Tim O' Brien, Halloween, Pumpkin Patch

It was a little over week ago, when I went to see Tim O' Brien speak here at Santa Barbara City College. After my sociology class and long hours at work, I headed back to school just in time to see the author of The Things They Carried. The room, in which it was held, was packed; People had to start sitting on the floor. What I really enjoyed seeing was a room of students and English Professors all eager to see this inspirational Vietnam veteran. 

He introduced us with a brief background of where he came from, which helped us understand what influenced him to become a writer. Raised in the dull town of Worthington, Minnesota, the Turkey Capital of America, he began to escape his town in books he read. He said, one of the few things young boys could do in Worthington was play baseball and unfortunately he wasn't great at playing. 

There was many laughs in the audience when, O'Brien explained that his first novel he wrote was a baseball novel. There wasn't much of his own writing in this book because he copied it from another novel he read; He just rewrote himself as the main character which was a talented baseball player.  My favorite part of his introduction was when he explained to his audience that, "You don't need to go to wars or climb mountains to be a writer you just need to breathe," basically implying that anyone can be a writer. The rest of his time he was able to answer questions from the audience members regarding his Vietnam experience. 

Santa Barbara City College really enjoyed his visit; We are lucky to have such influential writers and speakers come, which is another great reason to come here. 




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On a different note, Happy Halloween to everyone! I hope everyone has a fun, but safe Halloween. Yesterday my sister and I were able to go to pick out our pumpkins at Lane Farms. Yes, it was last minute and were going to crave them today, before the trick-or-treaters knock on our door. 

In this particular Pumpkin Patch, there is a corn maze my friends and I go to every year. I suggest you go at night because it's more challenging. I remember when I was a sophomore in High School, my friends and I went during the day. My guy friends decided it would be fun if we all ran through the maze. I was the only girl who agreed to this, so I ran after them in the maze. We were going at a really fast paste and soon they started sprinting.  I couldn't keep up so I stopped and was left in the maze alone. Of course I was laughing the whole time because I thought this was a stupid idea and why did I listen to these idiots, but fortunately I stood where I was for a few minutes and I found my other friends. After we got out of the maze we went on a tractor ride, which is aimed for the younger kids and went to see the farm animals in their cages. Good times.

Anyways, I hope Midterms went well for everyone!

-KIKI REYES 


 

Adjustments

I wouldn't say I was on a extremely long vacation this summer because I decided to enroll in summer classes. Yes most would dread it but I decided this after my last final during the spring semester. I remembered walking across to the beach and realizing it wouldn’t be entirely bad, after all my ideal summer would be staying here in paradise. It was quite distracting because of the perfect days, but fortunately I was able to push through and finish off hard in my classes. I  can now say I have finished my math and english requirements and it only took a year and a half. So after many weeks of summer school I finally had my vacation... I had an audition for Rising Star USA-which is a singing competition I was able to gain audition experience from, I ran with a group of friends at Run or Dye (image to right: my

good friend Billy and I), I went kayaking (image to your left: my friend Jack, My sister Jasmine, and I) and paddle boarding with my friends, and all of this spontaneous activity helped me prepare myself for this fall semester and what it has to offer.   

So far it has offered us a few more weeks of summer because of the unbearable heat. Being a Santa Barbara native, I have seen this occur several times before and its not something we natives are used to.This weather is not helping my concentration so I'm resisting its power of its warmth that can be so heavy it can put us all of asleep. My first week of school I noticed on the East campus many students sitting on the grass under palm trees reading pages from their class textbooks as well as sleeping-this was by the gateway building. So since I had an hour until one of my many classes I joined them. It was very refreshing; I could feel the wind lift my concerns for school away.

           My concerns circle around the idea of not transferring on time and because of this fear I have become a full time student at SBCC with a part-time job. I'm trying to get as many credits as I can this semester as well as to save enough money to transfer. And  I'm sure there’s many people around this campus that are like me, an English major, a musician, a writer. (This point was beyond proven in my Creative Writing class) Hopefully this semester exceeds past our expectations improvements,school wise (glad be apart of a smoke-free campus) and academic wise.

            And as always heading into our second week of school my birthday falls into that week. I've been talking about for a week now to everyone (for example I told the cashier at the SBCC Bookstore who circled the return date on my receipt which happened to be my date of birthday. At least he said "Happy Birthday: to me right?). Of course its all just adjustments, school schedule, work schedule, a new age, a new outlook, a different routine, you could say its overwhelming but I'm sure changes like these happen to everyone.  

- Kiki Reyes