Daily Bruin

UCLA’s renowned dining halls dish up diverse and adventurous plates, but even its various and inviting menus don’t satiate the hunger I have for the food I grew up eating at home. I knew that with just one swipe, I was lucky to be eating a diverse amount of food, but I still felt I was missing something. In fact, when I chose to move out to the apartments in my second year, this lack of choice over the food I once ate was one of the main factors that pushed me to leave the dorms and my meal plan behind. Dish after dish, I eventually learned the inconvenience of cooking for myself, but it was much more fulfilling to struggle through one of my mother’s recipes than it was to wait in line for something spooned onto a plate by a server.

It was prime time in the dining halls, and Feast at Rieber bustled with hungry Bruins. I squeezed past a throng of students lined up for the featured dish at the Bruin Wok station, eager to get to another station with less waiting. I glanced at the vegetarian option displayed on the screen, which listed peanut butter stew. Squinting at the bowls filled with a thick golden-brown sauce, I edged closer. I suspected this “peanut butter stew” was Feast’s vegetarian version of the Filipino dish kare-kare, a savory, peanut-based stew typically boiled with oxtail, beef, tripe, eggplants, bok choy and string beans. My initial surprise subsided, and I quickly grabbed a bowl.

Once I returned to my table and tasted the stew, my confusion only deepened. It certainly emulated kare-kare but lacked the richness from the missing odd cuts of meat that usually dominate the otherwise plain peanut sauce. As one of the few Filipino dishes that are neutral in flavor, kare-kare is typically served with a spoonful of bagoong, a pink, salty shrimp paste, to brighten the taste.

That night, the essential bagoong was missing. It made sense, I thought, remembering its notorious strong smell – no one wants that. I similarly justified the absence of the chewy intestine and bone-bound meat. Although I appreciated the surprise of this take on kare-kare, I knew that the Filipino food I longed for was back in the Filipino diners, served in plastic foam containers by an aproned tita – not in the dining halls. I was unsettled, as the missing ingredients in the kare-kare reminded me what I was missing in my college diet.

Drug dependency is defined as a state in which a person only functions normally in the presence of the drug, usually due to repeated use of the drug.

According to the AddictionCenter from the Delphi Behavioral Health group, college students are one of the largest groups of people who misuse drugs in the United States and people between the ages of 18 and 24 are at a heightened risk of substance misuse.

Students’ dependency on various substances can be a result of factors such as pressure to fit into a new environment and handle academic stress. On the other hand, substance misuse can also lead to addiction, which is characterized by changes in behavior.

Every quarter, UCLA sends out a substance misuse brochure, detailing the campus’ stance on drug use and possession. Though one part covers the resources available to those living with drug addiction, the brochure also mentions the consequences which those caught violating the policies may face. These potential consequences students can encounter promote a silencing of the issue and the stigma already shrouding drug dependency and addiction.

People with drug addictions are associated with many negative characteristics, according to Adi Jaffe, a former UCLA psychology lecturer and nationally recognized expert on mental health, addiction and stigma.

The perpetuation of the stigma behind drug dependence and addiction, despite the availability of resources, dissuades students on campus from opening up about their experiences with drug dependence and addiction and seeking the appropriate help to put them on the road to recovery.

The influence of stigma on one’s ability to recover can be complicated and complex, but defining a solution to the issue can start with understanding the various factors that make college students more susceptible to drug misuse, dependency and addiction.

The lights are off, and outside our apartment there’s nothing to be heard but crickets chirping and the occasional car driving through our small town, New Salem, Massachusetts. Yet inside, in the pitch black, my mom and I jump up and down, blasting Kanye West. My mom points at me and at the top of her lungs sings, “’You gon’ touch the sky, baby girl!”

Thanks to my mom, I’ve been an avid listener of Kanye since third grade. No matter how I was feeling, there was a Kanye song to match my emotions. Sad? I listened to “Heard ‘Em Say.” Defeated? “Bring Me Down.” Hopeful? “Street Lights.” Angry? “Power.” I listened to him alone on the bus to school and with my best friends everywhere we went. His music was an integral part of my life for years.

