Every Sunday Morning, a place where various things get thrown out, shot at, cut open, and dissected. Topics of interest: psychological, and medical anthropology, privatization, globalization, excess, language, humor, hip-hop culture, jazz, brain and mind, memory, urban space development, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bulls, UCLA Bruins, FC Barcelona, and mankind.
When I heard about how PTSP Bayanihan's Student Empowerment Networking Day (SEND) took off the year after I left...
AND...
That they still expect BIG things this year...
I feel like the subject of this video...
I can't believe people actually call it SEND now, like it's an institutional thing that just naturally happened. Oh, of course, SEND, Student Empowerment Networking Day, as if I wasn't looked at as a crazy for changing the name, Bruin 4 a Day, of something PTSP had done for a while.
But I believe it had to be done to fit more with what we were trying to accomplish: building that community feeling and building those connections between people. It was about giving that genuine feel you belong at a place like UCLA...even if they say no...you gotta believe...you still belong.
I guess it's great that SEND doesn't have to worry about all those organizing snafus I hit, but now, I'm hoping for quality. If there were a few things I wished for, I wish I had all the soljahs who were with me at the beginning there and we put more in place to follow-up with the students afterward and continued the dialogue we had established. I believe that's the heart of the work.
The first time all season I've bothered to watch a full UCLA basketball game.
I am not a fan of the NCAA game at all, but I guess March Madness is exciting.
Nothing much has changed from year's past except for a few key things that make us even better than past iterations:
-Kevin Love doing just about any and everything. Hitting outside, inside. 7 Blocks! The kid's way better than Elton Brand and it doesn't even look like he's trying.
-Russell Westbrook and his nutty athleticism. Got a lot of defensive plays and fastbreaks. Can be very frustrating though because sometimes he plays way too fast.
Those are the two that really changed the game from 26-36 all the way to our win.
I know Collison's considered one of the best point guards in the country and he is important to the offense, but when push came to shove, he seemed to hesitate even more. A floor leader doesn't do that. He's not a player that changes momentum but rather goes along with it. He drained plenty of key threes, but he didn't look enough down low to Love; seemed like he was passing the ball just to be passing it.
Compounding some of our weaknesses, UCLA's swing guys over the past few years seem to have been watching too much MMA.
They seem to have mastered the art of choking.
Mbamouts was just turning the ball over like it was his job.
Shipp might as well have played with Harry Potter's magic blanket cause he was invisible to me.
And even though he's the key to victory, Russell Westbrook was actually pissing me off with his turnovers. But the kid really turned it around in the 2nd half and it really got the team going.
In the American team sports that I follow both on TV and online be it the NBA, NCAA football, or the NFL, I see black, white, pacific Island, Spanish-speaking peoples emerging all the time. It's nice because I definitely didn't see much of that growing up, if at all.
Not seeing my culture, my people represented was the kind of thing that made me question why the hell I had to be Filipino. Why did I have to be a culture that no one's heard or talked about? Nowhere to be seen on ESPN. How the heck would I ever become famous or even get on a newspaper (where I wasn't being described as a murder suspect or an FBI wish list) with a name like I had? Delas Armas anyone? Could they even fit that in the back of a jersey? We used to joke that the last name Delespiritusanto on the back of a jersey would have to come full circle.
However, At least nowadays in sports, I'm seeing little trinklets of multiculturalism. More folks from different races and ethnicities in sports representing.
While that counts as a few steps forward, I ask myself what power do these people of yellow, black, brown-skinned identities hold?
When observing fans of all sports, I noticed one thing: people really really love the idea of the white guy as the head honcho, top dog, the leader. People will fight hard to have the white guy be the guy on top.
It's why a white guy like Kirk Hinrich, the Chicago Bulls' point guard automatically gets compared to players like Steve Nash, the NBA MVP and hall-of-famer John Stockton, despite not having any of their abilities AT ALL. Those guys were actually known for passing the ball, and making good decisions with the ball. Hinrich is known for dribbling around the basketball court, and panicking in the clutch. The man is nowhere near their class and basically has earned his prestige because he shares their pigmentation in a league where the pigmentation is generally much darker.
