ESAP Diary (Week 1)
Just after a week of order and consistency in my life after getting back from EuroTrip 2022, I depart on my own to Philadelphia, where I attend a 3-week college-like-experience summer camp.
I was very excited to go, as I'm on my own and it's just so fun. Plus, this was going to be my first time in the east coast, and Philadelphia looks like such an exciting place.
NOTE: These diary entries will be pretty brief compared to EuroTrip journals.
Day 0
I leave the house at around 6:30 to get to the airport for my 10 PM 4 hour flight from San Francisco to Detroit, where I have a 2 hour layover before going on a 90 minute flight from Detroit to Philadelphia.
I was pretty dang tired, and I remember at the SFO airport as I was waiting alone to board, I ate this bag of mini poptarts which was surprisingly good. I also cubed.
I don't want to get into the boring details about flights and stuff. I was pretty alert and careful and all that, especially during the layover.
So yea by that time it was like 5:30 AM in EST which was 2:30 AM in PST during my layover, so new day.
Day 1
After the flight, I was pretty tired, and as I took my time walking out into the baggage claim, I bought a pepperoni pretzel from Auntie Annies that was SO FIRE and kept me energetic.
After getting my baggage, I met up with them where we waited for like an hour because of some bus issues, where we ultimately all just took ubers to UPenn. During that wait, I downloaded RocketLeague SideSwipe because that game looks intriguing as I saw someone playing it and also because I know that game from the Monstercat album.
After checking in and all that we basically had free time until 5:15 PM where we had to meet up for dinner. It was like 11:00 AM when I checked in so what I did was unload all my stuff, meet my roomates, and actually go out by myself to a phone repair store because my phone wouldn't charge. Then I realized that it charged at their outlets, so it was actually the dorm's outlets fault and not the phone charging port.
I don't regret the walk, however. I was able to admire just these tall and randomly ancient structures everywhere in Philadelphia. I also noticed that there were a strong portion of license plates from New Jersey and New York, even though we were in Pennsylvania. Obviously, it's becuase New Jersey is like less than a 1 hour drive away, and somewhat similarly with New York.
Anyway, So yea. My roomates are pretty good, theres this one tall white kid thats absolutely hilarious and easy to clown/roast on. Reminds me of this kid Javi from school.
Dinner was some like thing at the cafeteria where it was a buffet of hamburger buns, cheese, tomato, lettuce, onion, hot dog buns, hot dog beef, and dessert. They also gave out mountain dew which was surprising. Hopefully this isn't all just a fluke and the cafeteria food can be surprisingly good like this, but I'm not expecting it to be this way.
After that, we walked back, played zombs, played cards, then had a meeting with everyone in my computer grpahics class. We went outside to do some ice breakers, announcements, precautions, and joining a groupchat on whatsapp. While outside, I saw fireflies for the first time and thaT WAS CRAZY. THEY ARE SO COOL. I just kept on admiring them. They are just these flies that fly around and suddenly glow yellow once in a while. So in the grand scheme, you just see some glowing and blinking yellow lights scattered around. That was so cool, seeing fireflies for the first time. Apparently they're supper common in Penn. Anyway, after that meeting I went back and played some more zombs with my roomates, brushed my teeth, played some sideswipe, blogged this entry, and went to bed at around 12:30 AM.
Let's hope I'm responsible and blog every day instead of blogging 5 days worth of content every 5 days like how I did in the EuroTrip post. Not only is it more tiring, but you remember more when u just blog every day like this.
Day 2
Today was the first day of classes.
I woke up at 7:30, cubed for a bit, then left at 8:15 or something to eat breakfast at a nearby cafeteria. They served your basic American food like scrambled eggs, sausage, potatoes, pancakes, bread. Idk why this surprised me but they had like a soda machine that we could get with like sprite, coke, diet coke, lemonade, and other soft drinks. Idk why but that was just cool and unexpected. I thought they wouldn't open it for breakfast, and I didn't expect them to have one in the dining hall at all. These cafeterias are pretty good, it's just that it might get dry if you go here so often for like an entire school year as a college student.
I didn't take any photos of the cafeteria, I take too little photos in general. Whatever lol I'll just continue to regret it.
Anyway, we went to this like big typical college lecture room where all the students in the summer program were here to watch an intro presentation about general rules, info, and also safety protocols/info.
Then, we went to our computer graphics classroom where we stayed their listening to the computer graphics professor for what felt like 13 hours. I tried so hard not to sleep. He was just the most boring person and even more boring of a talker.
