We stood at the top, looking at the sparkling city lights and the famous landmarks in the distance. It was a quiet Friday night with few tourists around. Through the day, you showed me the places where you lived, where you went to school, your favorite spots as an immigrant in her early twenties in a foreign country and the memories of the hole-in-the-wall shops before the neighborhood changed in the past two decades. We drove to the spot where you saw Queen Elizabeth II looking out the window as her parade of cars drove through the city.

Listening to the stories of all the women in my lineage, I realized how lucky I am to be raised in a country that didn’t involve religious persecution, hiding and escaping for a better life. I remember the stories your mother told me about how she hid in the ground, looking at the faces of the enemies who destroyed her village. She spoke, with tears going down her face, of the fear she had each day, hiding and hoping she would stay alive. Through her words, she painted a picture of being in a packed train filled with people escaping their homeland. Everyone was given a small piece of bread for the entire trip, kids were crying and mothers were starving. She told me about how the man I never met saw her as she worked in a bank and soon they fell in love. She told me how she walked miles to school, demanding a college education when girls weren’t supposed to have education and the glory days when the man I never met was alive. One day I walked into the study and you were hovered over his letters and his writing.  Though he was a wonderful man I never met, he taught me how to write.

I wonder what stories I’ll tell my kids in the future. Stories from my mother, stories from my mother’s mother and the courage they had to pave the present.

When I went back to visit, the three of us sat in a room. Three generations of women and with similar inevitable mannerisms—simple things like love for simple photography, obsession over good coffee and tea, the arts and justice for all. They say as you grow older, you turn into your mother. And I agree, this is true. But that only means each generation, we all turn into the same women all the way up in the family tree. I can’t even imagine all the battles she must have went through.

When I left, I thanked you and tears rolled down my face. I told you I owed my life to you because it was the truth. Though my battle was nothing like persecution or moving to another country, you helped me through the darkest nights.

I can only hope that in the future, if the cards fall in the right way, that I have a daughter as well. And she will learn the stories of her mother, the stories of her mother’s mother, and the stories of her mother’s mother’s mother

Given that it is now a new year in the Chinese calendar, there is optimism in the air. I spent the “Western” New Year, asleep on my bed, having received some less than pleasant news while sitting on a hospital bed. So, as in with the Canadian TV series Being Erica , in which a girl goes into her past to “fix her regrets” and adjusts her view of the future/her life, I’m starting this year fresh with new memories, good thoughts of the future, and brand new thoughts.

Thus, the rebirth of this blog with a new spin focused more on writing and self-reflection. The last post previous to this post haunts me and I didn’t want this blog to end on that note. I’m less caffeinated than before–I suppose the coffee shtick could travel on but it’s been a few weeks since I’ve had a real cup of coffee and coffee has a dangerous effect considering the health circumstances–so with a new title, new spirit, and new direction, hello 2011. I may be late to the party but here I am.

Years ago, after “Laguna Beach” turned into “The Hills”, Lauren Conrad said the above quote during, what I recall, as the first episode of “The Hills”. Major applause to whichever script writer wrote that or if Lauren said that herself, props to her.

Truthfully, I never imagined that my life would turn out like this. School is much harder than I imagined and I’ve met so many people who are in the industry that I want to break into. I’ve been fortunate enough to have professors support me in the past year, learn about Communication Studies research, get a scary but amazing mentor who resembled Miranda priestly, and transfer from a wonderful amazing university that I will forever love called UCSD to UCLA in a brand new city of Los Angeles. I transferred to a place that was relatively foreign–I could count the number of people I knew on my hands–and each day I am surprised by all the wonderful tidbits of UCLA and Los Angeles in general.

Six weeks since moving in, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet the right people, connected to a mentor through my scholarship, got a research assistant position in a graduate field that I’m interested in pursuing, and been blessed to do some things I never imagined possible (TV screenings, movie premieres, film, talking to actors, actresses, and publicists, football games). Back when I used to freak out over pages of US Weekly and People Magazine, I’ve soon come to the point of respecting actors not as public figures but more for their mastery of their art of acting or singing or both. Though I still cannot resist for a picture here and there, I love watching the background aspect of what a publicist does at events, what interns do at red carpets,  photographers, the media relations and how that translates from reality to TV screens or magazine pages.

