Being that this is Finals Week (even though I’ve been done since last Thursday), it’s a more than appropriate time to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the academic school year.
Flashback to my first day on campus, where I knew virtually nobody. Being one of the few “Post-Bacs” on campus made me feel slightly awkward talking to strangers in my classes and the surrounding environment. I remember walking down Titan walk talking to random tables (which included many religious groups such as Intervarsity and the Jewish club). I remember going into the ASI office asking how I could get more involved on campus. They inevitably placed me on some committee whose meetings I never actually attended (yet I still receive the emails). Needless to say, I was looking for a niche on campus. Notice that I used the word “niche” and not “clique”. They are not interchangeable terms.
I met some relatively nice people in Intervarsity. The only problem with the organization to me was I never quite found myself as devout as the people around me. Using my experiences in the past to never be “fake” so to speak, I ended up leaving the club and exploring other options. I went to meeting after meeting, from the Student California’s Teacher Association to Young Americans for Liberty, from Reddit Club to finally Circle K International. I felt an entirely comfortable environment in the Circle K organization, even constructing a “clique” in an effort to ease myself into the club. As much as people see much as extroverted, I largely prefer to interact in smaller groups to get to know people on a deeper, more personal level. Cliques, when exclusive, are a bad thing, but I found the “Quack Pack” to be a necessity for me to start to get to know people much more easily. Though the clique is “dead”, it was the seed that eventually led me to having more personal friendships inside the Circle K organization as a whole. Once I got comfortable around my fellow “clique” members, I got more comfortable around the club. Now, though I’m slightly against the notion of exclusive cliques, I can’t necessarily say it hasn’t helped me get to the point where I am now.
Flash forward to the present and I’m very close to many of the people within the club. Regardless of the six classes I took this year at CSUF, the bonds I made in my classes aren’t nearly as strong as the bonds I made doing community service every single weekend. The classes I took were easy, and only reaffirmed my confidence in my abilities to become a great educator in the future. (I got straight A’s).
Cal State Fullerton was the center of my experience this year. More specifically, Circle K was the center of everything I did. Even though I hung out with other people, even though I spent 20 hours every week at the YMCA (Loara and Katella high school respectively), Circle K events, hangouts, and socials were the things I looked forward to every single day. Needless to say, Circle K was the center of my life this year. Next year, that will change as I move forward into the teaching credential program. I am fairly certain my second year at Cal State Fullerton will be much different from my first year. But as I look into the future, I will never forget my experiences in my first year of this school, more specifically my experiences in Circle K. <24.
We need the past. It is a reminder of who we will be in the future. Thank you Pyles & Stanford Elementary, Alamitos Intermediate, Rancho Alamitos High, UCSD, & CSUF.