The guy is not even that good on this team. He's had his starting spot on the team saved for him ever since he's been a rookie --- he's the only guy in the Bulls backcourt who hasn't had to fight for playing time despite his lack of actual impact. Since he's not really that talented, people make stupid unquantifiable, highly subjective statements: "he's a 2-way player, he plays really great defense." Even more outrageous is that this guy has had one of the worst fall-offs, yet he's never involved in trade rumors or criticized nearly as much as his more impactful, higher-scoring, clutch counterpart Ben Gordon.
Ben Gordon is currently the team's leading scorer, despite being relegated to the bench, receiving a lowball contract offer, and being ignored on offense by Hinrich. However, when compared to Hinrich, it's his negative traits that are emphasized: he's undersized and one-dimensional.
The naturalness of a white leader is probably why people at Bruinsnation couldn't stomach the idea of a Norm Chow-Dewayne Walker-led team.
I think their distaste for those two as coaching candidates was not necessarily rooted in their race, but it seems that the fans at that site had a tendency to assume the worst with anyone outside of their fellow white folks.
Norm Chow, Chinaman, apparently had no personality to get the job done. They cited his lack of experience, wondering why a 61-year old Asian guy in a white and black league hadn't had a head coaching job despite having coached some of the most elite quarterbacks in college football history and having won a national championship. B
Because he was so old and still had no coaching experience despite those record book and national championship credentials, there HAD to be something wrong with him. There just had to be.
Dewayne Walker was a self-promoting Dorrell-holdover.
Together these two earned the derisive name "Choker."
No other coaching candidates (most of whom were even LESS qualified than these two) received such names. There was "Slick Rick", but that disappared once it was clear that Walker and Chow were being considered as coaching candidates.
Nothing personal against the new white guy at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel, I admit I like what Rick's been able to do so far as far as the working-togetherness of his hired guns and recruiting, but the same people who were pulling strongly for him initially balked at the idea of him becoming coach.
These people thought we had run a lackluster coaching search campaign.
It seems like they only really rallied around Rick Neuheisel NOT because he was a effusively qualified and overly strong candidate (he definitely brings that baggage of cheating with him) but only because he was NOT Norm Chow or Dewayne Walker. He was not the timid, stoic, cold white guy and he wasn't the self-promoting black dude who since he was black obviously was still attached to everything from the fired black coach.
In a twist of irony, when it was announced that Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker would be retained on staff, these same dumbass fans calling Chow and Walker, Choker were going apeshit over their hirings. They were most happy when it happened because in their own words,"it was Rick Neuheisel's choice" as if white people's choices are the only good decisions made. It was Rick Neuheisel's choice so it had to be good. Wonder what it would be like had it been the inverse in any way, with Neuheisel as a coordinator or something.
Funny how in this case like the case with Kirk Hinrich/Ben Gordon, they like to put people of color in specialized one-dimensional roles, but not leadership ones.
Leadership, colored people, never that. One dimensional scoring guard, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, as opposed to 2-dimensional player and head coach.
For years, people have talked about this issue, but it's probably been a "minor" issue or something just not talked about.
The paucity of black owners, black coaches, black quarterbacks in sports where the number of players who are black are high is not really a social justice issue, but I think it reflects some lessons about the way our society in the US of A works.
In general, it's become "natural" for white people to be "our" leaders. They need to be the decisionmakers because they're the ones with the experience, the education, etc.
What bothers me is that we don't ask why isn't that they're the ones with "experience" or why their decisions are better?
Without a white guy as leader, it's unnatural and odd otherwise, or so my dad implies when discussing how weird it is to have a president by the name of Obama.
by B.J. on 1/01/2008 08:57:00 AM
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42. Wise beyond those years? The man is 46 years old. Isn't it about time to be wise? Submitted by: Sharecropper 5:37 AM PST, December 31, 2007 - On Rick Neuheisel's past transgressions
"You know, it's possible that Chow's not been getting these jobs because, you know, he's Asian.
If you believe that racism plays a part in the lack of minority hiring in the college ranks (not necessarily on behalf of the ADs themselves, but from boosters who aren't excited about hiring, say, a black coach), then obviously racial prejudices would also pertain to an Asian candidate as well.
