Below is an example of food on and off campus. Plus a few more shots of the scenic UCLA grounds!
Please bear with the the not-so-great cellphone camera. I’m going to be getting a better one in a few days… I also still haven’t unpacked my old 35mm Pentax that I brought with me 
NOTE: If you’re viewing photo gallery posts (like this one) from my website’s Blog tab, I would advise right clicking and selecting “open link in a new tab” or a cropped version will show up within the window.
Well, it’s Tuesday.
It’s pretty hard to believe that I landed here just a little over 50 hours ago…
On Monday I walked into my four-hour-a-day Intermediate Chinese class to find myself surrounded by upperclassmen, graduate students and graduated who need one more credit to get their diploma. Most of the people in the class are native Chinese speakers, and all of them can speak and read way beyond my level.
That morning was probably the most head-twisting, mind convulsing experience I’ve ever spent in a classroom. Me and my parents had figured three years of high school Chinese would be enough…
It wasn’t.
Our professor spoke a lot of the instructions in Chinese and we were assigned massive amounts of composition/translation homework, thirty-five new characters to memorize, and a quiz on the material, all for the next day. Not to mention that all the stuff we were expected to know I didn’t.
Needless to say I didn’t sleep much.
After about nine hours of continuous work it was 3 am. I can honestly say I tried my hardest. It just wasn’t enough, though. I gave up and collapsed into bed with the homework unfinished (it’s not like I really had understood much of what I was doing anyway).
I felt horrible; I couldn’t even finish my first homework assignment. One big question lay at the pit of my stomach:
“So, this is college?”
I want to say I woke up a little more rational, but I didn’t. Something my roommate Chris had said the previous night was turning over and over in my head.
“I think you’re supposed to do three hours of work for every hour of class in college.”
I had heard this principle before, but it was just now that I applied it to my class (a class which was aiming to teach a year of material over the course of nine weeks).
4 hours of class x 3 would equal 12 hours of studying a day. Add the four hours of class to that and you’ve got 16 hours of time spent studying Chinese, leaving eight hours to sleep, eat, and handle that little thing we call life.
I kept thinking about that.
Right before class I called my mom, an art history professor. That, plus her whole “mom factor” helped a bit. Before noon, I had dropped the class.
The ball of anxiety that had been rolling through my body, just like the big stone that nearly crushes Indiana Jones, was suddenly lifted. As I strolled across one of UCLA’s Feng Shui-ified courtyards, I felt relaxed for the first time since I arrived. Yet, I didn’t really feel like a college student. I guess the deliriously irrational and overwhelming feeling I had felt the day before was what did make me feel like one.
Maybe the reason is this:
The hardest part of high school for me has never been the classes or the work load, just that I don’t try very hard. It’s never really been my first priority, and the short time I spent putting this strenuous class as a first priority gave me, might I say…a collegial sensation. I guess the things you care about have the ability to make you go the most crazy.
I’m still pretty damn dissapointed. I tend to not give up stuff like this so fast. Plus, I didn’t get to say goodbye to my classmates who were really nice about my lack of an equivalent age or language proficiency. Even though you guys will probably never see this, I’m going to throw out some shout-outs…
Thank you Holmes – for approaching after the first discussion period, even though you have already graduated Berkeley and are way too cool for me.
Thank you table neighbor [I knew your Chinese name but I forgot it unfortunately 
] — I shared my textbook with her because she hadn’t bought hers yet and she proceeded to mutter to me what literally every character was during the short story we read.
Thank you Steven — for running up to me when we were asking each other questions in Chinese and giving me this weird hug and asking me what my name was and then asking me a question I actually understood.
S: 你喜欢在洛杉矶住吗？ (How do you like living in Los Angeles?)
GR: 洛杉矶很有意思，但是我不喜欢去公车 。(LA is very interesting, but I don’t like taking the bus.)
