Beautiful San Diego California. Where it rains every day, the beaches are desolate, and the women are hideous. San Diego State University, home of the mighty Aztecs, must have a deal with the CIA that gets them access to surveillance photos of every female that applies to the school because 95% of them are fine. FINE. What did I do to capitalize on this sweet opportunity? I'll tell you what I did. I prepared.
The day before I left for San Diego, I popped a fat zit on my nose. You know, the kind that makes about a half-inch diameter red circle on your skin? They are sensitive to pressure before they even emerge from the oily epidermis. So anyway I had a nice scab on my nose from that. Very classy. Next, I grew out my facial hair for about a week so that I had a pseudo-goatee with sideburns that don't follow my jaw bone down to my chin. Instead, they just go straight down toward the outer portions of my neck. Again, classy. To fulfill the Engineering-major stereotype of "nerd who doesn't own a mirror," I wore a pair of four-year old cargo shorts from Old Navy, which I could probably pass off as Abercrombie & Fitch because they are so torn up and shitty looking. To complete my dashing outfit, I chose a t-shirt that I got for free just by participating in a USTA tennis tournament and a khaki colored adjustable hat from a place called "The Greens," a literal mini-golf course across the street from Magic Mountain that has real grass, real sand traps, and real water hazards. It's tight. The course I mean. The hat screams, "Clearance rack at the Goodwill store."
Recap: Zit scab on nose, weak goatee with gnarley sideburns, four-year old cargos, giveaway shirt and Goodwill hat. Oh, right, and indoor soccer shoes. All I was missing were those tube socks with the two red stripes at the top. Bottom line, I was a certified mosquito lamp, only it was like there was a chick-repellant candle in the lamp, because I was repelling chicks and not mosquitos. Mosquitos don't discriminate the way chicks do, see, so there'd have to be some sort of chick-repellant substance in the lamp in order for it to be called a chick lamp, thus validating the metaphor I created between myself and chicks and mosqutio lamps and mosquitos. Shaddap.
Better make that "Day 1, 7:50 am. Check-In." I left my hotel, which was just down the highway from the school, at about 6:55 am, thinking I was in deep doo-doo. The late afternoon before, I noticed a fair amount of traffic going away from downtown. Based on this observation, I figured there would be an equal amount of traffic going into downtown in the morning. Since I would be travelling in that direction for a time, I thought it best to get the lowdown from a local. I asked a hotel clerk about how much time to allow for driving to the University in the morning. She suggested thirty to forty-five minutes. I arrived at the University at 7:10 am. I had three tasks to complete by 9:00 am.
1. Complete general check-in. 2. Complete dorm check-in. 3. Locate and enter Montezuma Hall.
I got in my appropriate "S-T" general check-in line at about 7:20 am to await the glorious segway that is overnight orientation. Half an hour later, check-in began. It's a good thing I got in line when I did, 'cause it seemed like there were about a million people behind me. Check-in was rather uneventful and I'm beginning to wonder myself why I spent as much time as I did writing about it.
Once I got my dorm room, which was classy, but not so much as I, I headed over to Montezuma Hall for breakfast and welcome. On my way into the hall, I was handed a red pamphlet containing the schedule for the next two days. I entered Montezuma Hall and got in line for breakfast, which offered muffins, sugar-doused cake looking things, and chocolate pastries. I carefully scanned the plate of pastries and selected the one that looked most like the turd I laid earlier that morning in my hotel room. It seemed to take everyone else a day and a half to decide on what to eat, so while I waited I gazed around the room to take in the ambiance. My eyes came upon a big mural of the Aztecs that covered three entire sections of wall. In the middle were three Aztecs -- one naked male in the center, presumably Montezuma, and a female on either either side of the male. Definitely Montezuma, that pompous ass. These murals were done with something that looked like pastels, so the images weren't so detailed that they made the chocolate pastry look inviting. On the left part of the mural was the famous Aztec capitol city of Tenochtitlan. The most recognizable building, the temple, seemed to be running at full capacity, as its smoke stacks looked like two rocket engines firing down toward the ground. Suddenly remembering some of the ancient rituals of the Aztecs, I thought to myself, "Well I'll be, they're burnin' babies in that there temple!" I promptly shoved the pastry into my mouth and washed it down with extra black coffee once I made it to the coffee station. I then proceeded into the seating area for the welcome. Each college had a section, so I found the Engineering section and sat down. The girl holding the "Engineering" sign, Marissa, was very energetic. She kept telling our section about how we were going to do a cheer at the end of the welcome. Once most of the future Engineers had arrived, Marrisa revealed this great cheer we were all going to do.
