I mean, the message was clear: she does not like Asians or their mannerisms. But she said it in a completely non-introspective way that I was surprised to hear coming from a supposed UCLA student. Before, I had perceived students of UCLA to be articulate and reasonable in a way that ultimately reflects their intelligence, which typically gets them into the school in the first place. I almost had the chance to attend UCLA, and my admission wound up getting revoked, and I was absolutely crushed when it happened.

UCLA has been my favorite college, my “first choice,” and I tried hard to get readmitted 2 separate times after being revoked. Of course, I was turned down twice for fall admission and denied 1 appeal, and while I was again disappointed, now this video comes along and shows the true colors of not just one UCLA student, but if Wallace is being truthful, rude students (maybe not Asian; they could be any race) who talk on their cell phones in the library where people go to study quietly. That certainly is not appropriate behavior for a “Public Ivy” school in my view.

I attend CSU Northridge, and our library is filled mostly with people taking naps at the desks and tables, but hey, at least they’re being quiet. I haven’t yet seen someone talking on a cell phone in the CSUN library, though I’d more expect to see someone talking on the phone there rather than at UCLA.

So, in conclusion, UCLA was once perceived by me to be academically rigorous and possessing a student body quite reflective of that perception. But now, thanks to Alexandra Wallace, I see that UCLA is no better than any other California school. Except for maybe Berkeley. My advice would be if you’re planning on going to any UC, save yourself some money and come to a Cal State school instead. The students are just as shallow and rude as any UC student.

My dad is more like Al Bundy from “Married With Children,” continuously drudging through his days as a low-income, aging man whom modern America might refer to as a loser, who is also constantly faced with horrible luck that seems to make his life even more unbearable.  And even when things appear to look up for Al, something always foils him in the end. For instance, take the episode where Al gets hit in the head with a shoe, gets a concussion and later claims to see aliens sneaking into his bedroom at night to steal his socks. Of course, his wife and neighbors mock him relentlessly, with Al’s archnemesis neighbor Marcy D’arcy even quipping: “Isn’t it strange how aliens only visit idiots?”

But one night, Al manages to take pictures of the aliens to prove to everyone that he did in fact see “little green men.” Al gets excited, believing that proof of the aliens’ existence will lead to an appearance on daytime TV and make him millions, but when he goes to pick up the photos from a picture-developing shop (this was in the 90s – we didn’t have digital cameras then) a clerk informs him that the negatives were overexposed and the pictures are gone forever. So, after landing a court date for breaking his camera over the photo clerk’s head, the aliens return to visit Al once more, wanting to take more pictures. But Al solemnly declines the opportunity, lamenting: “Even if I did get more pictures, it would never turn out right for me.”

I’m not saying that my dad’s ever seen aliens before, although he has claimed to, but he did a lot of psychedelic drugs in those days (he’s an ex-hippie who lived in Haight-Ashbury in an apartment under the Grateful Dead, after all.) However, he has never labored under any false delusions about getting rich and escaping his family, though he’s had a few delusions – ask him about the “psychic vampires” who drove him insane and caused him to hear voices and see people’s heads exploding for “exactly 1 year,” also in his hippie days. I also don’t think my dad’s quite as pessimistic as Al Bundy about his life. Nor is he as much of an idiot as Al. And he doesn’t sell women’s shoes either.

In fact, my dad is quite optimistic even though life seems to be a constant disappointment. Optimistic, but tells these crazy stories that make you want to feel sorry for him, maybe to show, much like Al, that things just never turn out right for him. A lot of people laugh at the stories he tells (namely my mother), saying there’s no way those completely out-of-the-ordinary things could have happened to him, but he doesn’t let it get to him. Sure, my dad frequently complains about the horrible things that happen to him everyday. Just recently he was complaining about his duplicate driver’s license going missing from his mailbox, and it had been 11 weeks since he requested it, so he was pretty sure this neighbor of his, whom one of the other neighbors has apparently seen hanging around his mailbox, took it and was probably establishing phony credit cards or doing something else highly illegal with it. But really, the joke’s on this guy: my dad doesn’t have good credit or anything.

