A Delicate Balance: How To Enjoy Your Education

My second article for HonorSociety.org has been published! This time, I wrote about how college students can budget their time between studying, sleeping, and recreational activity. I must say I was a bit apprehensive about writing this article, as it's advice is mainly drawn from my own experiences, but I am very happy with how it turned out. The original article can be accessed here, or you can just read it below!

                                                                           A Delicate Balance: How To Enjoy Your Education

My first week at UCLA, I was told that there were three things students needed to make time for: studying, sleeping, and partying. Not only that, but you also had to make a choice. You only had time for two, so you would have to neglect one, at least if you planned to succeed while at UCLA. Just under five years later, however, I would argue that the person who said this couldn't be more wrong.

One of the biggest obstacles college undergraduates face is leaving the trivial concerns and pursuits of adolescence behind and becoming responsible adults both aware of and a part of the world around them, all whilst staying on top of reading often dense books, writing research papers, studying for midterms, and for many, working part or even full-time jobs. Not helping is the fact that the aforementioned trivial concerns and pursuits of high school - that is, friendships, intimate relationships, and cultivating a certain image of one's self in the eyes of others - are hard to leave behind. I myself distinctly remember zoning out in one of my classes freshman year, stunned by the realization that I had nothing in common with one of my high school crushes and thus no real grounds for a relationship with her. I glumly dwelled on this state of affairs the whole class, briefly putting my morbid meditation on hold when called upon by the professor, mumbling the answer to his question, and quickly returning to my inner pity party as soon as he moved on. I cannot bring myself to believe for a second that I am the only person who has had an experience like this, that no one else has gone through something similar. On the contrary, I think that many college students at some point find themselves beset by both growing pains and rigorous coursework, and it is for you that I write this.

It goes without saying that you must stay on top of your academics. In my experience, the surest way to do this is to keep up with the reading. Some people might groan upon hearing this advice. They might say they don't need to read the book because they go to lecture everyday, making the book redundant (I would like to point out that I actually have met people over the course of my college career who said this). It is true that lectures cover the same material as the books, but this position ignores one very important fact: while books provide a wealth of information about a given topic and can be accessed at any time once you acquire them, lectures are finite discussions that condense all of that information into two or three hours, requiring you to write down every little thing the professor says, lest you miss something important. The mere act of learning, which should be an engaging and rewarding pursuit, becomes laborious and stressful. Students mindlessly scribble "Michel Foucault: neoliberalism" into their notebooks without knowing, much less understanding, who Michel Foucault was, what neoliberalism is, and what one has to do with the other. With increasing numbers of professors posting their lecture PowerPoints online for review and even podcasting their classes though, notetaking is becoming less and less vital to mastering course material and, indirectly, giving students more time to wrestle with the ideas discussed in their books. This is something students should take advantage of, as reading a writer's work and becoming acquainted with their ideas, in their own context, is a more involving, more intellectually stimulating activity than having someone you know only peripherally talk at you about said writer's work and ideas in an abridged, usually bowdlerized fashion. If you can remember and analyze not just the ideas and facts but also their contexts, you will be well equipped to ace tests and write excellent papers about them and by extension, pass your classes.

Of course, one shouldn't forget about the good things of life just because they're a student. Studying at a university provides you with copious chances to attend interesting and exciting happenings, like film screenings and Q&A's, lectures by visiting notables, and musical performances. You get a student discount for a reason. Use it. In some cases, you might even get to go to such events for free, which is a bargain as many are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. There are also less cultured but equally enjoyable activities to partake in, such as dinners with floormates, club and group meetings, and partying, for those of you who are into that. In short, there are plenty of opportunities for you to learn and interact with others outside of the classroom. It's even as simple as ordering a pizza and watching a movie on your laptop with your roommate. You just have to make time for it, which admittedly can be a hard task. Sometimes, you can get so caught up in schoolwork that you can't bring yourself to take a two hour break and go see the student production of And Then There Were None, or you might find yourself at the opposite extreme, staying a few more hours than you originally planned at the frat party even though you have a biology midterm to study for. It is for this reason that you must plan in advance when you decide to go to a particular social gathering. Determine if you can stay as long as you want or if you need to be back in your dorm or head out to class by a certain time, and allocate homework and study time in such a way throughout the prior week that you have the least amount or hopefully none to worry about when the big day comes. It requires a lot of forethought, but the opportunity to have time for both education and entertainment should be incentive enough to start mapping out one's social plans in advance.