There are plenty of people out there who are upset at how "Asians" have ruined UCLA. Stereotypes about Asians are out there. Or maybe people just think an Asian couldn't connect with black and/or inner-city recruits. I don't know.
Think about Ralph Freidgen -- the guy never got a shot at being a head coach until his alma mater called. Why? The common explanation was that he was too fat. Charlie Weis had the same knock on him. If people can be as so narrow-minded as to by pass a worthy candidate because he's fat, what would they think of someone who's Asian?
I'm curious about how Chow has supposedly "bombed" these interviews. He never seems to bomb them when it comes to being hired as an OC. What happens when he interviews for a head coaching job?
(Looking at resume) AD: So, you've been title winning assistant coach for over thirty years. Your offenses have always been productive and innovative. Why do you think you can be as a head coach?
Chow: Well, I'm... oh wait, it's 2:00. It's time for my daily meal of eating a live puppy and raping a school boy. Can you give me 10 minutes?" --- posted by haoeledave
by B.J. on 12/10/2007 09:32:00 AM
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I don't think I read too much into things, but I can get a sense of what people feel are based on a number of things. Most of communication is nonverbal. Of course sometimes, I may misread nonverbal signs and have it lead to other problems.
I especially love those moments where people think they are superior and smarter than me.
Yesterday, I was speaking to the mother of a fellow Loyola, UCLA, University of Chicagoan, and Harvardian who has now become a Doctor.
She asked me if I graduated.
I said yes. Just a while ago, but yes.
Then she asked me where from.
She said"...UC...?"
I said "UC..LA."
Then she said, "oh but you went somewhere else first right?"
"Yes, UC-Santa Cruz."
Why the fuck do you feel the need to ask where I came from? Isn't it the same degree as the one achieved by your precious little result from fucking? Isn't it about the ends that matter?
I don't recall there being a big red stamp on my diploma or transcripts saying "TRANSFER".
It's not that I'm ashamed that I came from Santa Cruz (I still carry my SC lanyard everywhere), but I felt like the fact that I went there was used to undermine what I feel like was an achievement.
I wasn't someone who made it in initially, like the test-taking machine you call your son, but I guess I'm a late bloomer, and not less intelligent (though I think a measurable degree of intelligence is all bunk).
I know I have remnants of an inferiority Napoleonic complex, but it's just comments like that which make me want to peer in and explode their preconceptions and show up their stupid kids...without being such a prick about it to others.
I like to think of myself as bringing and catalyzing folks to be up with me if not higher.
This is a what I learned from UCLA this year post as if I'm a first year or second year recapping what happened.
Yeah.
So.
I became more hip-hop, history of medicined, more community organized, and went all out doing stuff.
(Dang, how we define ourselves by institutions?)
But some concerns about all those gains because when you become more specialized in something you most likely lose your talent or feel for something else:
1) Can I gain back that intellectual power I thought I had ? Can I still find the interesting in the uninteresting ? 2) Have I faced anything that tough ?
