I think it’s safe to say most of us spend the majority of our time indoors. Most of us sleep and eat indoors, anyway. Working indoors just seals the deal for me. I like to do something outside at least once a day. Taking a stroll or going for a bike ride (definitely using the inclusive “or” here) helps keep my legs from cramping up and gives me a good appetite for the batch of zucchini bread I made with a friend last night.
On Saturday, the same zucchini-bread-making friend and I took a short bike right to Victory Park, which is northeast of campus. There was a beautiful view of the mountain.
There, we played frisbee and ate homemade sandwiches. I’m a peanut butter and jelly person. Also, I ate Pringles for the first time in at least 6 years, probably more.
From https://mysweeties.com.au/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/364x364/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/S/0/S095242-3D_1.jpg
It was really pleasant to spend time away from electronics (other than snapping a picture of the view with my phone camera for blogging purposes) and campus.
On Sunday, I woke up and learned a new skill before breakfast! I practiced making poached eggs for the first time. There are easy instructions here. Out of the 6 eggs I cracked, 5 of them turned out as fully fledged poached eggs. They tasted great on whole wheat toast with some salt and pepper. I can also vouch for the success of cinnamon sugar on eggs.
I also took Sunday to catch up on my life. I did laundry before I had run out of socks, I patched some tears in some of my favorite shorts, and I ate saltines with strawberry jam. All of these are very important to my life balance.
As I write this blog, I’m sitting on a grassy knoll on Pomona-Pitzer’s campus. It’s the last match of my final season of tennis here at Caltech. It’s definitely a bittersweet feeling to be done with my college tennis career (unless I decide to use my final year of NCAA eligibility, granted to athletes affected by the COVID-19 pandemic). Being a part of the women’s tennis team here has been a defining part of my identity and where I met my community on campus. In this blog, I want to discuss a bit of the process of becoming an NCAA athlete, the Caltech experience of handling schoolwork and a sport, and my take on how it affected my growth here.
A few days ago, I wrote a blog post for recommendations of boba around Caltech. This follow up includes a far more comprehensive list of boba shops in the 626/SGV area. Now, I’ll admit that I have a rather extensive spreadsheet of boba stores and drinks that I’ve tried and enjoyed or disliked. However, I’d rather not bore everyone with a full spreadsheet, especially when it reveals just how much boba I’ve had each year. However, if I attempted to write about all of the shops I’ve tried, this post would get too long, so it’s instead compressed into a much more easily digestible format: a Tiermaker list. Obviously, this is the most sophisticated possible presentation of this information and 100% objective. Definitely tested via the scientific method and not subject to personal bias whatsoever.
In the past few years, boba or bubble tea has exploded in popularity, with stores opening up all across the country. As a very avid but picky boba drinker, this has been a blessing for me, as I’ve been able to try drinks from so many new stores. In the past four years, I’ve been able to try what might be conservatively called a fairly significant portion of boba stores in the Pasadena and San Gabriel Valley area (otherwise known as 626/SGV).
