August 21st: GBO Orientation Day 1

Today could've been better.

My roommates and I woke up a bit late, but we still made it to the orientation circle on time. Unfortunately, we were separated from the orientation group that the rest of our floor was on, so it was disappointing we couldn't vibe with them more during GBO. However, we still got to meet a couple new faces.

Our GBO leaders first led us to a coffee shop they recommend, but we were allowed to separate from the group and roam telegraph avenue. I roamed around for a while and saw a couple of interesting shops that I would like to go to later. It was getting a bit hot, so I bought a water at Walgreens, but I regret not buying a coffee: I was feeling a bit sleepy since I couldn't sleep as much!

Then, we had lunch. It was a bit earlier than I was used to. I got a chicken burrito. It was flavorful, but it was filled with a lot of lettuce, and I would've appreciated some more rice, beans, and salsa in it.

After lunch, we headed to the Haas Pavilion for our convocation ceremony. It was really long! The bleachers weren't the most comfortable, and it was getting pretty hot. Fortunately, after leaving, we got to head back to our dorms to rest. The first thing I did when I got back to my dorm was get some ice water to cool down!

Once we had rested for a bit we went back down to get GBO dinner. For this night, we got off-campus food at Cali's Sports Bar and Kitchen. I got a smash burger with fries and a drink. It was very good, and I had been craving for a burger beforehand for a while. It was nice to get something that wasn't dining hall food.

After dinner, we walked back to the dorm. I did some work until late, then Weikang and I went to see the late night activities. I wanted to go do karaoke, but the line seemed quite long. So, we went to the carnival. There were some surprisngly cool things, like bouncy houses. There were also generic carnival games like "flip the frog," milk bottles, etc. They were also playing music so there was a mosh pit as well, where many people were dancing and vibing to the music. Unfortunately, the lines for everything were quite long. We managed to bounce on a couple of bouncy houses, and we waited in line for a really long time to hit the milk bottles, which was surprisingly hard to do.

Then, we went around to see what other late-night activities were available. There was GBO tote bag decorating, but there were so many people I didn't really know what was going on. We ended up finding the trivia night, and it was really fun seeing what media I remembered. There were $50 prizes, but I wasn't proficient in the media to rank high enough.

Finally, we went back up to the dorms to rest up for the night. I wish I talked to more people, but I'm satisfied seeing what Cal had to offer this night.

Thanks for reading,
Issac