No, really. Sweet potatoes?
Yeah, that thing they say about never shopping for groceries while hungry? It's really quite true. (Candied sweet potatoes? What the hell am I gonna do with candied sweet potatoes?)

I saw Little Miss Sunshine. Finally. Missed it in the AV and of course the nearest theatre that was playing it was, oddly, not UCLA (despite it being the product of two alumni and the film that every damn staff and faculty was pointing to at the induction ceremony as 'see, see, we do have successful graduates!'), or Westwood, but rather Century City, way the fuck over in Beverly Hills. I found a bus that got me most of the way there, but ended up walking about a mile, and had virtually no way at all of getting home but for the generosity of the brother and his friends not currently trapped in the back space of a tandem. (I like Jack's roommate. Really I do. I just wish he answered Jack's calls now and then.)

Still, it was a great experience, not the genius some misguided hypers were portraying it as but by no stretch dissatisfying either. I will say that it seemed so oddly tasteful, most of it, that the few spots of truly black humour/offensive what-the-fuck really put me off, but in the end you just sort of had to accept it (a big motif, really). Could blab about colour and metaphors and archetypes but I don't see a point, seeing as I'm sure UCLA film professors will include it as part of their curriculum in a year or two.

I know I'm behind on my Chronicles of the Real UCLA Experience, but that's just because everything's been just that great exhausting. There just never seems to be enough time or energy at the end of the day to explain things that seem so straight-forward.

Except I know that I, for one, freak out about any unknown, even the ones that turn out to be pigs in sheds. And because I am writing this for the kind of person who would someday use Google to answer life's questions, and I am, myself, someone who would do that (and does), here we go again.

Things to Know About Campus

When you're just starting out at UCLA, carry a map with you everywhere. Use it for at least two weeks, to get things solid in your mind. Even if you stop needing it as a reference, keep it in your bag, as it's good for finding tricky small things in nooks and seeming in the know to harried visitors. Get a good map, like the one in the back of your student resource book, or even better, the map of the campus bus routes.

Rest easy with the assurance of two things:

1) UCLA is not as big as it looks, and is especially not as big as it looks on maps, and

2) With few exceptions, everything is a few minutes' walking distance, and has a big label on it.

PAB, for your reference, is the Physics and Astronomy Building, and it's across the street from Powell. I say this explicitly because sometimes text is very small, and if you come from a place where streets are big, impassible things, you may not immediately consider five paces to be "across the street".

Grocery Shopping

For the love of god, don't shop in LA. Go back home to shop. Drive an hour away to shop. It doesn't matter where you go; the prices have got to be better than here.

Failing that, the Ralph's along Le Conte (the Horn of Africa... we're keeping up with our metaphor, right?) is a favourite stop for college students. The Southbound Campus Express drops you within a block of it, and the Wilshire Express deposits you virtually right on top of it. It's pretty much catered to your tastes: bountiful, nonfluffy selection, great variety of healthy options, and a sumptuous booze aisle. There's automated check-out (not good for produce and alcohol, but all else I think works), and a Ralph's Card helps offset costs.

Still, yeah. If you can possibly go out of town for food, damn well do it. Wal-Mart may be evil but so are financial aid allotments.

The Goddamn Theatre

The AMC Century 15 is the nearest accessible large theatre, and thus plays a wider selection and longer than the joints closer to Westwood. There is, oddly enough, NO BUS THAT GOES THERE FROM UCLA. However, if you're the type where cost-efficiency supersedes the comfort of your feet, you can take the 21 down past Whittier to about the Starbucks, get off, take a right down Santa Monica Blvd and walk about a mile to get to Century City. If you value your funds any, catch a matinee showing, or at least remember your ID for a student discount.

There are a handful of closer theatres but they're all single-screened or have very few screens, and only show one or a handful of films. This is great when it's something new and your professor is easy on you, but not so great when, oh, it's something that's a few weeks old and has overstayed its welcome, say, in the Westwood area.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Also worthy of consideration is the Nuart Theatre, about 2 miles from campus and more reasonably reached by car or bus. Nuart plays indie, foreign, and cult/classic films. Melnitz carries its film calendar outside the Bridges Theatre, and you can also check out their roster online at landmarktheatres.com.

The best part about Nuart is that their average ticket price is 7.25, which by LA standards is dirt cheap. Though I should still hazard that if you can go out of the city to do your shopping, it may be in your interests to see some of your films there too. Like your professor is going to care.