After that, I seperated from my roommates because I wanted to buy lunch at this salad place, aND BOY I DON'T REGRET THAT.
Then we went back to our classroom until 4:30 to go on this application called Maya for some 3d designing things which was cool but also pretty confusing. I mean, it could've been worse, but this type of designing, I can tell, is something I won't be passionate about. We designed like a hand together and yea I don't know what else to say about this.
After we were dismissed, we walked back to the dorm, and I rested like 20 minutes before heading out to go try the gym, but they didn't let me in because apparently the coordinator or whatever for ESAP(the name of my summer program) didn't send them a list. That was kinda a bummer but hopefully I can talk to some staff member some other day and go.
So then I just headed to another cafeteria on the college campus, where they served chicken tenders, fries, rice, and some other basic dinner options. There was this stand with cookies which was rly nice because they were good. They also similarly had the same type of drinks station with all the soda and stuff, so these dinner halls are pretty viable I would say. By the way, most of these buildings I'm talking about that are on the campus can only be entered with your penn card, sometimes they have someone running a booth to check ur card. My card didn't work for the gym one because I'm part of a summer program and they have like a separate branch for that.
So after dinner, I went to CVS and bought Strawberry lemonade, mountain dew Code Red, dried peach chips, dried strawberry/banana chips, 11 pack of granola bars, 2 packs of ice breakers sours, cups, and scissors. I spent around 45 on all of that, this CVS was kinda cheap. It was pretty hard to fit all of it in the backpack, but I did shove it all in, and my backpack was pretty heavy as a result.
SO I head back, shower, play zombs with my roommates (we got HYPED), play and get better at some rocket league sideswipe, watch some youtube, write this blog post, and sleep.
Let's see if I take an acceptable quantity of photos tomorrow.
Day 3
Spoiler: I tried my best but still forgot to take photos.
I woke up at like 7:45, took off my retainer, vibed, then went out to breakfast.
Almost forgot to take a photo.
Then we walked to our lab to do our morning session. Our professor looks and talks like Skip Bayless so I cant stand him but I suck it up and follow along.
We currently spent 99% of our time so far making a hand on this 3d software called Maya. It's waaaay more complicated than u think it is.
So after heading back and eating, my roommates soon made it back to the dorm after they went to the cafeteria. We chilled until like 12:40 when we had to head back. Then, we basically just did more work on our hand. It's pretty much him just sharing his screen and guiding us on some steps and tools and stuff, it's a pretty chill class. Kinda boring sometimes, but it was better than I expected. So far, I wouldn't consider this like a rigorous class or anything. It's somewhat draining, but it's not like a class with like homework and super confusing stuff and yea.
So after we were done at 5 PM, I headed to the gym, and I was told by ESAP staff that they fixed it. I finally got to go in, and it's so awkward to just be snapping pics so I kinda like hid my phone and used the volume button on my phone as a hotkey to start spamming pictures of the gym. As a result, they were super blurry and from a trash perspective. It's the best I could do!
As you can see, I was quite passionate about taking photos. I didn't realize I took this many. Anyway, the gym was highly sophisticatet, but necessarily so, as THERE WAS A TON OF PEOPLE. In the main weight room, almost EVERY machine was taken, even the trash ones like the leg machines where you push/pull vertical bars in a circular motion. That's crazy. I found the smallest crevice of room and did some bicep, and after I checked on the calf machine and there was still dudes at that thing. I swear it couldn't have been just me that was scouting it. Bro I can't emphasize LITERALLY EVERY MACHINE WAS TAKEN. EVERY BENCH WAS TAKEN. That's crazy. I've never seen something like this before. That's crazy.
So after that, I decided to give up as I was just horbgorbling around looking for something viable and available. That's crazy.
I headed to a dinner hall nearby and sat with these crazy white kids from a different summer program that were definitely on an elite tier when it comes to immaturity. These kids were built even more different than me in freshmen year. They were making the most unfunny and unintelligent jokes. You would be sitting there and a dude would ask "what's the difference between treenuts and nuts" and his buddy will say "treenuts grows on trees" followed by a HERD of uncontrollable wheezing. That's crazy.
I ate a pizza which was a little below average for my standards, and also a chicken to make me pretend that I was consuming protein. There was a pretty wide range of food, but it was all the most basic white people food ever. Like literally every American dish you can find here. Anyway, it was cool to see a dessert stand with cake and cookies and stuff. That's cool.
SOOOO after that, I headed back to the dorm, showered, cubed, played zombs, cubed, watched youtube, play side swipe, watch youtube, and then wrote this. Maybe I should start doing some productive things these nights. That's provident.