Meanwhile, my dad’s trying to establish a plan to get this guy caught by the cops, but he hasn’t imposed anything violent on this guy, nor has he just sulked and gotten completely depressed. And truthfully, these types of things are continuously happening to him! Yet he somehow manages to continue going and staying relatively upbeat about things. He’s got quite a sense of humor, which is where I’m certain my sense of humor came from. It’s probably his fault I’m so twisted, but I really like to think of myself as delightfully twisted.

Me and my dad the ex con, Cameron

I grew up going to see movies with him, all of the best comedies. He took me to see “The Big Lebowski” when I was 9. It’s probably every parent’s worst nightmare to have their kids hear the word “fuck” over 200 times in 2 hours, but that didn’t really seem to occur to my dad. We went to see all the Farrelly Brothers movies together, too. “Dumb & Dumber” came out when I was about 7, “There’s Something About Mary” when I was 10, and there’s really something about seeing a guy’s dick caught in his zipper that desensitizes a 10-year-old child. Looking back on it, it’s a miracle I made it through all 12 years of going to a highly conservative Christian school without getting expelled. I somehow developed my own censor, knowing better than to go to class and say things like “nobody fucks with the Jesus,” though I really loved quoting things from movies and TV, and I still do.

But let’s talk some more about my dad. As my title mentions, he is an ex-con. Though I think he was only in prison for a few months, but when he talks about it, he makes it sound like it was years. He has a couple of stories about being there. One is about when he first got there. He said that on your first day, you have to watch some movie, like an orientation video (what the fuck is this? A Tony Robbins seminar?) Anyway, my dad didn’t have his glasses, so he sat in the front so he could see, and soon realized that he was surrounded by all black men, while all the Hispanics were in the middle sections, and the rest of the white guys in the back. After a couple of minutes, one of the black guys turns to my dad and says: “Hey, Rosebud, whiteys sit in the back.”

The other story is about the glorious race riots that occur frequently behind prison walls. Well, maybe not “riots” exactly. Maybe just fights. Anyway, my dad said he got some Oreo cookies in a care package, and those things are like goddamn truffles in the big house. But on his way back to his cell, some black guys bombarded him, saying they were “guarding” him, and then once he had gotten back to where his locker was, the guys started beating the shit out of him to get the Oreos. My dad had already stuffed the package in his locker, but understandably wanting the ass-kicking to end, he gave them his key, rather tossed it to them, and they took the fucking cookies.

A couple days later, my dad told the gruesome story to a few Hell’s Angels in the same cell block, and their reverent response was: “You gotta fight ‘em.” They promised to “have his back” during the scuffle, and the next day, the sequel to the ass-kicking went down in the exercise yard, and according to my dad, the whiteys smacked down the black man. I think the story is actually a little more interesting than what I’ve told, but I’m fuzzy on the details. It’s been a while since he told me that story.

So, my dad is full of stories from throughout his incredibly strange life. He doesn’t really know where to put a cap on it, either. I remember the day of my middle school graduation. My whole family went out to a restaurant afterwards, and my sister had brought her then-fiance (now husband; I think the only reason they’re together, though, is that my sister maintains quite a bit of distance from my dad), whom none of my family had yet met, and of course, my dad busts out with one of his craziest stories at the dinner table. This one was about the time a guy ruthlessly cut him on in traffic. My dad decided to pull up next to him at the next red light and tell him to “be careful,” and I guess the guy didn’t take it too well, suddenly brandishing a knife and telling my dad to fuck off, then chasing him down with his car. At one point, my dad said the guy pulled up right next to him and was reaching under his seat for something. So, my dad, fearing it was a gun, pulled out a can of mace and sprayed the guy in the face. It apparently didn’t have an instant effect, which my dad chalks up to the effects of PCP or some kind of illegal substance, probably also responsible for the insane rage the guy was expressing. But a couple minutes later, as the chase continued, my dad saw the guy swerve into the side of the road; guess the pepper spray finally got to him.

