Bonnie Chau
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So I am sitting here in Irvine, where it is, for some reason, 10
degrees hotter than at UCLA, and I have come to the conclusion that
the summer doldrums have officially started. Judging by what I did
this last week between the end of spring quarter and the start of
summer quarter, we’re all in for one big Summer o’ Fun!
Anyway, according to me, here is what’s going down for summer
2002:
Get oriented: there is nothing quite like the UCLA freshmen
Orientation is there? I remember showing up at Sproul turnaround
with a backpack, and everyone else had huge suitcases that rolled
around. It’s only a few days folks! One of my roommates
brought huge gigantic bottles of shampoo and conditioner and
styling mousse or whatever and a curling iron and blow dryer. I
don’t think I ever even met her; I’d come in late and
she’d be asleep, and when I got up in the morning she’d
be out taking a placement test or something.
Anyway, orientation counselors are cool, the skits they do are
funny, the supposedly mandatory things they hold in Moore where
they teach you how to put on a condom can be pretty entertaining.
And when you’re not stressing out over the mass chaos that is
signing up for classes, which you can still change from URSA once
you go home, there is always partying and hooking up going on
somewhere in those orientation kids-filled halls. Seriously,
everyone meets people at Orientation with whom they keep in touch.
At the very least you’ll be able to recognize a large number
of faces that you’ll wonder about during your fifth year here
when you can’t remember how you met anyone.
Get smart: summer during school! School during summer! Yay!
Whether it’s summer school at your local community college,
UCLA, another UC or abroad; whether it’s a G.E., pre-req,
MCAT class, a random art class or a really hard class, it’ll
be so cool. Cool in a no-actually-it’s-not kind of way. Still
though, summer school is usually a little more laid back or at
least different. But this is me just speaking out of my ass because
this is the first summer I’m taking real, not-just-for-fun
summer school classes, so we’ll see how I feel at the end of
the summer.
Get paid: more likely than not, your summer job and/or
internship will not be paying as much as you’d like and
there’ll be times when you feel like shit because everyone
else is out eating ice cream and frolicking on the seashore. But
hey, you can comfort yourself with the fact that your strong work
ethic and sense of responsibility and productiveness will pay off
for you in the long run somehow
Get fun: I group into this fun category things like parties,
museums, beach, clubbing, bars, eating, shopping and movies. This
is actually what you should be using as filler. Read: fly a kite,
paint some pottery, do some volunteering, go to a county fair, take
up yoga, have a BBQ, go to a concert, learn a new instrument, cook
a meal for all your friends. Call up old high school friends you
haven’t seen in a long time, or just saw the week before as
the case may be, and contemplate over how shocking it is that
so-and-so has changed so much or not at all. Who’s engaged
and who’s already married and who finally came out? Who
turned out to be the surprise slut and who turned into a porn star?
Speaking of fun summer stuff, there is always the illegal fun stuff
too. But I write a good wholesome column so there will be none of
that here.
Get trippy: even if you’re like me and won’t ever
have more than several free days at once, vacations can be as short
as you want. Family vacations can be fun and weird, but take one
while you’re in school and still have summers. Take a camping
trip with coworkers, a road trip with friends, whatever. Go to a
non-English speaking country and come back speaking a new language.
Or just pretend you did and start speaking with a new accent.
It’ll impress people. It’ll probably also scare them,
but it’s summer ““ who cares?
Hey it’s summer! Just have a good time, whatever
you’re doing.