See you tomorrow.
Day 4
Today was quite an eventful day. It started off with waking up at like 8:10, going to breakfast, and then walking to class. That's probably going to be the every day morning routine.
Today we worked on curving the hand and it was pretty fun. Then, I accompanied my roomates while they went to a nearby dining hall to eat lunch. I had the salad from yesterday so I just ate some fries.
So I went back during lunch, ate my salad, went back at 12:30, and then wrapped up and finished the hand by adding the thumb and polishing with the bumps and weaving. I had my roomate record the process for adding a bump on the palm using extrude and stuff.
We worked like 3 days which totalled up to around like 20 hours roughly on this which is crazy to think about it. I feel like I chose the best class (options were CS, computer graphics, robotics, biotech, nanotech). It's pretty chill so far, but I don't want to make any assumptions.
After that we went to the dorm to eat dinner at 5, which was pretty early. This time I took some photos of the dining hall. It's very sophisticated and has lots of options...but all American. They have literally every American food it's crazy. It reminds me of low accuracy and high precision. Like, why couldn't they have like tacos or chinese food or something. The rice they serve is pretty bad.
After eating dinner, we were going to meet up outside of the dorms to watch a Thor, Love and Thunder. That movie is crazy. I wrote about it here because I didn't wanna clutter up this post.
After the movie, we went to an ice cream store and my TA paid $200 for everyone. I asked if she was given like $1000 that she had to spend on us and I was spot on. Pretty much around $1000. I like that a lot, I think a lot of summer programs should do that.
The ice cream store was pretty cool. You could buy milk tea boba with like ice cream on top of it. Some people are out of their mind.
I got a milkshake which tasted pretty average.
Then I went back to the dorm, showered, played zombs, did some work, cubed for a long time, played sideswipe, cubed a bit more, then wrote this blog and the Thor movie review blog. It's 3:04 AM right now, and I'm fine with that.
Day 5 (7/14/22)
I'm going to start eating healthier for the rest of the trip, as this current rate is projecting me to eat fries at least once a day.
So I woke up, ate yogurt for breakfast at the cafeteria, headed to morning lesson where we didn't do much designing but we actually did some art stuff and like brainstorming for characters we were going to build next.
When I saw this for the first time I was DYING. We are being treated way too well. They gave each group a whole art superbox. All we were doing was sketching out things, why do we we need 18 different customized pens and all these random accessories.
Thanks to this brilliant superkit, we were able to carefully craft these artistic masterpieces. This toolkit is EXACTLY what I needed to unlock the next level. It brought me into a tier I've never even smelled before. The HB 13.59 MAX[TM] pencil that I longed for was finally in my hands, and I couldn't cherish it enough, as I swifty processed this masterpiece. It was heavily inspired by the Eiffel Tower. These pencils brought me into a GOD LEVEL that I didn't even need to touch the kneedable eraser. A perfectionist art flashkit fostered me into a perfectionist of an artist, and I just can't thank this artifact enough.
As if that wasn't enough, our TA took us to Shake Shack to buy us lunch with his $1000 budget. I got an avocado burger which I guiltily ate. Their burgers are fairly unique. Something about the cheese or the meat has this very flavorful saltiness. It was pretty good.
Then we headed back to our classroom since it wasn't reasonable to walk back to our dorm since there was like 40 minutes remaining or something. We played zombs there which was LIT cuz the computers are rly fast and the monitor is so big.
As for the afternoon session, we began designing faces to give us experience in a major part of designing a character. Here, you can see my rough start, but I did end up fixing it by lowering the top of the nose, and fixing that horror movie of a mouth.
After that, we went back to the same cafeteria for dinner where I ate a salad and fruits and nothing else. I didn't do much deep research into how to eat healthy before this, and I've now learned that this isn't quite that limited. Pasta works just fine, as for the case of many others.
Then, we headed BACK to the same classroom for like the third time to do a lab, since we wanted to keep working on our faces. Time really does fly by during computer graphics. It's really a unique field. I wouldn't say it's something I'm passionate about, but I would say that this field can appeal to literally anyone I feel like.
After lab, we headed back to our dorms. Then I vibed, showered, cubed, watched youtube, washed my mask, brushed teeth, vibed, cubed, wrote this, and dipped out to my bed.
I was in single-figures for pictures taken today 😤😤. Call me draymond green the way I be putting up these triple singles.
Day 6 (7/16/22)
Woke up at 8:00 and went to eat yogurt at the cafeteria as usual. Then we headed to our classroom and pretty much added more features to our face and stuff. Just looking at the picture from yesterday I know it's evident that MAJOR PROGRESS HAS BEEN DONE.
