Easter was great. I went to my grandfather’s home in Los Angeles with my mom, dad, and brother. My girlfriend also joined us which was very fun. All sorts of family were in LA and we had a great time looking for hidden eggs and such. Shortly after, my cousin, Kelly, came to take a look at UCSB. I’ve found that it’s easy to try and sell this school as it is in the best location there is, the people are smart and decent, and the overall experience is generally awesome.

A few days after that, my aunt, uncle and I went to see Adyashanti speak in a satsang. That entire weekend was truly wonderful as a time for contemplation and stillness. I don’t really feel like blogging about it but if you see me feel free to ask about it, as I’d be happy to talk about it in person. If you don’t know who Adya is or just to get a feel for what it was about, take a look at the teachings he has online or the book “True Meditation“.

This past month, spring quarter started. I spent quite some time trying to figure out what classes I would take and found it a lot harder this quarter to work a schedule out. As it stands I’m taking “Cultural Anthropology”, “Global Culture and Ethics”, and “The Channel Islands” which are all pretty exciting, particularly the one about the Santa Barbara Channel. I’m also attending a class about Irish literature just for fun.

I’ve also watched a couple of movies and highly recommend “Bobby”. The film is very inspiring and has great characters (RFK is not really a character in the story).

Here at school, we recently had sand castle day. We built an awesome igloo. More details to follow.

I have however been having a great summer. After experiencing Chilla Vista, I was lucky enough to attend another music festival, KCBX’s Live Oak 2006. I’ve taken numerous trips to Los Angeles and have been able to hang out with family. We went and saw Who Killed the Electric Car which was incredibly frustrating (yet hopeful). My aunt and uncle shared a movie with us, called The Secret which provides a very interesting outlook on the power of thoughts. I spent a few days in Santa Barbara with friends, which was a blast.

Added Aug. 12
My friend Kevin was home for a week and we had a lot of fun. We went to A Scanner Darkly, an interesting commentary on drug abuse that uses Rotoscope animation, and to Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell’s awesome spoof of NASCAR. Kevin, his sister, and I also dressed up in outrageous clothes from the 70s and hung out on State Street which was pretty nifty. Kevin and I also drove up to a shooting range and shot his Colt .45, which was an interesting experience. Kevin’s uncle was a Navy SEAL and now Kevin is training to be a real American hero in the Air Force. I feel differently about the use of violence and I am unfamiliar with weapons, particularly handguns. It was fun though. Nothing like the smell of gunpowder and the loud crack of a gunshot to soothe your stomach. We also went to Magic Mountain and Hurricane Harbor. If there is one thing of those I have stated that I would recommend doing, it would be going to Magic Mountain to ride the newest ride, Tatsu. Of the rides at Magic Mountain, Goliath is the most thrilling roller coaster, X is the most disorienting ride and Tatsu is the most fun experience. Basically, “after the rider is in the seat’s safety harness but before the ride starts, the seat is rotated 90° from the upright to a face-down position. The face-down position is kept for the duration of the ride” and this feature allows the ride to simulate flying. It’s crazy because for eons, man has wondered what it must be like to be a bird, Peter Pan, or Superman. And suddenly, you can experience that!

My family went to the Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles and we had a great time. We attended the Charlie Daniels Band concert and they played The Devil Went Down to Georgia which was impressive (although I prefer Tenacious D’s version myself).

Kevin went back to the academy and another friend, Carlyle, returned to the valley. We’ve been hanging out and doing crazy stuff too. Like getting Oreo shakes at Carl’s Jr. for example. Or buying candy at Tom’s Gas. And other really cool stuff.

It may seem like everything’s been above peachy. And it has been. But at the same time, my family’s living situation is somewhat uncertain. The farmhouse we live in is over 100 years old, and while we find it suitable, the owners apparently have decided to destroy it (possibly to open up the property for development, but that’s speculation). So we have to move and don’t know where to go. My parents have been really nice by letting me just enjoy myself while they worry about our future and work hard to figure things out. Anyway, it is an unfortunate situation since we have been living here for twelve years but things could be worse. At least our house has not been bulldozed by Israeli forces or shelled by Hezbollah fighters. Some people are not as lucky. You have to remember to put things in perspective.

