Blue & Golden Memories

Football season started today, which made me extremely happy. After coming from a football high school and being a devout MN Vikings fan, one of the major pluses of choosing UCLA was that it big school with big sports.

I had season passes all four years and tried to go to all the home games. The camaraderie and school spirit provided a sense of family that most people feel is lacking at big public universities. Although there were ups and downs, football season has provided me some of my best memories during college (and even after I graduated). In honor of the start of the season, here are my top 10 memories:

1. USC Game 2006: Even though my roommate and I were 3,000 miles away, had to watch the game on our tiny television, and should have been studying for our first law school finals, watching UCLA beat USC was amazing. I almost cried.
2. Tailgating: The best part about home games at the Rose Bowl was tailgating before the games. From our hotdog and beer tailgates, to our more upscale tailgates with ribs, steak and shrimp skewers, and carne asada, it was so much fun to light up the grill and toss around the football before the game.
3. Eight Claps: When we heard Geoff Strand, the crazy alum yell leader beckon, "Every man, woman, and child," we knew it was time to cheer. I loved seeing everyone do the cheer in synchronization. It looked great in the Rose Bowl, and it looks just as good when we all do it at the UCLA bar here in DC. My friends from other schools and my brother never understood the cheer, but that is another reason why it was great.
4. Comeback Kids Season: The football season my final year nearly gave everyone heart attacks. I cannot remember how many times we came back at the very last minute from seemingly impossible deficits, but it sure made for an exciting 10-2 season. It was great to see so much spirit that year, and see Coach Dorrell thank the crowd after the games. And of course, coming back and beating Cal was great (especially getting to rub it in my brother's face).
5. "Sooners": Our Oklahoma heckler will forever live as an inside joke for Faith, Ryan, Alex, and I. The DKE fraternity will pretend they understand, but they don't.
   
6. My First Game in 2002: I do not remember much about that game except that it was really hot, and the student section was surprisingly uncrowded, but it was still fun watching the game with Megan and Robert, two high school friends who were also going to UCLA.
   
7. 2004 USC Game: Even though the score board said we lost, it was one of those moral victories. UCLA played their hearts out in a very close game (we beat the spread), and all of us were very proud at the end.
   
8. UCLA Commercials: They were oftentimes cheesy, but every UCLA fan knew those UCLA commercials by heart. And of course it was funny that my friends (Eric and Jay particularly) thought of me everytime they saw the Asian girl say "The city of the present . . . LA!"
9. The Bruin Shuffle: The song, the shuffle, and me never getting the answer correct. Perhaps not a good memory, but a memory nonetheless.
   
10. My first game at the Ugly Mug: It was great seeing so many people I knew from undergrad when I went to the UCLA bar for the first time; it was just like being at the Rose Bowl, except air conditioned and with sliders. A lot of people are surprised that there is a UCLA bar in Washington, DC, but there are a lot alums here. And yes, Bruin spirit lives forever.

Non-Labor Day Weekend

I almost forgot what it was like to . . . get ten hours of sleep . . . sleep-in until 9am . . . have absolutely no appointments or obligations color-coded into my Google Calendar . . . take a nap because I could . . . do nothing except go to the gym, clean, and look forward to UCLA football tomorrow.

Exactly the kind of break I needed after my first two weeks of school.

First Amending

I love the First Amendment. In fact, I love it so much that I am taking an entire class on it. In general, I believe that there are very few instances when the government should be able to restrict speech. However, this does not mean that people cannot restrict their own speech. In more simple terms: Just because you can talk does not mean that you should.

All those years of being taught to speak our minds and use lax technology rules have gone too far. Since many manners and rules of etiquette are antiquated, I have taken the liberty of formulating some of my own rules when it comes to speech/talking. Not an exhaustive list, because I could go on forever, but just some issues that have been arising lately:

Phone Rules: You should not call someone before 8am or after 12am unless (a) there is an emergency, or (b) there is a preexisting mutual understanding that calling outside of those hours is acceptable. This also applies on the weekend, because some of us old people do retain our weekday sleeping patterns on the weekend. Finally, forgetting that someone lives in a different time zone than you is not an excuse.