Anyway, after that, I went buy a salad at this random place that was pretty cool. I didn't get any photos though, but it was just like a mini-grocery store with a fast food counter on the side.
While walking, I did see some workers making gravel roads which was cool to watch the process.
So I headed to my dorm, ate half the salad since it was a big bowl, then headed back to class. We basically just did the same thing as this morning. We even started the ears by cutting the hole but I won't have ears since my character is a cat-human hybrid.
After that, our class went to hotspot which was basically another opportunity for the TAs to spend their budget. This place was actually really good and way better than the hotpot places from where I'm from. There was a sauce stand where you could craft your own sauce. I made a sweet barbeque garlic sauce that has some room for improvement but it was still pretty good. This place had so many options, as we could cook ramen in the pot. It was really good in fact. There were a ton of seafood and also already cooked dishes.
After, we headed back, did our laundry and played zombs while waiting for it. Then I showered, cubed, played side swipe, cubed a bit more as I'm forgetting some fresh OLL algs, wrote this blog, and about to brush my teeth and sleep at like 1:50 AM which is a bit earlier than usual. Tomorrow we will be going to Six Flags for our Saturday! I am pretty excited. I'm having fun.
Day 7 (Six Flags day)
I have a lot to write about today.
Today we were doing a mandatory trip to a Six Flags in New Jersey. We got these meal passes that got us a bottle that allowed for unlimited refills, along with a lunch and dinner pass. I'll show related pictures later on. Basically, I did not spend a PENNY externally on this entire trip, which is just crazy to think about. That's crazy.
Anyway, the bus ride there was just your average bus ride.
Alright. The rest of the day was just a STREAMLINE of rollercoasters and fun. Let's do a bulleted list chronoligically.
- GREEN LANTERN (didn't get any photos so here are stock photos)
- This roller coaster was an absolute TRASH rollercoaster to start off with. It was a stand up roller coaster, and I was feeling a bit skeptic about how it would treat my back.
- This rollercoaster made me prety strongly dizzy afterwards, and the entire ride was completely unpleasant. There were maybe a few moments that were cool but why does this need to be a standing ride? I was bouncing around in the thing and shaking... oh, and my hat FLEW OFF in the first turn. I don't know why I thought it would stay on, I literlaly saw the loops myself. I would've lost it sooner or later with that type of mindset. I did stuff my glasses into my shirt which was the right play. I have so much experience with losing/breaking my glasses and the fact that there were no incidents with it on EuroTrip is a MIRACLE. That's someting I'm proud of.
- After this ride I was starting to reconsider the "ride every roller coaster in six flags" idea that we were originally planning. Either way, we went to superman which was right nearby and I was kind of dizzy but not really.
- Superman (also didn't take photos)
- This ride was SPECIAL. The chair is oriented so that your face is facing the ground, so when you ride down, you are literally flying as if you're like superman. Just BEAMING forward horizontally like a jetpack. Plumetting towards the ground face-first. I loved this concept.
- Not only that, the roller coaster was thrilling, with amazing drops that literlaly made me feel like super man, and it was also pretty fast too. Seats were comfortable.
- This Water Log Ride Thing (I have photos now)
- As you can see, I took out my phone during this steady increase in potential energy because it was a pretty chill ride. Anyway, I was sitting in the middle so I didn't get wet, but my roomate who was in the front got fairly soaked as when we were going down, the water would splash to him. It was a pretty chill ride overall, and a necessary break from the roller coaster intensity.
- Medusa
- This one was pretty intense, but equally as thrilling. This one contained a lot of twists like a structure of a red vine, so you were spinning at a high velocity for a portion. Other than that, just your stereotypical falls and high-speed sideways or upsidedown loops.
- Minecart thing
- We went on this semi-small rollercoaster that I literlaly remember ZERO details on. That's how generic it was. I don't even recall when we did it. I think it was between in here.
- Gondola
- Great way for transporation, relaxation, and a nice view of the park. That green bottle was our all-day water bottle for unlimited refills. I hydrated with powerade throughout the day which was really convenient.
- Batman
- We tried going to Skull Valley first, but they literlaly had technicaly difficulties right when we were in the front of the line -_-
- This ride was just another high-intesity, fast roller coast with turns, drops, and loops. It was really fun, not much else to say about it.
- Random Tube Thing
- We went on this tube thing and we goT STRAIGHT SOAKED. We were so unlucky cuz the thing spun so that we were in the front when we were going down a big drop. My socks got wet unlike hte other water ride. It sucked, but it was an experience I guess. The ride was literally just a tub floating along a river, propelled by the current.