"Engineering, engineering, choo choo!"
"Hm. Engineering, engineering, choo choo. Yeah, about that." That's what 100% of our section was thinking. We were also wondering why a cheer was even necessary. Marissa seemed entirely bent on doing a cheer though. Not only that, but she planned on having us make a human train and march around the room while saying our cheer. With that in mind, I decided that if I was going to say a cheer, I wasn't going to lose my manhood in the process. I went to Marissa and suggested that instead of the original cheer, we say, "Engineering, engineering, choo choo choo! Engineering, engineering, we're smarter than you!" I was a little unsure of the cheer due to its arrogant nature, but I figured anything was better than the first one. Oddly enough, by Marissa's reaction you'd have thought that she just found out she's 25% Polish. She taught the new cheer to our section, as well as some basic self defense maneuvers since we all expected to get beat down after we did our cheer. Fortunately our cheer wasn't the only one with attitude. The welcome speeches ended and the cheers began. At first we were dreading our turn, until we heard some of the others ahead of us.
Business: N/A. When it came time for the college of business to do their cheer, they were still in a board meeting trying to decide what to do for a cheer. Consequently, interest rates skyrocketed and the DOW dropped 14.7%.
Health and Human Services: Like, yoga!
Sciences: Psychology sounded interesting so I picked it!
Undeclared: "Yeah! Phi Kappa Nu woohoo!" "No, dumbass, Delta Theta Omega is better!" "Oh yeah? Tell you what. If Delta Theta Omega was a glass of beer, it wouldn't even get me buzzed!" "Oh yeah!? Well if Phi Kappa Nu was a toilet, it wouldn't be able to hold my puke!" "Oh YEAH?" "YEAH!" "Oh YEAH?" "YEAH!" "OH YEAH?" "YEAH!" "YEAH?" "YEAH!" "YEAH!" "YEAH!" "YEAH!" "YEAH!" "OH YEEEEEAH! I'M FEELIN' PUMPED UP NOW BABY YEAAAAAAH!" "OH YEAH ME TOO YEAAAAAH!" "YEAH!" "YEAH!" "YEAH!" "HOOOOWAH!" "HOOOOWHOA!"
So as it turned out, we got to do our cheer last. In light of the cheers that came before, our cheer was taken well. So well in fact that we won the apparent cheer competition yipee! One free daily planner was awarded to our group. One of the two girls in our group took it.
Yawn. Since there's nothing else to talk about in this section, let me talk about some of the people I saw that don't have a place in this story, but generally just piss me off. There was the 60/40 caucasian/Asian cool kid who struts and wears a trucker hat with the bill curled up and pointing the same direction as the pimple on his right ass cheek. There was the X-treme midgit white kid who spikes his short hair back like he's going to be Gohan in a year when his hair is grown out. There was the "I'm too good for a bra" Barbie chick. I actually sat next to her by chance during dinner. She was sitting with this other girl who apparently was from Alaska. As I was eavesdropping on their conversation, Barbie got around to asking what they do for fun in Alaska. Barbie obviously hadn't gotten any smarter by being on a college campus, because everyone knows that the great Alaskan pastime is floating useless tribe members down the river on a big piece of ice so they can freeze to death, subsequentially reducing the number of mouths to feed. The Eskimo at my table, however, must have been an outcast or something because when she got bored, she went to the mall.
