http://kolinateng.com

KFC, ARE YOU CHICKEN?!

I drove up to Davis this past Saturday to revisit my old haunts in conjunction with the 95th Annual UCD Picnic Day. I don’t remember quite so many people participating in the festivities on Picnic Day, but then I realized it is UCD’s 100th year anniversary. Woo, go Aggies!

While I normally don’t have too much school spirit, I did want to return as a UCD KungFu Club alumna and perform with some of my other KFC alumni brethren. It was then that I realized I hadn’t done a whole half-form with any sort of intensity since the last Picnic Day; as a result, Wushu felt incredibly awkward, as my body has acclimated to a soft easy lifestyle, yet kind of familiar and exhilarating. I’m still feeling the sore hamstrings 4 days later, so I don’t think I’m in any sort of rush to return to old training days. In any case, it’s good to see that the club is still alive and kicking (pun intended! haha!) with new members–those cats were fast as lightning!–it makes me feel a bit less guilty that the club has diminished a bit since our good friend and founding member Alan left a 50-member roster in our hands when he left Davis.

Unfortunately, we missed the annual Doxie Derby, where tons of little dachshund hounds race against each other. How is it that I’ve seen the races only ONCE since I started attending UCD? Ri-diculous. We actually missed a lot of events that we had hoped to see, but I was content just to do the things we used to do–sit at the lounge, eat subpar-yet-expensive baked goods from the MU Bakery, eat bagels, drink Arizona Sweet Tea at the MU in between classes while working on crossword puzzl homework.

We also visited the MUGA (Memorial Union Games Area), where Eric and Linda used to play SUPER. SEGA. GT. everyday while waiting (and thus, missing) the bus. I used to work as a student manager there, and the bowling customers would say things like, “I think your lanes are tilted; my ball keeps rolling to the right.” WELL! MAYBE, you suck at bowling! (I’m terrible in bowling too, but you don’t see me blaming it on the lanes!) Ah, good times.

I finally picked up the “UCD Cow Tipping Team” shirt I had been wanting for a year. Since there’s never much to do in Davis, people tend to ask if I used to tip over unsuspecting bovines in the middle of the night. I might as well advertise that I’m part of a very elite, competitive team.

The one thing I discovered this year is the Battle of the Bands, where different university bands come together and play in rotation starting at 8am. Each band drops out of the rotation when they run out of new songs to play. They do this until there’s a winner or 10pm, whichever comes first.  Stanford played a 30-minute piece and all the university bands joined in; the percussionists took turns with solos while running across the lake, lying on the ground, and pulling a bunch of other stunts. There were an insane number of people at Spafford Lake watching on the lawn, and the atmosphere was really fun and crazy. I’ve been totally missing out!

Anyway, it was good to be back for just the day, from the all-familiar KFC demo to the post-Picnic-Day red-cup parties. I do miss having so many friends and peers close by everyday, since I took it for granted when I was still in school, but if given the choice, I don’t think I’d go back to that life; I’m definitely enjoying work and the “real world” more and always excited to see what’s coming up next.

…Speaking of which, I came down with a fever yesterday while flying to Albuquerque, New Mexico for a 4-day business trip. THIS part of the “real” world, I’m not enjoying much. :(