And believe me, when my dad is telling a story, he really gets into it. He gets loud, really making sure to emphasize words like “BOOM!” and “WHACK!” A lot of times he claps his hands together really loudly to bring more life to those lovely descriptive terms, laughing heartily all the while. And not just when we’re out in public; especially if we’re out in public. He loves for people to hear these stories. He has a habit of talking louder when he’s on his cell phone, too. I can recall a time when  we went to the beach, and I was standing back at the car, at least a quarter of a mile from the ocean shore where he was at. Still, I could clearly hear every single word he was saying as he talked on his phone.

My dad with a giant rock at the beach

So, as you can see, my dad is rather interesting. There’s a whole lot more crazy stuff about him, even crazier than you can possibly imagine, to tell. I’d love to go on and on about things like my dad’s insane girlfriend of 15 years, who’s constantly drunk and/or stoned (totally not kidding), much to my dad’s chagrin. There’s also a story about him living in a cave (a literal cave; he was in hiding. And on LSD), but I’ll just offer up a few more tags that have made my dad’s life so very intriguing:

1.) Claims to have been asked personally by the Rolling Stones to come party with them after one of their shows in L.A. while my dad was working as a valet at the Century Plaza Hotel back in the 70s. Had to turn them down because he was working. Told me never to pass up an opportunity I might ever have as a result of this.

2.) Says he once sold pot to Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac.

3.) Almost drowned in a rushing river once, stranded on a rock in the middle of it. A friend on the shore tossed the Good Book to him as he stood there not knowing what to do. When he caught it, it fell open to this verse in Psalms:

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.”

For God's sake, change that sign to what it originally said.

So, I guess it’s just about official: Verizon Wireless is getting the iPhone. The news will apparently break this Tuesday in New York, at least that’s what everyone (and by everyone, I of course mean the tech-blog nerds) are speculating.

Congratulations, America. You are finally about to join every other country in the world by featuring iPhone on multiple carriers, although now it will only be 2 carriers whereas everywhere else has iPhone on at least 3 different carriers, so I guess it’s not really “multiple” carriers.

Anyway, at least 3 years have gone by with everyone saying Verizon would get the iPhone in the next few months, next year, etc. So maybe they are just jerking the posers around really good this time, too. Either way, I’m quite ambivalent about the entire prospect of my phone company finally getting “the  world’s most popular smartphone.” On one hand, the iPhone is a great phone (as much as I hate to say that because everyone and their mother says the same damn thing). I switched to AT&T for a couple of months back in 2008 and it was pretty fun. But I quickly returned to Verizon after having a dispute with AT&T. And now I’m still with my spiffy VZW BlackBerry.

But, on the other hand, every single poser in America is going to create a ridiculous scene for the Verizon iPhone (i.e. – tent cities waiting 5 days in the wind, snow and cold just to be able to drop up to $700 on a fucking cell phone. And the news actually glorifies it. Fuckers.) Also, even more people will be on Verizon to jam up the network and quite possibly turn it into the terrible service that is AT&T. And, of course, as is custom with any new phone, much as the AT&T iPhone 4 suffered, there will always be some sort of first-run glitch to plague the device. So really, it is better to wait.

So, in essence, a part of me does say “get a Verizon iPhone,” but considering all of the hype, posers howling for it, and the fact that I still have about another year on my current contract and can’t upgrade at a feasible price if it does in fact come out next month, I think I’ll be staying with my BlackBerry. Besides, do I really want to give up BBM privileges? Nah.

Local iDiots line up for iPhone 4 back in June 2010. Not gonna be me this February.

But then, there’s Narrative Writing. It’s a seminar course where you don’t get a specific grade for every assignment you turn in, and I turned in virtually all the assignments. And to my knowledge, I only missed 1 class, 1 story turn-in, and didn’t do 2 of the reading journals (but my professor said you can miss up to 2 and still get the max amount of points). I was also anticipating some extra credit since I did the extra credit assignment for the final story (write a 300 word story with all 1-syllable words). Still, I ended up with a fucking B.

I was pretty upset when I saw the grade. I started to think about about things I missed, and the above came to mind, but those were all minor assignments. My portfolio was a day late, but I told my professor and she said “no worries.” She told me to bring it to her office the next day, and the syllabus said nothing about deducting points for late work. I also went once towards the end of the semester to her office hours as was required by the syllabus, and she pointed out that she preferred students came in the middle of the semester; the point is, I still went as required!

