ESAP Diary (week 2)

 

This is week 2 of the ESAP Camp! Week 1 can be found here.

Let's get straight into it.

Day 9 (7/18/2022)

Woke up at 8 AM, went out to the cafeteria to eat yogurt for breakfast, then walked to our lab to do our class. Our professor had some flight delay issue so our entire morning session was pretty much just worktime and opportunity to ask the TA's questions, basically a lab. 

After, I went to buy more clothes at Urban Outfitters because the shirt turned out super well. I spent like 50 dollars for 4 shirts which isn't bad. Then I bought a salad at the salad place I usually go to and I ordered some other one this time with onions. I ate it at my dorm, chilled, and headed back to class. We worked on ears, but my character had cat ears so I did other things. 

What I did do is make the eyes bigger, and it looks rly funny now. Before it was horrifying. 

So yeah I didn't do much during class as I was waiting for him to go over the cat ears, but we ran overtime at 5:00, so he said to come back at 6:00 to do the cat ears. So we went to eat dinner and I ate a sandwich which tasted okay but pretty undesirable. Anyway, we got back to the lab pretty early and played zombs on the computers, then waited and realized that our professor wasn't coming back. I don't know the reason why but I'll take it EASILY. So we got let out and I stopped by the gym to do chest press, bicep, and the calf machine. It was still fairly crowded but not as crowded as the first time I went. There was a spare bench available which would be unheard of in the time I went. 

So I headed home, showered, then went to refill my water. I use like 5 plastic waterbottles that I stole from a buffet as my source of water, and I refill it using the drinking fountain once every 2 days usually. Since this is the start of a new week, I'll share some more pics of what upenn is like. 

This is SO CONVENIENT. It's literally a trash chute for us to throw down our trash. Each floor has one of these, and they all have some piping system down. It's so convenient. I went to take out my trash yesterday, but forgot to take photos, so I took some today.

Here's the view of the city from the 15th floor. This building has like 24 floors I think? It's really high and sophisticated.

Pretty straightforward day. I spent the night cubing, playing zombs, watching youtube, doing binarysearch.io, and writing this blog. I don't know why but I feel like sleeping "early" today.

Day 10 (7/19/22)

Woke up, went to eat breakfast where I ate a bagel today with their toasting machine and cream cheese. 

Then we went to the morning session where we made and worked on a neck for our character. That's pretty much it. 

After, I headed to my dorm to eat my leftover salad for lunch. On the way, I took a look at the Penn bookstore cuz I had time and DANG THIS THING IS HUGE.

That's just one portion of the store. There's a ton of Penn merch along with an insane amount of books. It's pretty expensive tho, a long sleeve Penn tshirt cost me 45 dollars, which I regretfully bought.

I also took photos of the UPenn campus/streets in general. So far, I'm really enjoying the UPenn campus. I don't have much to compare it to besides Berkeley. The apartment I'm in is way nicer than any Berkeley apartment/suite I've seen my sister live in. Along with that, I just have this feeling that I'm safe at UPenn. They have so many services such as walking escorts, a separate rapid 911 phone line strictly for UPenn, and all the sprinklers/smoke-detectors they have everywhere in the buildings. The streets aren't necessarily clean, but they're definitely not dirty. There is an area where homeless people and their tents are set up, but other than that you don't see many in this campus scattered around.

After the afternoon session where the professor went around and looked at people's models individually (I actually learned a lot watching him fix my model as he used so many convenient tools such as paint select, +/- key features, hide object), my roomates and I headed to the nearest cafeteria to grab dinner. Then it wasn't just a "go home and vibe" type of day, the TAs planned a trip to Penn's Landing so our class took a train to Penn's Landing which was really nice. 

Penn's landing was really nice. It was kind of like a boardwalk but with no sand. You were just walking along the pier walking besides the Deleware River, which separates New Jersey and Pennsylvania. So literally I can see New Jersey while I'm here, walking in Pennsylvania. 

It was just such a festive place with tons of lights, hammocks, chairs, and stands selling ice cream, french toast bites (i really wanted to get one but I was already full), etc. There was also an arcade and multiple bocceball "courts," music, and historical things that no one truly cares about. 

SO yeah, definitely a fun experience. When we were walking along the edge there was a jet skiier who just sprayed us all with water and I got mad for a sec before I realized that if I was a jet skiier, I would probably do the same. That urge is irresistable right there.

So yeah. We got back at like 9:30. I showered, played games, cubed, brushed my teeth, wrote this blog, and aboutta dip out to bed.

Day 11 (7/20/22)

Woke up at 8:00 and went to the cafeteria with my roomates as usual. I ate strawberry yogurt and a croissant. Then, we headed to the lab to work on beards/mustaches, but my character doesn't need it so it was pretty much just free time for the morning. Pretty chill.

For lunch, I went to repair my phone's charging port since it's dangerously bent for whatever reason, and after spending $40 on that I went to Shake Shack to buy a burger/fries, then went to a boba place called boba king just nearby and bought a Strawberry Milk. Pretty unhealthy but I'm fine with it. 

