Uncle Bill’s Pancake house + Manhattan Beach

After the first week of term, my friends and I decided to go on an impromptu trip to the beach. We had to drop off another friend at LAX at 8:30 AM, so we extended this journey and headed straight to Manhattan Beach. One of my friend’s favorite breakfast places is called “Uncle Bill’s Pancake House,” and I guess her enthusiasm for this place was shared by many other people because by the time we got there (around 8:50 AM), there was already a 30 minute wait. She assured us it would be worth it though.

My friend dropped me and one other friend off to put our names down while she went to park the car. After saving our spot in line we journeyed across the street to grab some caffeine to fuel us through the wait. I ordered the coffee shop’s ube matcha special, and it was actually so delicious! My friend ordered an Americano with sesame syrup, and she said hers was really good as well.

After about a 15 minute wait we were seated at our table. Together, we sampled Uncle Bill’s strawberry muffins, waffles, french toast, hash browns, and scrambled eggs. We were so stuffed by the time we finished eating.

So, we decided, there was no better way to work off our food coma than by going to the beach. We walked down from the restaurant to the beach and spent the next hour swimming, jogging on the sand, and playing frisbee. The water was freezing, but after spending a while running around catching and throwing the frisbee, I was able to tolerate it.

Our parking ran out at 11:15 AM, so we packed up our stuff to return to campus. We were back by 12:30, energized by the fun morning trip and invigorated to try another adventure the next weekend.

Surprise Still Woozy concert

A few months ago I had browsed the listing of upcoming concerts and asked one of my friends if she wanted to go to the Still Woozy concert (if you haven’t hear of Still Woozy you should immediately go and listen to our favorite song, Pool, with Remi Wolf). She gave me a vague “maybe” response, and I dropped the subject and mostly forgot about the concert.

However, the day before the actual concert, one of my other friends asked me if I wanted to go with her, lamenting that she was on the waitlist for tickets. I told her that I would go to the concert if we were able to get off the waitlist, so I also joined the list and made another friend also join to up our chances (if you get off the waitlist you only have a 15 minute window to buy tickets, so it’s easy to miss the window, making it desirable to have multiple opportunities to get off the waitlist).

Around noon the day of the concert my friend got off the list, and we were able to secure two tickets. However, we had not heard back from the original friend who I had invited to the concert, so we did not order her a ticket. By the time we got her response and made it off the waitlist for a third time, it was two hours before the concert was supposed to start. Luckily, we were able to order her the ticket, and we were finally all set for the concert.

We arrived at the concert in the middle of the opening act – a Canadian indie rock band called Tops.

While we did not know much about the band or any of their songs, it is always nice to see live music. During the intermission between the sets we muscled our way through the crowd to a spot close to the front so that we would have a good view of the stage and Still Woozy’s performance. He did not disappoint!

At one point in the concert Still Woozy came down into the audience and sang along with everyone in the pit. I took a very blurry photo of him standing next to us.

Sarah and the Sundays!

Apparently Caltech has this opportunity called the Wei-Hwa Huang fund (AKA the “fun fund”) that students can apply for to get funding for activities that promote “students’ social and emotional well-being” and “provide resources for activities that help students de-stress, connect with peers, and have fun.” At the beginning of this term one of my friends asked me if I was interested in applying for the fun fund to go to see a live music event. Obviously, I readily agreed. I even (with very little effort) was able to convince him to apply for tickets to see one of my favorite bands: Sarah and the Sundays.

In all honesty, before suggesting this concert, I only really knew two Sarah and the Sunday songs (but those two songs are bangers, so I was totally justified in my suggestion).

Anyways, flash forward a couple of weeks and (1) we had successfully been awarded the “fun fund” to attend the concert and (2) I had dutifully studied the rest of the Sarah and the Sundays songs and had been irrevocably converted from a casual fan to a super fan of their music 🙂

The concert was honestly one of the best (if not the best) concert I have ever attended. We had bought general admission tickets, so we were just standing with everyone else in the pit. During the intermission between the opener and the main set we were able to finesse our way into a spot at the front of the stage (it probably helped that I am only 5’1 so I don’t actually block anyone’s view…). This spot gave me a perfect view of the stage, allowing me to jump, dance, and scream-sing along with everyone around me to the entirety of the setlist. Thanks to my dutiful studying I knew most of the songs and lyrics, and the band had such great energy live.

They even did a fun cover of one of my other favorite bands, MGMT!

Thursday night in WeHo

Totally unexpectedly, one evening I received a text from one of my elementary school friends saying that he would be in LA for a few days. He suggested I come meet up with him and one of our other friends for a night in WeHo. On a whim I asked a few of my Caltech friends if they would be interested in joining, completely expecting everyone to say no (it was a Thursday night after all). To my complete surprise, all three said yes!

We met up a little earlier in the night to grab some fun drinks at a bartended Ricketts event. Coincidentally, the entire school’s wifi had gone down, so many students were up and about, unable to do their work and thus motivated to be social. After trying some of the concoctions, we headed to Weho, where we met up with my friends at the Abbey (the bar that inspired Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club!). We walked around Weho for a about an hour, popping into a few bars to check out the scene to determine the best place for dancing.