I think my prof was also a bit miffed with me when I made the mistake of telling her that I didn’t really read her critique of my 10-page story (the biggest assignment of the class; the assignment itself was turned in on time). The problem was that I simply didn’t have time to read it. I had at least 20 critiques from the other people in my class to read in addition to hers, and I did glance over what she said and took some of it into account for my revision, but I guess she didn’t think that was good enough. She seemed pretty upset after I told her that and every time I approached her to ask a question after that she kept bringing up that fact.

I guess she also thought I wasn’t as active a class participant as I could’ve been, even though I felt I was adequately participating, raising my hand fairly often to give a comment or answer a question. But she said in a note to me that “when I did participate, I had interesting comments,” as if I didn’t participate enough.

Anyway, guess I’m venting too much about it. Getting all B’s kind of sucks, though.

I’ve somehow gotten through writing a critical analysis paper & a research paper on one of the stupidest movies ever, “Proof” starring Gwyneth Paltrow as Jake Gyllenhaal’s cougar…um, I mean, love interest. Now I have to gear myself up to write a 10-page research paper on a 19th century women’s novel. I picked “House of Mirth” by Edith Wharton which I’m reading now. My professor actually likes my topic: phallic references within the novel. Hope I can maybe have fun with this, at least. Finding outside sources will be a bitch, though.

So, it’s easy to say that at this point, my brain feels like an overflowing toilet. Perhaps I could go with a more palatable object to which to compare my brain, but come on, everyone knows I have a dirty mind. But really, it just feels like it’s absolutely overflowing with “book-learning” and it’s getting harder for me to retain info, especially these last few weeks.

So, must continue pressing on. Finish some more reading then start hacking my Narrative Writing story to pieces for the “revision” that’s worth a majority of my grade. Literally, have to pretty much rewrite it, according to the prof. And that’s due Monday.

God, it never ends…

I keep saying it, but I’ll say it again: CSUN is not a school for people to socialize! No one here is really friendly. But, the professors are pretty good. They’re not all PhDs like you would find at a UC, but some are still good. My favorite professor has got to be my 19th Century Women’s Lit professor. She’s only a Master’s Grad, but she’s got enough energy to at least keep the class interesting.

Oh, and I’m quitting that crazy “Society of Leadership” group. They seemed to keep asking for more money, and it didn’t seem all that interactive. Or legitimate.

I’ll also be registering for classes later since the seniors all get the better registration appointments so they can graduate. Some of the classes I was planning on taking are already filling up, and I still have 2 weeks before I can even start registering. Advisement appointment next week.

Now I await the Spring semester with some anticipation (I just want to get school over with for Christsake). But for now, let’s have a look back at the Fall semester in some photos:

CSUN's Oviatt Library

A random on-campus tree in a "grassy area"

Marines walking (practically) hand in hand under Sierra Tower

Is he crossing his fingers?

But, guess what: I’m now in the 12th week of the semester, and there are only 4 more weeks left until the end of my first semester. But this is where it gets really hard, because every class is having an end-of-the-term 8-10 page research paper due. The 10-page story for Narrative Writing counts as a “research paper” to me.

Throughout the semester, I’ve found that I wasn’t particularly fond of any of my classes, though I’m mostly taking the classes that are required for the major and that a lot of people put off until their last semester, so I’m just getting that stuff out of the way now. But, I really don’t like my Narrative Writing class. I hate how my professor is so unorganized and hyperactive. She always seems so jumpy and weird, and also has trouble setting due dates for things. She often forgets things were due a lot of times. Plus a lot of the class members are totally pompous and straight-up rude (I have to hear their condescending rants during “workshop” time, which takes up most of the class). I can’t wait to be berated next week for my story!

I dislike my Narrative Writing class so much that I’m really starting to think I can’t put up with 2 more semesters of this crap, and am thinking about changing my major, or at least the emphasis (from Creative Writing to Literature, where Lit classes replace the Writing classes). Also, considering I want to work in the TV industry, a switch to the Television Arts program might also be useful. But, we’ll see.