This is the part where everybody meets everybody in their respective college. This was accomplished by each individual stating his or her respective "big five": name, place of permanent residence, major area of study, social security number and felony crimes committed. I don't remember what we did the rest of the time.
Well apparently there was an information fair for all of the on-campus clubs and associations. It would have been nice to know that when I was there. At least the tri-tip sandwich was good.
The college of engineering had been meeting in the Presidential Suite, which in reality was no better than the room named "Quetzalcoatl." Silly Aztecs and their strictly oral language. The room I really wanted to be in was "Calmecac." I'd like to shake the hand of the man that named that particular room. Anyway, the Assistant Dean of engineering made us make the ten-minute walk in the surprisingly scorching San Diego heat over to his room. We were all thinking, "Why can't he just drag his lazy ass over to us?" Then we found out he only has one leg and we all felt like shit. Whoever all was supposed to talk each put in their two cents and that was that. One of the talks was given by a woman who represented the MESA Engineering Program (MEP). All I remember from her spiel was that if you join the MEP, it will be easier to get an internship. She only had a limited number of applications on her person though, so I noted that I needed to pick one up later.
"This dynamic and energetic presentation is about the choices that can help turn your potential into success and help you reach your goals during and after your time here at San Diego State University." This was the talk that I heard during junior year of high school. The synopsis goes something like this. Meet people, get involved, treat school like a full time job. Now that I've heard it twice, I know that the stories the speakers tell are simply made up. During the high school one, the two guys throwing the party were "B-Dog" and "Z". During this one, the two guys were "Chuck" and "Zibby". I just made all four of those names up. No matter. The point is that two stories conveying the same message had different names for identical characters. Shut the fup uck. In case you are unfamiliar with this message, the story goes like this. Guy A and Guy B both set out to party their asses off together in college. Those around them expect Guy A and Guy B to have dropped out once grades are released. Next grading period comes around, and Guy A has indeed dropped out. Guy B however, is still there. Those around them inquire, "Guy B, how do you party your ass off and still manage to be a student here?" Guy B replies, "Well those around them, at 8 in the morning while you're in bed sleeping, I'm in the library studying. And at 7 pm when you're in the library studying, I'm out enjoying a nice halibut with my shoes off under the moonlight. Am I a faggot or what?" Those around them reply in awe, "Wow! So you treat school like a full time job? Interesting. I'm going to start doing that, so I too can enjoy halibut with my shoes off under the moonlight. Am I a faggot or what?"
I'm drawing a blank on that one. You know what I don't understand? I don't understand this answer: "No." I'm bringing my Xbox to college. "No. I don't want you playing Xbox when you should be studying." Let's count how many things are wrong with that logic. One, there are far greater distractions from studying in San Di-fucking-ego than a stupid Xbox. Two, even if I was playing Xbox instead of studying, at least when I realized that I should be studying, I'd be in the right place as opposed to being an hour away at the beach. Three, having an Xbox in college is a great social advantage. Four, it's college. COLLEGE. When you send your kid to college, it's implied that you trust him or her to be able to keep his or her own shit in order by his or herself. If you can't trust your kid to choose studying before playing Xbox, then you shouldn't be sending your kid to college.
I do not remember going to that.
Dorm food sucks. Too bad I'll be having two meals per day of it five days a week. Actually I won't, because Ralph's kicks ass.
Whatever. I need a topic for this section. Well, I can't think of anything interesting, so I'll just write what I have to do tomorrow, my last day at home. Simply writing it down will help me remember to do it.
1. Return lighter fluid cache to Frau Creel at Jesuit. 2. Meet the latter half of Dalex at Sub Depot. 3. Gather things together for the drive down. 4. Link bank accounts with Dad. 5. Double check supply list. 6. Load things into car. 7. Don't forget sunglasses. 8. Finish the last fifty hours of Morrowind in a record three, since I won't be playing it for a year.