This photograph (my iPhone background) is exactly what I think of every day:

While I situated myself to study on a building arch (very comfortable and very ant-free), I had a nice view of the photo shoot and a quiet place to study. As the photo shoot director commented that she missed school and loves photo shoots on campus, I would have kindly asked her to take my midterm for me but it was better that I just smiled as a response.

For the past few hours, I’ve been studying at a table near the fireplace at the cafe. While annotating, a four year old boy walked up to me, sat in the chair next to me, and asked his mother, “Who is this? Who is she?”

With my earphones in my ear blasting Ingrid Michaelson (because the chatter in the cafe is way too loud), I smiled at the little boy and his mother tried to whisk him away.

Though he wanted to sit at my table, he sat at the table next to mine. He turned in my direction, pointed toward my “Ellen” coffee cup tumbler and asked, “Is that coffee?”

His mom answered, “Yes, that is coffee.”

And for the next few minutes he proclaimed, “I want coffee! I want to drink coffee! I want coffee now!”

I’m happily influencing the next generation’s coffee addicts. One kid at a time.

Posterous hooked me up with a snazzy iPhone and using the camera, I took this raw, unedited picture while I was watching the YouTube video–right before the mascara-filled tears flooded out.

Read my post on Posterous here: http://bit.ly/9zaGzV , and please watch the YouTube video embedded in my Posterous blog post.

And as I said before, believe me,  it gets better.

Taken from my iPhone as I geek out in my Posterous shirt, displaying my "5-year-old-like-show all my teeth" grin-because-I'm-so-freakin'-excited."

After receiving my spankin’ new awesome iPhone for my Posterous College Mobilizer Gig (if you haven’t read already, you should read about that awesome gig here: http://bit.ly/b5lBrW), I planned on making a pit stop at the Apple store in the Beverly Center to pick up a case and get a quick tutorial on how to use an iPhone.

When the Apple employee (who was not fond of the fact that I’m keeping my Blackberry–despite my explanation that my iPhone has 0 service in my room whatsoever) asked me about my hometown, I answered, for the first time in an Apple store, “Haha, Cupertino.”

His eyes brightened up and he got all giddy with excitement–which was soon replaced with eye-rolling and anger when I didn’t return the same reaction of “Apple” appreciation. He thought that my hometown of Cupertino was only Apple Headquarters–and nothing else. It’s also really interesting to sit in my lecture hall and listen to my professor give his lecture topic with references to the “Silicon Valley”, high schools around my town, and the history of the internet–when I can picture all of those places in my head as places that I’ve grown up to, have been accustomed to.

Since my time here at UCLA, I’ve met many students who grew up in Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, etc. which are all places my friends and I dreamed of when we were just kids back in the techy-geeky-way-too-Asian town of Cupertino. It’s fascinating to finally be here and drive past Bel Air, the studios where Glee is shot, drive on Sunset Blvd., and walk past celebrities at local stores–and realize how different and similar it is to what I used to dream about. Some of us Cupertino kids dreamed of leaving our town–leaving this place that other tech-geeks around the world know as the place of Apple Headquarters–for a place like  Los Angeles and here I am, in Los Angeles, meeting people of all ages who wish they could experience Cupertino “Silicon Valley” life.

Where we grow up is what truly shapes us. Most of my friends back home all use twitter, blog, read blogs, configure RSS feeds, have their own sites…which is relatively uncommon in other places. It’s strange how life works and how our dreams intersect.

I’ve been here for two weeks and I truly feel like a Bruin.  On Friday, I went to the Annenberg Space for Photography with the UCLA Photo Club. They have an exhibit of Photos of the Year along with a movie reel of interviews with photographers along with their photography. What each photographer reiterated was that photography captures a memory and emits such emotion–if it weren’t for the mascara (that was not waterproof), I would have dripped some tears with some of the powerful photos.