I want to declare without shame that I love Kanye, but I’m not sure if that statement is completely accurate. I will always love his music, not only for its bold, empowering themes but also for all the memories his music gave me.

The first concert I ever went to was on Kanye’s “Yeezus” tour with my best friend and my mom. We seat hopped through the weed-stenched TD Garden until we were a mere few hundred feet away from the stage. We sang to “Bound 2” until we lost our voices, and on the 1 ½-hour car ride home, we listened to “Yeezus” over and over again as we reminisced.

Years later, during my first year at UCLA, I went to a concert on Kanye’s “Saint Pablo” tour with my roommate, hoping the experience would be as magical as the first. But over the months leading up to that night, Kanye had been feuding with a variety of celebrities and continually disrupted his shows with lengthy and controversial rants. I kept asking myself if I could separate his words and actions from his music. On the night of the concert, I left The Forum in Inglewood feeling conflicted.

It’s nearly impossible to go through life without being occasionally disappointed by celebrities whom we normally admire. But can we really separate their words and actions from the parts of them that we love? Should we even try? These are the questions I ask myself when I reflect on how my relationship with Kanye has changed, only to end up at a crossroads of conflicting sentiments. It’s hard to find peace with this constant internal conflict, but as a fan, I find it reassuring to know that this discomfort is a result of normal psychological processes.

Sitting around a small fire in a friend’s backyard during winter break, I spun a marshmallow in my hand, unsure of how to answer the question: “How would you say you’ve changed over your first quarter of college?” Old friends, people I haven’t seen in months but have known for years, watched me as I fidgeted. What’s the difference between the me sitting here and the me they knew before I called UCLA home?

Answering the question wasn’t as simple as answering the linear algebra questions I had encountered all quarter or telling a dining hall worker what toppings I want in my omelet in the morning. How does one solve the matrix of their own personal development? Besides solving math problems and perfecting omelet ingredient combinations, what have I really accomplished as a new college student?

Thinking through the timeline of my development, I realized growth can reveal itself in unconventional places. In my case, it is revealed through the changes in my online purchases.

I first noticed this when I made one of my more notable purchases: a poster. I bought a colorful and eccentric art piece that welcomes uncomfortable stares from visitors but radiates happiness for me. I finally clicked checkout on something that had been added to a virtual cart for months.

It was a simple online purchase, just a few clicks on the computer and a confirmation email. This process is something that I am unhealthily familiar with. I wouldn’t consider myself obsessed with online shopping, but I can admit that I am a frequent visitor of the mailroom. I’ve walked out with Amazon bags, Target boxes and a package from an international artist. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the timeline of my college career thus far wouldn’t be organized by my number of friends made or my exam scores, but rather bookmarked by the items I carried out of the mailroom, my online purchases.

It all started with a loofah.

After the overwhelmingness of move-in day, after the long goodbye hugs and extensive room organization, I was left alone in my room with the items, new and old, that would compile my new space. I had everything: a desk lamp, a box full of granola bars and Goldfish crackers, a pair of scissors, a sheet of stamps and my favorite tea. But, upon walking into the shower in my new shower shoes, I realized I didn’t have a loofah.

Naturally, it wasn’t a big deal. I live in a family of “borrowing,” in which I can snatch an item from my parents’ or sisters’ bedrooms, sometimes to borrow but usually to steal. But I was learning that a walk down the hall didn’t lead to the beautiful stability of mom’s closet anymore. Instead, it led to a couple of elevators and a lounge full of nervously socializing college newbies.

So sitting on my uncomfortable wooden chair at my unfamiliar wooden desk, with my shower shoes still on, I made my first purchase as a college student, solving my first problem while being truly on my own. And two days of free shipping later, I had a loofah.

With that, my clicks of the checkout button continued. Generally, clothing is my favorite purchase to make; I love connecting with something unique and accepting it into my life as a piece of self-expression. But during my first weeks at UCLA, my wearable purchases weren’t aligned with my self-expression.

Maybe it was because I was unsure of where I stood within UCLA’s student body, or because I was struggling with a classic coming-of-age identity crisis, but I bought clothes that I thought would make me fit in. And as I wore the same subtle maroon stripes that I saw around me, it felt like it was working.

