Spring Break 2025 - Hawaii

Life is good again. Winter quarter finals were super easy (I ended up with 99+% overall in all my classes), and I finally secured an internship for the summer. It was kinda crazy. The HR guy called me right as I got out of the shower so I was literally half naked talking to this dude about my start/end dates and salary expectations. The next time he called, I was in Hawaii eating some delicious egg benedicts with my friends; I'd gotten the offer for Software/ML intern.

Golf, Fu, Interview

When I first arrived back in California, Fuey wanted to drive me up to Berkeley to see James and Chen. It was his second-to-last day of Spring break, but I told him I couldn't since I had an interview the next day. All morning I was stressing out about how to perfectly pitch my experiences and resume. I went for like a 30 minute walk around my block just to keep the stress off my mind. But as soon as we started the interview, I calmed down. There were no "explain a time you had to..." or any typical B.S. questions. We mostly talked about my resume and classes to gauge what I'd be best at.

By the time the interview was over, I was so excited. I knew I had it in the bag once we started talking about Elden Ring. But funnily enough, at the end of the interview, he asked me if I knew what a transistor was. I said no lol and he was like "yeah so we're going to put you on the software team." Nice.

Afterwards, I asked my dad what a transistor was and he explained to me how it's kinda like a switch. He showed me how they made NAND gates and how they were manufactured, and I was like, "OH, we did this in class!" It made sense now.

Golf

For some reason, Fuey and Hayden wanted to play at three different courses, so we ended up playing 27 holes for a total of 6 hours. I liked Pruneridge (the last course) the best, and Sunken and Blackberry next. Sunken had some good BBQ though.

All the holes were par 3 or 4, so it wasn't that tiring. In the last course, my golf instinct turned on and I hit 3 pars and 1 birdie!

Hawaii

On Sunday, we flew to Hawaii. I finished the rest of Severance season 2 on the plane; it was great. Chen said that the season finale was the best TV episode he's ever seen across all shows.

Once we landed, James picked us up in yet another raggedy minivan. At least the doors opened by themselves. His mom bought us some goodies before she left, which was very considerate.

Food

We ate a lot of food during this trip, from Hawaiian BBQ to poke and even ramen. We also had shaved ice every day, but I think Matsumoto's in North Shore was by far the best.

We spent most nights out in Waikiki since James' apartment was just a 15 minute walk away. We also watched a movie where AI took over everything, which James thought was "so sad, like actually so sad."

Surfing

After surfing in Hawaii again, I don't think I can go back to surfing at UCSB. The beach there was so clean, the water was warm, and the weather was just warm enough. I also saw two turtles while standing up on my board.

Exploring

Since we had a car, we could go basically anywhere we wanted. We drove to Dole plantation, North Shore, and some other cool spots. Unfortunately, we didn't have time for a hike.

We also went shopping at a few places. Just for fun, we also went into Rolex, Gucci, Hermes, Dior, and Louis Vuitton.

Golf - Royal Hawaiian

This was the nicest golf course I've ever been on, even nicer than Ruby Hill. It was kind of hot though, so James and I gave up after the first 14 holes. I played well at the start but I was too tired at the end to continue. I think I got a par 4 though.

Conclusion

Overall, great spring break. It was good to see my friends again and take a break from all the studying and bad food here at UCSB. But now I'm back. CS 190I is going to be tough but super helpful I think (it's a graduate course disguised as a "senior undergrad elective"). Who knows, maybe I'll be the goat at AI/ML by next quarter.