Shelly, Phil, JP, Theresa, Dom, Nick, Aye-Zay, Oak Fresh, Bayanihan, Kaibigan, Bayanihan Pilipino, agency, Company Flow Overnight, Desiree, C-ssa, ugh Family, SPACE, SPEAR, Alma, Zulu, Ryan, Martay, Del Remedial, Toque, Constructing Panic, Ling Anthrizo, Diddy Reise, JFAV, KmB, PTSP, Daily Bruin, Steve, Chuster, asshole Chuster, Linguistic Anthro, Med Anthro, Jazzzz, Rap, Jazzy Hip Hop, Roy Hargrove, hip-hop studies, 4 elements of hip-hop, b-boy, James and his chick, myspace, facebook, history 2b, deconstruction, contextualize, construction, history of science, historical, speed and time studies, elevators, Sama-Willie-Hung, Heat, Corey Maggette, Ben Gawdawn, Kirk Hinrich, Jamal Crawford, notebooks, hella notebooks, hella days, LACC, PCC, history of medicine, Weiner, museum of Jurassic technology, myUCLA, ursa, Berkeley, Franchis Aclavia, Spayte, Yvony, Cha, Rosanna E, Lara, Matt Gruazo I'm taller than you. . .that is neat, Lisa, dance with me, talk to me, USAC, pinay president, white chicks, hit back, Hot Dogs, Hot Hot Heat, the ROOTS, Scott Gunning it, Randy, Joel External, USAC funding, SAC, Free printing, something new. . .every damn day, janss steps, skipping a step downwards, running to class, walking tall, my boo, I don't know about yall but I know about us, Alicia Keys, my boo, social knowledge, what else can't be said, who is reading this, who is in power, who makes knowledge, who controls knowledge, constructing panic, Capps and Ochs, Duranti, literary, hell no, cliques and communities compromise, writing or community outreach, stars or down to earth, ass shorts, panty outlines through the pants especially when they wear sweatpants, pervert, chilling, north campus, north campus lights, public policy, Frank Murphy Sculpture garden, knock out, freezing 60 degrees at night, oh god Research, destroy chances at grad school, kind of, Hilarious, biomathematics, ethnomathematics, UCLA Store, ethnomathematics, ethnoarchaeology, ethnobotany, ethnobiomedical engineering, ethnomedicine, punanie, obviously chasing dick, STARE ! , I don't need bling blings don't need chocolate don't need wine or pink champagne, DSLars, Burbank, Wah Dimacula, Joel, same old SC, don't doubt self anymore, less concentration, want to move out, multitasking age, UCSC hiscon, Jerkelay, Karungunan Pilipino, add a Pilipino to everything
Some little tricks that I want to remember from my experience at school that have helped me be happy. I guess whoever reads this can use it, but it's mostly addressed to me.
HOMEWORK AND STUDYING
- In order to do homework, keep yourself busy and doing something, but stay cool about it. Or if you've got nothing to do just do assignments like you've got a lot of stuff to do. Just do it straight and if you come up with random thoughts along the way, then do your best to incorporate them. Nobody cares if you thought everything through very thoroughly and you think it's the best work you've produced. The best work is produced when you're not trying too hard anyway.
- To study, study how topics transition. Then worry about the parts within or that make up those topics.
UCLA-SPECIFIC TIPS
- So that people just don't randomly stare at your browsing habits on your laptop, sit on the second floor of Powell with your back facing the books.
- Young Research Library 4th-5th floor is the best place to study. And take a dump. Student activities center, too. But at night.
- Keep yourself hot and bothered during class. Seriously. Usually your body temperature drops in those air conditioned rooms and make your body somewhat yinny or numb and inactive. Note: I still fall asleep because I feel really tired.
- I will not reveal parking secrets that people can google and discover until I am well out of UCLA, but I will tell you that you need to learn how to parallel park in between cars. Parallel parking lesson in 5. . .4. . .3. . .
You do that by stopping your car while it's in line with the car that's in front of YOUR parking space (that's right take ownership of that mother), signalling right, and seeing if there's any oncoming traffic. If there isn't any or they let you park, turn your steering wheel clockwise to your right and when you feel that your car is getting close to the curb as you're turning your steering wheel clockwise, turn your steering wheel counter-clockwise to your left.
- Minor health tip: Lengthen your stride by skipping steps both up and down. It's easy to skip steps going up and with sustained practice for a year it'll be second nature to run by skipping steps. That'll make you a faster runner.
I also recommend that skipping steps going downstairs ala my former roommmate (it was really amazing that he did it with such ease with such steep steps) because that sustains the stride-lengthening when you walk as well so that you can walk around like your the big man on campus when you're really only 5'7, 145 lbs of benign muscle with less facial hair than a prepubescent middle school kid. I know skipping steps downwards is harder and you'll look stupid at first, but my body seemed to learn to skip steps downwards in about 4 weeks.
I think there's a stigma that follows most Asian dudes from ever expressing opinions.
Asian dudes aren't supposed to have a voice !
In class, while he may be the brightest of folks, the typical Asian guy at LA ain't going to say shit. He's going to sit there quietly either because the dude is timid and/or just doesn't know what the hell is going on, while his white counterparts (if they aren't visibly disinterested) babble off effortlessly sounding intelligent.
Me ? I've evolved into a combo of both timidity and un-knowingness in class which makes it doubly hard for me to say anything.