The way they set this up was very sly. See, in the program it says, "8:00 Late Night Entertainment." Below that, it lists the available activities. Inbetween the two, however, are some very inconspicuous italic words that read, "Choose from any or all of the following activities from 8:45-11 pm." Choose from any or all. I never understood why search engines would give you the option of finding "any" or "all" of the sites related to your search. How do you even categorize that? Does some vengeful prick who got denied a job at Nike decide that when a person enters "shoes" into the search that Nike's website won't come up when the default any/all option is used? One of life's great mysteries I suppose. Not that it matters anymore, not since Google came along. So, what could possibly be happening between 8 and 8:45 pm that will prevent us fun-deprived teens from participating in any or all of the following activities: Bowling and Games, Karaoke Party, "Games Galore!" in the Cross-Cultural Center? Improv troop, that's what. It was pretty funny, that is, until the audience suggestions boiled down to some douche-bag yelling "Porn! Porn!" Yeah ok, you like to touch yourself while watching other people have sex. Nobody cares. Shut the hell up. The show wasn't as funny as "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" but it was still solidly entertaining. There was a referee that ran the show or whatever. His side jokes weren't funny, kind of like how Drew Carey's side jokes aren't funny.
Balls.
.ssa skcik s'hplaR esuaceb ,t'now I yllautcA .keew a syad evif ti fo yad rep slaem owt gnivah eb ll'I dab ooT .skcus doof mroD
There were a total of six workshops. You could choose any of them, but not all, for there were only three workshop periods. For the first workshop period, I chose "Get Your SDSUcard and Make It Work for You!" Basically I wanted to get my ID card before a line of a thousand people formed. Before they let us get them though, they made us listen to this seminar from US Bank that basically tried to convince you that if you don't get a US Bank checking account that you'll be somehow less well off, regardless of the fact that there are ATMs around campus for every major bank in America. Fortunately though, the seminar wasn't too long. My picture turned out OK.
For this one, I chose "Associated students: We are YOU". It was boring. There were only like ten people total in attendance. I just remember hearing that SDSU's AS has about a 16 million dollar or so budget. Yowza.
For my last workshop, I chose "My New Life on Campus - Tips and Tricks for Living in the Residence Halls". I figured this workshop would teach me things like how to survive on a piece of bread and half a cup of water for a week, but my expectations were greatly undermet. Instead the topics included pre-marital sex, roommate communication, meal plans, etc. Boring! The opinions expressed during the pre-marital sex discussion were disheartening. Not that I have to write them down for any normal person to know what those opinions were, but as some Bay Area blonde chick put it, "Well every situation is different. It just depends on if you think you're ready. It's a personal decision." Oh, so it's a personal decision, eh? So essentially it comes down to two individuals being ready themselves to have sexual relations. Well, personally, I'd call it more of a joint decision, you know, since sex involves two people. I'm sure that's what you meant though. You probably just didn't word it correctly. Unfortunately you still can't get past the fact that you're going to have to reveal to your future husband that, "Oops! Guess what honey?! Some other guy blew his load in me back in college. Oh, and I also had some other guy's cock in my mouth around the same time. Whew, well I'm glad that's out in the open now. How about a nice big kiss on the lips?" Think about the future before making decisions that change your future, ya dumb fuck.
Steak Escape. Mmmm.
It took me like two hours to get my schedule right. There are about five different sources telling you how to pick your classes, all of which tell you something different of course. Stupid college and its complexity.
This was for everyone who didn't get this done during one of the workshop periods. Haha you have to wait in a long line and I diiiidn't! HA HA HA HA HA HA!
I'd say my college orientation was a relatively successful endeavor. What am I saying? It was a fucking masterpiece! I got oriented, I got to spend three days in San Diego, and I got a kickass story. What more could I want from college orientation? Nothing.
© 2005 Pflanzenfaser