Speaking of that, here’s a first reaction to public buses (去公共汽; pronounced gong gong qi che) here…
I rode the badly-appraised Metro bus line around to a few adjacent neighborhoods today (Westwood, Century City), and am starting to see the problem. It’s not the bus routes, schedules, level of filth, etc. That’s all not so bad. The problem is the geography and traffic structure of the city itself. Apparently there used to be trollies here many years ago but they were all shut down as more and more freeways piled up. Maybe the city was originally built in a better format for that kind of stuff, or maybe its always been this way… who knows. This is really just a thought.
I think this is enough for one post. I’m going to leave a little cliffhanger (which in no way relates to my level of tiredness or soreness of typing right now):
What is GR going to do now that he has dropped Intermediate Chinese????
Post your predictions in the comments…
(And just so you know, I actually do have a few solid plans cooking to salvage the situation )
Coming soon: The food on and off campus, some thoughts on UCLA, etc. etc. blah blah blah…
So here’s the deal:
My name is Graham. I’m an incoming Senior at Burlington High School, located in Vermont. Life in Burlington is sort of like if you resized Seattle or Portland to a population of 40,000 and removed all the skyscrapers.
I’m obsessed with moviemaking and want to pursue the film industry long after high school. As well as this, I’ve just completed my third year of Chinese language study at my high school. Here’s my website: http://grahamraubvogel.com.
This summer I will be living in LA (staying at the UCLA dorms), and will be taking an Intermediate Chinese course every morning, as well as a film internship in the afternoon. I’ll also be meeting with contacts I’ve made, writing some of my own material, etc.
Should be a good time. *knock on wood*
I most likely have yet to fully realize the extent of the possibilities that this opportunity presents. All I know is that I want to do as much as I can with the nine weeks I’ve got.
In order for me to keep up with this blog, I’m going to need to set a goal or two. Except, I’m not training for a marathon or going through a French cookbook, so I’m going to make them things I will experience and learn.
Ultimately this is going to answer a big question: is LA the place for me? (I’ve got less than a year left to decide where I’m heading after I graduate the four-year dungeon that is high school.)
I arrived today at about noon and spent the afternoon exploring the campus, checking into my room, buying textbooks, and of course, making a pilgrimage to In N’ Out. Tomorrow, my class begins at 9 am.
The last thing I’m going to leave you with is a playlist. On the plane ride I was surfing through my iPod for some “Cali” tracks, and here’s what I ended up with…
What are your Cali tracks? Tips for LA? Like the blog so far? I’d love some commentary!
Thanks for reading,
— Graham
Dear WordPress, and all those that may be listening,
I am sorry that I disappeared for so long (and perhaps published a note saying I was moving to Twitter). This summer I’m going to be moving to LA for a couple really awesome opportunities, and realized this would be the perfect time to start blogging again.
Did everyone else hear that!? xP
Yes, I will be blogging about my experiences on the West coast over the course of this summer. The stuff I’m going to be doing is centered around Chinese language studies and film internships (I’ll get more into this in the next post).
Right now I’m sitting in JFK about to board my flight. Expect another post today proclaiming what to expect…
再见 (farewell) East Coast, and 你们好 (hello) new blog readers! (please, please, oh please to the latter),
Graham
I thought I ‘d send out this post for anyone who stumbles across my blog: It is a ghost town.
Due to a lack of time, I’ve decided attempting to manage a blog is way impossible
Instead, feel free to follow me at a newly-created Twitter account! www.twitter.com/GRaubvogel
So far this year, there have been a few films that have really stuck out to me. I thought I would list them below as well as some of the stuff I’m looking forward to…
Sam Rockwell starring in Duncan Jones' "Moon"
See my lists after the jump…
I saw this short Japanese animation a few weeks ago and have decided it’s definitely worth linking to on this blog. It features two things that I rather enjoy: great light and great gesture. Along with that, a story I can relate to. Check it out!
My new film, Art Lovers, is finally on the web. Check it out embedded right here or click this link to see it in its full glorious HD: http://vimeo.com/5402846
Special thanks to all who took part in this film.
Hello all, sorry I haven’t been blogging. I’ve had a lot on my plate.
Today I bring you a rough cut of the trailer for my new film, “Art Lovers.” I’d go on talking about random things pertaining to it, but I’d rather you just watch it. Please realize though that this is only a rough cut.