However, what I can't say, I usually express (or try to) in my writing. My writing has been my voice. Unless I say so, the words are devoid of me conveying that I'm actually a nervous wrecked timid BS-taking Asian kid. On paper at least, I'm a No-BS, confident, cocky, sniper who smoothly weaves words (OK maybe not). At least, I can't be refuted.
Now what does that have to do with the Daily Bruin ?
I got approved to write for them and everything. Way back in September. That was one of the happiest days I had at school because I thought it was such a big deal and that I was on some kind of fast track (which has since derailed and turned into something of a wreck). However, I have not written a single article for them yet (thus the track derailing and becoming a wreck. . .so far). All I have to do is turn something in, and 99% of the time they will publish it. I suck. I really suck.
So what the f is the holdup ?
They warned us that it was all on us, but that it would help to go into the office.
Well, I walked into the office like they told me to. Only I had nothing to talk about with anyone. I was trying, but I was just sitting there and ended up wasting a bunch of time.
What the hell was I supposed to say to a bunch of white dudes ? I mean it took me some time to get used to my white dude friends at SC, but I wasn't prepared to immediately speak with stranger white dudes in a group who seemed to have camraderie amongst each other. Completely alien territory for me. One at a fuckin' time yo ! I guess I was scared of rejection. I felt like I didn't know anything compared to them when I was all up in there face, even though I always looked at their articles and just knew I could do better. I couldn't even spit my ideas at them because I was completely brainfarting. That terrible experience has stopped me from going into the office since.
So basically, if I can just have the balls to get there once and have an already written article.
Is it just my problem ? Yeah, basically.
But also you need to consider that there were 13 others who got accepted with me. Only 3 of them are writing. All white folks. And there were about 7 Asian dudes out of that 13. But still, there are Asian dudes who write for the sports section of the Bruin.
I think it's time someone laid a chip on my shoulder.
The rush of the mass is all of school. It's like seeing the same damn people every 5 minutes or every block I walk, whichever comes first.
Where would I go to get away from this rush of similarness ?
The most quiet damn places there are. (Not silent because that would imply some kind of forced, unnatural state)
- Behind Royce Hall.
- In between the Schoenberg building and the Ethnomusicology Archive.
(Damn, I am lacking a third place, which kind of invalidates the post because it doesn't feel complete)
Who knew I could find such places of solitude and peace in the bustling mass that is the school that I am quickly getting tired of mentioning to people.
Well, election-fever has officially taken over the Los Angeles campus of the University of California.
And to kick it off is Conservative culture "coming out" week. Before this banner was up, there was a "coming out" week for the gay/lesbian community. The conservatives who's motto is "why be politically correct, when you can just be right" claimed in the Daily Bruin that they are not disrespecting anyone.
All 7 of the Bruin Republicans struggling for attention during lunch hour. Today was flag day, and they played these we love America songs, played the banjo to Super Mario Brothers and Mario World, and surprisingly only one anti-foreigner country song.
However, despite their valiant efforts. . .
. . .their efforts spelled like this "L-A-N-D-S-L-I-D-E-F-O-R-K-E-R-R-Y"
This was a little practice vote thing in which passersby were asked to put either a red (Bush) or blue sticker (Kerry) on their choice for president. Kerry was winning by a helluvalot by the time I left for class.
But I was there for a while watching who exactly was putting the red stickers:
- There was one clean-cut Filipino guy. Must be a super-Christian.
- I noted about 10 bitchy, mediocre-looking white girls. They all seem to have this suspicious dark, look in their eyes that forces their eyebrows to arch.
- Clean-cut white guys who think they know better than you.
Pretty much everyone who was Latino, oddly dressed, a professional, older, and generally "light on the eyes" voted for Kerry. I didn't really notice any blacks or Asians voting, but I'm pretty sure the Asians are pretty split on this campus.
(No, I'm not referencing A Tale of Two Cities, just stealing the essence of its title)
A post I should've done during the summer when it was truer.
One is empty of people and devoid of time (except when you turn a book in a minute late at the 2 hour course reserves, assholes). I almost have all the time to think and learn about everyting. Also with this lack of people, I like knowing that I am doing things no one else is. And so from that I gain the patience to stay a while longer and get the info down harder than the asphalt that I scraped my knee almost to the bone when I was 3 or 4.
