2020 has brought many major challenges. Not only was there a global coronavirus pandemic, but there were also record-breaking temperatures and fires. I started my first year of college online and met many people along the way.
How the first half of 2020 (January to June) went for me can be found here, so in this post, I'll mainly be discussing about some of the major events that I experienced during the second half of the year.
July
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| Coco Movie |
August
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| An image of the Chinese drama I watched |
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| Anthony with his birthday cake |
From the beginning to around mid-August, my mom wanted me to watch a Chinese drama called I Don't Want to Be Friends With You (which is 我才不要和你做朋友呢 (wo cai bu yao he ni zuo peng you ne) in Chinese), where a high school girl and her mom do not get along very well. However, once the high school girl travels 20 years into the past and becomes friends with her mom, who was around her age 20 years ago, she is able to understand her mom better. I initially didn't like the drama that much, but as the episodes progressed, I thought that the show was interesting to watch.
From around mid-August to early September, I took an online edX course called Exercising Leadership: Foundational Principles, where I learned about different aspects to leadership, including knowing more about what leadership is, when leadership is necessary, and leadership becomes more dangerous if isolated. My music group's (Polar Bears Music Group) fifth virtual performance video was published during mid-August.
September
I promoted my music group via Instagram by encouraging people to join Polar Bears, submit performance videos for the next virtual performance, and describing my positive experience as a Polar Bears Music Group member. I helped compile videos for that performance, and the video can be found here. Additionally, my music group decided that it would be better to have virtual performance videos every 2 weeks instead of every month and so we had another virtual performance that took place later in the month.
During early September, the Bay Area (as well as the rest of California) suffered an extreme record-breaking heat wave. Woodland Hills hit 121ºF, the highest temperature ever in Los Angeles County. Meanwhile, in the Bay Area, there were several places that were 110ºF and above. While I personally saw that the highest temperature for Palo Alto during that heat wave was 107ºF on September 7, it appeared that Palo Alto hit 108ºF the day before. Shortly after the heat wave, Palo Alto and the rest of the Bay Area experienced orange skies as well as significantly cooler temperatures (mostly 60s and 70s) compared to the triple-digit heat just days before. While temperatures did become warmer in a few days after experiencing orange skies, the temperatures were not record-breaking. However, during late September, the Bay Area once again experienced record-breaking heat, although the heat wave was not as hot as the one that happened earlier that month. Palo Alto did reach 100ºF, though. Additionally, the Glass Fire broke out in the northern portion of the Bay Area, which led to hazy skies and unhealthy air quality.
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| Promoting Polar Bears Music Group via Instagram |
During September, I became more acquainted with other UCSB students by attending socials. One of the socials I attended was 99Rising, a virtual club fair featuring Asian student organizations at UCSB that took place during the evenings of September 28 and 29. Through those club fairs, I was able to learn more about those UCSB student organizations and join the ones that were the most interesting to me.
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| Among Us |
October
Classes for fall quarter at UCSB officially began during the beginning of October. The classes I enrolled in were Geog 3 (Oceans and Atmosphere), Hist 17A (American People), and Math 4A (Linear Algebra w/Applications). All of my classes were online due to the pandemic. For all my classes, lectures were pre-recorded, while sections (groups of students within a larger class) were live for Geog 3 and Hist 17A. For Math 4A, there weren't exactly sections, but TAs (teacher assistants) held office hours during the section times. There were weekly quizzes for all of my classes. Towards the end of October, I had my first midterm for Geog 3 as well as my first essay for Hist 17A (a primary source analysis).
I began participating in several UCSB clubs and organizations, including TASA (Taiwanese American Student Association) UCSB, Data Science UCSB, SASE (Society of Asian Scientists and Engineers) UCSB, and UCSB CKI (Circle K International). I attended the general body meetings for those clubs/organizations, as well as some of their events and programs. For TASA and Data Science UCSB, I participated in their mentorship programs. TASA's mentorship program is also called the Big-Little Program, while Data Science UCSB's mentorship program is also known as Big Data Lil Data. For both TASA and Data Science UCSB, I applied to be a mentee (which is more commonly known as a "little" in the TASA mentorship program). For Circle K, I participated in some of their service events. The service events that occurred in October involved transcribing various documents. For many of the clubs/organizations that I participated in, I was able to meet many new people and connect with some of them via social media (Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.).
