The first year was one that I do not wish to remeber. It felt like an extension of my high school years. I wasn't a really happy person when I was in high school. I guess the one bright spot was that two of my closest high school friends(Elliot and Steve) were going to UC Irvine as well. Elliot was the lucky one...his parents let him live in the dormitory, while me and Steve had to live at home and commute. But I tried to make the best of it. After some persuasion, Elliot talked me into joining Tomo No Kai, the Japanese Cultural Club at UCI. It was a cool club. I attended meetings regularly and met some really cool people(Gordon, Janice, Eunice, Jimmy, Matt, Charlie, Peggy) who I will never forget. But the best thing about the club was meeting Dave Wilson, who I now consider one of my closest friends.

Dave was just such an easy person to get along with. He was the one who came up to me at meetings and struck up conversations. He was probably the friendliest and most outgoing people I had ever met at the time. The thing I liked about Dave was that he was always easy going and had a good temper. I very rarely saw him get mad at anyone. We hung out a lot towards the end of the year and became pretty good friends. Most of our conversations centered around how to get girls(we were such losers) and how to get out of this hellhole(UC Irvine). At that time we both hated the school.

Although, it sounds like I had a good time my freshman year, it was hardly a blast. It was a pain in the royal ass to get any classes. My schedule was so wacked one quarter that I had one class at 8am, and the next one wasn't for another four hours. Since I was commuting from home, I wasn't about to leave and go home. Parking was a bitch! Well I didn't have very many friends at UCI, so I ended up wasting four hours each day at PV Cues, the arcade/pool hall at UCI. I must have spent five bucks a day playing pinball and this other game I liked a lot called Attaxx.

My grades that first year weren't so hot. Because I had such a hard time getting classes, I had to settle for classes I didn't want. I remember there was this intro Psych class I really wanted, becuase I heard the teacher is notorious for giving most of the students A's. Well, that class was full so I ended up taking the same class taught by this other teacher. Little did I know that this teacher was notorious for giving most of the students D's and F's. I was one of the one's who got an F. Luckily I aced my French class, which sort of balanced things out.