So yeah, life is good.

When I started writing this entry, I wrote about the classes I took. It seemed the logical way to sum up my first year in college. But then I realized that’s not what this year was about for me. Sure, Professor Raccuhaus was really cool and I watched some interesting movies in Film 46. In fact, I probably actually learned something this year. And while that’s certainly important, I feel like this year was more about the experience. By experience, I don’t mean the normal stereotypical “college experience”. By experience, I mean adjusting to living away from my family, making new friends, and interacting with a community of 20,000 in class and around campus.

So I started this journal entry over and began making some sort of timeline. I planned to break down the year into events and talk about going home on Halloween, setting up a tree on Christmas, turning nineteen, getting written up by some staff for tossing a chair off a balcony, going to the end of the year dinner, building a sand castle and so forth. But even these stories didn’t really cover what happened this year.

The best way I can explain how I spent my year is quite simple. I spent my time pulling pranks on Carlos, playing Frisbee with Sarah, joking with Andrew, talking politics with Chrissy, getting food with Nico, getting coffee with Elina, listening to Ian, laughing at Katie, fighting Santosh, teasing Maura, hanging out with Randy, smiling at Lauren, chilling with Sasha, flirting with Giuliana, practicing le parkour with Brady, and flying kites with Eva. In short, it was a great way to spend a year.

Further notes: I already miss my friends and have begun to reminisce about the time we spent together. I can’t really put how I feel into words so the above will have to do. When I wrote that this year was not about the stereotypical college experience, what I meant was even though I was at the #4 party school in the nation, I didn’t consume a single drink or experiment with any drug (something I am proud of). I don’t necessarily feel those things are “bad” and I don’t think that those who use them are “bad”, I just don’t use them myself. My college experience is not any lesser for it. With regards to “probably actually learning something”, apart from not learning proper grammar, I have learned a ton. I would like to again thank the Santa Barbara Foundation, the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, the Ian McPherson Memorial Aquatics Scholarship Fund, the Brooks and Kate Firestone Honorary Scholarship Fund, United Student Aid Funds, United Volunteer Services, the Santa Ynez Valley Bar Association, the Los Alamos Valley Men’s Club, the Solvang Rotary Foundation, the University of California Santa Barbara Chancellor’s Scholarship Fund, and everyone else whose generous support allowed me to learn so much. I am very grateful.

You have four years to be irresponsible here. Relax. Work is for people with jobs. You’ll never remember class time, but you’ll remember time you wasted hanging out with your friends. So, stay out late. Go out on a Tuesday with your friends when you have a paper due Wednesday… The work never ends, but college does. — Tom Petty on college

McGraw-Hill has made a powerful enemy. Seriously, they are going down. I was quite surprised to learn from a Washington Post article that “textbook prices almost tripled from 1986 to 2004″ and that “60 percent of students nationwide choose not to buy all the course materials”. This is unacceptable. Luckily, something is beginning to be done. An alliance of Public Interest Research Groups has released evidence of publishers driving up textbook costs. The group has also started a campaign, Make Textbooks Affordable which aims to help students put pressure on publishers. The American Association of Publishers has begun to get angry about the effort *muahahaha*.

In addition, the student PIRGs have started a non-profit book exchange site. The site doesn’t handle the sale of books but helps buyers and sellers find each other.

The site is school specific (transactions are meant to be done in person to eliminate shipping costs I suppose). There are currently 168 books listed on the UCSB page. The site does cut out the middle-man reseller of used books but doesn’t help with the problem of expensive new books. It is a neat idea though.

Of course there’s always Wikibooks, the volunteer effort to create free, open-content textbooks (from the people who brought you Wikipedia). I truly believe that someday, through projects like these, information will be free. Until then, we are forced to be pay $91.53.

