dinner, also catching up on some work and binging a drama series.
Thursday (Thanksgiving)
Honestly, there’s really nothing for me to write about for Thanksgiving Day. I’ve never been one to celebrate Thanksgiving, and neither does my family, so aside from calling home, all I did was enjoy being alone in my room (with a lack of good food, because what money do I have to spend on fancy food).
Friday
Friday started off with me sleeping in until noon for once. Sleeping in isn’t something I get to do very often anymore so I let myself stay in bed until I felt like getting up. Once I was awake, I realized that I needed to get some Christmas shopping done for a Secret Santa that I’m participating in, so I decided to make another trip to Coral Ridge Mall. And when I say the mall was packed with people, I am not joking. Every single chair in the food court was taken, and there were strollers wedged in every gap between tables. Unfortunately, my shopping wasn’t very successful, so I ended up just getting some pretty gift bags. I stayed a bit longer at the mall to eat some pizza, since I work at the rink and I was told there would be free pizza for anyone who came in (I wasn’t even scheduled to work that day; I just wanted free food).
So there you have it: my anticlimactic fall break broken down. Admittedly, it went both better and worse than I thought it would. I’m glad I had some friends who were also on campus during the break as well, but it sucked not being able to go home while everyone else was gone. It was nice having an empty dorm hallway though, so I am appreciative of that. Would I stay on campus for another break? Maybe. If I don’t have plans to travel during the week-long breaks, I most probably would be staying on campus (Seattle is just a bit too far away for a week to be worth it for me). But I am really looking forward to winter break when I can finally go back home.