Here's a cool class building I saw while walking around during lunch. Anyway, I wish I took a photo of the Strawberry Milk because IT WAS SO GOOD. The puree was GENEROUSLY FILLED and that meant it was just EVERYWHERE. That was so fire, best strawberry milk I've ever had. Next time I get it ;) I will take a photo to show you guys.

I drank the drink during the afternoon session, in which we continued from yesterday where the professor would look over everyone's model individually and make comments/adjustments. That meant...more free time. I forgot what I did but I played some games with the people sitting next to me (who were my roomates) and cubed. Today has gotta be the most chill and least demanding day I've had from this camp. Only the last 30 minutes, we regrouped and worked on a hairline for hair which we will add in tomorrow.

So after that, my TA took me and the rest of our TA group or whatever you call it to paid dinner, and we voted for Ramen.

I got some Mayu thing I think. The noodles and meat and eggs were pretty good, but I don't understand the hype of this, as my first time trying Ramen was a pretty big letdown.

Anyway, we went back after that and I actually did a lot of pentapping and recording (I'll update you on when I edit it), along with making a newly refined zombs montage that I will also update you on when I finish editing it. Other than that, there was a movie night in the 14th floor lounge at 9:00 PM in which I checked out. They were watching some horror movie and one of the TAs bought popcorn which was coool. Totally not for me though, I can't even handle basic thriller TV shows (such as manifest).

Not much else to say. The boba was super good, I'll definitely get it again next time I have the opportunity. I'm sleeping pretty early for my standards today.

Day 12 (7/21/22)

Woke up, ate breakfast. Then went to lab where we worked on the body for the morning. This was really cool cuz we used photoshopped to edit the image to be compatible and viable for us to use as a model/guide for the base mesh on maya. I have a timelapse screen recording of a lot of work, so stay tuned for that.

For lunch, I stayed in the lab for like 30 minutes to work on my zombs montage with the big monitor, then headed to the cafeteria by myself to eat a bagel sandwich. I'm kind of getting sick of the cafeteria food, and I don't even eat it as frequently as my roommates. Sometimes I buy from salad places or yesterday, I bought from shake shack.

Anyway, I headed back to the lab and worked on my zombs montage some more. During the afternoon, we just refined and worked on our body more, including legs and arms. Fairly productive day.

Then, I went back after working on my zombs montage some more after class ended. On the way, I checked out the Penn bookstore some more. 

The bookstore is so big and clean it almost feels out of place. It's giving me "shiny" vibes everywhere. 

Anyway, I continued walking back and stopped by the gym for 10 minutes to do the stairs. It almost felt like 20 minutes. Stairs is so consistent. 

Anyway, I bought tacos at a mexican cuz im so sick of the cafeteria and their white people food. 

So, yeah. Another short post for today, but that just means more sleep for me :)

I went back, showered, cubed, worked on my zombs montage, and hung out with my binarysearch friends for a long time, playing jklm/lolbeans/binarysearch-rooms. Pretty fun.

Very early today. It's funny how I thought I could pull up 2 AM or 3 AM every day, but my body can't keep up with it. Oh well, this works too. 

Day 13 (7/23/22)

Woke up, ate breakfast, then went to lab where we worked on more body stuff like the chest. Speaking of chest, here's a chest shot. 

I realized I had the same colors as the pokemon Meganium. Very cool !

I stayed in the lab for the first hour of lunch to upload stuff, then went to Shake Shack for lunch and then bought boba afterwards because I have to get a photo.

Now you can see how much puree there is. It's pretty sweet and very good. There's just so much flavor compared to the Strawberry Milk from boba bliss.

Anyway, during the afternoon session we designed the elbows, some intricate bones in our body, and had the last hour of free time as the professor continued checking people's models individually. He spends like 25 minutes per person fixing things for some reason.

Anyway, at 5:00 when class ended, I stayed until 9:00 PM adding cat ears to my face, editing my timelapse, cubing, and watching youtube. Doing the cat ears was so time consuming, and just as you thought you were done wielding everything together, there's tons of N-gons and triangles everywhere and you just have to fix everything. I thought I was pretty smart with the wielding but there were still some messes that I had to clean up.

So yea, that's all the photos I had. I literally took three photos today (two of them are duplicates of the boba).  At 9:00, I went back to the dorm and we were having some game night so I checked it out and it was literally just people playing bedwars together. There was some card game going on somewhere else actually. I just stole a bag of chips and dipped out cuz I'd rather cube in my room. 

Day 14 (7/23/22)

I forgot to mention that ALL OF MY back pain came soaring back yesterday, likely from the strain on the back when I did the stairs machine two days ago. As a result, I have to go two days in a row without the gym. I may not even be able to participate in an ice skating event tomorrow. I'll see. The pain isn't as bad as it was before, but it's definitely present. I was so confident that all of this went away...but I guess not.

Anyway, sorry to start off on that type of note.

Today was Saturday, so I woke up at like 9:30 and ate a granola bar that I bought last week for breakfast. Then I cubed and did some video editing until 12:00, before heading out with a roommate to eat lunch at Cane's. 