Classroom Rules: Just because you have something to say for every comment that the professor makes or have an answer for every question the professor asks does not mean that you have to raise your hand and speak every single time. Moreover, if the professor does not call on you, that does not mean that you should just yell the answer out loud.

Library Rules: Long conversations, particularly between more than two people, should be restricted from the carrels of the library.

General Speech Rule: "God gave you two ears and one mouth, use them proportionally," guy from the career services office.

Police State

Today when we came to school, they checked all of our student ID's. For people who parked in the parking lot, they asked to see school ID's and licenses. As I mentioned yesterday, the school formally says that a string of universities received bomb threats yesterday. And while this is completely true, there is also a rumor that our very own financial aid office received a bomb threat.

Not to make light of the situation, but no one would be surprised if this were true. I could just imagine the police investigation Law & Order Style:
Police- Is there anyone who you have had issues with? Anyone who would want to hurt you?
Financial Aid Office- The vast majority of students at the law school.

There were also police officers stationed outside our law school today: Pedestrian Safety Awareness Month! Just like at UCLA, police were handing out tickets to students who were jaywalking. I was going to say that it's less serious than the bomb threats, but not according to this funny sign with a sobering message (A pedestrian is killed every 3.5 minutes in American). I really need to return to my pre-DC days where I never jaywalked.

Book Bruises & Bombs

This morning in tax, my friend Jessie noticed a bruise on her inner arm. She concluded that the only way that she could have procured this bruise was from carrying her book. At that point, I think we both laughed about how sad/nerdy it was that we have "academic battle wounds."

Later in the day, I was riding up the elevator with my 1,700+ page Criminal Procedure book. I usually carry this book instead of put it in my backpack because it is so heavy. As I shifted my book between my arms, I noticed that I too had the book bruise.

So for those of you starting law school, you have been warned. In addition to worsening your vision and making your back sore, law school can also bruise you. (See poor artist rendition via paint)

In other news, our school had to close down at 10:20pm tonight because there have been a series of bomb threats at universities across the country. I am not sure which is more sad: someone randomly calling up schools and making bomb threats for no apparent reason; or the fact that there were people actually planning on working in the library that late on the second week of school.

2L

Today we all came back after a very event-filled and fun weekend, all wishing we had done more work over the weekend. Alas, the 2L dilemma: we have as much work as we had last year, we have activities, and we have job applications; but we have an expectation of a social life and refuse to revert back to the hermit days of 1L.

On the brightside, I got a lot of work done at school today. And finished filling out my payroll information. And got my first job interview. And Gonzales resigned. I guess this year is going to work out, even Mondays.

Sunday Supper

Growing up, I always wished my friends and I had a hangout like the Max on Saved by the Bell or the Peach Pit on 90210. Well, we did find a new local place that we liked tonight, but unfortunately our lack of income will prevent us from going to the new neighborhood restaurant, Indian Ocean, all the time.

Indian Ocean has a special place in the hearts of my friends and I. See, when we moved to Van Ness, there was this empty restaurant front that was all boarded up right around the corner from our apartment. We passed it every single day as we walked to the bus.

The months passed, and sometime in late October or November, we see a sign that says that a restaurant called the Coat of Arms will be coming soon. It finally opens in December on the last day of finals, with a knight and pub food. We say we will go there when we come back from break, Coat of Arms is closed and the sign says that Indian Ocean is coming. A few weeks later, it says Coat of Arms is coming back with new management. Then a few weeks later, Indian Ocean sign covers the Coat of Arms sign. Talk about imperial strife.

Anyway, after over a whole year for a restaurant to open, Indian Ocean finally opens and we went there for dinner tonight. The food was tasty, and they say that they use a healthier kind of cooking style. They even figured out that it was my roommate's birthday and brought her out a dessert without any one of us mentioning it.

The best part was that even though it was very nice inside, it still had that family feel. I love those kind of restaurants, but they are far and few in between in the suburb I grew up in because everything was part of a big chain. I love DC and the individual restaurants.

It would great if our friends and I could be the "locals" that the owners knew, but alas, no budget for regular Indian food.

[Picture courtesy of the Connecticut Avenue Blog, a site that has all the happenings of my 'hood]