At the time, though, I was feeling already hopelessly lost in my classes and like I was drowning in my perfectly striped, easily acceptable shirt. I didn’t resurface until weeks later when I took an inexplicably impulsive break from studying for my first college midterms. After days of studying and hours of ignoring the time, I shut my math textbook, opened my computer and bought a set of hoop earrings. These weren’t your average ring-sized hoops that sit daintily at the ends of your ear – the hoops were big and silver and unapologetically bold.

For the first time, the purchase wasn’t premeditated, nor was it an obvious necessity. Big, silver hoops weren’t designed to make me fit in. With accessories, I was choosing to welcome attention, adding personality to my appearance. With this small purchase I started to feel like I could belong here at UCLA, and I could confidently figure things out without the comfort of my mom’s closet.

The story of my growth as a college first-year could be narrated through the perspective of the mailroom at UCLA. Like me, students across UCLA’s campus are the protagonists of their own memoirs, but their stories could be narrated by unexpected somethings unique to them.

There are a lot of things that are quintessential to the UCLA experience: walking up the Hill after a long day of classes, eating ice cream at Diddy Riese and watching some of the best college sports teams in the country. It’s just that the last one may come with the chance to see scores of empty seats.

UCLA’s status as the school with the most NCAA titles may be outdated, but there’s no doubt the school has a prestigious athletic pedigree. Lonzo Ball, Troy Aikman, Russell Westbrook and Chase Utley are some of the many prominent athletes who have graced UCLA’s campus over the last few decades. With future pro athletes and Olympians working to master their crafts, one would expect UCLA to have one of the most rabid and enthusiastic fanbases in all of college sports.

But this is not the case.

Over the years, UCLA has struggled to fill stands, especially in what are known as the revenue sports: football and men’s basketball. The football team has seen attendance fall over the last five years, not even managing to fill out 60,000 seats for the 2018 USC game. Men’s basketball has struggled to sell out Pauley Pavilion. Even though NBA-level talent has passed through the arena, attendance often falls below the 10,000 mark.

There are a lot of reasons that can be suggested for this – it could be lack of appeal, too many other activities to do in Los Angeles or just a cultural distaste toward college athletics at UCLA. At a university that prides itself on athletic achievement, low attendance prompts the question of what this means for the university overall and why people aren’t paying attention.

Since firing a football and men’s basketball coach in consecutive years, it’s fair to say UCLA’s major sports are struggling. Arguably, that’s apparent in fan attendance.

Football has not sold out in the last couple years, but it did average over 76,000 fans – the highest in the Pac-12 – when the team was more successful during the first half of the Jim Mora era, which started in 2012, according to UCLA Athletics. Meanwhile, there’s o

An irritating vibration shot up my left arm. My eyes groggily opened and I glanced to the side of my bed. I saw my phone screen blinking and looked at the caller ID.

It was Andre Oliver. And it was 6:16 a.m. on a Monday.

So much for getting a full eight hours of sleep before my midterm.

I eventually made my way out of bed three hours later and called him back. The receiver buzzed its high-pitched ring for what felt like an eternity before I heard a familiar voice on the other end.

“Hey, what’s up?”

I smiled.

I first got to know Oliver almost two years ago, ahead of Bruin Day 2017. The sun beat down on the brick walkway. The light brown walls of the John Wooden Center shone brightly against the plain, blue sky. Truck engines rumbled and metal clanged as employees prepared stalls. Visitors munched on kettle corn and students’ flip-flops slapped the concrete as they walked.

Oliver stood in the sun, his eyes squinting and his right hand clutching a white binder. His white collar held tightly to his neck. A black beard cupped his chin from ear to ear, and his forest-green sleeves were crumpled at the elbows.

I had seen the Bruin Walk regular plenty of times before. He can often be spotted from the end of the Intramural Field, when students start veering to the edges of Bruin Plaza to avoid his characteristic question:

“Excuse me, sir, question please?”

I had seen his various attires, ranging from a casual ensemble of a loose, gray T-shirt and saggy pants to a tucked-in, iron-pressed dress shirt with a navy-blue tie. His beard fluctuated with the season, changing from a precise spring trim to a balanced winter puff.

“Excuse me, sir, question please?”