    

This seemed to be a very busy and popular spot. The food itself was alright. This Raising Cane's place is known for their chicken fingers, and they tasted like pretty good. Idk, there wasn't any special about anything. The sauce was kinda good.

Anyway, I spent the afternoon cubing and actually doing some work in a while. We left at around 4:40 for a dinner with our entire class at some japanese place.

I got fried rice with stripped beef since every other option had some type of seafood in it. My rice was really good, I couldn't finish it so I packed 1/3 of it in a box.

After dinner, I went to lab and worked more on my body and face. I was there until like 9:35 or something.

My face looks so good now. Anyway, after lab, I walked to a nearby supermarket to buy breakfast for tomorrow and also some fruits. I don't know why it took me so long to get fruits, it's such a nice snack to have. I ate like three tangerines when I got back.

Anyway, strolling around at night was really nice. I felt safer than other cities at night, as there were lots of lights and I was walking on the big streets.

The east coast vibe is really starting to grow on me. The architecture is way more sophisticated than the architecture in SF or LA.

What I bought ^

So, yeah. I got back at like 10:20 and showered, played rocket league, washed my mask, watched youtube, and wrote this. 

Day 15 (7/24/22)

Today was kind of a cool day. After waking up and drinking the yogurt, I vibed until 12 where we would go to the philly city center. I was pretty excited because were were confined to a relatively small border in university city. Being able to go to actual philly and experience the east coast for real would be really cool...AND IT DELIVERED.

There's a pretty grand bridge and river that separates university city to the actual city. We have gone to penn's landing before, but this will be another experience. Just already you can see all those tall buildings, kind of like SF/LA/any-big-urban-area.

Only like a fourth of our class showed up, so we split up to like three groups to do our own thing. I suggested going to the Liberty Bell or 76ers arena, but both of those sites get boring after u stare at it for 20 seconds, plus, they were a far walk (30 min). Instead, we decided on going to a mall and then going to Chinatown. What's crazy is that my friends were talking about SF china town and how great it is, since they're from New York. I've never thought SF china town as anything special, but that's very cool.

NYPD Pizza is a funny name. I wonder what that's about.

The mall was cool. It was a pretty steoreotypical one with stereotypical stores tho, idk how u make it special. We went to the nike store and h&m. I didn't really buy anything cuz I didn't like anything. I'm fine with that though. I also checked out like a suitcase store where they had a lot of suitcases/luggage bags, and I may need an extra carry-on bag since I'm bringing a lot more stuff home than I brought here. 

Anyway, I asked for their cheapest option of this particular size of carry-on bag, and they directed me to 140 DOLLARS. I wasn't familiar with this market, but I just knew that was overpriced. I called my mom and she said that u can get a solid one for 70-80 so I just dipped out of that. Hopefully I can find another luggage store somewhere else.

Then we went to china town which was really close to the mall, and stopped by this place called MangoMango. I was gonna order an ube cake but they ran out of ube or osmething so I just got this dumb oreo one. The texture was super good tho, it was a solid cake. Everyone else got like chinese desserts with the glass cup and all kinds of fruits/jelly and stuff.

It was SOOO HOT on our way back. Especially walking on that bridge. The sun was just scorching and there was nothing we could do about it. Whatever tho, it was super fun and we did so much walking, I think I tracked close to 8 kilometers. The east coast is definitely a different vibe than the west coast. There's a lot more "european" vibes with the old, stone type architecture you see somewhat frequently. Other than that, I just can't really explain it. It's pretty packed, with parallel parking everywhere (as seen in like every other urban area). I've never gone to Times Square tho, so I don't have a full grasp of East Coast.

Anyway, we got back at around 4:30 and there was an ice skating event at like 6:30. I originally was going to go ever since they announced it last week, but I opted out after I woke up today and my back still felt prone. It's sad, but it is nice to be alone in my dorm just chilling for the night. It's whatever honestly...

I went out and got a gyro for dinner. The heat is just so insane that you can go out for like 15 minutes to grab food and you will still come home sweating.

The gyro was really good, I really like diced tomatoes in them instead of sliced tomatoes that I usually encounter.

So yeah, after that was just the usual vibe stuff I do, plus some work before.

Coming Up...

WE ARE OFFICIALLY AT 2/3. I know most of the people in my class now, and it's been really fun as I continue to make new friends. The TA's are all so chill and my homies too. One thing that's crazy is that it's been two weeks and I still hvaen't had a philly cheesesteak, visited the liberty bell, or the 76ers arena. I definitely had opportunities to, but it's not worth it and I don't regret it. I just thought that was funny.

There's so much more to talk about, but I don't know how to gather/organize my thoughts. It's just been such a blast. I do need to start grinding so I can get a good grade tho. This means I have to push thru some night seshes in the lab most likely, but that vibe is really nice honestly. I'm just genuinely enjoying everything. I'm very lucky to have such a sophisticated dorm, with the trash chute, air condition, no bugs, lounge, microwave/fridge/stove/oven/sinks/bathroom. This is pretty above average for a college dorm I feel like.

Lyric(s) of the Post:

"

All the lies the hidden truth
Things I never thought I'd do
Just to get closer to you
Lost my ways thinking it to

"

Find You - Vaance, Excede