The other is stock full of people trying to get things done and/or sleeping. Whatever it is, there's a sense of purpose, a sense of means to an end in those rooms. They're here to get things done. And they're probably smarter than me. So it happens, I act like I have to get things done and I end up having to force shit to come to me.
I feel like a UCLA student. UCSC is a distant memory, almost like a dream that I wish lasted just a bit longer. It's like time to step out of the conceptual into the physical world.
A lot of this feeling like a UCLA student has to do with my narrow, earlier, outsider perceptions that I reported when I first got here have been broken.
I now realize that little things like all the short hair was probably due to it being summer, that the creativity won't be found in the sciency places, that the south side of campus is naturally full during the summer because it's easy to fall behind in science, that the library is not so full compared to how many students are actually there, and not everyone goes to class. Phew. . .there are "normal" people. There are really too many students too even try and classify this school --- there's all kinds.
However, compared to most schools, the most prominent feature would be the amount of Asian fools. And usually with them, you'd categorize them as politically apathetic and invisible. But then here at UCLA, there just up in your face. There's the Christian Asians, the slutty hapa asian girl, the politically involved Asian guy. Good lord, it's like Asians have personalities !
Also helping to reinvent my perceptions, I have much better feelings about my classes.
Recall that I took math and science over the summer --- not so anymore ! My classes look like SC classes except LA's are much more diverse. So it feels sort of like home. I feel much more free, especially in my Education class in which I hear people actually repeat the same diatribe and me actually being slightly ahead of that diatribe.
I'm glad I have this freedom to chill at the bookstore. I sit and read whatever there from Jared Diamond books to LSAT preps to magazines when there's nothing else to do cause you're very welcome to do that there.
Even though I consider the schools pretty even academic-wise now that I'm settled in my classes (I think, barring any low grades, but then I look at the athletes who have no time to study and think that I'm going to do better), the one thing that UCLA beats UCSC is opportunities.
Walking through the Bruinwalk. . .it's just tough to ignore so many campus groups and so many opportunities, at least for me. These people are up on my face. They make it as if they really really really want you to come to their thing. I even talked to some people.
Along with that big mess of opportunities also a lot of shit to see. Fowler Museum was interesting at least for me --- it was about "Latino" religions, like voodoo, Santeria. Michael Moore came and spoke today which I sort of listened to and heard from far away (I was too lazy to pay 2 dollars). He repeated the same thing that I paid 10 bucks for at Santa Cruz, with some update on Bush's latest debate mishaps.
The Bruin Republicans standing outside the Tennis Center in which it was held looked very stupid trying to protest for like 2 minutes before realizing that they had no brain cells and were not going to convince anyone to change their beliefs. Ha, one of those fools even tried to pick a fight with someone going in to watch. What's sad is that their radical right-wing religious guy was fighting with them or something. But anyway, tomorrow, Ugly Duckling will perform for free. Gotta remember that.
Now despite all this high talk of LA, I'm not saying that I would have gone to LA for the first two years of my education. I still think Santa Cruz and the education and friends I got there is what was best for me. It worked out really well. Honestly, I don't think I would survive UCLA without having been there at SC first. I will always remember it as the place where I learned to think.
by B.J. on 7/03/2004 10:19:00 AM
0 commentsPrint this postFirst Week of Classes at (everyone shut the fuck up and make a drumroll please cause this moment deserves more pomp [which I know would be spelled pump] than Reebok)***UCLA***
Everyone fuckin looks the same. They were about cleanliness and sex (at least from my perspective, wink). The first week at UCLA.
So the thing that was on my mind all day the first day was about these smart, fine Asian girls and how they were all asking to be fucked (yet again, always on my mind).
I correlated them back to the one physician Asian girl in 50 first dates at the beginning of the movie, the one that needed to be translated, when describing a date with Adam Sandler's character. The Asian girl was some high-powered physician or whatever doing something important and smart, but over the cell phone she's exposing her vulnerability, telling "how she got pounded" in the bedroom by Mr. Sandler's character.
