Brandon Vu
1. Name, Year, Major, and Hometown
I am Brandon Vu, a second year NPB major from San Jose.
2. What is your earliest childhood memory?Â
This is gonna be lowkey kinda foul, but I think I remember it so well for a reason. My earliest childhood memory is at this Lutheran preschool I went to. Every day we would be forced to go to mass. Now I am Catholic, not Lutheran, and also I was like 4, so nothing that happened was processed by my brain. All I can remember is that it was a pretty dark room and that they would give us pennies to donate to the church? I think it was to train us for when we actually had money. But usâŠbeing 4, just sucked on those pennies (and maybe ate them đł), so I think it was a bad idea to give us coins lol đ
3. Whatâs stopping you?
I believe whatâs stopping me is just a fear of change. I like consistency, consistency is comfortable. If you hide in a box, you never know what dangers await you outside. Now this is very limiting. Itâs even hard to walk up to people sometimes because I donât want to be a burden, I donât want them to disrupt anything theyâre doing, because that would be me introducing change to them, disruption is change.
However, if you hide in a box, youâll also never know what else youâre missing out there. When I do manage to crawl out of that box, it is scary sometimes, but it is also when I have the most fun, unique experiences. So despite whatâs stopping me, Iâm trying to stop itâŠfrom stopping me lol. I love this question, thank you Chrinny and Lauren for writing this. â€ïž
4. What is something about yourself that youâre proud of?
One thing about myself that I am proud of is doing weekly check-ins with my friends every week. Now I may miss a few people every once in a while, but I think itâs just really nice to catch up with people every week, especially since Iâm not able to see/call them every week either. Itâs a simple thing that I think goes a long way. Itâs nice to see what theyâre up to, how theyâre feeling, the adventures they go on. Especially since some things are not meant/comfortable to be said publicly, itâs cozy to have the opportunity to talk about stuff like that. It helps me be more social and active with my friendships.
5. If you could have any one question answered truthfully, what would it be?
If I could have any one question answered truthfully, I think it would be the question below this one âwho is your celebrity crush?â I think itâs just such a fun question and it doesnât really do much harm. Itâs not super invasive, but you can still learn a lot about somebody from it. Now I donât know why people would be dishonest about it in the first place, or if they ever would be, but maybe itâll make people remember their answers better.
6. Who is your celebrity/fictional crush?Â
Oh girl that list is way too long to list đł. I had a long think about this before while I was talking to Ella, and I believe I came up with a definitive list for the time being. I was planning to only list a few of them, but Iâll list all 25 >:) (the joke is on me because Iâll have to set up the tumblr page with my dumb long answers đ”â)
So without further ado in no particular order (last updated in November 2024)
Maitreyi Ramakrishnan
Glen PowellÂ
Dev PatelÂ
Florence PughÂ
Manny JacintoÂ
Jessica HenwickÂ
Diego LunaÂ
Iman VellaniÂ
William Jackson HarperÂ
Janelle MonaeÂ
Pedro Pascal
Adria Arjona
Andrew Garfield
Ana de ArmasÂ
Ke Huy Quan
Karen Fukuhara
Will PoulterÂ
Ayo EdebiriÂ
Harvey GuillenÂ
Geraldine VishwanathanÂ
Daniel RadcliffeÂ
Isabela Merced
Karan SoniÂ
Katy OâBrianÂ
Willem DafoeÂ
Good luck me in January trying to format this on tumblr :D
note from january: wasn't that bad đ€·ââïž also this list is outdated and i refuse to fix it đ€
7. How would you spend your ideal birthday?Â
Oh oh! Iâve actually been planning for my next birthday! My birthday is on January 17th. Fortunately for me, PADDINGTON IN PERU RELEASES ON MY BIRTHDAY đ„ł. I absolutely love that little bear. I think Paddington 2 is the pinnacle of human creation. My plan is to get my best friend and weâre gonna watch it and then weâre gonna grab Tims? and Davis Creamery afterwards. I think I enjoy nice simple things like this, I donât need something huge, just to have a nice time. Also Severance season 2 premieres on my birthday and I love that show.Â
note from january: paddington 3 was delayed a MONTH and MY BIRTHDAY WAS ON GRILLING
8. What food that starts with the first letter of your name would you only eat for the rest of your life?
If I had to choose a food like that, I would choose banana bread. Bread would be too boring of an answer for this question and Iâm allergic to bananas. I honestly canât think of anything else because bananas is one of my favorite words. Now you may be askingâŠBrandon wouldnât you be allergic to banana bread?? This is a true statement. The last time I had banana bread back in 2020, I had an allergic reaction. Now my allergies arenât deadly and should only happen if I eat raw/unprocessed bananas, and it is possible that the banana slices on top were the reason why I had a reactionâŠbut I love banana bread the few times I had it. This is a huge gamble because this could lead to me just dying, but I think itâs worth it for banana bread đ€.
9. Whatâs one niche interest you have that you must share with the world?
This is going to get unbelievably nerdy but the one niche interest I have that I must share with the world is the enlightenment of Gwenpool. You may be thinking to yourself âa pink girl deadpool? Pass đâ NO. You donât understand. I used to be one of you. But then I picked up The Unbelievable Gwenpool by Christopher Hastings and Gurihiru. Itâs a really cute, really fun book about this girl from our world who gets sucked into the world of Marvel Comics. She learns the importance of self worth and how even if it feels like everything you do is inconsequential to the grand scheme of things, it is still important to someone. Itâs both a metacommentary on comics and also a commentary on existentialism that everyone should read! Now someone buy me the gwenpool skin on fortnite. I donât play it but I want it đ€
10. What is a memory with your closest friend and how does it exemplify your friendship together and how you value friendship as a whole (250 words minimum)
My closest friend is a girly pop named Grace. We have been friends since high school, being partners in Speech and Debate and hanging out all the time. And coincidentally just ended up at the same college together. Last year, we went on a lot of late night walks, ice cream runs, and dinners at Timâs. It was a lot of fun.
Since school started this year, it had been a while since we were able to hang out just by ourselves. Last time was in September during the summer; school has had us sooooo busy. Especially because we live on opposite sides of Davis, itâs been very difficult to coordinate things.
Last week she was like âhey do you wanna grab lunch or something?â and of course I said yes. So we journeyed downtown in search of food. We were catching up, you know the usual. You gotta build up. And then we stumbled into Bohemeâs. I wanted to see the halloween stuff. We ended up in this crafts nook of the store. Everything in this was hella cute, leather jackets, other types of jackets (I donât know fabrics/clothing lol) and they were all super reasonably priced. We were too broke to buy anything real but we did start digging through the stickers forâŠa good while lol. We were helping each other find cute stickers for each otherâs friends.
We then went to Davis Noodle City and had a lovely meal with a good yap sesh. Obviously what is said in the yap sesh stays in the yap sesh, but I think just the wide variety of emotions that went through the yap sesh was really nice. It was goofy, it was silly, and sometimes it was serious and provocative. We then went to Davis Creamery and got a flight of Matcha, Pumpkin Chai, Avocado Coconut, and Vanilla Caramel Latte. It was absolutely transcendent. Just a lovely lovely day with my best friend.
I think our friendship just perfectly defines what I look for in friendship: versatility. I love how we were able to flow between all these different vibes. In Bohemeâs we were laughing at how the hella slayful jackets were also next to the âgrandma-core jacketsâ to our more quiet, contemplative tea spilling in Davis Noodle City. I feel like with Grace I can go through the full range of emotions without fear of embarrassment or judgment. Itâs an absolutely lovely feeling and what I look for most in fellowship.
