Not Feeling 100%

Hi everyone! I have been feeling under the weather and have spent the past week in a ball in my bed, well at least that’s what I wanted to do. This week was another hectic school week with a stressful presentation and more midterms.. STILL. I powered through the week and tried my absolute best considering the fact that I just wanted to sleep all day. However, this weekend was my dad's birthday so I knew I had to get better quickly!

Per usual, I was in LA this last weekend. My dad grew up in Los Angeles and because the Dodgers are in the WORLD SERIES, we thought it would be fitting to go down there and watch the game in his hometown. But before the game, we decided to go take some picture of the beautiful sunset.

First, we went to a reflecting pool. The perfect view of all the skyscrapers in Downtown LA. Next, we went up to the U.S. Bank Tower. Home to the glass slide. A glass slide that goes outside of a 70 story tower. CRAZY. Recommend checking it out. This was our second time going, but we just wanted access to the 360° view of Los Angeles. Personally, this is the best view in the entire world. The mountains, the beach, and for us the sunset. I can’t use enough words to describe how awesome and beautiful the sunset was. An extra bonus was the wings painted onto the glass by an artist Colette Miller. You’ve definitely seen pictures of these wings on instagram, and if you haven't you must be living under a rock. Then, we went to a restaurant to watch the the Dodgers win game 4 in the World Series and eat an appetizer or two. Finally, we went to walk around Hollywood. Because whats a trip to LA without walking down the Hollywood Walk of Fame?

I really enjoyed this weekend, even though I still wasn't feeling 100%. I look forward to talk to you guys in a few days, look out for another blog soon!

Rian x

How to Destress as a College Student

College is stressful, to say the least. Constant tests, quizzes, projects, essays, presentations,  and on top of all that nightly homework. It can get very overwhelming, especially if you are a full time student like myself. Because I know the struggle of always being stressed, I put together a few tips and ideas to destress yourself!

1. BREATH.

I know this sounds silly but often times we forget to just take a minute and breathe. With all the assignments clouding my headspace, I make sure to take some time and focus on just breathing. I have this app on my phone named Calm. It’s a really awesome tool to use if you’re especially stressed out. There’s a bunch of free activities to do, but my favorite is the breathing bubble. It gives you different noise cues, so you know when to breathe in, hold, and breath out. There is no timer, so you are able to focus on how long you need to practice breathing for. TIP: Close your eyes while doing this exercise it really blocks out any distractions so you can solely focus on breathing.

2. TAKE A WALK.

When I do my homework at home, I sit at my desk for hours trying to finish it all. I stare into my laptop and textbooks for hours searching for answers and trying to understand new topics, but sometimes I just get so overwhelmed I want to give up. I have come to the conclusion that it is because I am sitting in the same little corner for hours. So I get up and take a walk outside. Even if its around the block or down the street, something about fresh air and new surroundings makes me feel so much better. TIP: Try and be observant and listen carefully while you are on this walk. Focus on things like birds chirping, the wind rustling the trees, or even the sound of cars passing by. This will get your mind off of homework for a few minutes.

3. GO TO THE BEACH

Waves crashing is one of the most therapeutic sounds, ever. Lucky for us we live only a hop, skip, and a step away from it! Walking on the beach is one of my favorite things to do. I think this one is pretty self explanatory, but just taking a stroll or sitting on a towel at the beach is really helpful when I am feeling stressed out. TIP: Check what time the sun sets in the evening. Sunsets are really awesome, so if you can try and watch the sunset over the water at least once a week!

4. DO SOMETHING YOU LOVE.

It can be easy to neglect your wants, especially when you’re so focused on all the school stuff. I always make sure to do something I like to do every once in awhile. A few examples are making new playlists to listen to, watching a bunch of youtube videos, painting my nails, or even spending a little extra on my favorite meals.

I hope this brought you some inspiration to find ways to destress yourself. Mental health is SO important!

Take care of yourself,

Rian x

DACA Advocacy Week at California Community Colleges

Hi everyone, this week I have some cool stuff for you to get involved in!

Some background information: I am in a club on campus named Sigma Chi Eta. Which is SBCC’s honor society of the National Communication Association. We put on a few events throughout the year, and this fall we decided to kick off the year by doing a small event this week and next week. We sat down and discussed different topics, and ultimately chose to do something to spread awareness and give support to all our DACA students who attend SBCC and just all DACA students in general.

