UCLA Adventure
So yesterday I went up to visit the dashing Mr Matt "Papa Smurf" Wilkerson up at UCLA. It turns out he lives across the street from where my dad lived when he went to UCLA, and across a different street from where my mom did (its an intersection see) .. and just two or three buldings down from where I stayed there when I visited the UCLA Swedish department. Clearly this intersection is the cultural epicenter of the world.
Anyway, shortly after we got there, Matt's roommate Arya came in and announced he was going to the UCLA Democrats vs UCLA Republicans debate, since he was speaking there. Matt & I decided to tag along as it was early and we didn't have anything else in particular to do. There we rendezvoused with Swati "Swat Team" Srivistava.
While I'm a fan of intellectual discourse, I am not generally a fan of campus debates like this. Usually both sides manage to completely avoid eachothers points while hurling criticisms at eachother and everyone comes out a loser. This time didn't really appear to be an exception, although it didn't help that the moderator, the President of the UCLA Dems, frequently let "15 second response"s go on for as much as 45 seconds. I couldn't discern whether he was using such shoddy time keeping to his team's advantage or was just generally taking a lax approach to moderation, but I didn't think it boded well for the seriousness of the debate.
We departed the debate as soon as Arya had spoken. Later we met up with Afshin Haghgoo, who had also staffed with Swati, Matt & I at AMPAC.
We went to a party down the street, which happened to be in the same building I had stayed at when I last visited UCLA (!). There we ran into Nick "Luxurious Hair" Anduze, who had staffed with us at SDHSMUNC 2007 as well as been in Mara & I's committee at AMPAC 2006, as well as of course, been on MTV's Date My Mom.
Also present was the Secretary-General of the upcoming UNA-USA MUN Conference that Matt's chairing and Swati is the Chief of Staff for. Incidently it has come to light that Swat Team has chaired no less than SEVENTEEN (17) conferences THIS YEAR. I previously thought my 23 chaired conferences was a pretty unassailably large number, but she's well-nigh caught up to me in a single year!! And to think it all started when she was a wee high school delegate in my committee at the first SDHSMUN Conference in 2004. I'm all for lots of MUN and all but.. someone should hold an intervention here!! (=
Also I called my former roommate Grodecki, who lives in the area, but she was busy with a "Wrap Up Party" since they just finished shooting a TV series she was working on or something. Damn people and their real jobs.
Random Trojan Tangent
In the morning I hopped on over to UCLA arch-rival USC. Now to go on a quick tangent about USC, USC's mascot is the "Trojans" right. There are also several high schools and such with the mascot of the "Trojans." What are Trojans famous for? GETTING TRICKED! That is ALL. They are the most famously bamboozled people in history! And academic institutions find it fashionable to portray them as role models?
What else comes to mind when you think of "trojans?" Thats right, objects which nefariously insert soldiers within otherwise impregnable city walls with disasterious results. Which of course, is a brilliant thing to name a brand of condoms after, no?
/ Random Trojan Tangent
Anyway, some 15 or so members of Phi Alpha Delta UC Davis had come down to tour USC and UCLA law schools, so I joined them for USC. By the time of their UCLA tour however I would be well on my way down to San Diego for the weekend. This evening the Davis delegation may join the so-cal delegations at the formal hosted by Cal State Northridge, which is being attended by most of the other so cal chapters.
After USC I set forth to journey back down to my HQ in MV.
However, I happened to get a call back for the paralegal position I had applied to in Long Beach. "When can you come up for an interview?" they asked "well, I'll be passing Long Beach in 15 minutes" says I. So I randomly took a job interview detour, and I think it actually went pretty well.
Finally, Mara and I met up at MV HQ and carpooled on down to San Diego. And now I'm here.