Breathing Deeply, Walking Backwards

If you don't know already, I work for the housing assignments office at UCLA. I'm mainly a housing tour guide, but today, I got to alphabetize change of housing request forms for the 2001-2002 school year, and let me tell you, this incoming class of students is a whiny bunch. I mean, do they really think the school can just shit out all the double-occupancy dorm rooms necessary to make everybody happy, especially with the onset of Tidal Wave II? Almost every request read, "I was assigned a triple. I want a double." Yeah, okay.

You should have seen some of the reasons people used to justify their requests. One kid, an art student AND an orthodox Jew, said that he couldn't live in a triple or room with anybody but his orthodox Jew friend because otherwise he wouldn't have enough room for his art supplies and couldn't practice his religion to its full extent. Ah, the joys of reform Judaism.

"Special" medical conditions were quite popular too. Be it asthmatics who absolutely required an air-conditioned room in order to breathe or (get this) an English cello-playing girl who simply could not use stairs because one of her legs is shorter than the other and a cello is (unbeknownst to me) really really heavy to carry, lame desperation was pandemic. Some people went so far as to include pamphlets about their disorders so our office could truly feel their pain and find it in its heart to re-assign them to a double air-conditioned room.

The request that stands out most in my mind was from a guy in Oregon who, on top of being an poor fucking asthmatic, felt that he had worked too hard in high school to deserve a triple. And to prove just how hard he worked in high school, he sent in a lengthy resumé chronicling all his high school exploits. Honestly, I never knew one person could do so many things. Even Sima wasn't this good. He reminded me of Max Fischer from the movie Rushmore…with a tint of WASP bourgeoisie fag. Did I mention that he attached a glamour photo of himself to his request? WHY? Dumbass.

I've been meaning to post my first-year UCLA report card. Here goes:

Air Pollution • A
Biological Threats To Society: Bioterrorism And Emerging Infections • B+
Calculus And Analytic Geometry • C
English Composition, Rhetoric, And Language Honors • B
Music Now • A-
Principles Of Oral Communication • B-
The US, 1963 To 1974: Politics, Society, And Culture 1 • B-
The US, 1963 To 1974: Politics, Society, And Culture 2 • A
The US, 1963 To 1974: Politics, Society, And Culture 3 • A-
Cumulative GPA = 3.245

Mediocre and proud of it.

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