Last but definitely not least, you need sleep. You need it, and you can get it, if you budget your time wisely. The conventional wisdom that young adults need approximately eight hours of sleep is a source of woe to some students, as they view those eight hours as valuable time in which they could be fine tuning their final paper or hanging out with frat buddies. It is thus not surprising that many students go without a goodnight's sleep, forcing themselves out of bed the day of finals after a week of sleepless study nights and gulping cup after cup of bad coffee on their way to class. It doesn't have to be this way though. As I mentioned before, a little planning can go a long way, and the best way to get enough sleep is to pick a particular bedtime and a time to wake up. These times don't necessarily have to be the same for everyday. For example, if you have a morning class one day and no class the following day, you can wake up earlier the day of the morning class and sleep in the next day. It is consistency, not uniformity, that we are concerned with, as it will facilitate not only healthy sleeping habits, but also recreational activities and academic pursuits. 

My First Published Work!

Pardon my absence, dear reader. I know it is most unbecoming, but some exciting developments have arisen in my life, as you might have guessed by the title of this post. Aside from seeing (and reviewing) Arlo Guthrie, I am now a Featured Writer at HonorSociety.org, a nation-wide support group for college students, and had my first piece published last week. It is a simple "About Me" that covers much of the same ground as my first blog post, but I would be more than honored if you were to take a look at it yourself. I will write three articles for them a month covering books, current events and education, so expect to see them posted on here. Don't fret though, I still plan on writing on here about stuff that falls out of the purvey of those topics, so this blog certainly won't be obsolete. The article can be accessed here, and it is reproduced in full below.

                                                                                                     A Little (Or Lot) About Me

Hello dear reader. I would assume by this point that you have seen the byline and thus my name, but just in case you haven’t, let me restate it. My name is Reginaldo Peralta, although I almost always go by Reggie. Feel free to call me that from here on out.

As you might have guessed, I am a college student, studying Radio and Television/Video Production at Fullerton College. However, Fullerton wasn’t my first college. Prior to this, I attended and graduated from UCLA as a Political Science major. The four years I spent there were formative for me, both academically and socially. I must admit that my first two years were very rough, filled as they were with growing pains both inside and outside the classroom. It was only in my junior and senior years that I came into my own.

It is no coincidence that during these two years, I joined and was involved with UCLARadio, the campus radio station, as a disc jockey. For just under two years, I played music, usually classic rock and novelty songs, and interviewed dozens of guests, including former Massachusetts governor and 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, The Doors drummer John Densmore, “The X-Files” co-star William B. Davis, Miss America 2014 Nina Davuluri, and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark. It was a significant achievement for me, particularly considering the fact that I had trouble interacting with others, let alone with an audience.

Indeed, it was my experience with UCLARadio that convinced me that what I wanted to do was work in broadcasting. Uneasy about entering graduate school, I resolved instead to look for programs that would prepare me for a career in radio. I checked the University of California, I checked the Cal State system, I even checked community colleges, but I couldn’t find anything remotely resembling the technical type of program I was looking for. It wasn’t until, on a whim, I looked at the offerings of Fullerton College when, at last, I found such a program.

During this time, I also became seriously interested in writing. I had written material here and there before, but never on a consistent basis. Yet over the course of my time at UCLARadio, I exposed myself to dozens of books in order to prepare myself for interviews with guests. Having been exposed to said material, I suddenly found myself not only interested in what others had to say, but also what I had to say. At moments, I even find myself wishing that I had double majored in English, in the hope that it would refined my writing ability.

