Occasionally, I cheer myself up by going to the American Library Association’s Web page to remind myself that this national librarians’ organization has an “Office for Intellectual Freedom.” Along with my union and hundreds of citizen activist groups, librarians from around the country, including here at UC Irvine, organized an annual collective warning and intellectual love-in. We hope to remind everyone that the power of silly people to misunderstand and miss the point can easily be challenged by honest, free supporters of our shared basic American right to read. And to read whatever we like, thank you very much!
On September 22, 2005, my mom dropped me off in Mesa Court, helped lug my stuff to my new dorm and, bless her heart, probably said, “whew,” and pantomimed the sweat off her brow.
So after five long years, this is what it comes down to. I’ve got about two more weeks before I graduate, and find myself tossed into the post-graduate world. I have to say that I’ve had an eventful time here at Irvine. The school definitely lives up to its reputation, as the campus I leave behind looks quite different from the one I entered as a freshman. I like to think that I’ve had a pretty encompassing experience here. I’ve lived in Middle Earth, Campus Village, Vista Del Campo Norte, Stanford and was eventually forced to move back home for a year and taste commuter life, so I’ve encountered varied aspects of the school that many may never know.
When looking back at my past four years at UC Irvine, I find myself wondering how it flew by so quickly. Another four years have slipped through my fingers forever. But whether I’m ready to accept it or not, my inevitable future has arrived.
In my adventures as a ram, a highlander and finally an anteater, I have always tried to keep my head up or at least intact. That being said, the universities where I have held these various titles have not always made this easy.
Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III is full of win; California Legislature full of fail; English bulldogs to get makeover?; Spike.com impales self; American voters finally not full of fail.
So you're walking down Ring Mall from your Humanities class, animatedly chatting with your friends, when all of a sudden, as you turn to face forward, you get a mouthful of good ol' carbon monoxide mixed with benzene, arsenic, formaldehyde and about 3,996 other slightly calamitous chemicals from the silver-haired Spanish professor strolling along in front of you, twiddling his Cuban between his thumb and forefinger. How do you react?
Books in libraries and texts for writing courses can seem like fairly benign objects since they're just pages filled with words, bound in hard or soft covers, with occasional illustrations. They're just words, right? Who would think that words on a page could incite strong reactions or push people to keep some books out of others' hands?
Older students have always told me that your college years are the best years of your life—so live it up! Looking back, I can say one thing: So far, so good.
"This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You gotta preserve," said President George W. Bush. (Sadly, the Strategerer-in-Chief was speaking at a celebration of Perseverance Month.) And this is Opinion, so I gotta opine.
I've been working at the New University since my freshman year—a writer my first year, associate editor my second, copy editor my third and managing editor my fourth. Four years of reading, writing and editing. Three years with one less day in the week for myself—my Sunday instead dedicated to the production of the New U newspaper. Exhausting? Definitely.