- Jersey Devil
- This rollercoaster was CRAZY. I was sitting second-to the front so I got a nice view. But this drop right here was INSANE. IT'S PRACTICALLY A STRAIGHT VERTICAL DROP. From the rollercoaster view, I thought it even bent a bit inwards. I WAS HOLDING ON FOR DEAR LIFE HOLY COW. What a thrilling rollercoaster! Other than that, there were just high-speed loops and turns, yeaaaaaaaaaaa
- Skull Valley(we went back)
- So the first time, they decided to have a delay right when we got to the front. This time we were ready to go. This one was a dark, indoor roller coaster. And they didnt' lie. It was a dark, indoor roller coaster. However, it was a terrible, dark, indoor rollercoaster.
- It was just so bad, underwhelming, short, and terrible. That was so mid.
- Dark Knight (yes, there is both a Dark Knight and Batman coaster)
- Here's another indoor roller coaster we went on right after that terrible experience. This one had lights like space mountain, and had some decorations and actual effort into the interior and not just darkness. There were TONS of sharp turns everywhere in this maze along with unexpected falls, but nothing super insane and intense. It was still super cool with all the turns though, I knew my physics teacher wouldve liked this because my inertia was jerking.
Done with roller coasters.
After the Dark Knight, we came out into sprinkling, and we were already trying to dry from the tube thing earlier, so this was annoying. Either way, we tried going on the Joker but it closed due to technicaly difficulties again, likely because of the rain.
So then we just went somewhere to use our dinner voucher and I ate this:
After dinner, we pretty much just headed back to the buses, went back, showered, watched youtube, chilled, and I wrote this blog. What a day.
Oh, and guess what time it is that I'm finishing this up...
Since it was the weekend, we pretty much had the entire day to ourselves. I slept until 11:30, ate a granola bar that I bought from CVS earlier this week, and then vibed in the room for a while before eating lunch, which was a 2-day old salad that was pretty bad not gonna lie. They didn't put enough ranch. Whatever.
After, I headed out at like 2 PM to go to lab, basically where the TAs can help you. I went before one time, and we basically just got to do what we want with access of the TAs. Anyway, I went to lab for like an hour and played diep.io with my roommates for a portion of that, and then I headed out myself since two of my roommates left earlier to go back to the dorm and one of my other roommates needed to finish his diep game in which he was doing very well in.
I needed some slides for the dorm since I only have running shoes right now, which is super inconvenient, especially during/after a shower having to wear it. Other than that, I bought a long-sleeve shirt and two shorts. The total was like $112, only because the two shorts were like $28 and $55. The t-shirt was $10 and slides were like $20 I think. Something is not adding up lmao but whatever. I threw out the receipt.
I've never face revealed so I won't now. I don't know who is on the design, I just got it cuz it was cheap and looked cool.
On the way back, I stopped by the gym on the way to do stairs for literally 10 minutes. Yes, I went in with my shopping bag and backpack, but I just put it on the rack as I could put it on the side of the stairs machine. I went pretty hard and was sweating visciously as I always do on stairs. Something about that machine is just insane.
After that, it was like 6 PM at this point somehow, so I walked to the salad place I usually go to for dinner, but they were closed, so I went to a mexican place instead, and the tacos were really good. I forgot to take a picture rip.
After coming back to the dorm and showering, I ate the tacos, cubed for a long time (listened to two logan paul podcast episodes, quite eye-opening if I have to phrase it), played rocket league, wrote this blog, and heading to sleep at:
Wow!
Coming up...
We're only 1/3 done. Lot's of more places to see and work to do. My first week was overall really enjoyable, especially six flags. Other than that, our Computer Graphics class went to many paid restaraunts and stores together, and it was really funny to troll and goof around with the TAs. As of the work I did, we designed a hand, and head. Our goal for this camp is to build an entire character, and I'm in charge of some cat character for our group. We each have different characters in which we will combine into some animaiton, but building the base model itself is such a long and complicated process, but time passes by super fast during these phases, so I really can't complain.
Next week, we will have probably the same type of restaraunt events, and ice skating event. That's all I know of as of now. I originally wanted to combine this entire camp into one post, but I think three separate posts are a bit more approachable. I'll probably combine them into one post afterwards too as an alternative option to read.
Lyric(s) of the Post:
We used to glide among the fireflies over the hills
Our youth is gone and then we must go onI know it's hard to see beyond the walls that keep us apart
But in time when we learn to climb
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