It is an outrage! It has been more than a month ago since I have posted something on this blog for you to read… I have only one excuse, really: I was too busy working on my UCLA curriculum. Although numerous books could be written about the lame excuse of being ‘busy’ and how this Western phenomenon reflects the postmodern Zeitgeist, I’d rather give you an impression of the adventures that keep coming my way. Well, ‘adventures’…. With every passing day I begin to believe more and more in the fairytale that this is my life. Everything has become normal. I wake up, drink my Russian brand yogurt drink, prepare some food to put in my overloaded bags (yes, I carry two bags with me around campus all day – I feel like a freshman again!), grab my running shoes, walk to campus, and arrive in the Powell library between 8 and 9 am. Somewhere around lunch time I go to Ackerman, meet some friends, enjoy the weather… And after that I study, study, and study. Pretty boring, isn’t it? Before dinner I often go to the John Wooden sports center – named after the famous basketball coach who led the Bruins to 10 NCAA National Championship victories in a 12 year period (Sjoerd, be proud and wear that hoodie!). The sport facilities are amazing and don’t cost me a thing. You can play racquetball (no, that is not the same as squash), table tennis, badminton, basketball, do fitness, gymnastics, climbing etc. If you have a sudden urge to run yourself crazy after midnight, that’s possible too. You don’t even have to bring a towel because you can get ‘em at the desk.
Last Saturday Kai took me to the dining halls where we enjoyed a really good meal. They even had my favorite New York cheesecake, a cake that is very different from our kwarktaart. Did you know UCLA has the best campus food of the US? Oh, and then there’s Spring Sing, UCLA’s oldest and greatest annual music competition. Think UCLA meets American Idols meets Britain’s Got Talent. In its heydays Spring Sing was held in the Hollywood Bowl, Ronald Reagan being one of the jury members. Remember Maroon 5? Spring Sing winners, yeah.
Okay, I don’t want to brag about UCLA. It is just that the facilities here are amazing. And studying at the largest History Department of the US means studying at the largest ‘history hub’ of the world. All the great historians come to life here. You even meet them at the gym. They’re people like us, really.
- Wondering how they pay for all this? Well, today Emeritus Professor Paul Terasaki, who developed the international standard method for tissue typing, a blood test now used in every hospital around the globe to type kidney, heart, liver, pancreas, lung, and bone marrow recipients and donors, donated $50 million (!) to UCLA. Oh, don’t even dare to ask me about tuition rates!
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