As orientation winds down to a close here in sunny Westwood, I thought I would share some answers to some very pertinent questions you are all probably asking yourselves at this precise moment.
Here are some real answers to some real questions posed by the members of the live studio audience in my living room.
Q. Why did you and your section spend an afternoon with your faces painted singing Gwen Stefani songs?
The Section Olympics were on Thursday, which were a lot of fun. There were lots of events that I haven't played since I was a kid, like kickball, dodgeball, whiffle ball, and tug of war. Two clear patterns emerged: (1) we are by far the biggest section in terms of height, weight, and muscle mass, and (2) it doesn't take much to get otherwise grown adults to paint their faces, make slogans, and scream like banshees.
And we had Section B songs, courtesy of the people in our section who are far more creative than I. We had "B is Bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!", and "Who let the B's out?", and "You down with Section B? Yeah you know me."...was a lot of fun and left us all hoarse. The other sections had their songs, too. Of the others, my favorite was Section C's redux of the Ting Tings song, "That's Not My Name".
OK fine, it's all a little kiddie. But if I told you we sat around the telly watching United while singing "he goes by the name of Wayne Rooney" you wouldn't have thought twice about it. I'm a disaster playing football and I don't even know Wayne Rooney; at least I know the people in Section B.
Unfortunately, we came up short in the Section Olympics. But still a few days to go before they award the Section Cup to the best section. Cheer us on!
Q. How many times did you dunk your section leader in the dunk tank before it was no longer funny?
We never really reached the point of it not being funny. As part of orientation, the second years organized a mock County Fair, replete with country line dancing, Nerf jousting, face painting, balloon animals -- and a dunk tank, which of course we used to repeatedly dunk our section leaders. I say "we" very loosely -- my three throws consisted of two sliders and one that fits Bob Uecker's category of "juuuuuuuuust a bit outside."
Q. Can you tell us the Tyson Beckford story?
Some of my female readers have been unimpressed that I mention attractive celebrity females but not attractive celebrity males in my posts. So I promised to incorporate an attractive celebrity male (other than me, of course) in this post. Tyson Beckford was recommended to me by some -- but surprisingly, not all -- of my female readers.
Q. Is that all there is to the Tyson Beckford story? What an anti-climax.
I agree. But I don't know Tyson Beckford or any other attractive male celebrities.
Q. How many outgoing mailboxes are on Westwood Boulevard between campus and Santa Monica Boulevard?
One. Yours truly went wandering around for 45 minutes after school trying to put a letter in the mail and ended up a block from my apartment.
Q. Did you really think it was a good idea to wear a Washington Capitals Mike Green shirt in the middle of the Los Angeles summer?
I did, but with good reason - it's freezing in the classrooms. They are like meat lockers, especially Korn Hall, which is a beautiful, well-designed, yet blood-freezing cold hall even when filled to its 500+ capacity. So what I need is a light sweater that I can easily take off. And since hockey players call their shirts "sweaters", it seemed like a good idea. The fact that it was also opening day of training camp made it all the more sports-geeky.
Q. Did you really have a final exam during Orientation?
Yes we did. The school builds in a pass/fail "tasting course" for five days during orientation. It's supposed to give us a warm-up to the real thing which starts at the end of next week, and highlights some broad concepts of leadership. Most importantly, it gets us into the mode of thinking like students, and some practice for reading cases and engaging in classroom discussion, which are both very different from undergrad.
Q. Is it true that you lost your fantasy football league game by 2/100ths of a point this week?
Who put this question in this blog? Yes, it is true. That "irrelevant" interception by San Diego on the last play of the last game of the week? Not so irrelevant for me.
Q. Will you get up tomorrow morning at 5:30 AM to watch the Manchester derby?
I really want to, but it's not on Fox Soccer Channel here, which means I have to nip off to one of the United pubs in Santa Monica. Getting into a car at 5:00 AM is quite an ask, even for me. But I'm really tempted to do it.
Q. Whatever happened to the idea that you would go to the gym every day?
Point taken. Time to get off of the couch.
--- Sreesha