The time for regrets is past though, and the best course of action (at least from my perspective) is to keep moving forward. To that end, I make it a point to read at least 50 pages a day, so as to keep my mind active and expand my horizons. Although I will read pretty much anything, historical and political non-fiction are especially interesting subjects to me. Expect much of my writing to take the form of book reviews and analyses of current political events, usually ones dealing with foreign policy (my major had a concentration in International Relations after all) and civil liberties. I will also cover education, whether that means advice pieces that draw from my own experiences and reflections or discussions of contemporary developments that affect college students. Ultimately though, regardless of what I address, I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

Concert Review: Arlo Guthrie @ Irvine Barclay Theatre 4/11

"I bet when some of you heard I was playing tonight, you thought 'Isn't that guy dead?" Arlo Guthrie mused to the crowd, which promptly burst into laughter tinged by what I presumed to be guilt on the part of some audience members. That guilt might have been warranted, however, as nothing could be farther from the truth: not only is Arlo Guthrie not dead, he's alive and kicking, as anybody who saw him perform that night will tell you.

Currently on tour to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his most famous song, "Alice's Restaurant Massacree" (referred to from this point on simply as"Alice's Restaurant"), Arlo and his backup band, including the talents of Bobby Sweet on electric guitar and violin, drummer Terry Hall, bassist Darren Todd, and none other than his son Abe Guthrie on keyboards, stopped in Irvine last week to play songs and regale fans with stories from his life. The appeal of both was very real, as evidenced by the large turnout. Naturally, the crowd was mostly on the older side of the spectrum but surprisingly, the people were mostly clean-cut, a strange thing to observe given Arlo's association with the sillier elements of the 60's counterculture. Perhaps many of them were hippies when they were younger, but if so, it looked like they had left flower power, free love, and psychedelic drugs long behind them, in favor of kids, grandkids, and, judging by their clothes, cushy jobs. It must be noted, however, that this was definitely not the case with Arlo, who himself is pushing 70. Sporting long white hair, wearing thin-framed glasses and having grandkids of his own, he is sillier than ever.

Any doubts about this assessment were laid to rest when the screen in the back of the stage started playing a music video featuring "The Motorcycle Song". The source material for the video, featuring daredevil pickles brought to life in (in)glorious claymation, were said by Arlo to be lost since the 1980's. "You can see why," he quipped upon it's end.

Of course, this is not to suggest that it was just a night of Arlo singing sweet lyrical absurdities and cracking self-deprecating jokes. Shortly after "The Motorcycle Song", the band broke into "Darkest Hour", a decidedly more heavy, to say nothing of sensual, song. Heavy in the sense that the subject matter is heavy, not simply the sound or instrumentation. Before I offer my take on this particular part of the concert, I would like to point out that I almost always prefer the studio version of songs over live versions. I'd also like to point out that "Darkest Hour" wasn't one of my favorite Arlo Guthrie songs. So imagine what it says about the band's rendition of it that I came out of the theatre eager to rip from Youtube buy a CD with this particular version of "Darkest Hour" on it. All levity aside though, I would go as far to say that Arlo's heartfelt vocals, telling of his love for the swashbuckling woman who saved him from captivity, and Bobby Sweet's stirring violin are enough to justify buying a physical copy of the concert album that will inevitably be released when the tour concludes.

Light-hearted themes were revisited in "Me and My Goose", albeit with a dark twist. Explaining that he was tired of the increasing tendency of children's music to be blandly benign and often educational, he wrote this song in the style of the old campfire songs both he and his father (the legendary Woody Guthrie, for any heathens reading this) grew up listening to. "Me and My Goose" is musically conventional, but the subversive nature of the piece lies within the insincerely innocent lyrics, which tell the story of a boy and his pet goose, Al. One day, Al disappears and the boy is unable to find him when his mother asks him to come home for dinner, and all that that implies. Needless to say, the little girl sitting with the family next to me (one of the two people I saw that were either younger or around my age) was inconsolable. It didn't help that the background screen displayed images from the book (which I happened to snag a copy of afterwards), leaving no room for ambiguity as to Al's fate.