How To Survive A Weekend Being Homeless

So say it's Friday night. You've got a friend up on the next floor inviting you up for a potluck, and you're careless enough to assume you don't need to take your key with you. Or your cell phone. Or anything else. And you also forget that your roommate leaves on weekends, and is often uncontactable in this time.

What do you do?

First, after you go back to your locked apartment, pot of noodles in your hands, and weigh your options (there really aren't any), go the fuck back upstairs and tell your friends what happened before they leave for their party. Chances are, if they're nice people, they will let you have the couch, and also take you along to that party.

At the party, don't get drunk. I mean, you're underaged, without any identification, in the hands of near-strangers who are all busy getting drunk as well, and to top it all off, you're miserable. So don't get drunk. There will be better, happier weekends to be inebriated. So just don't do it.

(To help in this, endear yourself to one of the good-hearted girls at the party, who will freak out at people who try to badger you past your limit. And even if you've never been drunk and don't really know what your limit's supposed to be, AlcoEdu has that handy intoxication calculator. Study it over the summer and stick to it as you go forth in life.)

Crash on your friend's couch. Be thankful. Wash your mouth out and scrub toothpaste over your teeth with a finger if it comes to that. In the morning, wake early, take a quiet shower, wash your mouth again, thank people as you leave, and go.

What now? Well, if there's a weekend expo or seminar going on on campus, they probably have breakfast or some other kind of refreshment. Crash it and steal stuff. It's not really any scummier than consuming it as a patron. If it's an all-day event and they have lunches later, damn well steal the lunches. It's sitting out in the sun; they're going to chuck the left-overs anyway. If you're good about it, you can actually get away with about a week's worth of food without anyone raising a fuss.

(This assuming you eat only two meals a day and eat very small portions and take vitamins and stay busy enough during said week to not notice hunger much. But still. It's quite a hefty bit of food, all told. And if there are cookies, give them to the people who put you up for the night. Especially if you end up crashing there a second night.)

Sunday, thank everyone profusely, waste time wandering the grounds and hogging the Powell Library's computer labs (protip: as long as you have a Bruin OnLine logon, you don't need an ID), head back to your apartment in the early evening and, well, wait. Your roommate will feel really bad when she sees you there on the floor in a miserable heap. Trust me.

For gods' sake, brush your teeth when you get inside.




Bonus:

Holy Crap You're Gonna Die

Loved ones have been freaking out over my purportedly unhealthy diet. To put these folks at ease, allow me to outline my average daily consumption.

Breakfast:

1 medium-size glass of water or orange juice
1 cup generic brand wheaties
1 cup fat-free milk
1 banana

Lunch:

Small sandwich (toasted whole grain/wheat, lettuce, 3 slices turkey or ham, fat free miracle whip)
or
7/8 cup low-calorie soup (chicken and rice, chicken noodle, etc)
with fruit (banana, kiwi, or strawberry) or 1 cup yogurt
1 medium glass of fat-free iced tea
1 one-a-day vitamin tablet

Dinner:

If you're not hungry by 7, skip the meal. If you get hungry close to bedtime, offset with something very small, like a bit of fruit or a couple glasses of water.

Total calorie intake is in the range of 900-1400, depending on generosity of portions. A few days on this won't ruin you, but try to make the 1500 area as often as possible. (I know, yeah, how weird is it to have to convince a fat girl to eat more?)

Reward/celebratory food:

NO SWEETS. A handful of frosted wheaties is as far as it should get. Kettlecorn works too.

NO SODA. Horchata is a good sweet drink with not too many calories, as is fat-free chai mix put in with milk and ice (also excellent hot and frapped, as goes without saying). If you're underaged, find some of-age friends who will buy you tasty low-alcohol beverages like wine coolers and Smirnoffs. Peppermint Schnapps and chocolate syrup is good once, maybe twice in an occasional evening as one of the funnest shots you'll ever have, but don't go nuts with it.

If you're a nervous chewer/eater like I am, find a brand of gum you like and marry it.



How much weight have I lost? Hell if I know. It's only been three weeks, and I notice changes, but nothing too dramatic. My brother's pointed it out to me, and that's the first compliment he's given me in our entire lives, so it's gotta be working pretty well.

Rule of thumb: Go into a major with a self-financed senior project and the knowledge that your financial aid allotment will be about the only thing you'll have to subsist on between now and then. You bet you'll be eating less.