I also tried joining an on-campus club for the sake of “doing something extracurricular.” I got a letter from the university inviting me to join this leadership society. I guess I’m a good student, but I’m not really sure about being a “leader”, but I decided to sign up just to see what it might be like. I missed the first meeting because I had just gotten out of a 2-hour & 45-minute class with only 15 minutes to dart across campus in mad-blowing wind to find the building the meeting was at, so I just skipped it.

I went this week, since I had to plunk down $75 by November 2 in order to “participate this year,” and this seems to have been a huge mistake, since the meeting tonight was nothing more than a Tony-Robbins type talking in a pre-taped video conference about reaffirming positive self-values and “opening mental capacity for success.” It was just like one of those infomercials you see at 2 in the morning talking about “turning your life around & being your own boss!” We all know those are scams, right? But yea, they got my $75 for “access to members only material!” and tonight were already asking for a $15 “membership dues” fee. I can try asking for my money back, but since this is most likely (or definitely) a scam, my request will probably be to no avail. I walked out halfway through, by the way.

So, lot of work, hate some classes, want to change major (kind of), and not really enjoying clubs. That’s been my first semester at university so far.

Mark Zuckerberg, creator & now-CEO of Facebook as depicted in "The Social Network": what a nerd, huh?

I went to see the movie “The Social Network” over the weekend, the much-anticipated film about the ascension of Facebook. It consists of 2 hours of Mark Zuckerberg (played by a kid named Jesse Eisenberg, who actually looks a lot like the real Zuckerberg) being reprimanded by lawyers in between scattered analepsis (“flashbacks”; new Narrative Writing term I learned. You like? Absolutely no pun related to Facebook “likes” intended. So please don’t!)

The analepsis consists mainly of the actual “beginning” of Facebook where Zuckerberg hacks into Harvard’s computer servers to gather pictures from every campus house’s “facebook” (a book compilation of photos of students residing in whichever house) to create his site “Facemash” where he asked students to rank which girl was hotter in side-by-side placements of people’s pictures on their computer screens.

He’s accused by several people of breaching security and stealing ideas by Harvard administrators and a couple of other students (the Winklevosses) who wanted him to help them construct their idea of a “social networking” site, the idea which they later allege Zuckerberg stole from them to create Facebook, and the viewer essentially loses complete track of the progression of Facebook after Fall 2003 (which is the only date noted in the film; at the beginning when Zuckerberg starts Facemash in his dorm room).

After that, it becomes much like the content of the movie literally becomes: a long, drunken haze stumbling towards its ending. Possibly also an acid trip with several bad flashbacks. And of course, Hollywood really brings it home by adding excessive drinking and taking of drugs to give the “objective look into the mind of a friendless genius” a real kick.  They made the house Zuckerberg purchased in Palo Alto to get Facebook going in Silicon Valley look like an atypical frat party house, complete with party people chugging gallons of beer and toking off bongs while a few Facebook minions were “wired in” working on code in the background amidst all the drunken chaos. Odd juxtaposition! But I guess Hollywood does it to add to the “irony” of the film. Oh, and Justin Timberlake (i.e. – Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, a mentor to Zuckerberg) is the honorary president of the Facebook fraternity.

For me, the biggest quandary of this film is trying to figure who’s the biggest douchebag. Mark Zuckerberg, who is right out called an asshole by his “girlfriend” in the beginning of the movie, seems smarmy and lacks any sort of empathy for others, but it seems like it’s part of his high level of intelligence. It’s just part of the territory. He doesn’t mean to insult people. It just doesn’t naturally occur to him.

Sean Parker, who is played by a person I already can’t stand (Justin Timberlake), comes off as an incredibly smarmy ass, but in terms of lack of empathy, not only does he not have it,  he knows that he is being an asshole and loves every second of it (quote from the movie on founding Napster: “I knew I was gonna piss people off and I didn’t care!”) So, he’s definitely a bigger douche than Zuckerberg. I also don’t think the role was much of a stretch for Timberlake (oops!)

"Dude, I'm a douche, and I know it! I'll tell you how to run Facebook!"