The screen would come in handy again when it was time for the centerpiece of the performance. Right after the intermission, Arlo started strumming one of his guitars (he had several on stand-by throughout the show) and easing himself into the spoken word opening of "Alice's Restaurant". Naturally, he invited the audience to join in during the chorus, which, being the stuffy Irviners they were, they did half-heartedly. This was not a matter of them not knowing the lyrics, as they were helpfully displayed on the screen, allowing even the musically illiterate like myself to join in the piece's notorious refrain. Their lack of enthusiasm was abundantly made up for in Arlo's apparent affection for the song. The fact that he still regards "Alice's Restaurant" with care rather than weariness is impressive, given the copious amount of times he has played it in it's 18-minute entirety over the years, if not decades. Indeed, the song's age shows, with Arlo having to explain the draft, a crucial plot point in "Alice's Restaurant", to those of us who were too young to remember (all three of us, although I don't count given my frequent perusing of the relevant pages on Wikipedia) and the scenes from the movie adaptation played on the screen portraying Arlo and his long-haired hippie friends crashing in the church Alice and her husband lived in and getting into trouble with law enforcement (portrayed more as buffoons than fascists) when, after finding the dump closed, they dumped some trash on Thanskgiving Day and thus charged with littering. Interestingly, the main antagonist, Officer Obie, was the actual cop who arrested Arlo, claiming that if anybody was going to make him look like a fool, it should be himself, as Arlo recounted. On top of that, over the course of the film's production, he became a good friend of Arlo's, right up until his death a couple years ago. Maybe there really is something to the song's message, however vague it may be, of unity.

This sense of community was still present by the end of the concert, when Arlo and the band played several songs written by his father and closing with that infernal stealth communist anthem (said with tongue partially-in-cheek), "This Land Is Your Land". I imagine most people haven't heard that song played live since elementary school, so imagine what it was like to hear someone (the son of it's writer, no less) play those simple chords and that iconic fourth line before a packed theatre. But Arlo didn't play the whole song. He just left us with the last, less known yet more moving verse before transitioning into the chorus we all know and love. I would quote it here, but apparently the Guthrie estate is very protective of Woody's lyrics. A bit ironic, considering the song rails against private property at one point, but hey, I can appreciate irony.

I will tell you though, that that last verse was quite a bit more thought-provoking (as well as libertarian) than paeans to California and redwood forests, at least in my opinion. But the paeans to California and redwood forests are what everybody remembers, so Arlo once again asked the audience to sing the chorus with him and once again the stuffy Irviners did it half-heartedly. This time though, Arlo wasn't having it, lamenting "Come on, even for Irvine, that sucks!" After the resulting laughter died down, he played the chorus again, and this time around, the audience finally put it's heart into it. For a moment, I felt young again, or at least as young as a recent college grad can feel. I wonder if the rest of the audience felt the same way.

At the very least, they enjoyed the show immensely, since many begged for an encore after he and his band mates got up and left the stage. Their requests were heeded, and Arlo promptly returned, much to the crowd's pleasure. He offered to leave us with another song penned by Woody. Lyrics penned by Woody anyway, as he never recorded it and the music for it could not be found. To that end, Arlo wrote some music for the song, titled "My Peace". Poking gentle fun at the "kumbaya" nature of it, he invited us once again to sing along with him. The crowd joined in, this time gladly following Arlo's lead as he sang the lullably-like lyrics and strummed his guitar. As the song said, his peace was all he had, and come it's conclusion, it was all he could give. The audience and myself appreciated this gift: on my way out of the theatre, I heard one older gentleman say to a friend, "You know, I feel like going home and breaking out my Arlo Guthrie." I had half a mind to say, "You and me, sir. You and me."