Berkeley!!!

Ok, as you guys have doubtless realised, my blogs are gonna be Berkeley-centric for a long time to come:):):)

I wanted to talk about the random quirkiness of this campus, and how it ALWAYS makes me smile. Let's disregard all the people for a minute; I should talk a little more about my professors. Apart from their obvious passion and easy competence, they care so deeply about their students that the humungous classes become warm and personal.

Professor Majda is my favorite of the lot. My Chem 1A professor, he looks very dignified-silver haired, bespectacled, formally dressed. In class however, he can be so cute! He freaks out if students use 'big' words while answering, and feigns ignorance. He played the James Bond title soundtrack before starting chemical bonding, and uses crazy cartoons and funny jokes to illustrate perfectly boring concepts. No class is purely theoretical; he tries to make students race against bromine vapor! While demonstrating how air pressure pushes a boiled egg into a flask, he screamed, "Where's my egg?" and seemed oblivious to the laughter that ensued. His theatrical shudders and gasps while heating something are amusing in the extreme-best of all, when lecture ends, he gets so excited he bursts a hydrogen balloon and laughs at the explosion:)

Ms.Bobo, my college writing teacher, admittedly has an easier task on her hands, since its a seminar with just 21 students(literally nothing by Berkeley standards). But her concern and enthusiastic excitement are a joy to the beholder-she kept asking about my sprained ankle, and asked me to change my single-strapped bag, because she knows I live all the way across in Foothill. She sits with us and discusses everything from Google to favorite colors. With her, everything is as comfortable and open as can be! I really enjoy those classes; especially because of the brilliant articles she encourages us to read, and the mind maps and other concepts we employ, I can literally feel my mind opening up to the vast vistas beyond.

David Presti, who lectures on 'Drugs and their effects on the brain,' has been awarded several times by his students, for being the passionate, unconventional man he is. He's written his own textbook, and it's such a personal thing that you can literally hear him speaking from the pages;he's even included the desperate emails sent to him by past students who wanted to pass or raise their grades. Haha. No wonder then, that his class is renowned as one of the BEST at Berkeley. He recommends books of plant poetry for reference, talks about witches and shamans, asks us to write papers on plant rituals....again, I can feel my mind embracing such 'weird' concepts(I'm an avid reader of Paulo Coelho).

Carly Stair, my Psychology professor, never ceases to delight. When our auditorium was full of sweating, panting students (due to non functional AC), she went, "Well, welcome to our personal sauna!" Today, discussing the nature-nurture debate, I was blanking when she switched to sexuality, and shot, "Men mate widely, women mate wisely!" Every lecture is such an eye opener...

Ah, I bet you've all had enough of my raving. But it's not all rosy. I don't think half the GSIs have any clue what they're doing (FYI, Grad Student Instructor). They're in charge of our discussion and lab sections, and well.... That part isn't working out particularly well for me! But I guess you can't have it all :/

Got so much homework to do, plus midterms next week. Yeah the work is killer-4 midterms PLUS 1 final PLUS weekly assignments PLUS daily quizzes... it never lets up!

And I love Berkeley for that:):):)

Berkeley=HOME:):):)

'Cal is not just a university, it's a home.' -EAP student
'In college, there are 3 things-sleep, academics, and a social life. And there's only time for two of them.' -Senior at Berkeley
'Once your mind is stretched to the dimensions of a greater idea, it never quite returns to its original size.' -Oliver Wendell

Ah, where do I begin? It's been barely three weeks, and yet there's SO MUCH I've seen, experienced, and FELT at Cal that I'm overwhelmed!

And this blog post would probably never have come about, but for the urging of my college writing professor, Ms. Stephanie Bobo, to keep a personal journal at this (most) exciting period of my life.

What she forgot to add is that it's also INCREDIBLY busy (sleep has become my favorite activity, and insomnia is now a thing of the past)... I can only eat once a day thanks to time restraints... And so on and so forth. Ah, well. I've been meaning to do this for a while.

When I first landed here, on moving in day, it would be an understatement to say that I was DESPERATELY homesick. I didn't connect with my roomies much, or socialize, or bother to meet my professors and look at my textbooks. I just picked up my Matrix phone, finished my allotted quota of 900 minutes talking, bitching, clinging and crying to my best friends back home.... I even considered switching schools, returning home, giving up on higher education.

Haha. It never ceases to amuse me what a dramaqueen I am:).

'Cause this place is home. I realised this truth the day I returned my Matrix phone to my parents, bade them goodbye, and allowed myself to soak in the essence of Berkeley. I started loving the anonymity (that had so mortified me when I first arrived), the friendly people, the 'take-it-or-leave-it' atmosphere, even my HUGE classes(with 500-odd students). I learned to laugh at Professor's Majda's cute Chem puns, watch Cal tube(our version of You tube) everyday, love the 'work hard party harder' spirit, make tea and popcorn for all everyone during our impromptu 'slumber parties' when we congregate and yak in a single room, cheer for Dave Matthews out of my dorm window(which had the best view of the concert, btw)...

I can't decide what I love most about Cal-Is it the beauty and serenity of this campus? The fact that it attracts geeks and contributes to science in newer and more innovative methods everyday? Is it because I'm a part of WiSE(Women in Science and Engineering) where we live like a sorority, have substance free FUN parties and get concerned advice and support on everything, from pepper spray to gender disparities? Yes, a big campus like this can have an ugly underbelly, but it's incredible how much Berkeley cares. You can talk to a peer counselor if you're depressed or stressed, get free tutoring if you need it, talk to major advisors about your schedule, join the million+ clubs if you wanna meet like-minded people, call a police officer to escort you to your dorm late at night(it's called Bearwalk), meet your professors with the STUPIDEST questions, meet your RAs who live with you and facilitate your activities(so they care for you, without being nosy-they're just your friends!)...the resources are endless! All they ask is that you reach out and use these resources-and endeavour to do your very best, always.

It really is that simple!

There are plenty of things I've learnt out of the classroom (though I can, as Mina put it, literally hear the wheels turning in my head,' thanks to all the interesting information I'm assimilating everyday). I've learned how marijuana smells, how to drink tap water, how to tweeze my eyebrows, how to schedule my days using a cute Cal planner (I think I need a stopwatch, really), how NOT to judge people(even if they have pink hair or a tail peeking from their bottoms), how to respond to American greetings...

"Hey, how are you?"
"I'm good, how are you?"

NEVER vary from this format!

Oh btw, to be a true Cal student, you must hate Stanford to your last breath (I love this concept, it's coz of the football rivalry, and football is big here- reminds me of the India-Pakistan neighbourhood cricket animosity back home). Red and white are Stanford colors, and wearing these during game season is like waving a red flag at a bull. I was asked very firmly to take off my innocuous red tee once and forced to walk around in my tank top.

Heard during a Physics class-
Professor-"Of course RED has the lowest frequency and BLUE the highest(haha coz blue and yellow are Berkeley colors!)"

Popular T-shirt quote
"We discovered Berkelium AND Californium.
WHERE'S Stanfordium???"

Berkeley does not ask permission or leave for anything it does. It doesn't allow anyone to be unhappy. It just sucks you along, and before you know it, you're part of a happy carnival, and you forget what life was like earlier.

The thing that made me decide upon Cal was not its glowing reputation, its opportunities for undergrad research, its excellent faculty, or its myriad offerings.

Nope, it was just the school motto, printed on top of Sather Gate (I've put up the pic, perhaps you can see the star with its illumining beams).

It says, very simply, 'Fiat Lux.'

'Let there be light.'