Ultimately, we found that the Abbey (where we started) was the best, so we spend the rest of our night jamming to the music and dancing along with the rest of the crowd. The events of the night were definitely a bit sporadic and very different from my standard daily routine, but it totally worth the fun adventure!

Lloyd Beach Trip

Every year, most of the houses on campus go on beach trip. Some houses have overnight trips, while other houses go for the day. This year my house, Lloyd house, did a two night overnight beach trip at this very fancy house in San Diego.

However, my friends and I decided this year only to go for the day (swimming at the beach was our priority). One of my friends has her pilot’s license, so she thought that it would be a fun adventure to fly to beach trip. So, after some strategic planning, we dropped her and another Lloydi (plural for students in Lloyd house) off at the airport, made the three hour drive (traffic!!) to Carlsbad, picked them up from the Carlsbad airport, and headed to the beach.

The next seven hours whirlwind of swimming, frisbee, reading, spikeball, and beach soccer. We noticed a group of non-Caltech guys juggling a soccer ball by the water, so a few other Caltech women’s soccer players and I asked them to join. It was fun to play soccer on the beach, and the added challenge of avoiding the waves was an extra adventure.

We also brought some surfboards, and a few of my friends tried to ride some waves. Unfortunately, the waves were a bit too difficult, so they spent most of the time getting pummeled. However, everyone came out of the water smiling, so it all seemed worth it. Unfortunately, I have a slightly absurd fear of sharks ever since I read an article about sharks in LA after going surfing my freshman year, so I have been taking a hiatus from surfing myself. However, maybe one of these days I will get over my fear and get back out there 🙂

Lucy Dacus Concert

For those of you who don’t know, Lucy Dacus is 1/3 of the indie pop band boygenius. Late one night early in term my friends and I were browsing for cheap concerts, and we found Lucy Dacus tickets for $18! A steal! While I did not know Lucy particularly well, I dutifully studied up on the setlist, so by the time the concert rolled around I was a legitimate fan 🙂

The opener for the concert was Katie Gavin, the lead singer of the band MUNA. Not only was she a fantastic singer, but Katie Gavin also has insane violin skills!

As predicted, Lucy Dacus herself was incredible. After all of my studying, I knew every lyric by heart, and I had so much fun singing along with the crowd. I especially loved her rendition of boygenius’s “True Blue,” and, of course, I got hyped for the finale of her most famous song, “Nightshift.”

Lucy also did a special costume change into this incredible dress before her last song 🙂

Adam Melchor Concert

Inspired by my friend’s Wei-Hwa Huang Fund application, I applied for my own funding for my friends and I to go to another concert, this time for an even smaller indie artist: Adam Melchor. I started listening to Adam Melchor around January 2022, so in some respects, attending this concert was a long time coming.

Incredibly, I was awarded the funding for the event, so three friends and I were able to take the evening off to travel to the Troubadour theatre in WeHo. The theatre was super tiny, so we were able to stand close to the stage with a great view of the performance. Adam Melchor spent the first half of his act performing his new album, “The Diary of Living,” which featured mostly soft acoustic songs with some guitar and drums. A couple of his songs were a bit more upbeat and had a trumpet feature!

At the end of the concert, Adam Melchor came back onstage for his encore. Before the show started, I had remarked to my friend that I really hoped the encore would include a special feature from Mt. Joy, as they had co-written a new song with Adam Melchor for their new album. When Adam Melchor said he was bringing onstage a special guest who (1) he had performed with the previous week (Mt. Joy had done a pop-up show in LA the week before) and (2) was releasing an album soon (Mt. Joy’s album was dropping May 30), I got EXTREMELY excited that my prediction was coming true. HOWEVER, I totally got baited, and the guest was a man named slimdan, who I had never heard of before. While, his performance was good, I was rather devastated that I had gotten excited over nothing :/

Death Valley Camping

Every year, my friend and I have a tradition where we drive into the desert for a one-night star-gazing/camping trip (minus Junior year where we were too busy to go…). For our last trip, this year we decided to take our camping trip to Death Valley, as we had never been before. So, over Memorial Day weekend, we made the eight hour journey (4 hours each way), for a less than 12 hour stay in Death Valley.

While I was initially a little apprehensive about the driving-to-camping ratio (soooooo much driving), the trip was honestly a lot of fun! We spend the evening star-gazing and chatting with each other, and we took a quick trip in the morning to climb the famous sand dunes. Also, after splitting the driving and playing lots of fun music in the car, the journey honestly did not even seem as long as I thought it was going to!

Mallrat concert

Mallrat’s song, “Groceries” is one of my most (if not the most) listened to songs on Spotify (fyi Mallrat’s real name is Grace Kathleen Elizabeth Shaw). So, when I was able to find a friend to go with me to the concert, I was undeniably excited. The concert was held in this tiny venue in echo park called the Echoplex. Using our general admission tickets we were able to secure spots RIGHT NEXT TO THE STAGE (I literally spent the whole concert leaning on the stage!).

The opener was this small indie artist Anna Shoemaker, and I actually knew one of her songs, “Holly!”

Mallrat herself was quite good live, and the concert was a different vibe than my normal low-key indie concert. Her sound was a lot more loud and electronic, but the vibes were great.

So, in conclusion, while I did spend a fair bit of this term doing homework and going to lab, I was also able to take the opportunity to go on some fun adventures with my friends, ending Caltech on a positive note 🙂