After planning this event, we learned that this week is DACA Advocacy Week at all California City Colleges. We were excited and even more eager to set up our tables and start making a difference. After researching and learning more about what we can do we decided the best thing was to print out postcards, which would be sent to congress men and women. We also thought it would be really awesome if students could post sticky notes on a whiteboard with encouraging and supportive notes.

We are hosting this event on West Campus (in front of the library) TODAY (Wednesday, October 18th) and next Thursday (October 26th) from 11 a.m. to about 2 p.m. This is a great opportunity if you don’t know much about DACA, go to the tables you can learn more about it from different students. If you do know what DACA is/what is happening to DACA and you want to take action but don't necessarily know what to do, this is a great small step in the right direction. This issue is a lot bigger than one of us, so let’s all come together and make a bigger difference together.

Hope to see you there,

Rian x

My Day at the Harbor Festival

Hi everyone! I am back with more exciting weekend activities. This past Saturday my family and I went down to the Harbor and Seafood Festival. The Harbor Festival is an event that showcases the "Bounty of the Santa Barbara Channel." Not my words, the banners words. Basically this event aims to showcase that the harbor is an actual working harbor. Over a 100 fisherman land about 10 million pounds of seafood every year. Impressive. Besides all these fun facts, the Harbor Festival takes place at the actual harbor and there they showcase a bunch of vendors, informational booths, and fresh seafood!

At one booth they had fresh sea urchins, which are those spiky purple creatures. They were cracking  them open and scooping all the orange insides out of them for people to eat. Personally, it did not look appetizing in the slightest, but people were lining up to get their hands on one.

At another one of the booths, we grabbed some Aebelskivers. WHICH ARE SO GOOD. Pretty much they are pancake puffs, but they are topped with a raspberry jam and power sugar. I believe they are a Danish dessert, these particular ones were from a bakery/restaurant in Solvang. If you ever get a chance to go to Solvang you must get these!

We then walked around a bit and looked at all the vendors and shopped around. There was tons of people, I mean tons. So after we saw everything and ran into family friends, we decided to get something to eat. My mom and I don't eat sea food, so none of the booths and fresh seafood looked appetizing to us. So we went to the Breakwater Restaurant where I had some awesome chicken tenders and french fries.

As small as Santa Barbara is, they host/have some awesome little events. Always check out the newspapers and even ads on TV for more info about little events in Santa Barbara. I will definitely try and give you guys a heads up about upcoming events on and off of SBCC campus.

Talk to you guys soon

Rian x

My Weekend In LA: iPath Field Trip

Hi everyone, IM BACK. My classes and life got the best of me. But not to worry I am back, and will have weekly blogs up. Tomorrow I will also be posting another blog that I have been working on, because of the lack of blogs for the past couple weeks.

This weekend I went to Los Angeles to tour colleges with a program at SBCC, iPath. iPath is a program that is to help students with the transfer process. There are academic counselors just for iPath students, they host FREE field trips plus your food and hotel is even included, and in your iPath classrooms you get tutors for your specific class. To be in iPath you just have to be enrolled in their list of classes with a specific teacher, visit their page to check what classes are being offered next semester. They are a great resource!

On to the good stuff: my trip. We got to visit UCLA, LMU, and Pepperdine. We left early Saturday morning and headed to UCLA. It was open house, so there was about 8,000 people visiting and touring. IT WAS CRAZY! There was an opening ceremony where the band played and they taught us the famous 8-clap. Then for the rest of the day we were able to galavant and visit different informational meetings and tour the campus. We got to all the beautiful buildings, including the famous Royce Hall. After we went on a bus tour of LA, passing Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and even getting to see the Hollywood sign. We went to our hotel, with an amazing view, and got to have some "free time." A group of other students went to get some dinner and got to adventure the Westwood Village. After a long day and scorching 98° heat we all headed to bed for an early morning, so we could head to Loyola Marymount University (LMU).

At LMU we got an informational meeting about the school and an tour of the beautiful campus. I have already visited this campus, as it is my #1 choice for schools. Unfortunately I was not able to stay for long because my parents were picking me up from campus because we had to go to a Ram's game. Which we ended up losing, but that's okay because we got to hang out in LA before we headed home. This weekend was awesome!

Again, I definitely think you should check out iPath and all they have to offer. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow! Rian x