Andrew Garfield plays Zuckerberg’s Facebook “co-creator” Eduardo Saverin, and he was more or less the underdog, especially as “Zuck” (I’m just going to shorten it from here on) gets cozier and cozier with Parker. Finally, Saverin is removed from the company as Parker taunts him like a stupid, immature ass typically would. I think there probably was not that much animosity between Saverin and Parker, but again, Hollywood has to melodramatize. They nailed it with incorporating the irritating Timberlake, and really, that was all they needed. The other 2 guys actually portrayed their characters well.

So, maybe it was just Timberlake that ruined the entire movie with his unrelenting douchebaggery. But the disturbingly frequent time shifts and lack of a timeline to keep the viewer in touch, while a minute detail to those who don’t pay attention to detail, was a problem for me. Oh, and I was going into this movie a Facebook hater.

Still, everyone is continuously drooling over the movie’s apparent mastery, I guess by capturing something that has so influenced a generation. But that’s all it did. The way they did it, to me, was totally hyperbolic and distracting. But hey, once again, this is Hollywood!

It sucks, though, that I’m not even halfway through the semester yet. In 2 weeks I will be, and I’ll also be taking midterms in at least 2 of my classes at that time.

Still, I’m continually finding that CSUN is just a higher education high school. My impression of this was furthered the last couple of weeks since on Tuesdays, I have a 45-minute break between classes & like to walk out to the grassy area near the library to catch up my reading for my Women’s Novels class. I’ve picked a little spot by a tree next to a walkway where the last 3 times I have been there, I’ve seen a “clique” of black kids sitting or standing on the sides, just talking trash. Pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in either a post here before or on Twitter, but still, more cliques. Bothersome at a university. Sometimes I swear they look over at me, trying to get me to move my white, freckled ass elsewhere with their glares.

And I actually did once, about 100 feet over to a spot with benches, where all the kids with skateboards like to hang out. Yep, a whole crew of at least 15 skateboarders, kind of like a motorcycle gang for college students. Bicycles just aren’t as badass. Lot of bicycles and skateboards on campus. But still, too many cars.

To the library! Well, the left side of it, at least.

But, beyond the cliques and lame people, CSUN life is going good. I don’t really get much of a chance to hang out around campus because of the 2-hour parking spots (I’ll be damned if I’m gonna pay $200 for a campus parking permit!)

Maybe I’ll be back soon to talk about seeing the Marines on campus, looking for more people to send over to Iraq even though we’ve apparently brought the troops home. For now, though, I leave with this. Whatever this was, I missed it.

Naked Bongo Playing?

Yes, “non-impacted campus.” According to CSU, the “impacted” campuses, or those that can only admit a certain number of people (i.e. – actually have standards for admission), seem to be the only campuses that seem to be worth a damn anymore! So, I guess San Diego State & CSU Long Beach now have some degree of prestige attached to their name. I’m actually surprised CSUN is not an “impacted” campus considering how close it is to Los Angeles (and lots of people want to be near LA for college, don’t they?). It should be impacted, because if it were, we wouldn’t have so many morons & extra traffic roaming the campus daily. It’d be cool if we could just replace some of the seats in the classes with pumpkins that used to grow on the CSUN grounds before they constructed huge buildings on top of the land. Those people might as well just be pumpkins anyway.

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again: CSUN is just a continuation of community college. The people there all seem to know each other from other schools they’ve been to beforehand, and they’re very clique-ish. Why, just yesterday I was walking out of one of my classes & saw a sight familiar to me from my days at Pierce College (community college): a huge group of black guys talking smack, lined up on one of the main campus walks near the library. Yep, those cliques, huh?

Community colleges, although they are now known to be a great option for those who want to go to high-end universities but either want to save money or didn’t make it in on the first try, are essentially the choice of the loadies from high school who don’t want to make decisions or are being forced to go to college by their parents. CSUN is yoked in with that division of schools since they are also so lenient about their admissions policies. But of course, CSU was created to offer “an affordable higher education to everyone,” & everyone it certainly is at CSUN, “the rest” who couldn’t get into a UC or Ivy League, can’t afford a UC or Ivy League, or those who still just don’t want to make big decisions with life.

So, fuck it. I am a member of “the rest,” just another average nobody. I really wonder if anyone will be impressed with my degree from CSUN in the future when I try applying to a job that actually pays more than $10 an hour.