Well, yes I kept thinking how these Asian girls would "get pounded" and how intelligence doesn't really keep you from being a whore. These girls. All high-powered bitches who get on their knees once they meet "a guy who can tame their independence." Damn, keep your genitalia in check you animals (now what comes to mind is when Rachel from friends is talking about how she had mindless, animal sex, but I digress, badly).
Then the guys, also clean and all about sex, well except for all the Asian males which make up about 50% of the campus. About 85% short hair and gelled. There was a complete lack of academic beards even in the professors. Remember, bearded people are smart, as DS Lars says. Everyone was wearing these short collared polo shirts to show their bulging veiny biceps (and out of proportion shoulders). Assholes (I shake my fist like Big Des on the low low usually does with a smile).
There were "minorities" all over the place which has starkly contrasted to the last two schools I have been in. With them all over the place, there's less clusters of people of a certain affiliation hanging out together, but then again there wasn't as much integration of the races except for white-Asian (like in snowboarding! !).
The gay/lesbian population was very invisible except for the Loyola alumni dude who worked at the photoshop who either didn't recognize me or just wanted to avoid contact with me and this one fuckface at the Registrar's office who snapped at me. Seemed defensive.
Now as for what people on campus actually did.
There was plenty of older, namely black and Hispanic people doing things for money such as sweeping up brush when in Santa Cruz that crap is ignored and left as is (I guess this job-giving to them is a good service to the economy).
Professors were OK I guess, but I won't say anything until I hopefully pass as in get by with B's in their classes.
The students are always sofa king doing something productive, it seems (but ironically when I get to know people, I see how lazy they are and theirs becomes contagious upon me). Most actually show up to class (but that could probably change with the regular school year and as time passes, because consider that summer session costs a lot and it moves fast). Almost everyone's always busy with something when they're sitting down: either celling it, doing homework, and or having some intellectual conversation. I don't really remember anyone just relaxing or laughing out loud. When they were, they were leading a bunch of kids from day camp.
However, with productivity, I think they become "inside-the-box" thinkers.
For example, I noticed the restroom graffiti.
In Santa Cruz, they are all extremely creative. They come up making statements like "End the Occupation of California" and a bunch of other witty unoffensive statements. However, at LA, there's minimal restroom graffiti. But when there is it's something offensive and high schoolish like "gay sex causes AIDS" or "I like poop." I'd expect something of super-high intelligence like a bunch of equations that make a joke or something, but it's that homophobic, narrow-minded crap.
I guess it shows that these people don't actually think before they do something to rebel. When they rebel, they just end up looking stupid. Stick to just being a top-HAVE-school, LA (or at least students of LA). So sad when haves rebel against their perceived problems.
The stars at PCC 13 minus Beck Laba, Rachel, Josh, Billy Bucksbayan, and Tarnation Sam. Included instead are Manong Pete, Manong Rugee, Lola and Manang Diva.
Throwing cake at Roy's face. That was all me.
. . .At the 25th Multicultural Festival at UCSC
The Pretty Venue, literally just a block's walk from my dorm.
You know how everyone has those Everyone loves a Jewish, Italian, German, Asian (no ! not the whole fuckin' continent, pointed out by big Des in the low low) shirts. Well here's what they had to offer at the Festival.
Crown City Rockers ripped that shit apart. Hope to be hearing more about them in the future.
Planet Asia reminded me of Ja Rule in style and his performance was somewhat energizing. Goofily energizing. He stopped after every song which was a bit annoying. He was OK. BTW, whoever the long-haired bearded 18-year old white guy that kept yelling every 15 seconds "Fres-noOOO !" in a mock gangsta-style should have been shot in the throat. Jesus, we get it, you're from Fresno, he's from Fresno, Planet Asia doesn't give a shit that you say it, moron.
Goapele is hot. Too hot. Goddess status. But her smooth slow style is too night clubby (that's right, MY idea DSLars) for this kind of a party hip-hoppin' festival. Everyone was all sunken in for songs rather than jumping and dancing.
. . .Miscellaneous aka Random Times
Natural Bridges Beach thru the trees while at big Des on the low low's Muslim BBQ.
Another Natty Bridges picture.