On Saturday, I went to my first football game–which started off with rain (bring out the ponchos in LA, y’all) and ended up in horrible heat to the point that students hid in the Rose Bowl tunnels to avoid the heat (and all the sunburn, of course). Despite the fact that it’s a full-day event, I really do love the energy of the crowd during college football.

Today, I met up with Mel (my former UCSD suitemate) and had a lovely brunch in her neighborhood in Santa Monica. As a Santa Monica noob (does anyone use “noob” anymore?), she showed me the epic pier and Third Street Promenade.

Tomorrow begins Week 2 of classes–and I’ve already turned in a 15 page paper, had a quiz, other group projects, and met several people who have made it in the industry that I want to make it in. Though adjusting to a new school is very difficult (especially when I loved and continue to love my previous university), I really do feel like a UCLA student now.

So, I live on a hill. All the dorms at UCLA are considered “on the hill.” Now, don’t underestimate what “the hill” really means. I definitely did and had a rude awakening after walking straight uphill with endless flights of stairs. I also regret joining the fitness club because I’m having enough of a workout just walking to and from the dorms.

Yesterday, I decided to get my work done at the UCLA Library. The library is located down the hill and across the campus. I decided around 2 p.m. that it was time to get my butt out of bed and to walk toward the library. After walking out of my dorm and going down about 30 flights of stairs, I decided “Hm. It’s hot. Let me put on my sunglasses.”

I put on my sunglasses and I feel much better from the blazing sun rays shooting down at me. I see other students smiling or looking at me so I’m like “Okay, thing are turning better. People are nicer than I imagined–they’re almost quite like the friendliness of UCSD students.”

After walking 10 minutes, I’m walking down this side of the hill and a 40-something man is walking toward my direction up the hill. He smiles at me and I smile back. And he says, “By the way. You only have one lens in your sunglasses.”

I think, “What a joker. What is he talking about?!?”

I take my sunglasses off and look at them–indeed I only had a right eye lens and no lens at the left eye lens. I open my backpack and realize that the left lens had popped out and was in the case the entire time. Yes, that means I walked all that time with only one lens in. And the more surprising thing is, how did I not notice I only had one lens in?!? When I webchatted with M later last night, I put on the sunglasses with only one lens in. Though the reflection of the webcam showed a really obvious one-lens situation, my eyes didn’t feel that different. Perhaps my left eye doesn’t really do anything or my brain tricks my eyes into thinking that they both have lenses.

Well, instead of crawling into a hole and crying over the sheer embarrassment of one-lens sunglasses walk, I called up my friends and decided to share them my story. Each phone call had the same reaction–laughter on the other line.

I also started texting my friends letting them all know what had just happened. I turned an embarrassing story into something that just made people laugh–and maybe put some joy into their day. It’s not too hard to turn a bad experience into a good one. And though I think this experience is embarrassing and ridiculous enough, my friends still think I will top it with some other future incidents-turned-stories.

After all, I’ve only been here for one week and I’m already seeing life through a different lens P) (M inspired this one-sunglasses-lens shaded emoticon). And maybe I’ve just inspired a new Lady Gaga trend. You know how I do. Sometimes, I think this is just all material for my life as a stand-up comedian or as a script writer with a hideously awkward and shameless character that is “loosely” based on me.

I’ll update more on transfer life soon. I love UCLA’s Academics and the drive to succeed but man I miss the friendliness of UCSD’s students.

I actually really like the “Dear Frosh” series. There’s a lot to read and I learned a lot from reading them. I’m officially moving into my UCLA dorm room tomorrow and I hope my freshman year experience will be somewhat like this new UCLA experience.

I’m also writing a blog series about interning (with a severe caffeinated influence, of course) here: http://ow.ly/2Di9h

If you like what you read (or if you have something to say), please leave a comment on those websites!

And, if you are on twitter, can you be a doll and please ReTweet:  http://twitter.com/TheInternView/status/24377762058 and http://twitter.com/wpjenna/status/24777677849

Best of luck to all the new freshmen moving into college as well as all the other students who have already started school!