UPDATE: RENT TEXTBOOKS! http://www.chegg.com/

Monday was the beginning of winter quarter here at UCSB and my break officially ended. Over break I kept relatively busy. I spent two days working with Kevin’s help on some hand made Christmas presents (which involved an insane number of trips to Ace Hardware for materials). I spent a lot of time in LA with my family. While there, I cut my hair fairly short (whatever “number three” is).

For Christmas, I got some cool stuff like a new suit, an iTrip, Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father, some audio equipment, assorted gift cards, and some other great loot (thanks everybody!). I watched a bunch of movies over vacation (King Kong, Fun with Dick and Jane, The Chronicles of Narnia, Cinderella Man, Animal House, Super Troopers, Wedding Crashers, War of the Worlds, and a few others I can’t remember right now).

I also spent a lot of time just hanging out with Carlyle and Kevin. I went to a New Year’s party with my family where Car, Kevin and I played with R/C laser-tag tanks that shock you if you get hit. The three of us visited our alma mater and Kevin and I were both wearing Air Force uniforms and had buzz cuts. We tricked a bunch of people with an explanation that Kevin had convinced me to enlist. Operation Impersonation wasn’t really a prank but just a little harmless social engineering (kind of like the Getty museum escapade). I spent the last few days working on some projects. And that’s about it.

American author Washington Irving once wrote “Christmas! ‘Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial fire of charity in the heart.” With that in mind, I decided to do a little kindling myself. My friend Carlyle and I made a trip to Camino Real, where we picked up our supplies. We returned to campus and began putting up some decorations.

Christmas is perhaps the only time in the year when people can obey their natural impulses and express their true sentiments without feeling self-conscious and, perhaps, foolish. Christmas, in short, is about the only chance a man has to be himself. — Francis C. Farley

This rang true as we covered my dormroom door in wrapping paper. Once the door was covered in wrapping paper, we added a two foot-wide red bow. For the door’s final touch we attached a card to it that reads “Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah! To: Everyone. From: Liam & Sean and Carlyle too!“. Our massive door-present was complete. Now Sean and I get to open a present multiple times a day.

After completing the door modification, Car and I decided to move down to the lounge. Earlier, when we were at Home Depot, I bought a tree and upon return, hid it in my room. We planned out what we would decorate it with and then got to work. I carried the tree out of my room and down the stairwell, leaving a telling trail of needles all over the floor. Car brought the Christmas lights and the heavy-duty tree stand and we got to work setting the tree up.

In the traditional spirit of secret santas, we had intended to be secretive about the decorations. As it turned out though, some people were still up and were eager to help (which was actually really needed). Santosh Santatosh helped with standing the tree up and ensuring its stability. Maura spotted our operation and started taking photos (some of which you see here). I had a bunch of colorful blank CDs which we fashioned as ornaments. Ian and I shared the honors of placing the Christmas Sponge on top of the tree (hey, we couldn’t find anything that looked like a star). Everyone began creating paper snowflake type things. Eva and Carlyle consistently created paper art while I started stringing Christmas lights up on the loft and hanging from the main lamp. I wrapped some things up in wrapping paper and placed them under the tree. Eventually, the lounge was decorated nicely and we said our goodnights and headed off to sleep. Back upstairs, we redirected the trail of needles to lead to Ian and Justin’s room which we hoped would throw anyone off the trail (just in case). Then we went to sleep knowing that our efforts had been worthwhile.

Updated on Thursday…
Well, the tree (and the door) have both been well received. The kindling of Christmas spirit has spread like wildfire. On Wednesday evening, the house met in the lounge for a holiday party with food, drinks, and good company. We sang Christmas carols and had a merry time. Today I am glad that my finals are over and that I’m free to go home but at the same time I know I’m going to miss this hall. What a great group of kids!

“The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.” -Bill Vaughan