DSLars with the new look road signs at the Science and Eh-jeh-neering (pronounced the way William Hung would say it, sigh) after the much-anticipated map sale (a gathering of all the nerds in which I had no place, cursing about maps that were gone and picking up only the colorful and more descriptive ones). Why does Science and Engineering have to look so much better than whatever's on the main road with Anthro and Econ ? Fucked em man. Scientists today are what Catholic Priests were in the Middle Ages.
Mural at the Metro after gobbling on cheap but plentiful Chinese food there.
Roy's baldspot. What a freak ! I like to squeeze it like you as a five-year old want to squeeze the jelly out of a fish's eye at A1 (L.A. Filipinos all seem to know what that is).
There = The college that I just got into (see below) but might not go to because they might withdraw my admission or something but hopefully not.
Literally, a sensusal experience.
It reminded me a lot of my Loyola High School experience (of which I am still very ambivalent about) primarily because of the smell and look of the school. It smelled like mushed berries with palm trees, combined with various other foods just like Loyola with kids eating their snack bar crap anywhere. The buildings were bricked and traditional like Loyolas. Plants were well-kept. The grounds people were constantly cleaning and easily spotted with uniforms and brown skin like they wouldn't be at Santa Cruz. Oh so secure were these students, living in their oh-so-important-highly-connected (but wireless !) lives. All this school needed to actually become Loyola were some half-retarded white kids with shaved heads and braces shirting some Freshman football t-shirt pelting out their 5-minute renditions of the male reproductive tool, and a certain dean wobbling his head drop dropping it like it's hot.
But other than these initial sensual observations, there was nothing else really.
I aimlessly wandered back and forth between the store and Murphy Hall. The whole time I was hoping someone I knew would come up and say hey, meanwhile wondering about what I should do with my current status in a certain class (outlined below in "Primate Ecology 106") and how withdrawing from it would affect my admission (hopefully not much ! Please !).
In conclusion, I didn't really like or dislike the atmosphere (ambivalent ! God how I like picking apart this award-winning school that actually wants me, stupid me). I am extremely grateful that I have gotten into a quality college with the quality program close to home. However in other news, I have since lost care for any status this acceptance has/will have brought. It's not really a big deal guys, I'm the same random antisocial moron. However, thanks for all the congratulations !
I am overwhelmingly happy and surprised with that. I would've told you a meek "yeah, right" in a nerdy voice (since I'm such a pussy to slap you upside the head or perform some other drastic action as a result of telling me something outrageous) if you told me that I'd get in last year.
However, I probably enjoy this acceptance right now mainly cause it's a "Brand-name" school in the top 25. It's a status-marker and ego-booster in any circle of American society. I felt like getting in was an "I-showed-you" kind of revenge to everyone who forgot about me in high school and only paid attention to assholes who talked in class as if they knew anything or those mayabangs who asked why I went to a "party school". But the only people who know and acknowledge that I got in are my friends and family, not exactly the people I'd sort show off to as a means of establishing my credibility or standing up for myself. My friends and family know I'm the same type of person, just that I'd be going to a different school.
The other reasons this school seems nice:
- Not a horrible anthro program; a little better-sounding than Santa Cruz
- Saves money (the main reason that I wanted to go to school there)
If/when I get there, I will be immersed in the B.S. Anthropology program. I will need to take physics, calculus, life sciences, and chemistry, all of which I thought I could avoid for life here. I don't mind really because I think those things will be extremely helpful as a medical anthropologist. I look forward to the challenge.
However, notice in the previous paragraph that I started with "if I get there". The catch with this getting into UCLA is that there are provisions to my admission. And this quarter at UCSC, I might have to withdraw from one class this quarter, and I fear that UCLA may just withdraw my offer of admission. My response to that is that at least I knew I got in to that tough admission university, cause staying at Santa Cruz wouldn't exactly be the worst thing in the world. I think UCLA barely beats SC in the anthro department, only because UCLA seems to establish more rigorous study in general, at least from the sound of these classes, but we'll see. I'm not exactly breaking down the walls to get out of here and would stay if living arrangements didn't cost so much. I really do like Santa Cruz, there really is no place like it. But I think it might be time to go back home.
Add me to your reading list.
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