In October, the August Complex Fire between Eureka, Chico, and Mendocino County had burned over 1 million acres, which is the largest fire in California history. The total amount of acres burned in California this year surpassed 4 million.
Heat waves continued to occur in the Bay Area during October. Palo Alto had temperatures well into the 90s during early and mid-October. For instance, Palo Alto hit 95ºF on October 1.
Because I was already 18, I could vote in the presidential election for the first time. I mailed in by ballot to a designated ballot drop box. I decided to vote weeks before the election because I wanted to ensure that my ballot would be counted.
In addition to having a virtual performance, my music group had a live performance on Zoom, which happened to be on the same day as my mom's birthday (although the live performance was in the afternoon, while my family and I celebrated my mom's birthday during the evening).
November
During election day, due to a large amount of mail-in ballots, the election results were not immediately announced. At first, it looked unclear whether or not Joe Biden or Donald Trump would win. However, given the fact that most mail-in ballots were for Biden due to Trump being against mail-in ballots, Trump's early leads in some states ended up with Biden winning in many of those states (such as Pennsylvania and Georgia). I even made a TikTok related to the election, showing how close the races in Pennsylvania and Georgia were. Even though Trump demanded recounts and lawsuits in several states, Biden still won those states, and most lawsuits were dropped or dismissed. Biden ended up winning the election, and I'm glad that he won because Trump has demonstrated poor leadership in handling the coronavirus pandemic.
Around mid-November, I began selecting courses for UCSB's winter quarter during my first pass time (a period of time where I'm able to select courses). Although I at first wasn't able waitlist Writing 1 (which was a class that I had to take), I figured that I could do so by linking the class with another class I had on the schedule so that once a spot in Writing 1 was available to me, Writing 1 would be added to my schedule, while the class I linked Writing 1 with would be dropped. In a few hours after selecting courses, I was able to get Writing 1 on my schedule. During mid-November, I had a take home midterm exam for Hist 17A that consisted of responding to certain prompts by describing the historical context and significance. I also had my second midterm for Geog 3.
In Circle K, I went to service events that involved identifying animals. I met with my TASA "family," which consists of my big (my mentor), sibs (who are also the littles (mentees) of my big), and anyone else that is related to my big and sibs (such as sibs of my big and their littles). We met via Zoom to chat and play some games. For SASE, I applied for their mentorship program, although pairings will be decided next quarter (winter quarter).
My music group published a virtual performance video in November that can be found here. During early November, my family and I celebrated my dad's birthday.
December
I had my second pass time to select courses, where I added another course. However, the lecture time that course had conflicted with the lecture time of one of my other courses I chose. I wasn't quite sure what to do, but I eventually decided to email the professors of those classes. One of them replied that lectures would be live but recorded and so attending them isn't mandatory, while the other replied that lectures would be prerecorded. I also recently had finals for Math 4A and Geog 3 as well as a final essay for Hist 17A, though I was finished with them by Wednesday night.
About a week before I began my finals, I helped compile the video submissions for my music group's next virtual performance, which can be found here. I also noticed that much of the Bay Area had temperatures in the 70ºF range (which is warm for December). Although that only lasted a few days, a few temperature records were broken. In Palo Alto, the temperature hit around 75ºF during the warmest day (December 8), while Palo Alto's high temperature on Accuweather was 77ºF on that same day.
Looking Forward
2020 has been a long year with many ups and downs. While 2020 was a difficult year, there were quite a couple of good moments that came out of it. While I can't expect 2021 to be much better than 2020, I do hope that things will get better. After all, Biden is going to be inaugurated soon, and he seems to have a clear plan of improving America in many different ways.
